The destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has accelerated for the first time in four years, Brazilian officials say. Satellite images show 11,968 sq km of land was cleared in the year to July, nearly 4% higher than the year before. The government said the figure was unsatisfactory but could have been a lot worse if it had not taken action against illegal logging. High commodity prices had allegedly tempted farmers to clear more land. In recent years the Brazilian government has been able to celebrate three successive falls in deforestation. But the latest estimate from the National Institute for Space Research, known as INPE, shows that this trend has come to a halt.
The destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has accelerated for the first time in four years, Brazilian officials say.
Satellite images show 11,968 sq km of land was cleared in the year to July, nearly 4% higher than the year before.
The government said the figure was unsatisfactory but could have been a lot worse if it had not taken action against illegal logging.
High commodity prices had allegedly tempted farmers to clear more land.
In recent years the Brazilian government has been able to celebrate three successive falls in deforestation.
But the latest estimate from the National Institute for Space Research, known as INPE, shows that this trend has come to a halt.
Wales celebrated their first southern hemisphere scalp in 12 games as the Grand Slam winners beat Australia in a thriller at the Millennium Stadium. World player of the year Shane Williams capped a fine week to finish a free-flowing Wales move in the third minute. A breakaway Mark Chisholm try helped to put Australia ahead but a fine Lee Byrne score and 11 points from Stephen Jones saw Wales open a 21-13 lead. Digby Ioane scored but Wales clinched the win Warren Gatland had demanded. Wales survived a brutal Australian fightback in the final minutes to claim their third success over a Tri-Nations opposition since rugby turned professional in 1995. The hosts, facing an Australian side seeking a clean sweep of victories on their autumn tour, rose to the occasion to produce the scintillating rugby that earned them plaudits during their second Six Nations clean-sweep in four seasons.
Wales celebrated their first southern hemisphere scalp in 12 games as the Grand Slam winners beat Australia in a thriller at the Millennium Stadium.
World player of the year Shane Williams capped a fine week to finish a free-flowing Wales move in the third minute.
A breakaway Mark Chisholm try helped to put Australia ahead but a fine Lee Byrne score and 11 points from Stephen Jones saw Wales open a 21-13 lead.
Digby Ioane scored but Wales clinched the win Warren Gatland had demanded.
Wales survived a brutal Australian fightback in the final minutes to claim their third success over a Tri-Nations opposition since rugby turned professional in 1995.
The hosts, facing an Australian side seeking a clean sweep of victories on their autumn tour, rose to the occasion to produce the scintillating rugby that earned them plaudits during their second Six Nations clean-sweep in four seasons.
So, it looks like some intrepid engineers and investors got together way back in 1978 and figured out a great way to solve the energy crisis. Powering cars with hydrogen, the hydrogen being produced, from water, with solar power. Jack Nicholson had one of these cars, and was a spokesperson for it, demonstrating it in this video clip (over the fold).
So, it looks like some intrepid engineers and investors got together way back in 1978 and figured out a great way to solve the energy crisis.
Powering cars with hydrogen, the hydrogen being produced, from water, with solar power.
Jack Nicholson had one of these cars, and was a spokesperson for it, demonstrating it in this video clip (over the fold).
The world's most super-designed data center - fit for a James Bond villain This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb. It looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain. And it is real. It is a newly opened high-security data center run by one of Sweden's largest ISPs, located in an old nuclear bunker deep below the bedrock of Stockholm city, sealed off from the world by entrance doors 40 cm thick (almost 16 inches). (For the curious there is plenty of more information further down.)
This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb. It looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain.
And it is real. It is a newly opened high-security data center run by one of Sweden's largest ISPs, located in an old nuclear bunker deep below the bedrock of Stockholm city, sealed off from the world by entrance doors 40 cm thick (almost 16 inches).
(For the curious there is plenty of more information further down.)
We haven't met in 10 years, but in the heady days of Love Records changing the face of Finnish music mid-Seventies, we were fairly close. A lovely gentle guy in deep sensitive waters.
He'll live on in the music he left behind.
You can't be me, I'm taken
Climate-heating greenhouse gases continue to increase in the atmosphere, and last year, global concentrations of carbon dioxide again reached the highest levels ever recorded, according to an annual report released Tuesday by the World Meteorological Organization. Greenhouse gases trap the Sun's radiation within the Earth's atmosphere causing it to warm. Human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and agriculture, are major emitters of the gases, which scientists recognize as drivers of global warming and climate change. The WMO Global Atmosphere Watch coordinates the measurement of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through a network of observatories located in more than 65 countries. The measurements are published annually in the WMO's "Greenhouse Gas Bulletin."
Greenhouse gases trap the Sun's radiation within the Earth's atmosphere causing it to warm. Human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and agriculture, are major emitters of the gases, which scientists recognize as drivers of global warming and climate change.
The WMO Global Atmosphere Watch coordinates the measurement of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through a network of observatories located in more than 65 countries. The measurements are published annually in the WMO's "Greenhouse Gas Bulletin."
CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE HIMALAYAS....Joe Romm passes along the news today that Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than anyone has previously predicted. You can add this to Romm's list of other climate change impacts that are happening faster than most climate models predict, including the canonical IPCC models: "The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models" [PDF] -- and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. The retreat has accelerated in the past two years. The ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule." That was Penn State climatologist Richard Alley in March 2006. In 2001, the IPCC thought that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already are.
CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE HIMALAYAS....Joe Romm passes along the news today that Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than anyone has previously predicted. You can add this to Romm's list of other climate change impacts that are happening faster than most climate models predict, including the canonical IPCC models:
"The recent [Arctic] sea-ice retreat is larger than in any of the (19) IPCC [climate] models" [PDF] -- and that was a Norwegian expert in 2005. The retreat has accelerated in the past two years.
The ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule." That was Penn State climatologist Richard Alley in March 2006. In 2001, the IPCC thought that neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already are.
The Himalayas supply something like a billion people with water. If the glaciers melt, the water becomes much more seasonal. The countries affected are nowhere near ready to adapt.
... Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face.Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: they are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.Since 1994, Ms. Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.For the last two years, Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar have co-sponsored an International Violence Against Women Act, which would adopt a range of measures to spotlight such brutality and nudge foreign governments to pay heed to it. Let's hope that with Mr. Biden's new influence the bill will pass in the next Congress.That might help end the silence and culture of impunity surrounding this kind of terrorism. The most haunting part of my visit with Ms. Azar, aside from seeing her face, was a remark by her 12-year-old son, Ahsan Shah, who lovingly leads her around everywhere. He told me that in one house where they stayed for a time after the attack, a man upstairs used to beat his wife every day and taunt her, saying: "You see the woman downstairs who was burned by her husband? I'll burn you just the same way."
... Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face.
Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: they are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.
Since 1994, Ms. Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.
For the last two years, Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar have co-sponsored an International Violence Against Women Act, which would adopt a range of measures to spotlight such brutality and nudge foreign governments to pay heed to it. Let's hope that with Mr. Biden's new influence the bill will pass in the next Congress.
That might help end the silence and culture of impunity surrounding this kind of terrorism.
The most haunting part of my visit with Ms. Azar, aside from seeing her face, was a remark by her 12-year-old son, Ahsan Shah, who lovingly leads her around everywhere. He told me that in one house where they stayed for a time after the attack, a man upstairs used to beat his wife every day and taunt her, saying: "You see the woman downstairs who was burned by her husband? I'll burn you just the same way."
Do they think if they don't call it terrorism it won't be taken seriously?
Poor women, I have trouble coming up with a suitably harsh punishment for the people that deface them like that for essentially no good reason. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
The Qur'an already has, and apparently it is in effect in Pakistan (where the woman featured in the article is from):
Qisas (Arabic: قصاص) is an Islamic term meaning retaliation, similar to the biblical principle of an eye for an eye. In the case of murder, it means the right of the heirs of a murder victim to demand execution of the murderer. O you who believe, equivalence is the law decreed for you when dealing with murder - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. If one is pardoned by the victim's kin, an appreciative response is in order, and an equitable compensation shall be paid. This is an alleviation from your Lord and mercy. Anyone who transgresses beyond this incurs a painful retribution.[1][2] However, the Quran also prescribes that one should seek compensation (Diyya) and not demand retribution.[3] As execution for murder was conceived as the retaliation of the victim's heirs, traditionally the state could only carry out the execution with their permission, and they were free to forgive the murderer, either as an act of charity or in return for compensation. Qisas is enforced today in countries which follow the Sharia, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran[4] and Pakistan[5]. Qisas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Qisas (Arabic: قصاص) is an Islamic term meaning retaliation, similar to the biblical principle of an eye for an eye. In the case of murder, it means the right of the heirs of a murder victim to demand execution of the murderer.
However, the Quran also prescribes that one should seek compensation (Diyya) and not demand retribution.[3]
As execution for murder was conceived as the retaliation of the victim's heirs, traditionally the state could only carry out the execution with their permission, and they were free to forgive the murderer, either as an act of charity or in return for compensation.
Qisas is enforced today in countries which follow the Sharia, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran[4] and Pakistan[5].
Qisas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Iranians seem to be able to:
Iranian newspapers say a court has sentenced a man who blinded a woman with acid also to be blinded with acid under the country's Islamic law. Thursday's reports in several newspapers, including the Kargozaran, say 27-year-old Majid confessed to attacking Ameneh Bahrami in 2004 to dissuade anyone from marrying the woman he loved.
I guess I just don't have the stomach for criminal justice. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.
The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.
Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.
The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.
As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.
The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head. Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing. "I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."
The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.
Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill.
But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing.
"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before."
