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Connecting The Dots Between The Opioid Epidemic And Philanthropy
The Sackler family is justly famous in one way -- and justly notorious in two others.

Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer Sackler (and members of their families) have been among the world's greatest contributors to good causes -- particularly in the arts and sciences. The Sackler name is prominently displayed at the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim, Tate, Louvre, and Harvard Museums; at various medical and science facilities at Berkeley, Tufts, MIT, Oxford, King's College, University Of London, and Tel Aviv University; at the beautiful Kew Gardens; and in many other important institutions in the US and abroad.

The Sacklers are on the short list of the world's greatest and most honored philanthropists. Family members have received the very highest awards and titles, bestowed in many different countries, by among many others, the Queen of England.

The great honor that comes from Sackler giving is tainted by the great dishonor in how their fortunes have been accumulated. Sackler notoriety comes from the two unsavory sources of their wealth.

The lesser evil was inventing drug company marketing; the greater evil was pushing opioid prescription painkillers that now kill close to 20,000 people a year in the U.S. alone.

The Sackler fortune is enormous and self-made. Even with all their previous generous philanthropy, the Sackler family still retains a net worth of $13 billion -- more than the much more famous, old money families like the Rockefellers, the Busches, and the Mellons.

Strikingly, none of the Sackler family fortune was inherited. The Sackler brothers all began their careers as psychiatrists, an unpromising profession when it comes to accumulating vast wealth. But the Sacklers were enterprising, energetic, and early on displayed remarkable business savvy. They made their initial fortune by inventing many of the aggressive marketing techniques that turned the pharmaceutical industry into a profit machine. They taught drug companies how to conduct the full court selling of drugs to doctors and how to gear sales pitches directly to consumers.

One can heartily dislike the pharma marketing machine and disapprove of the Sackler role in creating it -- but still recognize it as within moral bounds. It is much harder, however, to justify the Sackler role in creating the prescription opioid epidemic.

In 1952, the Sacklers purchased a small drug company -- Purdue Pharma -- and have since turned it into a giant cash cow. In the past 20 years, the company has generated more than than $35 billion in the U.S. and about an equal amount in other countries.

The star attraction was OxyContin, a time-released, preparation of oxycodone, that was misleadingly marketed as addiction-proof. In a later blog, we will go into detail on all the ways Purdue pushed opioids and created the deadliest drug epidemic in our history. Suffice to say, the company was only marginally less ruthless than the drug cartels and is now responsible for at least twice as many deaths per year.

The Sackler family seeks publicity and fame when it comes to their philanthropy, but keeps a very low profile when it comes to the notoriety of OxyContin gains. Thus far, they have largely succeeded in avoiding blame for the devastating epidemic of prescription opioid addiction that they caused and continue to profit from. This despite the fact that nine family members are currently on the Purdue board. There are encouraging signs, however, that Sackler impunity may soon change.

Richard Sackler has been the most active family member directing Purdue affairs and has left his fingerprints all over the OxyContin disaster. In 1971, shortly after graduating medical school, he began work at Purdue and has held just about every important leadership position in the company -- from directing its research and marketing to serving as president and co-chair of the board.

Of great public interest, Richard Sackler was recently deposed in a lawsuit for the first time -- in regard to Kentucky's claims charging Purdue with continued illegal marketing of OxyContin. It is easy to imagine the questions he must have been asked: What did you know about the addicting impact of OxyContin? When did you know it? What have you done to cause or prevent Purdue's misleading the medical profession and the public? What do your internal company documents show?

Current efforts to make Sackler's testimony public are crucial in strides to make the family accountable for the actions of the company and perhaps might result in the clawing back of some significant portion of their ill-gotten gains.

Sackler's deposition is one of several sealed documents that a Kentucky judge ordered to be released to the public at the request of STAT. Purdue said it will appeal the ruling, meaning the documents will be withheld, pending the outcome of the appeal.

For at least a decade, everyone knew OxyContin was misleadingly marketed and causing great damage. The $600+ million dollar fine levied in 2007 as punishment for Purdue's criminal activity would surely have been a wake up call for its company co-chairman. It is hard to believe that Richard Sackler can offer even a shred of plausible deniability.

If the Sacklers really are philanthropists, and not just seekers of fame, they should want to do the right thing and help those they have hurt.

Purdue is a privately held company and all its profits go to the Sacklers in one form or another. In any fair world, Purdue and the Sacklers should be hit with multibillion dollar fines -- the proceeds devoted to the compensation and rehabilitation of the millions of people they have harmed and to the reimbursement of the states (and their taxpayers) for the enormous public costs occasioned by the opioid epidemic.

It makes no sense to allow the Sacklers free rein to accumulate ever more I'll gotten profits and to launder them with donations to museums and medical centers -- in the service of glorifying and cleansing the Sackler name. The family should be forced to disgorge a significant portion of its fortune to help clean up the opioid mess they created.

If the Sacklers really are philanthropists, and not just seekers of fame, they should want to do the right thing and would come forward now to offer help to those they have harmed.

---

This article was originally published on Recovery Brands' Pro Talk/Pro Corner.

Allen Frances is a professor emeritus at Duke University and was the chairman of the DSM-IV task force.

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A Cosmic Perspective: Interview With StarTalk's Neil deGrasse Tyson

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When my daughter Lotus recently became interested in astronomy, and we began watching shows and documentaries about space and the universe, we discovered Neil deGrasse Tyson, the dynamic host of the National Geographic talk show "StarTalk." While Neil is a world renowned and brilliant astrophysicist and author, and director of the prestigious Hayden Planetarium, he is also an immensely likable, jolly, and warm personality - one who exudes joie de vivre, as well as a contagious, passionate energy for expanding frontiers of science, human thought and innovation. Which is perhaps why, during my interview with him at his office at The Museum of Natural History, wearing his trademark tie of planets, he took such personal interest in my very outdated, essentially obsolete yet beloved RCA microcassette recorder, picking it up as if it were a fossil from prehistoric times asking incredulously, "What is this?!" When I explained that I used it as a back-up, a relic from my days 20 years ago as a magazine reporter, he couldn't control himself. He proceeded to take over my iPhone, setting the interview up to record on the Voice Memo application, beginning the recording with his trademark booming radio announcer voice: "And now, I am Neil deGrasse Tyson for HuffPo interview..." before handing my iPhone back to me, all ready to go.

That anecdote is a sampling of his humor and how he sees his role, as a teacher and provocateur, educating people in entertaining ways about what they should know -- about the universe, about science, and about ourselves and the world around us. He has done this through a variety of mediums: as the host of StarTalk, the popular podcast and National Geographic Channel talk show, as well as the miniseries Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, as the author of 10 books, including the best-selling Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, as well as cultivating a social media following with his thought-provoking and informative tweets. He is also the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest award given by NASA to a nongovernment citizen.

StarTalk, his two-time Emmy-nominated late-night talk show, is an outgrowth of his popular radio and podcast series of the same name and seeks to bridge the world of pop culture and science through intimate interviews and lively discussions with an eclectic roster of guests hewn from pop culture, politics or news discussing how science and technology have affected their lives and careers. The third season of StarTalk will premiere on Monday, September 19th, with actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg, followed by a diverse lineup of other high profile guests this season including astronaut Buzz Aldrin, actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, comedian Jay Leno, Olympic Gold Medalist Hope Solo, actor Ben Stiller and more. Natgeo Books has also just released an illustrated companion book to the series, STARTALK: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, and Beyond which curates the best of "StarTalk" and dives deeper into some of the most intriguing discussions from the show.

In our conversation below, Tyson talks about his passion for helping people discover "what role science plays in their lives," why he thinks education should teach our students "how to think," what gives him awe and the essential impact of seeing ourselves and the world through a "cosmic perspective." When you do, Tyson states emphatically, "it changes everything."

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Marianne Schnall: First of all, I wanted to let you know that not only is my 15-year- old daughter a fan, but so is my 18-year-old daughter, my husband, and my father, so you are officially multigenerational, which is a good thing. What is it you most want to accomplish through StarTalk and why did you decide, rather than this just being a science show, to bridge science with pop culture?

Neil deGrasse Tyson: It's a perfect question, because -- when we think of science, we think of this subject that's taught in a classroom, and you're either good at it or you're not, or you're interested in it, or you're not. And you can just walk by it and say, "Oh, I don't like science but I like history," and you go learn history, as though science is this compartmentalized topic that you can climb over, walk around, dig under, or ignore. And it occurred to me that, "No, of course, science is not that. Science is everywhere." And it especially touches pop culture. So if we create a radio show that pivots on a pop culture foundation, then we can -- think of it as a scaffold. It's a pop culture scaffold that walks into every episode of StarTalk, and we then clad it with science that fits that pop culture topic. I don't need to train you on that scaffold -- pop culture by definition means everybody knows what it is! I have a guest, and you know who that guest is because that person is a famous politician, or singer, performer, artist, whatever. And so I already have you half way. It's the rest of the way that is the celebration of science on the program. So I think it's just a more honest account of what role science plays in our lives. The popularity of StarTalk, I think, is evidence of how well that resonates with people.

MS: And the fact that it has cross-generational appeal is also a really good sign.

NDT: By the way, part of that might be the multiple platforms that it's on. Because I have an identity that exists apart and separate from StarTalk -- like I'm active on Twitter. That leans young. So people say, "Oh, I like Tyson's tweets... oh, he also has his radio show or TV show." And so there are tributaries to the show that do come from different demographics coming together, so I am pleased to learn in your case of the multiple generations.

One other thing: the honing of how we do StarTalk, some of it comes from these other places. So I'll send out a tweet that's pure science, and there'll be some interest in it. But if I connect the science to something pop culture, the interest is ten times greater. So these are insights that I glean daily by people's reactions to how I juxtapose information. So I use that to inform how we do shows with StarTalk.

MS: I feel like we often forget that we actually are on a planet spinning through space. I guess my question is: why do we seem to forget that we are one family on a planet spinning through space, and if we retained that perspective, how would that change the way that we treat the environment, each other and other forms of life on this earth?

NDT: It changes everything. You're absolutely right. And it's a cosmic perspective. The embarrassing part of this is that I and every one of my colleagues carry this perspective with us all the time. And what's embarrassing about that is we sometimes take that for granted, and we have to say, "Oh, my gosh, these other people I'm in this cocktail party with do not live with this awareness. So let me put in a little extra effort to alert you of this, of what's going on in the universe, to put our existence in a context that will either have you re-balance what you think may be important in your life or rethink how you're allocating your energies in the service of yourself versus the environment versus the planet as a whole." That's what a cosmic perspective does.

So yes, it's extremely important. Let me tell you how important it is. I can assert without hesitation that the modern environmental movement where we're caring for earth was born while we were landing on the moon, 1968, '69, and '70. 1968 was our first mission to the moon, Apollo 8. People don't think about it much, because they didn't land. They just went, and orbited and came back. Apollo 9, 10, and 11 would take us into 1969. You go to the moon, and what happened? We looked back, took a picture of earth, and discovered earth for the first time. There it was adrift in space, the dark void of space. And we saw it not as -- it's hard to even go back and remember this or think that it could have ever been this way -- but we saw earth not as earth appeared in social studies class with color coded countries, no. We saw earth as only space can reveal it to you. And there were oceans, land and clouds.

So like I said, we go to the moon, and we discover earth for the first time. After that photo was published, Earthrise and then the Blue Marble -- in that interval of time, we changed as a culture. They say what is it worth to go into space? We changed as a culture. By the way, we had plenty of other priorities on our plate -- there were assassinations, and a cold war, and a hot war, and a civil rights movement, and campus unrest. Yet, we found the time to create the Environmental Protection Agency! That was 1970. Oh, my God. Why didn't we create it in 1960? No one was thinking about it! 1950? Nobody was thinking about it. 1980 could be too late! Environmental Protection Agency under a Republican president, I might add.

What else happened? No one had thought of the atmosphere of earth as part of earth much before that. Ask someone to draw earth before 1968. They'll just draw earth and the continents - no clouds, no atmosphere. So this juxtaposition of ocean, land, and atmosphere became administratively codified in the founding of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA was founded in 1970. Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Protection of Species Act -- some of these existed in sort of skeletal forms earlier. They came of age in the versions that were ratified in 1970. What else happened in 1970? The first Earth Day. Why didn't we have an Earth Day in 1965? 1967? No, 1970. And then 1972, leaded gas would be banned. Catalytic converter would be introduced. So this is my long way to answer your question with a yes. Knowing space matters -- maybe more because it recalibrates what it is to know ourselves.

MS: Why isn't astronomy a required part of a standard educational curriculum so we have that foundational awareness? Why do you think that is?

NDT: Well, the curriculum is ossified for generations, and there's a lot of baggage. Is that the right word? There's a lot of legacy educational habits that exist particularly in the American system. I don't know the other systems very well.

MS: So without our school system, how can we change things?

NDT: No, I would change [the school systems] - I mean I'm not there yet, but I plan to work on that as one of my projects: What can we do with the future of the school systems? Is the portfolio of topics the right ones? Should you get an entire class on a cosmic perspective? What kind of math should you be taught if at all? There are people who say they don't need their math. I think that's a mistake, because it implies that what you learn is what you then apply. Whereas, in the best scenario what you learn -- the act of having learned it -- has established a new form of wiring in your brain that empowers you to have thoughts you've never had before. And by studying math, and by struggling to do a math problem set, and with every new problem you solve, it's a new wiring of your brain. And if you only think of school as, "I want to learn this so that I could apply it here," you'll be ill equipped to navigate the rapidly changing frontier of what actually matters in society. What is it now -- the average time someone spends in a job is three years or five years before you move? Whereas the generation before us, they would spend 30 years working in the factory or working for their company. So you're a freshman in college saying, "What should I major in to have the best chance of having a good job?" Well, major in "how to think," and then you can apply that to any job that arises that at this moment is unforeseen, because you're not getting out for another four years and if you go to graduate school, it's another seven or eight.