SAPPORO, Japan -- Criminology is being stood on its head in fast-graying Japan. Here on the cold northern island of Hokkaido, history was made in 2006 when total arrests of elderly people exceeded arrests of teenagers. The elderly accounted for 880 arrests, mostly for shoplifting, while teens were nabbed 642 times. Since then, elder crime has surged. For every two teenagers arrested on this island, police collared three people 65 and older. The trend echoes across Japan, where crimes committed by the elderly are increasing at a far faster pace than the elderly population itself. While the 65-and-older population has doubled in the past two decades, crime among the elderly has increased fivefold, according to government statistics released this month. Japan's overall crime rate, always low by world standards, has fallen for the past five years. "We never dreamed we would be focusing on these old people," said Hirokazu Shibata, a Hokkaido police official who leads a crime prevention task force. "Theft used to be a crime of the young, but now it is overwhelmingly a crime of the old."
SAPPORO, Japan -- Criminology is being stood on its head in fast-graying Japan.
Here on the cold northern island of Hokkaido, history was made in 2006 when total arrests of elderly people exceeded arrests of teenagers. The elderly accounted for 880 arrests, mostly for shoplifting, while teens were nabbed 642 times. Since then, elder crime has surged. For every two teenagers arrested on this island, police collared three people 65 and older.
The trend echoes across Japan, where crimes committed by the elderly are increasing at a far faster pace than the elderly population itself.
While the 65-and-older population has doubled in the past two decades, crime among the elderly has increased fivefold, according to government statistics released this month. Japan's overall crime rate, always low by world standards, has fallen for the past five years.
"We never dreamed we would be focusing on these old people," said Hirokazu Shibata, a Hokkaido police official who leads a crime prevention task force. "Theft used to be a crime of the young, but now it is overwhelmingly a crime of the old."
The story of the last 200 years can be told many ways, but one way we can tell it is as the triumph of the extractive industries -- and their mindset and their methods -- over all other human activities. The masters of mining and metallurgy, and of the colonialist exploitation that corresponds to extraction, have the following fundamental premise: a reductionist approach that isolates the "valuable" in any "resource base", separates it from the "dross", and discards -- externalizes -- the "dross" while selling the "high value" extracted product for the best price possible. ... We now practice farming as an extractive industry. "Farming," furthermore, is supported by other extractive industries: mining topsoil and fossil water, growing only a handful of predetermined "high value" crops and discarding/exterminating all other cultivars, and seeking "best price" in markets regardless of distance and appropriateness. If it makes more money to grow palm trees for biofuel to ship to wealthy customers overseas, then by all means destroy peasant smallholdings that produced food for local people, or forest that maintained water circulation and climate stability, in order to establish massive monocrop palm oil plantations. The mindset and praxis of mining has been superimposed on all other activities: fishing is now practiced as stripmining by factory trawlers -- gargantuan, destructive bottom draggers. The "bycatch" phenomenon, decimating hundreds of species as "collateral damage" in the hunt for select high-value species, is directly analogous to the proliferation of slag piles and acid pools around mining operations. Dairy farming is now practiced like stripmining, pumping external inputs (hormones and other drugs) into heifers to force maximum production and extraction of the "high value" product (milk), and discarding the "dross" (a cow burnt out as a milk producer by the age of 3 and sold for cheap meat). This extractive praxis inherently destroys biotic systems -- whether it be the body of a cow, or an entire ecosystem -- because no biotic system can survive being stripped for specific "high value" parts. Ecosystems, like animals, function as a whole. The rates of return demanded by finance capitalism are inherently incompatible with the rate of solar return expressed by natural growth patterns in biotic systems. We are biological -- biotic -- creatures, and all our food is the product of biotic systems. The extractive mindset that capitalism requires to provide its fantastical rates of return is incompatible with biotic reality. Capitalism and food have been on a collision course from the beginning.
...
We now practice farming as an extractive industry. "Farming," furthermore, is supported by other extractive industries: mining topsoil and fossil water, growing only a handful of predetermined "high value" crops and discarding/exterminating all other cultivars, and seeking "best price" in markets regardless of distance and appropriateness.
If it makes more money to grow palm trees for biofuel to ship to wealthy customers overseas, then by all means destroy peasant smallholdings that produced food for local people, or forest that maintained water circulation and climate stability, in order to establish massive monocrop palm oil plantations.
The mindset and praxis of mining has been superimposed on all other activities: fishing is now practiced as stripmining by factory trawlers -- gargantuan, destructive bottom draggers. The "bycatch" phenomenon, decimating hundreds of species as "collateral damage" in the hunt for select high-value species, is directly analogous to the proliferation of slag piles and acid pools around mining operations. Dairy farming is now practiced like stripmining, pumping external inputs (hormones and other drugs) into heifers to force maximum production and extraction of the "high value" product (milk), and discarding the "dross" (a cow burnt out as a milk producer by the age of 3 and sold for cheap meat).
This extractive praxis inherently destroys biotic systems -- whether it be the body of a cow, or an entire ecosystem -- because no biotic system can survive being stripped for specific "high value" parts. Ecosystems, like animals, function as a whole. The rates of return demanded by finance capitalism are inherently incompatible with the rate of solar return expressed by natural growth patterns in biotic systems.
We are biological -- biotic -- creatures, and all our food is the product of biotic systems. The extractive mindset that capitalism requires to provide its fantastical rates of return is incompatible with biotic reality. Capitalism and food have been on a collision course from the beginning.
my bold... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