MS: You have this new companion book to the series, which is great - there's so much that's in it...

NDT: Can I say something? I didn't know in my heart how this would turn out, because it's organizationally ambitious. And I'd see the PDFs when they'd come about, but then when the book arrived in my box two days ago, I said, "Oh, my gosh, this is fun." And I'd say that even if I had nothing to do with the project. I mean I'm pleased to hear that you like it, because it's -- any page you turn, "I want to know about that! Oh, my gosh, this is cool too!" And it is the soul of StarTalk.

MS: I went to a local observatory recently, and I was shocked to see details so far off in space I had never seen before in the night sky. For example, stars that are different colors and shapes, twin stars that look like one but are actually two, and one of the furthest stars in the sky that was actually a cluster of a million stars. I was just awe-struck by the vastness of what is out there. What gives you the most awe? How would you describe the beauty of the universe?

NDT: So, philosophers historically like speaking of truth and beauty going together. And I don't think of beauty, because that value judges what you're looking at. Is the sunset beautiful but the underbelly of a tarantula not? Yet they're both part of nature. Is a squirrel cute but a rat ugly when they're both rodents? One just happens to have a furry tail, and the other doesn't. So to say something is beautiful is value judging nature, and I refuse to do that. I refuse to value judge what is beautiful and what is not. I accept it all as being part of nature.

And is a virus bad because it's trying to survive and it happens to give you a fatal disease? It's just being its own thing. We have the power now to render certain strains of mosquitoes extinct by disrupting their reproductive cycle. Should we? Well, the mosquitoes are bad for us. Bats eat them -- so I'm not going to say, "We're in charge. We don't like the mosquitoes. Fine. Get rid of them." I'm not going to say they're being bad mosquitoes. It's just we're making a decision, sort of a rational decision for our own survival as any creature would do in the interest of its own survival. The lion actually doesn't care if zebras go extinct. It's not thinking that. It just wants to eat the zebra. Okay. Now, if zebras do go extinct, then they'll eat the gazelles. They don't care, right? So for me, my awe comes not so much from the universe, but from our ignorance of the universe. If you add dark matter and dark energy together, which are two unknowns in our modern science -- we know they're out there, we measure their existence, but we don't know what causes it, we don't know what it's made of. If you add them together it's 95, 96 percent of all that drives the universe. I'm in awe of that. I'm in awe of how much we understand and have used to shape our civilization and to think of how much we have yet to understand and what that could mean for the future of civilization.

For more about StarTalk, visit www.channel.nationalgeographic.com/startalk/

Marianne Schnall is a widely published writer and interviewer whose writings and interviews have appeared in a variety of media outlets including O, The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, CNN.com, AOL Build, the Women's Media Center and The Huffington Post. She is also the co-founder and executive director of the women's website and non-profit organization Feminist.com, as well as the co-founder of the environmental site EcoMall.com. She is the author of Daring to Be Ourselves: Influential Women Share Insights on Courage, Happiness and Finding Your Own Voice and What Will it Take to Make a Woman President? Conversations About Women, Leadership, and Power. You can visit her website at www.marianneschnall.com.

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The Our Ocean Movement

2016 Our Ocean conference sign, State Department Photo

The statistics on the current health of our ocean and projections for its future are alarming. Right now, 30 percent of our fisheries are overfished. At our current rate of pollution our ocean is projected to have more plastic than fish by 2050. Our sea level may rise by up to six feet by the end of the century. There is no question that the health of our ocean is threatened. The only question is what we will do about it.

Our ocean needs more champions who will fight for the resources needed to protect it, and this year we saw many of them step forward. Last week, 450 leaders in government, civil society, and the private sector came together at the U.S. Department of State to make commitments to protect our ocean. Their pledges addressed four main challenges facing our ocean: illegal and unsustainable fishing practices, marine pollution, climate change, and the need for more marine protected areas.

When Secretary Kerry started the Our Ocean movement back in 2014, the number of international representatives at the Foreign Minister or Head of State level who attended the conference was in the single digits. This year, nearly 40 countries were represented at the Foreign Minister level or above, and more than 90 countries participated in the conference. In addition, ocean leaders from industry, civil society, the philanthropic community, and academia participated in the conference.

Secretary Kerry speaking at the 2016 Our Ocean conference, State Department Photo

The Our Ocean conferences have always been about bold action and big commitments. This year alone, we had over 130 commitments totaling over $5.24 billion for new ocean initiatives and pledges to protect almost four million square kilometers of ocean. That brings the three year totals of the Our Ocean movement to $9.2 billion dollars in initiatives and commitments to protect 9.9 million square kilometers of ocean - that's the size of the United States.

The best thing about the Our Ocean movement? It will keep going, and we can expect to see more global initiatives and actions to protect our ocean in the coming years. The European Union will host the conference in October 2017, followed by Indonesia in 2018, and Norway in 2019.

The Our Ocean movement and commitments support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 14, through concrete actions to protect and conserve our ocean. The ocean covers more than two thirds of our planet, and together we recognize the need to protect it and our planet for our children and grandchildren.

As Secretary Kerry said last week "With every positive step that we take, with the marine protected areas that we create, with the networks that we create and the safeguards that we enforce to protect against illegal fishing, with the cooperation we pursue to combat climate change and to deepen scientific research - with each of these steps, we drop a pebble on the side of restoring and preserving the health of the ocean. And in doing so, we will create a current fueled by the energy of literally millions of advocates and activists, a current that can correct the course of history, that can preserve our coastal communities and ecosystems, that can strengthen fisheries, and feed the billions who will inhabit this planet, and that will allow us to keep for future generations the majesty of the ocean that covers three quarters of our planet and sustains life around the equator from pole to pole."

Washed Ashore art contructed out of marine debris, State Department photo

You don't have to be a President, or a Secretary of State, or a millionaire or a celebrity to help protect our ocean. Every person can make a difference. Each plastic bag that doesn't end up in the ocean counts, every sustainable seafood choice you make in a restaurant or the grocery store counts, and everyone can get involved in a local beach or river clean-up and work to make our ocean cleaner, healthier, and more beautiful.

Together we have the power to change our ocean and environment. Let us all remember that we can use that power any way we choose and that every choice matters.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Secretary of State John Kerry's Our Oceanconference and Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference (September 15th, 16th) as part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OurOcean #MakeASplash.

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Standing Rock Warriors' Noble Fight for Mni Wiconi Endures

Water protectors standing guard. Mists tell us winter is coming. An elder said "do not worry, spirits are dancing on the waters"

Texas based Energy Transfer Inc. and its partners on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) may have bulldozed ancient burial grounds, but the oil interests have not demolished the will of the self described "water protectors" supporting the Standing Rock Reservation. "Mni Wiconi" (water is life) is the prayerful battle cry of the thousands of protectors camped along the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers in south central North Dakota. In July 2016 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave its approval for the pipeline to run within a half mile of the "official" boundary of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. There had been no proper consultation with or consent from the tribe on the pipeline scheduled to cross upstream, endangering drinking water, sacred treaty grounds, and therefore tribal identity.

The People are in this for the long haul and last week offered them a mixed court ruling, an unexpected show of support from the Methodist Church, a Nursing Union's strong stand against the AFL-CIO, and ominous requests from the State of North Dakota.

In Bismarck, the North Dakota U.S. District Court dissolved an August 15 restraining order filed against Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II and other participants involved in protests against the construction of the DAPL. The water protectors camped near Lake Oahe and where the pipeline is planned to cross under the Missouri River essentially shut down the project. At issue is "an unconstitutional prior restraint on fundamental First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly and free expression of religion," and that "Dakota Access does not have standing to prohibit water protectors from praying at and protecting ancestral sacred sites on public or private land," according to a statement provided by the National Lawyers Guild.

It did not go unnoticed by the District Court that DAPL bulldozed many of the sacred and historical sites under discussion less than 24 hours after they were identified in a lawsuit filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. In another unspeakable and egregious move, DAPL utilized mace, pepper spray and dogs to attack peaceful protectors who tried to defend the ancient sites and burial grounds. The American public did not like what it saw on national news broadcasts, and the mainstream media gradually picked up on what at first seemed like a hopeless but noble fight against big oil money interests. Dogs with bloody mouths attacking woman and children were just too much. More than once, tribal members commented that perhaps the Creator had a reason behind the violence, desecration of graves and assault on tribal history. Everything has meaning and not everything is fully within understanding. But this was completely unacceptable. The bones of the ancestors were under assault and some warriors protecting the graves in the aftermath spoke of being pushed by unseen forces.

In his dismissal of the August restraining order filed by DAPL, District Judge Daniel L. Hovland unfortunately left it up to local authorities and the criminal courts to deal with those accused of breaking the law. Meanwhile, local authorities are accused of massive over-reach and are charging non-violent actions as felonies. Surveillance helicopters and fixed wing aircraft buzz the camps night and day, disturbing the natural tranquility of the countryside and the mental well being of the campers. "Although the judge went out of his way to show his disdain for many of the water protectors, he also became aware that this was a political controversy that he likely could not control and the mechanism of an injunction that was unwieldy and likely ineffective in light of the determination of those resisting the pipeline construction over sacred sites and threatening the water supply," said NLG attorney Jeff Haas in a press release.

Translation: Politics and oil money win over the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and right of assembly. A "disdainful judge" did not help matters.

Oil interests have demanded protection from prayerful protestors with a loud voice, and the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services (Homeland Security) has requested $6 million in additional funds after spending $1.8 million so far. The Highway Patrol racked up $700,000 and the DES put in lots of overtime at $1.08 million. Someone might want to file a Freedom of Information Request on the bookkeeping, but it is not cheap to fly those Bell 206 choppers. Check around on the pricing and the average is about $1100-1500 per hour, but that does not include special surveillance equipment or night vision capabilities. North Dakota's DES is not running a frugal operation against all of those pesky clerics and ceremonial campfires.

Speaking of clerics, in a welcome but surprising move, the Bishop of the Dakota/ Minnesota Methodist Church, Bishop Bruce R. Ough, traveled to the encampment. His visit came one day after the DOJ and Corps' joint announcement put a hold on the DAPL until the Sioux Tribes' concerns could be mitigated, if at all. The grave desecrations and bloody attack dogs probably had something to do with the Obama Administration's ruling.

"It is with intentions of unity, peace and hope that I bring you a message of support from the United Methodist Church," said Ough. "I lift each of you up in prayer and will continue to do so daily. My hope is that you will not let the spirit of this gathering die. The United Methodists hope to work in a continued relationship to fulfill God's commandment to be stewards of creation, and maintain loving relationships with all of God's people."

Will Church and State get on the same page with respect to Mni Wiconi? It remains to be seen but the spirit of the camps seems strong.

In an unexpected but welcome move The National Nurses United, a member of the AFL-CIO, strongly opposed the AFL's decision to endorse the Dakota Access Pipeline. The labor union cites job creation as the reason for its support, but Nurses United President Jean Ross commended "the leaders and members of the Standing Rock Sioux, the many First Nation allies who have joined them, and the environmentalists and other supporters who have participated in the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline."

Learn more from this YouTube video uploaded by The Real News.

The Lakota/Sioux people are divided up into seven bands or council fires, and each share the same beliefs about the life giving force of water (Mni). If you are fortunate enough to visit this piece of history in the making near Cannonball, you will leave forever changed. The camps may go by several names, but are united in their determination to continue exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly through the brutal North Dakota winter if necessary.

Oceti Sakowin is most visible along Highway 1806 and this is where media gathers on a hill that offers the best and only reliable cell coverage. Red Warrior is tucked to the east and the Rosebud Sioux have tipis all along the south bank of the Cannonball River. Sacred Stones, the original encampment is less visible.

What matters is that all seven bands of the Lakota, although divided by treaty manipulations in the 1800's, are standing together with Indigenous Nations from all over the Americas and the world. These people have faced adversity for 500 years and know how to survive, but the courts and federal agencies seem intent once again on prolonging the suffering of a people who have been systematically robbed of their land and heritage. The Department of Justice may have issued an eleventh hour ruling on September 9 that halted the DAPL on Federal land, but did nothing to stop construction on private land. Make no mistake. We are talking about "private" land that is treaty land.

The Hillreports that the DAPL might be facing the same fate as the Keystone XL.

The political website says, "Energy Transfer hasn't publicly asked lawmakers to step in, and a spokeswoman declined to say whether it's something the company wants."

As the late Sioux poet John Trudell wrote:

I was listening
To the voices of life
Chanting in unison
Carry on the struggle
The generations
Surge together
In resistance
To meet
The reality of power

How many more generation of resistance will these people need to protect their heritage? How much more insult can any Nation take? 500 years is too much. Too much. But after many days spent at Standing Rock, I leave with no doubt that the noble fight for Mni Waconi will endure.

Still Photography by Georgianne Nienaber

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Trump Supporters: Basket Of Deplorables Or Basket Cases?

Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

There's no doubt that Donald Trump has said many things that would have been political suicide for any other Republican candidate. And almost every time he made one of these shocking statements, political analysts on both the left and the right predicted that he'd lose supporters because of it. But as we have clearly seen over the past year, they were dead wrong every time. Trump appears to be almost totally bulletproof.

The only thing that might be more perplexing than the psychology of Donald Trump is the psychology of his supporters. In their eyes, The Donald can do no wrong. Even Trump himself seems to be astonished by this phenomenon. "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

Senator John McCain, who has been a regular target for Trump during his campaign, has a simple explanation for his unwavering support. "What he did was he fired up the crazies."

While the former Republican presidential nominee may be on to something, he doesn't exactly provide a very satisfying scientific explanation. So how exactly are Trump loyalists psychologically or neurologically different from everyone else? What is going on in their brains that makes them so blindly devoted?

1. The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Some believe that many of those who support Donald Trump do so because of ignorance -- basically they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand. When Trump tells them that crime is skyrocketing in the United States, or that the economy is the worst it's ever been, they simply take his word for it.

The seemingly obvious solution would be to try to reach those people through political ads, expert opinions, and logical arguments that educate with facts. Except none of those things seem to be swaying any Trump supporters from his side, despite great efforts to deliver this information to them directly.

The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn't just that they are misinformed; it's that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden.

Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise. As psychologist David Dunning puts it in an op-ed for Politico, "The knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task -- and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at the task. This includes political judgment." Essentially, they're not smart enough to realize they're dumb.

And if one is under the illusion that they have sufficient or even superior knowledge, then they have no reason to defer to anyone else's judgment. This helps explain why even nonpartisan experts -- like military generals and Independent former Mayor of New York/billionaire CEO Michael Bloomberg -- as well as some respected Republican politicians, don't seem to be able to say anything that can change the minds of loyal Trump followers.

Out of immense frustration, some of us may feel the urge to shake a Trump supporter and say, "Hey! Don't you realize that he's an idiot?!" No. They don't. That may be hard to fathom, but that's the nature of the Dunning-Kruger effect -- one's ignorance is completely invisible to them.

2. Hypersensitivity to Threat

Science has unequivocally shown that the conservative brain has an exaggerated fearresponse when faced with stimuli that may be perceived as threatening. A 2008 study in the journal Science found that conservatives have a stronger physiological reaction to startling noises and graphic images compared to liberals. A brain-imaging study published in Current Biology revealed that those who lean right politically tend to have a larger amygdala -- a structure that is electrically active during states of fear and anxiety. And a 2014 fMRI study found that it is possible to predict whether someone is a liberal or conservative simply by looking at their brain activity while they view threatening or disgusting images, such as mutilated bodies. Specifically, the brains of self-identified conservatives generated more activity overall in response to the disturbing images.

So how does this help explain the unbridled loyalty of Trump supporters? These brain responses are automatic, and not influenced by logic or reason. As long as Trump continues his fear mongering by constantly portraying Muslims and Mexican immigrants as imminent dangers, many conservative brains will involuntarily light up like light bulbs being controlled by a switch. Fear keeps his followers energized and focused on safety. And when you think you've found your protector, you become less concerned with remarks that would normally be seen as highly offensive.

3. Terror Management Theory

A well-supported theory from social psychology, called Terror Management Theory, explains why Trump's fear mongering is doubly effective.

The theory is based on the fact that humans have a unique awareness of their own mortality. The inevitably of one's death creates existential terror and anxiety that is always residing below the surface. In order to manage this terror, humans adopt cultural worldviews -- like religions, political ideologies, and national identities -- that act as a buffer by instilling life with meaning and value.

Terror Management Theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality, which happens with fear mongering, they will more strongly defend those who share their worldviews and national or ethnic identity, and act out more aggressively towards those who do not. Hundreds of studies have confirmed this hypothesis, and some have specifically shown that triggering thoughts of death tends to shift people towards the right.

Not only do death reminders increase nationalism, they influence actual voting habits in favor of more conservative presidential candidates. And more disturbingly, in a study with American students, scientists found that making mortality salient increased support for extreme military interventions by American forces that could kill thousands of civilians overseas. Interestingly, the effect was present only in conservatives, which can likely be attributed to their heightened fear response.

By constantly emphasizing existential threat, Trump creates a psychological condition that makes the brain respond positively rather than negatively to bigoted statements and divisive rhetoric. Liberals and Independents who have been puzzled over why Trump hasn't lost supporters after such highly offensive comments need look no further than Terror Management Theory.

4. High Attentional Engagement

According to a recent study that monitored brain activity while participants watched 40 minutes of political ads and debate clips from the presidential candidates, Donald Trump is unique in his ability to keep the brain engaged. While Hillary Clinton could only hold attention for so long, Trump kept both attention and emotional arousal high throughout the viewing session. This pattern of activity was seen even when Trump made remarks that individuals didn't necessarily agree with. His showmanship and simple messages clearly resonate at a visceral level.

Essentially, the loyalty of Trump supporters may in part be explained by America's addiction with entertainment and reality TV. To some, it doesn't matter what Trump actually says because he's so amusing to watch. With Donald, you are always left wondering what outrageous thing he is going to say or do next. He keeps us on the edge of our seat, and for that reason, some Trump supporters will forgive anything he says. They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.

Of course these explanations do not apply to all Trump supporters. In fact, some are likely intelligent people who know better, but are supporting Trump to be rebellious or to introduce chaos into the system. They may have such distaste for the establishment and Hillary Clinton that their vote for Trump is a symbolic middle finger directed at Washington.

So what can we do to potentially change the minds of Trump loyalists before voting day in November? As a cognitive neuroscientist, it grieves me to say that there may be nothing we can do. The overwhelming majority of these people may be beyond reach, at least in the short term. The best we can do is to motivate everyone else to get out to the booths and check the box that doesn't belong to a narcissistic nationalist who has the potential to damage the nation beyond repair.

This article was originally published at Raw Story.

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China's Newly Launched SpaceLab Empowers Human Brain/Computer Interaction --"Can Transmit Astronauts' Thoughts into Operations"

China launched its second space lab, Tiangong-2, on Thursday, paving the way for a permanent space station that the country plans to build around 2022. In a space science first, a human brain-computer interaction test system, developed by Tianjin University, has been installed in the lab and it is set to conduct a series of experiments in space, People's Daily reported. According to Ming Dong, the leader of the research team in charge of the brain-computer test system, the brain-computer interaction will eventually be the highest form of human-machine communication.

“The brain-computer interaction test system in Tiangong-2 boasts 64 national patents. The research team has long been devoted to the research of brain-computer interactions, previously developing two idiodynamic artificial neuron robotic systems.

The leader of the team suggested that it could also help Tiangong-2 astronauts to more readily accomplish their assigned tasks, transmiting the astronauts' thoughts into operations, while at the same time observing their neurological functions.

Tiangong-2 will link with Shenzhou-11 manned spaceship, which will be launched later in October. Also piggybacking on the Tiangong-2 launch is a micro satellite that will orbit close to the space lab --its purpose has not been reported. The mission is part of China's ambitious space program to build a permanent manned space station around year 2022.

With the sound of rolling thunder on the vast Gobi dessert, Tiangong-2 space lab blasted off into space propelled by its Long March 2F carrier rocket, shortly after 10pm last Thursday. In just 585 seconds, Tiangong-2 was placed in an orbit about 393 kilometers above the Earth.

The Shenzhou-11 spaceship will ferry two astronauts to dock with the lab and stay in space for 30 days to conduct a range of scientific experiments covering areas such as fundamental physics, biology, fluid mechanics in micro gravity and aerospace medicine. More than 40 space science and application experiments will be conducted aboard Tiangong-2.

Once inside Tiangong-2, the two astronauts will carry out key experiments related to aerospace medicine, space physics and biology as well as on-orbit equipment repairs in areas such as quantum key transmission, space atomic clock and solar storm research.

"The number of experiments carried by Tiangong-2 is the highest so far of all manned space missions," said Wu Ping, deputy director of the manned space engineering office. Its payload includes POLAR, a collaboration between Swiss, Polish and Chinese institutions to study gamma ray bursts. The space cold atomic clock, which scientists say only loses one second about every 30 million years, is expected to make future mobile navigation more accurate.

Many experiments are at the very forefront of space science exploration, and one of them is the world's first in-space cold atomic clock, used to improve time measurements to the equivalent of one second every 30 million years, and will also result in improvements in navigation accuracy.

As a major breakthrough in the "three step strategy" proposed by Chinese scientists toward the goal of building a permanent manned space station, the Tiangong2 is expected to further boost the development of China's space exploration.

The Daily Galaxy via People's Daily, cri.cn and xinhuanet.com

Synthetic Biology --The Key to Manned Extraterrestrial Space Travel?

China Launches its 1st Space Mission to the Moon and Back

China Preps for 2020 Mars' Landing

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As UN Meets, Fight Superbugs at the Dinner Table.
By Darian Woods and Dr Sudhvir Singh

Microorganisms are becoming increasingly untroubled by the drugs we depend on to treat infections, like antibiotics. The threat posed by antimicrobial resistance is expected to cause more deaths than cancer by mid-century, prompting a meeting of world leaders at the UN on Wednesday. A critical part of our fight against antimicrobial resistance is fixing what we eat.

Micro-organisms are breeding faster than we can invent new antimicrobials. The facts are frightening. E. coli breeds a new generation every 23 minutes yet we haven't developed a new class of antibiotic for diseases like E. coli in 40 years. Harvard Medical School illustrated this by demonstrating how a 2x4 feet petri dish can quickly be overwhelmed by resistant new strains of the disease. The antimicrobial development pipeline is dry, and the food industry -- the single largest consumer of antimicrobials -- must bear responsibility for preserving the effectiveness of these life-saving drugs.

Antimicrobial-resistant diseases pose grave threats to world health -- a big problem now but even bigger for the next generation. An estimated 700,000 people died of resistant diseases last year. A report commissioned by the UK Government predicts this will grow to 10 million by 2050 if nothing is done.

Our food is part of the solution. The more that antimicrobials are used as animal growth promoters and for preventative reasons, the less that antimicrobials can be preserved for curing disease in humans and animals. In the United States, over two-thirds of antibiotics are used in pigs, chicken, cattle and other livestock. Over 700 million pigs are slaughtered a year in China, most raised in farms routinely treated with the same antibiotics we tell doctors to prescribe judiciously to patients.

The EAT Foundation brings together scientists, politicians and business leaders to catalyze and implement solutions to feed the world sustainably. In June 2016 EAT hosted expert veterinarians, microbiologists, politicians and representatives from the food industry at a forum in Stockholm. The evidence was clear: antimicrobials are overused in agriculture, and this is worsening antimicrobial resistance, threatening human health. Antimicrobial overuse in one country leads to more resistant diseases that cross borders. May's grim discovery of E. coli resistant to the last-resort antibiotic colistin in the United States illustrates this.

The good news is that we know what works. While 100% antibiotic-free is not the goal -- proper infection control will require some antibiotics to treat sick animals -- the EAT Stockholm Food Forum showcased how several countries have phased out unnecessary antibiotic use whilst increasing food production.

Pooling funds to develop fish vaccines effectively eliminated the need for most antibiotics in Norwegian salmon farming. Allowing only veterinarians to prescribe antimicrobials for animals was one of the measures that allowed Denmark to dramatically reduce its antimicrobial use whilst growing its pork industry. Establishing strong targets allowed the Netherlands to make a 56% reduction in antimicrobial use in animals over six years. Antimicrobials are now only sparingly used for producing food in these countries. Yet many countries remain slow to adopt the bold policy changes needed to halt the spread of these diseases, hence the opportunity at this week's Heads of Government meeting at the UN.

What comes out of the UN will be important. The international community needs to loudly declare that the science is strong enough for action on farms. The draft declaration states that animal health is an intrinsic part of the problem and solution. In its words, antimicrobial resistance is "mainly due to inappropriate use of antimicrobial medicines in human, animal, food, agriculture and aquaculture sectors." And the problem is of serious global, non-partisan concern: "Many 20th century achievements are being gravely challenged."

The UN's draft declaration, by supporting the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, also tacitly supports phasing out the use of antimicrobials as growth promoters in meat, a risky practice that can offer very small production gains in lieu of better conditions on farms. The European Union implemented this necessary ban in 2006. The UN's declaration won't go as far as Nordic countries have -- for instance, limiting the number of days an antibiotic can be prescribed -- but we need to head in that direction.

You can make a difference too. Have you thought about how antibiotics are used in your food? Choosing to buy groceries that don't come out of antibiotic-heavy factory farms sends a message that you don't want to be a part of compromising our children's health.

But without consistent labelling, how can you make the right choice? In response to consumer pressure, some food companies have been vocal about reducing their over-reliance on antimicrobials. On August 1 McDonald's announced that it had phased out the routine use of medically important antimicrobials in chicken sourced for its American restaurants, a year earlier than planned. Chain Reaction is a report on fast food restaurant's antimicrobial practices. Choosing food that states "raised without antibiotics" is a start. Intensive farms tend to use more antimicrobials: opt for grass-fed or free range meat or eggs instead. Another choice is to reduce or cut out meat altogether.

As world leaders discuss the urgent challenge of antimicrobial resistance at the UN, consumers can act now. Governments and the food industry are listening: use your food choices to tell them to keep antibiotics effective.

Darian Woods graduated in 2016 with a Master of Public Policy from University of California, Berkeley. His thesis, commissioned by the EAT Foundation, investigates how the agricultural industry contributes to antimicrobial resistance and what can be done about it.

Dr Sudhvir Singh has a background in Internal Medicine and is the Policy Director of the EAT Foundation.

Thanks to Dr Anthony So (Director, ReAct - Action on Antibiotics) for helpful comments in drafting this article.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the EAT Foundation, in conjunction with the high-level side event, "Urban Food Systems: The Nutrition Challenge," during the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York. The EATx at UNGA is a collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. #EATx #eatforum

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Tick-Tock: Healthy Water and the SDGs
It only seems like a New York minute since the 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development were adopted, but this week marks the one-year anniversary as the UN General Assembly (UNGA) meets in the Big Apple to discuss, among other things, how the implementation of the SDGs is progressing and the obstacles in the way to achieving them.

One year down, fourteen to go - as I said, tick-tock. While I'm watching the clock, I'm also thinking how the global community can keep progress moving in the right direction. Clearly, one major way we can help meet all 17 goals is to invest early in water security.

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Photo Credit: © Meridith Kohut/WWF-US

Contribution deadline

At the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York earlier this year, Elizabeth Stuart from the Overseas Development Institute said, "Agenda 2030 implementation is like a pension...the longer you leave paying in, the less rewards you see." Those words struck a chord and got me thinking about how the principles behind 401(k) accounts in the US can also be applied to water security. It's better to invest in protection early and often than have to invest in restoration or other fixes to solve problems later down the line. But, when is the contribution deadline for investing in water and sustainable development? Two, five, or ten years from now when it will be too late? These are the questions we should be asking.

Balancing act

The biggest challenge for the global community in making contributions to the SDGs is balancing the competing uses of water; ensuring that the needs of everyone, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, are met while maintaining secure and healthy ecosystems. Conservation depends on healthy communities that sustainably manage their natural resources. At the same time, the long-term sustainability of development projects depends on integrating these projects with surrounding ecosystems. When water projects are created in silos, taps run dry; untreated waste pollutes drinking water and habitats; and both large- and community-scale infrastructure fail in the face of climate change. When integrated, these projects help protect freshwater ecosystems, which provide the basis for clean water supply, flood control, food and numerous other services people depend upon.

With this in mind, it's easy to see why water is a recurring theme running through most of the 17 goals. We should look at the water related targets in every goal to ensure that they can be all be achieved through the unique approaches each country will use to tackle them.

Transparency paper or practice?

Another obstacle on the road to achieving the goals is transparency. Decisions about water are too frequently made without adequate information, behind closed doors, and at the expense of basin health and vulnerable communities. We know that when information about river basin health is synthesized and delivered via a practical public platform that everyone understands, stakeholders are empowered to improve decision-making. In an era of data democratization and increased civil activism, we as a water community need to promote tools and processes that bring more transparency and collaboration to water management if we are ever to meet our 2030 deadline.

Basin report cards are a powerful tool for transparency and one of the ways WWF is contributing to achieving the SDGs, working with our partners at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences (UMCES). Developed from the bottom-up and rooted in science, report cards identify what is most important to water users in a given basin, create a common understanding of the basin's health, incorporate indicators on climate change and resiliency, and foster a shared vision for the basin's future.

These report cards give us a baseline against which to measure progress toward the SDGs and provide data that is essential to meeting them. This data will assure existing funders that their money is being well-spent, and encourage prospective partners to contribute. Finally, because each report card will be a hyper-local effort, community engagement and collaboration across water users are prerequisite. And the best part? You don't have to be a hydrologist to know how the river is doing and where it's headed.

A collective water story

With the UNGA and Clinton Global Initiative, all eyes are on New York this month. Water will be on everyone's agenda, but thankfully the conversations around our global water crisis won't be confined to conference halls and meeting rooms.

To bring the story of our global water crisis to the people, I'm helping launch our new outdoor photography exhibition Water Stories by Mustafah Abdulaziz on September 21 as part of Photoville - using stunning large scale images lit up by the East River at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The exhibition is the result of collaboration with the HSBC Water Programme, in partnership with Earthwatch, WaterAid, and WWF. It also happens to coincide with NYC Climate Week, further highlighting the growing water challenges across America and the world.

Despite the loud ticking clock and the hefty investment that will be needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, WWF's efforts won't stop until we have helped the water community meet the growing global challenges and ensure the availability and sustainable management of water for all.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"). The SDGs represent an historic agreement -- a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets -- but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

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Photo Credit: © Meridith Kohut/WWF-US

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Photo Credit: © Meridith Kohut/WWF-US

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What to Expect at CITES: A Sneak Peak at Upcoming Endangered Species Meeting

Even for experienced eyes, sifting through the roughly 200 documents to be considered at the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 17^thConference of Parties (CoP17) is a challenge.

CITES protects about 5,600 animal species and 30,000 plant species through restrictions on commercial trade, and much discussion at the meeting, to be held September 24 to October 5 in Johannesburg, South Africa, will concentrate on whether to tighten or loosen trade restrictions for specific species.

There are 62 such proposals, which would affect close to 500 species, ranging from tropical timbers like rosewood and agarwood to marine species like corals, nautiluses, sharks, and rays to iconic mammals like African elephants and lions, and lesser known ones like pangolins, as well as a host of reptiles and amphibians.

Delegates from the 183 parties to the treaty will review assessments on the threats from trade and then decide whether or not to include the proposed animals and plants in one of three appendices, each with a differing level of protection. The most stringent, Appendix I, prohibits commercial trade in wild-taken species, not ones bred in captivity or propagated artificially. The next level is Appendix II, which limits trade through permits. Appendix III provides international support to help a country enforce its national controls.

Another category of issues to be discussed are the various measures to reduce illegal trade by changing the way trade is managed, such as recognizing the link between corruption and wildlife crime, establishing systems to stop wild-caught animals from mixing with captive-bred ones in the trade, and developing a photo identification database to identify seized tiger skins.

Here are some items to watch:

First up are a number of proposals related to African elephants. Expected to be contentious, they will likely take up a good portion of energy at the meeting. The most publicized are three listing proposals, but also on the agenda are proposals to regulate trade in mammoth ivory, destroy ivory stockpiles, close legal domestic ivory markets, target ivory demand reduction strategies, restrict the use of live animal exports, and create a decision-making mechanism for a future ivory trade.

"1397081_10151875462558370_1182142026_o" Currently, all African elephants are included in Appendix I, except for those in four countries: Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe—which are included in Appendix II. Despite that designation, an annotation to the listing keeps their ivory in Appendix I, which bans its sale. (It is interesting to note that that same annotation allowed two ivory sales from those four countries on the condition that they not propose any additional commercial ivory sales until 2017.)

Two of the proposals seek to remove the annotation for Namibia and Zimbabwe so that their elephants can have “straight-up” Appendix II listing, which in turn could allow more ivory sales. A third proposal takes the opposite approach, and seeks to move the populations of the four countries to Appendix I, thereby removing the need for the annotation and maintaining the existing ban on international trade in ivory. The catch is that even if this last proposal is adopted, a country can “enter a reservation” (which it can do with any species listing), allowing it to reject the listing while not violating the entire treaty.

Also controversial are two proposals related to an ivory decision-making mechanism. In 2007, CITES began thinking about how to set rules for the future authorization of ivory trading. The idea was to have criteria that applied to all requests rather than having to make decisions on a country-by-country basis. Work on that mechanism was supposed to be completed by 2013, but disagreements led to an extension of the deadline until this CITES meeting. But a persistent lack of progress and agreement has prompted eight African countries to propose that the entire idea be dropped, which Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe don't want. They propose adoption of a mechanism and say that if one is not adopted, they will consider the annotation (that keeps their ivory in Appendix I) as pro non scripto, meaning “as though it had not been written”—in effect opening up trade.

Also sure to spark interest is the continued shift toward using CITES to regulate commercially valuable timber, as embodied in five proposals on rosewood (Dalbergia) that could affect about 250 species. One of the proposals wants to list all the species in that genus under Appendix II (except for those already in Appendix I), and the four others focus on various subsets of the species, such as one for 13 species native to Mexico and Central America.

Sharks and rays will also be considered. High demand for gill plates has led to a proposal to include all devil rays (Mobula) in Appendix II. Two additional proposals seek Appendix II listings for silky and thresher sharks. But the road forward for these shark species will likely be bumpy, especially when compared to the listing of five shark species at the last CoP, largely because questions remain as to whether silky and thresher sharks meet the criteria for inclusion.

Following the IUCN Red List's 2016 assessment that all pangolin species are critically endangered, range states seek to give all pangolin species the highest level of protection. Arguably the most trafficked mammal, five proposals (two on Indian pangolins, one on Philippine pangolins, one on Chinese and Sunda pangolins, and one on all four African species) seek to transfer these scaly anteaters from Appendix II to Appendix I.

African lions are also on the agenda. A drop in populations prompted nine African states to propose their transfer from Appendix II to Appendix I to ban all trade in African lions and their parts. In addition, there are a couple of other proposals related to regulation on the harvest and export of lion hunting trophies.

Heated debate surrounding legalizing rhino horn trade will likely be spurred by several side events and by Swaziland's proposal to alter its listing for its rhinoceros populations so that it could sell horn from natural deaths, seizures, and non-lethal harvests. Other rhino-related measures seek to add strong new provisions on fake horn, increase penalties to deter killing and trafficking, encourage data sharing on rhino horn seizures, systematize sample collection for forensic analysis of horn, implement stricter domestic controls to regulate the re-export of rhino horn, and account for and secure rhino horn stocks.

African grey parrots are another species to watch. Highly sought after as pets for their intelligence, these parrots have experienced significant declines across their range in central and West Africa. A proposal sponsored by nine countries asks to transfer the species to Appendix I in order to stop the unsustainable commercial trade in these wild birds.

The above represent just a fraction of a very full agenda at CoP 17, and numerous other items up for consideration will have a critical impact for years to come. Little wonder that CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon has described it as “one of the most critical meetings in the 43 year history of the Convention.”

We will keep tabs on the proceedings and post regular updates from Johannesburg here.

Laurel Neme is a freelance journalist and author of Animal Investigators: How the World's First Wildlife Forensics Lab Is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species and Orangutan Houdini. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

The National Geographic Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is dedicated to shining light on commercial-scale exploitation of wildlife and other valued resources, identifying weaknesses in national and international efforts to protect wildlife, and empowering institutions and individuals working for a better world. Stories cover a range of human activity, from crime to heroism.

You can find all of the SIU's stories at Wildlife Watch. Click here to meet the team.

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Don't Let Email Zombies Eat Up Your Day

Let's face it: Email is killing our productivity. The average person checks their inbox 11 times per hour, processes 122 messages a day, and spends 28 percent of their total workweek managing their inbox. Outside of work, more than 80% of workers monitor their email over the weekend, nearly 60% tend to their inboxes on vacation, and 6% admit to checking email while their wife was in labor or during a funeral. So much for life's precious moments!

And for those of you who think that Slack is killing email, think again. Recent projections suggest that worldwide email usage will grow by 12% in the coming years. What's more, it ain't just the “olds” who are obsessed with email. It turns out that email addiction is more—rather than less—prevalent among the younger generation. One recent study found that millennials are more frequent users of email than any other age group: They are more likely check email from bed (70%), from the bathroom (57%), or—most disturbingly—while driving (27%).

Like some evil workplace zombie, email is literally sucking away our time, our attention, and our energy. Frustrated by its debilitating impact on our working lives, I spent a year delving into the science behind our email addiction for my new book, Unsubscribe. These are four of my favorite research-backed strategies for minimizing the time you spend on email and maximizing the hours you spend on meaningful work.

1. Check your email in “batches” for less stress and more happiness.

There are two types of emailers: reactors, who rely on notifications and near-constant monitoring of their inboxes to nibble away at their email throughout the day, and batchers, who set aside specific chunks of time to power through their email, so they can ignore it the rest of the day. Not surprisingly, batchers are significantly more productive when it comes to getting shit done, and according to recent research, they're also less stressed and more happy.

To get yourself into the groove of batching, try blocking out two to three daily email check-in times on your calendar, perhaps 30 minutes a piece. If at all possible, schedule an additional 45-90 minutes for creative work before you check your email for the first time. Then, when you do turn your attention to your inbox, no matter what you find there—what fires you have to put out, what unwanted questions you have to respond to—you've already gotten some good work done that day.

If at all possible, schedule an additional 45-90 minutes for creative work before you check your email for the first time.

2. Neutralize your “fear of missing out” by using VIP email notifications.

If you'd like to stick to specific blocks of time for checking email, but you have a special someone who will freak out if you don't tend to their email within five minutes of receiving it—or if the whole idea of ignoring your inbox just makes you too anxious—compromise by using VIP notifications. On an iPhone, you can designate certain people as VIPs so their emails go to a separate VIP inbox. You can also configure your notifications to play a special tone when that inbox gets a message. If you have an Android phone, you can use the Gmail app to set up a similar system for notifications when messages arrive from designated “priority senders.”

And your VIPs don't have to be fixed. I change mine regularly based on what projects have priority at the moment and what I'm feeling anxious about. If I notice I can't stop peeking at my inbox because I want to know if I scored the dream apartment I just applied for, or I'm awaiting a time-sensitive reply from a client for a project that's on deadline, then I just pop that person onto my VIP list. Now I no longer have to monitor my inbox like a maniac because I know I'll be alerted as soon as the message arrives.

3. Boost your focus by closing your email when you're doing other tasks.

Research has shown that just having your email program open in the background of your computer screen as you focus on another task, even if the window is minimized, can decrease performance. Even if your email isn't front and center, your brain still knows it's there in the background and devotes a certain amount of energy to monitoring it, which drains your focus for executing on the task at hand.

Avoid such distractions by quarantining your email in a separate area from your main workspace. This might mean setting up a separate monitor just for email or checking your email only on a mobile phone or tablet. Checking your email in a physically separate space can actually make your incoming messages—and any attendant anxiety or urgency—feel more distant and less pressing. The less cluttered your primary work screen is, the more serene your mind is, and the easier it is to focus.

Pro Tip: This advice about “quarantining” apps with constant push notifications also applies to Slack or other collaborative apps that emit constant notifications and updates. The tax on your attention is lower if you keep them running on a separate, glance-able screen nearby (or on your phone if a second screen isn't an option) rather than on your primary computer screen. It sounds silly, but interruptions sabotage your short-term memory, so one of the problems that sets us back is literally remembering what we were just working on. If your primary screen is reserved for your primary task, rather than buried under a bunch of Slack and social media windows, you're more likely to be able to return to it quickly after an interruption.

The less cluttered your primary work screen is, the more serene your mind is, and the easier it is to focus.

4. Know that multi-tasking with email reduces your IQ and your creativity.

Every time you stop doing a task you are working on to check your email, you incur what researchers call a “switching cost.” Particularly if you're doing any kind of work that requires deep concentration (aka creative flow) such as writing, coding, or assembling a presentation, it typically takes at least 25 minutes to get properly back into the task after you've interrupted yourself. (I'm no great shakes at math, but I'm pretty sure that means if you check your email twice while doing an hour of creative work, you've basically gotten nowhere.) Another study done in the UK found that when people tried to juggle managing their inbox with doing their work, their IQ fell by 10 points—the equivalent of working without a night of sleep or smoking reefer on the job. So the next time you want to interrupt yourself for a quick glance at your inbox, remember that it could literally make you dumber.

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This post is adapted from the book Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distraction, and Get Real Work Done, by Jocelyn K. Glei, the founding editor of 99U and author of Manage Your Day-to-Day. It's available on Amazon now.

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The Monsanto Merger Blues
This week, hundreds of farmers from the National Farmers Union are converging on Washington DC to plead with decision makers to say "no" to a blockbusting roster of agribusiness mergers.

Farmers--and consumers--have reason to worry. This level of corporate consolidation will give these companies unprecedented power over our farms, our land and our food.

Chemical giant Bayer has just announced its intention to purchase Monsanto, the world's leading seed and pesticide supplier. Not to be left behind, DuPont and Dow, and Syngenta and ChemChina--the rest of the "Big Six" that already control 51% of seed and 72% of the pesticides in the international market--are in frantic merger negotiations. If they consolidate, three companies would control nearly 60% of the world's seeds. Why the rush to merge? Saturated markets have dropped profit margins. Corporate consolidation is the only way to increase returns to shareholders.

None of this has anything to do with feeding people.

We already produce 1 ½ times more than enough food to feed every person on the planet. Unfortunately, over a billion of the world's people are too poor to buy this food - so they go hungry. Corporate mergers aren't going to change that.

As suppliers consolidate, farmers lose power and choice and get stuck with high input prices and no alternatives at a time of painfully low grain prices. The only way to make their bottom line is to expand operations, getting ever bigger to cover their fixed costs. It's the way of capitalist agriculture. Too bad for young farmers seeking to break into agriculture--the land and technology bar has just been raised again. Monopolization increases the tendency of land consolidation- which means bigger farms and fewer farmers.

Seeds, inputs, machinery, financing, insurance, and big data provided by the corporate giants are made to deliver larger and larger batches of uniform products to retailers, that are also consolidating and vertically integrating. (Even Amazon, who is recruiting an army of agronomists, is planning to sell food through huge supply centers, where taxis and drones will ultimately deliver food to consumers.)

Big food and ag corporations need big farms and big (expensive) technology. Where will farmers get the money to upgrade? Land.

Banks now hold workshops in which they advise producers to sell their land as a business measure to recapitalize operations. They urge farmers to "financialize" by selling the US heartland to international investors whose time horizon is governed by the click of a mouse. Land will concentrate in the hands of those looking to reap profits from hundreds of thousands of land transactions carried out in the cybersphere far from the farms, the consumers seeking healthy, sustainably produced food, and beyond the empty bellies of the world's poor.

Institutional investors have already bought about $40 billion of agricultural land - they'd buy more if they could, but many farmers aren't yet willing to sell. In five years, however, 63% of agricultural land will be inherited or sold. The question is, who will take over? Financial investors or family farmers?

Right now, the front line of resistance to the continued corporatization and consolidation of agriculture in the United States is the commodity producer of corn and soybeans - the family farmers that are in Washington DC this week with the National Farmers Union voicing opposition to consolidation of the industry that determines their livelihoods.

But it's not just their livelihoods that are impacted by these potential mergers - it's our food and agricultural system as a whole. Food activists seeking to transform our food and agricultural system need to stand with those on the frontlines against the continued corporatization and financialization of agriculture. Contrary to the food movement's "good food" narrative, this means allying with conventional family farmers, especially those stuck on the pesticide-GMO-subsidy treadmill the movement so vehemently excoriates. We've got a lot to learn from them:

Family farmers have been pushing back against the corporate takeover of agriculture for more than a century. If farmers find a way to make money, the industry will find a way to take its cut. You saw it happen to commodity farmers when prices were high several years ago, and you see it now with large processors and big box retailers wanting to profit from the organic and sustainable food movement that farmers built. If farmers voluntarily pit themselves against each other because we are growing different things or using different production methods, the only winner will be the corporate food system. It's not easy to bring a diverse group of farmers - conventional commodities, livestock, dairy, fruits & vegetables, organic - together under one big tent. But we do it because we are fighting for the survival of the family farm, and we can't afford to choose up sides against each other.

- Jana Linderman, President Iowa Farmers Union

As far as corporate consolidation goes, it is time for the food movement to tactically align itself with the family farm movement, and with organizations like the National Farmers Union. It is in everyone's interest to keep the monopolies from consolidating, and ultimately to keep farmland ownership in the hands of farmers--not financial investors. This may be a bitter pill for some, but it is a far sight better than turning over our food system to corporate shareholders and financial investors.

Food and agricultural activists are calling on the US Department of Justice to evoke antitrust laws and stop the merger. Now is the time for the food movement to ally with those whose livelihoods depend upon stopping the continued financialization and corporatization of agriculture. Our food future depends on it.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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River at Risk: Oil, Gas, Nukes Threaten New York Health

The Hudson River is under threat, again. Just when we thought we were in the clear - and that river towns up and down the Hudson Valley could enjoy scenic river views for restaurants, new housing, parks and other critical economic development - we're playing defense, again. Oil barges, nuclear plants and gas pipelines all now threaten the integrity of the river.

Remember that not too long ago the river was the dumping ground for toxics and municipal waste and that it's still recovering from General Electric's inexcusable release of PCBs into public waters. Had it not been for Hudson Valley voices - like the Riverkeeper and those who care about Clearwater (thank you, Pete Seeger) - we'd still have sludge and fecal matter floating by Manhattan.

Now it's a different kind of threat. While it's not sewage, it's equally serious, if not more so. It's oil, it's nuclear and it's gas. Ignore for a moment that these are all wrong directions for our energy transition - as non-renewable, toxic and expensive fuels - they're all threatening the critical health of the Hudson River.

First and foremost, oil is the most urgent threat. The U.S. Coast Guard is keen to let the oil industry now use the river for crude oil transport and build 43 berths in 10 locations along the Hudson River. The potential for oil spills is real and frightening (for both human and marine life), and the Coast Guard's move also threatens to scrape and scar the river bottom (with anchors and anchor chains) and further endanger sturgeon and other critical species.

The oil industry, to be clear, is already pushing oil pipelines on land throughout the Hudson Valley, moving volatile crude oil on rail (known as "bomb trains") and putting our river at immediate risk. Now the industry, aided and abetted by the Coast Guard, wants to escalate this volatile equation and place more oil precariously on the water, a bet that no elected official in their right mind should wage. We can put a stop to this, and should, by telling a taxpayer-funded agency, the Coast Guard, to guard against industry interest and protect the greater good, our river, and all the human and marine health and economies that depend on it. (Send your comments to the Coast Guard here.)

Second, nuclear plants are currently killing billions of fish, eggs and larvae in the river. Power plants along the Hudson River are withdrawing 1.2 trillion gallons every year. Sound benign? It's not. Yet, the industry-friendly Nuclear Regulatory Commission refuses to protect public interest. Plants like Entergy's Indian Point nuclear power plant, which continues to break down and leak radioactive waste and sit insecurely a few dozen miles north of Manhattan, use the river's water to cool their facilities and discharge the heated water back into the Hudson - killing billions of organisms annually. Unlike humans, our Hudson fish hate hot tubs.

It doesn't have to be this way, but we continue to allow private industry to use public assets to pay for this problem. It's time for that to end and to support New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo's call for shutting down Indian Point (and Riverkeeper's work to protect millions of New Yorkers from nuclear disaster).

Third, a high pressure Spectra Energy pipeline, carrying fracked gas for export (so that other countries can have higher carbon footprints) is expanding under the Hudson and adjacent to the failing Indian Point nuclear facility, making a combustible situation even more volatile. While New York's Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand and Governor Cuomo have called for a halt to the pipeline construction, because of the "threat to the quality of life, environmental, health and safety of residents across the Hudson Valley and New York State without any long-term benefit to the communities it would impact," the construction continues.

Spectra Energy is leaving in its wake destroyed wetlands, clear-cut forests and increasingly endangered Hudson Valley health (don't get me started on the toxic particulates the pipeline will exhaust near my neighboring hometown of Peekskill). Most disconcertingly, the high-pressure pipeline runs within bomb shot of Indian Point's aging nuclear plant, making our region a sitting duck for those who wish to do serious damage. Again, our taxpayer funded Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a close friend of the private industry, refuses to protect public interest. This, too, must end. (Find out more about how to protect fellow New Yorkers here.)

The fight to protect our Hudson River is back on. In fact, it never ended, but it feels like we're back in the mid-1900s again. This time with different contaminants and dangers, all of which pose serious security and safety risks to human and Hudson River health. We don't need another superfund site but rather serious foresight to ensure that cleanups don't become a river town pastime. Calling on all who care. It's time to rise up for our river.

Michael Shank, PhD, is a resident of Peekskill in the Hudson Valley and teaches sustainable development NYU's Center for Global Affairs.

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Why Clean Energy Is Center Stage on International Day of Peace
Each year since 1981, the United Nations (UN) recognizes an International Day of Peace on September 21. The day is intended to strengthen peace both within and among nations.

As an environmental advocate, I can't help but think about the effects of climate change on the current state of global peace. And while there are a few climate deniers out there, those who have looked at the science are saying climate change poses a serious threat to global security and peace.

Fortunately, the UN agrees - which is why they chose to focus this year's International Peace Day on Sustainable Development Goals. Unanimously adopted by all 193 UN member states, the Sustainable Development Goals are broken down into 17 focus areas and are part of a broader agenda to fight inequality, injustice, and climate change by 2030.

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Goal 7 - "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all" - is a hugely important part of fostering global peace. The world needs affordable, reliable electricity to heat, cool, and power our homes, and to encourage economic growth. But we also need this electricity to be clean, modern, and efficient, so it doesn't pollute our communities and exacerbate climate change.

Here are four ways the U.S. is doing our part to achieve an affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy system for all:

Affordability: In rural, poverty-persistent parts of the country, energy efficiency is the most direct way to save people money and reduce energy use, but it is often overlooked when families face hard choices about where to spend their money. On-bill financing is one solution that's helping Americans finance energy efficiency upgrades without the burden of upfront costs. Upgrades are paid for over time (via utility bills) from the resulting energy savings of efficiency improvements. The program reduces energy use and saves people money, which is especially important in rural communities where median household incomes are shrinking compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. In North Carolina, non-profits like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and electric cooperatives (or "co-ops," which supply power to 42 million Americans in rural areas) are partnering to expand on-bill financing.
Reliability: Electricity touches everything we do. So when the grid goes down, the effects can range anywhere from inconvenient to life-threatening. With the help of smart meters, which now exist in nearly half of U.S. households and deliver detailed energy-use data to utilities, we can begin to identify outages faster and with great precision (meaning shorter outages). Smart meters can also enable energy management tools like demand response - which pays people to reduce energy when the electric grid is stressed - that can help improve reliability and reduce outages. New York recently approved an historic plan by its largest utility to distribute smart meters to millions of homes. This move will help increase efficiency, improve reliability, and lower pollution.
Sustainability: An estimated 12.6% of U.S. energy use is water-related. That's equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 40 million Americans. Ensuring a sustainable future means addressing the way we manage our electricity and our water - part of what's known as the "energy-water nexus." Based in Austin, Texas, Pecan Street, Inc., the nation's largest energy research network and an EDF partner, is studying and piloting some of the same strategies that are helping the energy sector get smart. Just like smart energy meters, smart water meters can help residents conserve resources by giving them access to meaningful data about when and how they use water. By saving water, we can save energy, too, which means fewer polluting power plants.
Modernity: A key aspect of modern energy is that it should be accessible to all. While the price of solar panels has fallen 80 percent since 2008, many Americans reside in multi-unit buildings, or don't own a home on which to install solar panels. But the solar game is changing and new models are emerging. Community solar, defined as "a solar-electric system that provides power and/or financial benefit to, or is owned by, multiple community members," presents a unique opportunity to bring solar access to the masses. Cities like Los Angeles, California and San Antonio, Texas are actively working to expand community solar. And nationally, community solar is predicted to more than double between 2015 and 2016.

Global consensus

These examples reveal the new look of energy in America. Other nations are making clean energy progress, too, though their circumstances vary. For example, in Lesotho, Southern Africa, clean energy sometimes looks like solar panels on homes in rural areas that can't be reached by vehicles. In Chennai, India, clean energy can be seen in the solar steam cooking system in a home-school for 650 orphans.

Yet, despite regional differences, this International Day of Peace - with Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy at center stage - reminds us that around the world, efforts to nurture a safer, more prosperous future are cut from the same cloth. It's also a reminder that the world agrees with Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's message: "Affordable, clean energy is the golden thread that links economic growth, increased social equity, and a healthy environment."

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"). The SDGs represent an historic agreement -- a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets -- but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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How to Save the UN

One of the reasons that I chose to run for the position of United Nations Secretary General is that I could see the interconnected nature of many of the crises that the world faces today. While I have now withdrawn from the race, I was and remain, full of hope that when we treat them as interrelated issues and work to address their root causes, we can all win.

One of the key crises will be discussed at a UN Summit this week. The crisis is that today we live in a world where 65 million people have been forced from their homes -- more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Media images of streams of people walking away from their homes have become commonplace over the last 18 months. The heartbreaking stories of those who have lost their lives as they fled the desperate situations in their homelands have lasting implications long after they have left the front pages.

It is anticipated that this week's UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants will seek to better protect migrants and refugees during their perilous journeys, and while this is vital, it will count for little unless we deal with the reasons why people are having to leave.

The UN acknowledges that the international community has been "struggling for years to find better ways to resolve violent conflicts in many parts of the world and to mitigate the impact of climate change and disasters. Alleviating extreme poverty, food insecurity, lack of decent work, inequality, tackling discrimination and human-rights violations and abuses, establishing rule of law, mitigating the impact of disasters and climate change are all massive tasks."

Yet these tasks that are already described as 'massive' are getting bigger. With temperature records being broken month by month, the impacts that climate change has had on conflict and refugees in places like Syria and Mali will only grow. With sea-level rise advancing more quickly than scientists predicted, those communities in the South Pacific and in Alaska who have already been forced to move will be joined by many more. Though climate is not the only factor impacting the choices being made by these people, it is a real and growing danger.

The incumbent UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will leave a legacy of working to reform the UN to break down the institutional silos that slow us down when we respond to such crises. He will leave a legacy of having put frameworks in place -- such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement -- that can help address some of the 'massive tasks'.

But this important work needs to be sped up and increased, for example, by incorporating an understanding of climate risk into everything that the UN does. This would ensure that over the longer term we understand better where the hot spots are and how to help prevent system breakdown. It would also give teeth to the conclusions of the inaugural World Humanitarian Summit held earlier this year.

Though I have worked at the heart of the UN for years, I have learnt a lot more about the institution and its peculiar brand of realpolitik over the course of the past few months. It is more clear to me than ever that UN is on the verge of a precipice.

Its next leader -- and there are strong candidates in this race -- has the responsibility to ensure the UN delivers on those groundbreaking agreements made last year, which would see us effectively address poverty, better protect people in their own homes, and create more possibilities of peace. To do in fact what the UN was created to do. But the UN can only do that if it eschews the turf wars and patronage that weakens its ability to do its job properly.

We cannot afford a world without the UN. But the UN must continue to evolve so that it is up to the challenges of the 21^st century.

I urge the Security Council to avoid the path of least resistance, I urge them to push for transformation. Though it might seem more difficult at first, this is how we deliver on our promises and put the organisation on a strong footing for the next 70 years, one that will serve the many millions that have already been forced from their homes and those who still live in fear. Don't choose politics, choose the right person for the job.

Ms. Figueres is the top UN authority on global climate change. She was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between July 2010 and July 2016. Assuming responsibility for the international climate change negotiations after the failed Copenhagen conference of 2009, she was successful in leading the process to a universally agreed regulatory action framework.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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More countries to formally join Paris Agreement next week
After international agreements are finalized it often takes years for countries to formally join the agreement and for the agreement to take effect. It took the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change almost two years after it was adopted for that agreement to enter-into-force. On September 21st, a next wave of countries is expected to formally join the Paris Agreement and signal their commitment to continue to act now and deliver stronger climate action in the coming years.

As a result, there is a high likelihood that the Paris Agreement will enter into force this year - less than a year after the agreement was adopted. This would represent rocket speed as most international agreements take at least two years to enter into force. This is a fantastic signal that countries around the world are preparing to take the necessary actions to address climate change and protect our children and grandchildren from the devastation that will occur if we don't act aggressively. More action will be needed, but the early signs are positive given the pace at which countries formally entered into the agreement.

World is on the cusp of the Paris Agreement entering into force

To date, twenty-seven countries accounting for thirty-nine percent of the world's emissions have formally joined the Paris Agreement. A number of countries - such as Brazil and Mexico - have taken the required domestic steps to join the agreement but haven't yet officially become members of the agreement as they have to "deposit" the official paperwork with the U.N. Officials have recently said that they expect twenty additional countries will formally join the agreement when countries meet on September 21st for a ceremony in New York. This next wave will mean that at least 47 countries that account for over forty-five percent of the world's emissions will have formally joined the agreement by September 21st (see table below).

And more have publicly announced that they will formally join the agreement this year including a number of major emitters such as Japan, Indonesia, Australia, and Canada. European Union leaders just signaled that they will try to formally join this year, maybe even by early October. With these countries sixty-four countries that account for almost 72 percent of the world's emissions are expected to have formally joined the Paris Agreement this year. That would mean that the agreement would enter into force this year as it only requires 55 countries that account for 55 percent of the world's emissions for the agreement to take effect (see figure).

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Rocket speed for an international agreement to enter into force

Translating international agreements into international law usually takes years. As one U.N. official recently said: "it usually takes years, decades and sometimes never to cross these thresholds for entry into force". The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change took almost two years to cross those thresholds, the Kyoto Protocol took over seven years, and the Montreal Protocol took a year and half. As the New York Times pointed out: "Experts in international law said they could not think of an example of a major United Nations agreement entering into legal force less than a year after it was finalized".

The quick pace could signal that world leaders want to be remembered as being on the right side of history. After all, when the history books are written for the 21st Century, which leader wants to be known as the last one to join an agreement to address the gravest challenge of this century? I doubt the history books will look fondly on that blank chapter in a leader's story: "Chapter 12 - Didn't join historic agreement to address climate change".

Hard work ahead after agreement takes effect

Once the Paris Agreement enters into force countries will have to provide further details on some of the implementation rulebooks and then evolve the system to take on new dynamics over time. And most importantly, countries will have to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of policymaking to drive their economies towards a low carbon and climate resilient future. Countries have a solid base to build upon as they have more advanced clean energy policies, new steps on deforestation, and more tools to spur energy efficiency.

We need more action, faster. So let's hope that the quick entry-into-force is a sign that countries are prepared to take even more decisive domestic action in the coming years.

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-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Disease prevention in urban areas: EU cities can be a hub of health promotion
Last June, I was having a public discussion with citizens in Eindhoven, Netherlands, together with Mary-Ann Schreurs, the Vice-Mayor of the city. I hold those dialogues regularly, in different EU Member States, on the issues that I am in charge of at the European Commission level - health and food safety but also broader European topics. These public discussions are never easy but I appreciate the exercise. It brings food for thought and gives birth to interesting ideas.

That day in Eindhoven, a young woman told me: we all know that prevention is better than cure and preventing people from getting sick should therefore be the obvious goal, but my son's school has two vending machines full of sugary drinks and fatty foods that are easily accessible to him. I can do little to control what he is buying with his pocket money. Aren't we in a major contradiction - we expect our kids to eat healthy but we make sugar and fat easily available and cheap in the places where they spend most of their time without us?

She is right. Add marketing and advertising and you have the recipe for a whole generation of children growing fat for life. Add the ageing population and rise in chronic diseases - many of which could be prevented if we tackled risk factors and promoted healthy habits - and you can be sure that no healthcare system in the world will be able to cope with resultant costs. I will never tire repeating that prevention and promotion are key if we want to change this catastrophic forecast. Where better to put these in place if not in urban areas given that we estimate that by 2020, almost 80% of EU citizens will be living in cities?

In the EU, we have already started sowing the seeds. Several pan-european initiatives are underway to improve quality of life in our cities. For example, the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities, aims to improve urban life through more sustainable integrated solutions such as including pedestrian zones and cycle paths in city planning to encourage people to move more.

The EU Health Programme and the European Parliament co-finance various projects with an urban angle that promote healthier diets to children, adults and elderly citizens. These projects are part of a wider, multi-faceted approach to tackling obesity, poor nutrition and inactivity.

Since 2007, the European Commission is working on initiatives across various policy areas to promote good health and reduce the risks associated with poor nutrition and lack of exercise. For example, the school fruit scheme provides school children with fruit and vegetables, encouraging school children to replace sugary snacks with healthier options.

In addition, the 2014 Action Plan on Childhood obesity aims to halt the rise of childhood obesity by 2020. The plan includes promoting healthier diets in school and pre-school, and making the healthy option the easy option, amongst its objectives. In parallel, the Commission is working together with Member States on the common objective of reformulating food products to contain less salt, fats or sugars. The aim of our work in that field is to help ensure that healthier food is available and affordable to all across the European Union.

We also have two interesting EU-financed projects which are currently being tested in urban settings. "Together" and "We Love Eating" both benefit from the multiplier effect of community action within cities.

A healthy lifestyle starts from the earliest age, and the Together pilot project promotes healthy diets to pregnant and breastfeeding women in Manchester, Murcia, Odense and Kolding, Prague and Varna. "Together" makes a special effort to address health inequalities by reaching out to young mothers, women on lower incomes and ethnic minorities - as these are groups that do not always benefit from equal access to health promotion initiatives. The project involves diverse community actors such as social workers, midwives, and pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, to ensure that it brings about real, sustainable change.

We Love Eating further promotes healthy eating amongst three main target groups: children, pregnant women and older people, in seven small cities across the EU, such as, Bradford, Roncq, Granollers and Cluj-Napoca. We Love Eating aims to teach people to enjoy healthy food, it encourages conscious eating and more physical activity in daily life, and offers realistic and fun ways to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Once again, this community-based project makes a special effort to address people from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Indeed, many people in the EU are not able to afford quality food and suffer the negative health effects of under nutrition. Since around 88 million tonnes of food is wasted in the EU every year, there is no excuse for any of our citizens going hungry. Preventing food waste is a moral and ethical obligation, I wrote about this earlier and you can read it here I am sure that the question raised that day, in Eindhoven, is topical for many parents. That woman is certainly not alone wanting to prevent her son growing fat for life. But more we raise these questions and discussions around the issue, the more aware our citizens become. A few months after our discussion, the Vice-Mayor initiated a project called 'Health Deal' where neighbouring cities come together to exchange knowledge, insights and build partnerships that put health in the core of urban development.

EU cities have the potential to be hubs of health promotion. The more EU cities work together and learn from each other, the more we can all benefit from targeted, sustainable community action that brings together businesses, activists, charities, schools, mums, dads, midwives, chefs, children and older citizens - to promote healthy diets and physical activity and to ensure that good food fills the stomachs of people in need rather than our dustbins.

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The Nordic food journey
The days when Nordic food was viewed as nothing but heavy, meat-based stews are long gone. Today Nordic food is associated with simplicity, sustainability, and seasonality. How did this come to be, and how can this way of thinking be used to address the challenges of nutrition, climate, and urban development?

The UN General Assembly is underway in New York, and as part of a prominent line-up of speakers, I will discuss the global challenges of urban food systems at EATx UNGA. I believe that a Nordic approach is highly relevant to targeting these global issues.

It all started in 2004, with cooperation between creative Nordic chefs and innovators wishing to change the Nordic food culture, an initiative supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers, among others. The result has been a radical change to the Nordic food scene.

A decade later, we are witnessing a striking trickle-down effect in the way people look upon food in Nordic cities. A genuine and holistic new Nordic everyday diet is taking shape - a diet in which both nutrition and sustainability play important roles. I believe that this is an important democratisation of good and sustainable food in the Nordic countries.

This new Nordic everyday diet resonates with the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations (first established in 1980) - a common set of Nordic recommendations accompanied by Nordic nutritional monitoring. These are tools that help policymakers implement food policies such as nutritional guidelines and front-of-pack labelling, as well as to establish strong trust-based partnerships among governments, NGOs and the food industry.

As is the case in most of the world, the Nordic countries have not been able to completely stop the epidemic of overweight and malnutrition. However, compared to most other developed countries, we have managed to slow down the rise in overweight and obesity and are showing some important signs of improvements in diet. I'm convinced that the nutrition recommendations play an important part in this.

Consequently, this new Nordic Food Movement - although not so new any longer - together with the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations are important parts of the Nordic approach to the challenge of sustainable urban food systems.

Another important part of the democratization process are the approximately 5.5 million meals that are served daily from more than 55,000 public kitchens in the Nordic countries. In Sweden, since July 1st, 2011 it has been written into the Education Act that all school meals should be nutritious. In Copenhagen, 90% of the ingredients in all public meals are organic. Oslo and other Nordic cities also have ambitious goals with respect to organic public meals.

The Nordic Food Movement has turned out to be a driver for change as well as a policy tool. Through the energy and entrepreneurship of their citizens, cities can bring radical - and sustainable - change to our food systems. These examples from the Nordic Region highlight how cities can be engines for transforming food culture, and thus the food systems of whole regions.

But the Nordic Food Journey is far from over. We will continue to democratize good food in the Nordic countries by strengthening Nordic co-operation between agents of change.

We are now - in co-operation with EAT - establishing a Nordic Cities EAT Initiative. The Nordic cities have recently all started prioritizing food policy. We will help the cities learn from each other, discover new solutions, and continue the dialogue on the Nordic experience with a global audience. In the years to come, this will be carried out as part of the Nordic Council of Ministers' Prime Minister Initiative on Nordic solutions to global challenges.

Dagfinn Høybråten
Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers

Links:
Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2012: Integrating nutrition and physical activity

New Nordic Food

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the EAT Foundation, in conjunction with the high-level side event, "Urban Food Systems: The Nutrition Challenge," during the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York. The EATx at UNGA is a collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. #EATx #eatforum

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AFL-CIO To Planet Earth: Drop Dead
At a meeting with the deputy political director of the AFL-CIO during my campaign for Congress, she looked across her desk and told me that I could get major union support by coming out in favor of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

That was five years ago. Since then, the nation's biggest labor federation has continued to serve the fossil fuel industry. Call it union leadership for a dead planet.

Last week, the AFL-CIO put out a statement from its president, Richard Trumka, under the headline "Dakota Access Pipeline Provides High-Quality Jobs." The rhetoric was standard flackery for energy conglomerates, declaring "it is fundamentally unfair to hold union members' livelihoods and their families' financial security hostage to endless delay."

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is steadfast against the Dakota Access pipeline: "We will not rest until our lands, people, waters, and sacred sites are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline."

In sharp contrast to the AFL-CIO's top echelon, some unions really want to restrain climate change and are now vocally opposing the Dakota pipeline.

Communications Workers of America has expressed solidarity with members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe "as they fight to protect their community, their land and their water supply."

At National Nurses United, Co-President Jean Ross cites "an obligation to step up climate action to protect public health and the future for the generations to follow us."

Ross said: "We commend the leaders and members of the Standing Rock Sioux, the many First Nation allies who have joined them, and the environmentalists and other supporters who have participated in the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline."

NNU points out that "the proposed 1,172-mile pipeline would carry nearly a half million barrels of dirty crude oil every day across four states." Ross says that such projects "pose a continual threat to public health from the extraction process through the transport to the refinery."

As for the AFL-CIO's support for the pipeline, NNU's director of environmental health and social justice was blunt. "We're deeply disappointed in our labor federation siding with those that would endanger and harm the land, the water, the lives of the people along the pipeline path and the health of the planet itself in the name of profits," Fernando Losada said.

He added that the Dakota pipeline is part of "a drive to extract fossil fuel that is untenable for the future of the planet."

The nurses union is part of the AFL-CIO, but dominant forces within the federation are committed to corporate energy priorities. Losada said that "some elements in the AFL-CIO" have caused a stance that "is a narrow position in the alleged interests of their members for some short-term jobs."

Compare that narrow position to a recent statement from Communications Workers of America: "The labor movement is rooted in the simple and powerful idea of solidarity with all struggles for dignity, justice and respect. CWA will continue to fight against the interests of the 1% and corporate greed and firmly stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the environmental and cultural degradation of their community."

A venerable labor song has a question for the leaders of the AFL-CIO: Which side are you on?

When it comes to planetary survival, the answer from the top of the AFL-CIO hierarchy remains: We're on the wrong side.

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World Leaders Have An Historic Opportunity To Support Migrants And Refugees
Two years ago, I traveled to the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. I met a Syrian refugee family there who had recently fled Raqqa. Unable to find regular work, the family was depending on the labor of their 12-year-old daughter, who was working in the fields. The family and this young girl herself would have preferred her to be in school.

The Bekaa Valley is among the areas hardest hit by the refugee crisis. Two years ago, when I was there, some 770 informal tented settlements had sprung up and the valley was home to more than 410,000 refugees. These numbers have largely stayed the same.

Today, more people are forcibly displaced from their homes than at any time since the end of the World War II. A recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, estimated that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just a year earlier. Measured against the world's population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee. This tally is greater than the entire population of the United Kingdom.

In some cases, people are fleeing from poverty and lack of opportunity. In others, people are fleeing from conflict and lawlessness. Many millions need international support.

The Syria crisis has caused serious displacement -- 4.8 million Syrians have become refugees, and 6.5 million are displaced. This is the largest displacement crisis globally.

Many Syrians have fled to neighboring countries that are now hosting large numbers of these refugees. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees number roughly a quarter of the population. In Jordan, the number is estimated at about one in five people. Turkey hosts more than two million Syrians and Iraqis. The host countries and communities need international support too.

The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework within which to respond to these large movements of people. The U.N. Summit for Refugees and Migrants convening this week in New York provides a unique opportunity for world leaders to come up with a blueprint for a strong international response to their needs.

What could be done to prevent displacement crises in future?

First, the international community should place conflict prevention and mediation at the center of international peace and security efforts. Early warning and response systems are needed for when tensions emerge and to foster reconciliation.

Second, international support is needed to strengthen good governance and the rule of law and to address structural inequalities. Promoting inclusive economic growth and sustainable livelihoods is critical for building peaceful and inclusive societies. These are long-term investments that are also critical structural prevention efforts.

Third, development actors can assist governments to improve their capacity for data collection and analysis on the root causes of displacement caused by poverty and lack of opportunity, to help design sustainable responses.

The organization I head, the United Nations Development Program, will play its part. We provide support for host communities and help countries anticipate and prevent future crises. We promote inclusive and accountable institutions which can improve social cohesion, and drive inclusive development. We work to tackle inequalities and to improve access to justice and to basic services like education and health.

Going forward, the UNDP will work to ensure that the inclusion of migration and displacement issues are priorities during the implementation of the SDGs. The UNDP will also support at least 30 program countries over the next five years to analyze and address the drivers of migration and of forced displacement. And we will work with partners to build evidence and gather data around migration and displacement. More needs to be known about the development impact of displacement in countries of origin and in host countries and communities.

This week, world leaders have an historic opportunity to address this issue and come together in a spirit of shared responsibility for the world's refugees and migrants. Let's remember those refugee children sent out to work instead of being able to go to school, and resolve to see that their needs are met.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

Also on WorldPost:

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GLOBAL EXPERT: Miami Beach Naled Pesticide Spraying Ineffective Against Zika Virus Carrying Mosquitos

Miami Beach has been spraying the toxic chemical Naled frequently as the Zika virus outbreak covering South Beach has spread north to encompass two-thirds of the island city.

Global expert Dr. Michael Callahan says that it's not only an ineffective strategy to combat the aedes aegypti mosquito which carries the tropical disease he termed “dengue fever light,” but it may be counterproductive by wiping out predators who might eat carrier mosquitos.

In an extended video interview with Dr. Richard Perlmutter (below), Dr. Callahan, who is the co-founder of the Zika Foundation explained that our officials are implementing a mosquito control plan appropriate for West Nile disease, but isn't likely to tamp down Miami Beach's public health problems:

We can tell you what hasn't worked in the past with aerial spraying with this mosquito. There's been a lot of money wasted in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan and several Central American countries, trying to control aedes aegypti with aerial spraying. It does not work. It is an indoor resident. About 60-70 of our total community population is indoors and it is not flying around at night when the aerial spraying controls. What you see in Florida is the adaptive plan for West Nile mosquito... Aerial spraying with naled or many of the other insecticides have been proven systematically to be less effective. For aedes aegypti you need on the ground spray, houses and yards and absolutely control breeding sites by getting rid of standing water.

The Harvard-based Dr. Callahan has practiced on roughly over 2,000 Zika patients over the years around the world.

Until 2013, there was no history of pregnancy-related illness linked to Zika Virus, and it was considered more of a children's disease.

Dr. Callahan explained that in Brazil, children are taught the following ‘nursery rhyme' (there is no other way for me to describe this) which helps explain to that vulnerable population how the aedes aegypti mosquito:

Black and white, indoor bite, silent flight and you're safe at night.

The aedes aegypti mosquito is known for its black and white stripes. They like to find their way indoors, so regular use of repellant is a must.

The zika virus carrying mosquitos do not make significant noise, but the good news is that they generally do not bite during the night time either.

Additionally, Dr. Callahan explained that lemon eucalyptus repellant is a safe, natural product to use for protection against bites, for example Repel Eucalyptus which runs under $5 per bottle on Amazon.

The aedes aegypti mosquito prefers to bite on the back of the neck, though more than 65 percent of bites come below the knees as you can see below the video in a graphic by the Zika Foundation.

The doctor indicated that Zika vaccine is not only unlikely, but could carry even more significant medical risks than a regular transmission of the virus, no doctor could ethically rush one into production during an outbreak either.

Prevention of transmission is the most effective treatment today and for the foreseeable future.

“It is a highly visual public health intervention. It helps to promote a lot of trust that things are being done. But I am emphatic about this... for this mosquito and for this problem you need yard to yard control .

“That aerial spraying does a disservice by wiping out mosquito eating insects,” opined the world's foremost Zika virus expert, “in some parts of the world, they count for 20 percent of the predation of the aedes mosquito.”

The Miami Beach City Commission voted last week ― after two weeks of intense protests which made national and global news ― to urge higher government officials to end Naled spraying and implement an alternative to the chemical banned in the EU since 2012.

Interestingly, Miami's Wynwood neighborhood only had one single spraying with Naled, which also led to protests and then immediate cessation of the organophosphate neurotoxin aerial spraying.

Barring a last-minute surprise, Wynwood is expected to be removed from travel warnings today, after going 45 days without a new, local infection.

Now, it's up to Florida's public health officials to take a long, hard look at Dr. Callahan's suggestions, before their “cure” for mosquito-borne Zika virus becomes worse than the disease.

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New York City's Sustainable Dream
New York City is a collection of places and neighborhoods, tied together by a few touchstone elements of cultural values, and built on century-old infrastructure that is constantly being dug up, repaired, and remodeled. I am a New Yorker and have lived here for over fifty years. I grew up in Brooklyn, on East 59th street between Avenue T and Avenue O. I went to PS 236, Junior High School 78, and James Madison High School. After high school I spent a decade in small-town Indiana, Buffalo, New York, Morgantown, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. But the center of gravity for me has always been New York, and I have worked at Columbia University in the City of New York for 35 years. The city I grew up in may be long gone, but the city I moved back to has evolved into a place that I never want to leave.

From its start, New York has been a commercial place. The city that never sleeps has always been about commerce. At one time we manufactured products here: clothing, beer, bicycles, and even the Studebaker auto. Today we make ideas, movies, health care, software, communications strategy, and nightlife. We have over a million post-secondary students here, a number of great universities, several great hospitals, live theater, art museums and galleries, live music, sports teams, great public spaces, a real 24/7 mass transit system, and the most diverse population of any city in the world. About 40% of the people who live here were born in other countries. Including students, tourists, and illegals, most of the people you walk by on the street in New York were born outside America. Even those of us who grew up here, while a distinct minority of the city's population, typically don't have to go back too far to find our immigrant roots.

During most of the second half of the twentieth century, New York seemed like a city in decline. People were moving to the suburbs, and to Florida, California and Arizona. Industry was leaving, and in the 1970s the city came within a whisper of bankruptcy. Some people point to out-migration and still worry that the city is in decline. But in 2010 our population was 8,175,133 and in 2015 it was 8,555,405; that's not a city on the skids. Much of our population increase is due to births. Our international immigration more or less offsets our domestic migration to other parts of the United States. In an excellent report on New York City's population dynamics, Luke Junday of the University of Virginia's Demographics Research Group asks and answers the question: "How is New York City growing if it is constantly losing people?" According to Junday:

New York City... all but Staten Island - were among the eight counties with the biggest losses in net domestic migration last year...The conclusion suggested by domestic migration numbers is that New York is dying as its residents abandon ship...[However,] the city is as crowded and economically powerful as ever. Its population continues to climb despite an astronomical cost of living that suggests even more people would live there if they could... What gives? Outside of major urban centers, domestic migration numbers are generally a pretty good indicator of whether a county's population is growing or shrinking.

There are two parts to the answer [of New York City's growth]:

1. International Immigration
The first answer is simple and readily available. Big cities are gateways for international immigrants, who crowd into apartment blocks in search of economic opportunity before eventually moving elsewhere...

2. Natural Increase and Migration
This brings us to the second and, I would argue, more important answer: this cycle is part of the nature of cities in the 21st century. The additional population is being made up by something called "natural increase." Natural increase simply means that there are more births than deaths in a given location, thus increasing the population. Natural increase in New York and other cities is due to the age structure of those cities... New York is a young city compared to the nation as a whole...Young adults are important in demographics for two reasons. First is what they don't do: die. A population of 20-somethings will have far fewer deaths in any given year than a population of 60-somethings. Second is what they do: have babies.

New York has always been a place where people from other parts of the world grabbed hold of a small piece of the American Dream, but then moved to Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, or Los Angeles where the housing was cheaper and as long as you could buy and drive a car, the path to success looked easier. New York's role as a port of entry continues the tradition that peaked at Ellis Island, where my grandparents began their own American Dream.

But New York City continues to attract ambitious dreamers from all over the world. As Junday indicates, many of those dreamers are young and at the start of their working life. They come for economic opportunity and are assisted by family and friends who speak their language and arrived before they did--and this is not limited to the city itself. While the five boroughs are the heart of the city, it is important to also count the twenty million people in the New York metropolitan area. From Valley Stream to Hoboken, and from Yonkers to Jersey City, these areas are part of the fabric of a place called "the city" that grew out from Flatbush to Astoria, sharing a few core values.

Those values include a tolerance of diversity, even when the foreign seems strange and maybe a little dangerous. New Yorkers may not always like new migrants but they believe that the city was built to accommodate new arrivals. New Yorkers stand in a subway car or walk down Broadway and their senses are always alert because they understand they are in public space not under their own control. This is not your SUV on the freeway, your suburban home with a security system, lawn and garage; you are sharing space on the city's mass transit circulatory system and everyone who pays the subsidized fare gets to ride. You get to control who sits next to you in your personal vehicle, but you share a subway car with scores of strangers.

Another obvious New York City value is a work ethic and, for many, a desire for frequent interaction with others. While it's possible to remain anonymous in a crowd, it's still a crowd. You can't simply drive past the homeless camped under the interstate, and while some try, most New Yorkers do not look away from people in need. They carry baby carriages up a subway stair well, give up their seat for someone who needs to sit, and say something when they see something. New Yorkers give the surface appearance of being tough and hard, but for the most part, there is melting mush beneath the hard exterior.

A growing value, but certainly nowhere close to dominant, is sustainability and environmental protection. Our water and air are cleaner than they've been in many decades. Our water system and parks are all being renovated. Our electric supply system is slowly getting modernized and made more efficient. Our recycling rate is slowly increasing. Government and the private sector are investing billions of dollars to make the city more resilient in the face of sea level rise. We still may end up underwater, but we are not giving up this place without a fight.

While older people may be set in their sloppy wasteful ways, young people are changing the culture. Greenmarkets, gyms, and environmental advocacy are on the rise. Teenagers from all over the world see the city on the Web and want to come to college here. Many come to school and stay here. People from nations with less stable political regimes are buying apartments and stashing cash and valuables in case they need to quickly run from home. New York City is always in the global media and the images of this place are the inescapable backdrop of the emerging global culture.

And that culture does not require the luxury consumer goods that are now available in all of the world's major cities. Its core culture values a place that is safe to raise a family and create a social and home life free from violence, and capable of interaction and acceptance by other immigrants and people who grew up here. Also valued is the vivid place that you see on the media: the parades, fireworks, movies, TV shows, nightlife, restaurants, celebrities, theatre, music and art. And young people are adding environmental sustainability to those core beliefs. Their emerging demand for environmental sustainability is the beating heart of New York's sustainable dream.

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A Better Business Plan for a Healthy Ocean
We are used to thinking of the Ocean as a force of nature, but what about the Ocean as a major force in the global economy? After all, with a 'GDP' of US$2.5 trillion (about 5% of the global GDP) and assets modestly valued at over US$24 trillion, the Ocean is the world's 7th largest economy. Yet it has no seat at the G7, G20 or any other decision-making table, and there is no coherent strategy for preserving and nurturing this wealth.

The Ocean directly supports the livelihoods of over 3 billion people, puts vital food on the table for over 2.6 billion around the globe, and transports 90% of our internationally traded goods. Yet it has been chronically neglected - even in the sustainable development arena - and has suffered decades of declining health, largely as a result of human exploitation.

It's time for a concerted intervention to reverse this trend. It makes no sense for the powers that be to just sit by and let one of the world's financial powerhouses and a lynchpin of its entire economy quietly deteriorate without putting up a fight and reversing the trend.

Yet these impressive financial figures represent just a fraction of the Ocean's true worth to humanity and the functioning of our planet. Some contributions are impossible to price, like the fact that the Ocean provides the oxygen for every second breath we take, and absorbs 30% of our CO2 emissions, making it the largest global carbon sink. It has also absorbed 90% of the additional heat generated from these emissions as a result of which it is becoming warmer and more acidic at unprecedented rates. As we envisage a sustainable future we look increasingly out to sea for renewable energy production from offshore wind and tides, and to fishing and aquaculture to feed a growing population. Finally, the Ocean is also home to more than 80% of all life on Earth, much of which remains undiscovered but is already threatened by the impacts of climate change, pollution and overfishing.

A healthy Ocean is an absolute prerequisite both for maintaining the marine financial assets so vital to the global economy, and for allowing the Ocean to go on providing its life-giving services. To achieve this, a radical change is needed in the way we treat the Ocean. A 'business as usual' trajectory depicts a bleak outlook for the future. Unless urgent action is taken, accelerating deterioration of the marine environment puts us at serious risk of earth system-level collapse, resulting in immeasurable harm for people and the planet.

The Ocean, most of which lies outside state jurisdiction, is our common heritage and our common responsibility. These challenges must be tackled together and the benefits equitably shared. But global Ocean governance is patchy, fragmented and ranges from woefully ineffective to entirely non-existent, while marine resource extraction and use is unsustainable and in many cases illicit. We lack the international legislation, mechanisms and tools to solve the global ocean crisis. The Global Ocean Commission's 2014 Report not only points this out, but articulately elaborates on eight specific actions we can take - all scientifically backed and economically feasible - to restore the Ocean's health.

©Wolcott Henry

We should all recognize the value of the Ocean! We should demand and take action to restore its heath. We live at a time where unprecedented opportunities abound that can restore the ocean, but we have to seize them. Meeting these strong commitments will yield significant returns for global food security, livelihoods, climate security and biodiversity, and for business. From fishing and shipping, to tourism, retail and energy generation, ocean-related industries and businesses have everything to gain from a productive, flourishing ocean.

The ocean needs a 'Business Plan' such as the one set out by the Global Ocean Commission. This Plan incorporates viable solutions that directly and effectively reverse the cycle of decline and establish a way forward which enshrines good governance, sustainable development, and effective conservation for the common good.

Following last year's conference held in Chile, under the leadership of Minister Heraldo Muñoz, the third Our Ocean Conference has just taken place in Washington DC, once again bringing together visionary and bold actors and leaders - including many from business and industry - to forge partnerships and mobilize action. It was the second Our Ocean event hosted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and I want to personally thank him for his unwavering leadership on Ocean challenges during the past few years. The results speak for themselves: since their launch by Secretary Kerry in 2014, Our Ocean conferences have generated initiatives valued at over US$9.2 billion, and secured pledges to protect 9.9 million square kilometers of the Ocean. These commitments prove that many governments and corporations are ready to be ambitious and inventive in pursuing ocean solutions: we need to build on this momentum.

Our goal now is to accelerate and expand the process of building awareness and understanding of the importance of the Ocean to the business community, and the need for strong corporate engagement and leadership, and to develop and advance a Global Ocean Business Plan that promotes and stimulates ocean health.

A vibrant Ocean is one of the fundamental pillars keeping the global economy afloat. Thus taking action to protect it is one of the best investments we can make.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Secretary of State John Kerry's Our Oceanconference and Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference (September 15th, 16th) as part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here. The State Department does not endorse the content of this blog. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OurOcean #MakeASplash.

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Meatless Monday: Alex Hershaft, From Holocaust Survivor to FARM Hero
Before there was PETA, PCRM, Farm Sanctuary, Vegan Street and Meatless Monday, there was Farm Animal Rights Movement. Now celebrating its 40th year, FARM wears its years lightly. So does its founder, Alex Hershaft, 82.

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Hershaft was five when he and his family were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto, along with 450,000 other Warsaw Jews. He and his mother escaped and survived. The rest of his family did not. Hershaft, who serves on the Advisory Council of Jewish Veg, speaks about how he went from Holocaust survivor to animal rights pioneer next week in New York.

The short version is, 30 years after the war, Hershaft, a chemical engineer living in the States and struggling with survivor guilt was assigned to do a wastewater study of a slaughterhouse. The facility was piled with bones and bodies -- all part of the process, part of the job. In the same way, he realized, the bones and bodies of millions killed in concentration camps were all part of the job.

Look up the word slaughter --it means mass killing, in a cruel or violent way. What chilled Hershaft wasn't just the cruelty of the slaughterhouse but the callousness that keeps the system going -- and our tacit participation in it. "We subsidize terrible oppression of animals every time we shop at the supermarket," he says. "The terrible price my family paid deserves some kind of lesson. That lesson to me is the germ of oppression is within all of us and we must be forever watchful."

To do that, Hershaft created FARM and initiatives including the Animals Rights National Conference, all designed to create consciousness. Including his own. Hershaft had been vegetarian for years, but as FARM honed its message and expanded its reach, its Board of Directors approached him and kindly but firmly said, go vegan or away. Hershaft laughs. "It was social pressure -- I was forced to become vegan."

Despite all he has lived through, Hershaft laughs easily and often. His secret? He laughs again. "Let me tell you for free what I paid Dale Carnegie $500 dollars for -- work in very tight compartments. Make a path for the week, for each day, then don't think about the problem, get involved in the solution."

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A believer in grassroots activism, Hershaft prefers action to prayer, or perhaps action is prayer for him. On October 2, he'll observe a tradition he began in 1983, his annual fast on behalf of animals. This year, the date falls on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but Hershaft chose the date because it's Gandhi's birthday. Thousands of people have joined the fast each year. For Hershaft, though, the fast remains "a personal thing." You don't have to miss a meal to usher in the New Year meaningfully. Do it "by dropping animals from the menu."

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FARM celebrates its 40th anniversary with a celeb-studded party next month. Hershaft will be there -- he loves to dance. But he's also thinking about the future of FARM, now searching for a new executive director. Hershaft officially stepped back from FARM leadership years ago, but he'll always be the spirit of the nonprofit and a hero of the movement. You don't earn a spot on VegNews' vegan Mount Rushmore for nothing.

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Even after all these years, Hershaft continues to find purpose and passion in what he does. "Especially the conference," he says. "I really love doing it. Seeing what it does for people, the transformations, the life-changing experiences, is very satisfying."

Apple and Date Coffee Cake

The beloved Rosh Hashanah tradition of starting the new year sweet with apples and honey gets a vegan update. We keep the apples, but swap out honey for dates. Moist, rich, super-quick to make and made with spelt flour, for some whole grain goodness. Lovely with coffee or tea, served plain or dusted with powdered sugar.

1 cup raw almonds
1-1/2 cups spelt flour
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon clove
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 cup plain, unsweetened soy milk or almond milk
1/2 cup 1 tablespoon brandy (optional)
1 baking apple, such as Granny Smith or Pink Lady, peeled, cored and chopped fine
1/4 cup Medjool dates (about 4), pitted and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil an 8" layer cake pan.

In a large bowl, sift together spelt and unbleached flour, evaporated cane sugar, baking powder, spices and lemon zest.

Using a blender or food processor, chop almonds fine and add to flour mixture, stirring to combine.

In a small bowl, combine the chopped apple and the fresh lemon juice.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Pour in soy or almond milk and optional brandy Stir lightly, just until the mixture forms a thick batter.

Add the chopped apple, lemon juice and the chopped dates, stir until just combined. Spoon batter into the prepared layer cake pan.

Bake for 45 minutes or until cake smells fragrant and coffee cake springs back when gently poked.

Tickets still available for Alex Hershaft's September 27 talk at Hebrew Union College.
Next month in Meatless Monday: FARM looks at 40.
More at soulfulvegan.com

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I never thought I would degraded as quickly by Shoot At Mine - Sam Strong

Please feel free follow me on INSTAGRAM and DM to say HI

Sheep in the French Alps by Herbert Schröer

Read more about this region in our blogpost Chamonix Summer In The French Alps!

Dolomites 15/30 by Adrian Petrisor

One of my greatest sunsets in Dolomites, Italy.

The Kingdom of Asgard by Artur Stanisz

Berlin 1.945 by ana iglesias

Live your life by Simon Roppel

Autumn Fire by Lisa Holloway

***Summer Photoshop Secrets Flash Sale - Only $29.99 for my Field of Fire Photoshop secrets video tutorials - regularly $99*** Purchase Here---> SHOP Sale ends Monday, September 19th at midnight!

on a regular day in the forest... by Rigo Meens

Today we went spotting deer again and we saw this big fellow coming out of the woods....

1. Check your email in “batches” for less stress and more happiness.

2. Neutralize your “fear of missing out” by using VIP email notifications.

3. Boost your focus by closing your email when you're doing other tasks.

4. Know that multi-tasking with email reduces your IQ and your creativity.

Egg by Antonett Ewan

Cam and her reflection by David A

Processed with VSCO with f1 preset

Falling Leaves by Jessica Drossin

Please follow me here: Facebook I Google + I Twitter I Instagram Edited with JD Beautiful World Foundations and Fine Art & Vivid Tint actions (Foreign Film & Muse) and Leaf Overlays available here.

Something worth getting up for

bunny by Jonathan Carrizales

Processed with VSCO with e5 preset

Ludmilla Mary is on her way to meet the future. by Richard Rhyme

"How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else." - R. Buckminster Fuller | with 2Fik at inFutureTO at Ontario Place

Keep Solar System Tidy message heeded despite plan for three probe dumps

Summer Photoshop Secrets Flash Sale - Only $29.99 for my Field of Fire Photoshop secrets video tutorials - regularly $99 Purchase Here---> SHOP Sale ends Monday, September 19th at midnight!