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Sci-Tech

Top Ten Emerging Technologies Set To Change World

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Dalian, People’s Republic of China, June 2024 – The World Economic Forum announces today the publication of its annual Top 10 Emerging Technologies Report featuring technologies with the greatest potential to make a positive impact in the world in the next three to five years.

“Organizations make better choices when they understand the factors shaping the future. The report identifies technologies poised to significantly influence societies and economies,” said Jeremy Jurgens, Managing Director, World Economic Forum and Head of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “It also spotlights technologies with immense potential for revolutionizing connectivity, addressing the urgent challenges of climate change and driving innovation across various fields.”

“Drawing on the expertise of Frontiers’ Chief Field Editors worldwide brings our shared commitment to transformative science into clear focus, bringing insight and clarity to breakthrough technology that has the ability to change societies, economies, and lives for the better,” said Frederick Fenter, Chief Executive Editor, Frontiers. “This is open science in action and we are delighted to partner with the World Economic Forum in bringing these technologies to the attention of business, science and political leaders across the globe.”

The Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2024 are:

  1. AI for scientific discovery: While artificial intelligence (AI) has been used in research for many years, advances in deep learning, generative AI and foundation models are revolutionizing the scientific discovery process. AI will enable researchers to make unprecedented connections and advancements in understanding diseases, proposing new materials, and enhancing knowledge of the human body and mind​​.
     
  2. Privacy-enhancing technologies: Protecting personal privacy while providing new opportunities for global data sharing and collaboration, “synthetic data” is set to transform how information is handled with powerful applications in health-related research.
     
  3. Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces: These innovative surfaces turn ordinary walls and surfaces into intelligent components for wireless communication while enhancing energy efficiency in wireless networks. They hold promise for numerous applications, from smart factories to vehicular networks​​.
     
  4. High-altitude platform stations: Using aircraft, blimps and balloons, these systems can extend mobile network access to remote regions, helping bridge the digital divide for over 2.6 billion people worldwide​​. 
     
  5. Integrated sensing and communication: The advent of 6G networks facilitates simultaneous data collection (sensing) and transmission (communication). This enables environmental monitoring systems that help in smart agriculture, environmental conservation and urban planning. Integrated sensing and communication devices also promise to reduce energy and silicon consumption.
     
  6. Immersive technology for the built world: Combining computing power with virtual and augmented reality, these technologies promise rapid improvements in infrastructure and daily systems​. This technology allows designers and construction professionals to check for correspondence between physical and digital models, ensuring accuracy and safety and advancing sustainability.
     
  7. Elastocalorics: As global temperatures rise, the need for cooling solutions is set to soar. Offering higher efficiency and lower energy use, elastocalorics release and absorb heat under mechanical stress, presenting a sustainable alternative to current technologies.
     
  8. Carbon-capturing microbes: Engineered organisms convert emissions into valuable products like biofuels, providing a promising approach to mitigating climate change.
     
  9. Alternative livestock feeds: protein feeds for livestock sourced from single-cell proteins, algae and food waste could offer a sustainable solution for the agricultural industry.
     
  10. Genomics for transplants: The successful implantation of genetically engineered organs into a human marks a significant advancement in healthcare, offering hope to millions awaiting transplants.

About the Top 10 Emerging Technologies Report
The Top 10 Emerging Technologies Report, now in its 12th edition, serves as a vital source of strategic intelligence for professionals. Drawing on insights from scientists, researchers and futurists, the report identifies 10 technologies poised to significantly influence societies and economies.
In addition to promising major benefits to societies and economies, these emerging technologies must also be disruptive, attractive to investors and researchers, and expected to achieve considerable scale within five years.

This year’s edition introduced an innovative trend analysis methodology, incorporating academic literature, funding trends and patent filings, to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the selected technologies. The technologies featured in the report, produced in collaboration with Frontiers, were identified through a rigorous selection process involving over 300 world-leading academics and experts from the Forum’s Global Future Councils, the University and Research Network, the Frontiers network comprising over 2,000 chief editors worldwide from top institutions, and Mariette di Christina and Bernard Meyerson, Co-Chairs of the Emerging Technologies Steering Group.

Earth

Canada Banks Fueling Canada Climate Crisis

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Did you know that Canada’s five biggest banks are among the 20 largest fossil fuel financiers in the world?

Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, they have invested over $900 billion into the fossil fuel industry. This means that your hard-earned dollars are being invested in projects that make it impossible to meet Canada’s climate targets. While not well known, the financial sector is the missing piece in ensuring a climate-safe future.

Last week, the CEOs of Canada’s top 5 banks were in Ottawa testifying about their role in the climate crisis. Environmental Defence was on the front line of this critical moment. We were invited to testify in this important study and use our expertise to advise policy solutions to align our financial system with climate action.

Won’t you help us keep the heat on the banks to take responsibility for their role in the climate crisis?

Canada can only keep a safer climate if finance aligns with climate action, and new rules from the government would help make that happen. And, we are creating public awareness of the issue and mobilizing Canadians to speak up by writing letters and attending rallies- increasing the pressure on the federal government to take action.

At a time when climate-fueled disasters (such as wildfires, droughts and floods) are rising, it’s ludicrous that Canadian banks are allowed to fund oil and gas industries at a rate of over $100 billion per year. We will be watching future proceedings closely. And, we will continue to push the federal government to ensure that Canadian banks are helping, not hindering our climate goals. For The Silo, Alex Walker. Program Manager, Climate Finance for Environmental Defence.

Earth

Ocean Warming and Sea Level Rise Double at Alarming Rates- UNESCO

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With contributions from more than 100 scientists from nearly 30 countries, UNESCO’s State of the Ocean Report 2024, published with the support of Iceland, reveals alarming new data on threats facing the ocean. This comprehensive assessment provides an evidence-based review of challenges including ocean warming, rising sea levels, pollution, acidification, de-oxygenation, blue carbon and biodiversity loss. This UNESCO report shows that climate disruption is having an increasingly strong impact on the state of the ocean. Temperature, acidification, sea level: all the alarm bells are ringing.

In addition to implementing the Paris Climate Agreement, we call on our Member States to invest in the restoration of marine forests and to better regulate marine protected areas which are important reservoirs of biodiversity. Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General The rate of ocean warming has doubled in 20 years. While atmospheric temperatures tend to fluctuate, the ocean is steadily and constantly heating up. The State of the Ocean Report indicates that the ocean is now warming at twice the rate it was twenty years ago, with 2023 seeing one of the highest increases since the 1950s. While the Paris Agreements pledged to keep global warming below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, ocean temperatures have already increased by an average of 1.45°C, with clear hotspots above 2°C in the Mediterranean, Tropical Atlantic Ocean and Southern Oceans.

One dramatic consequence of this warming is an increase in sea levels across the globe. The ocean absorbs 90% of the excess heat released into the atmosphere, and as water heats up it expands. Warming ocean temperatures now account for 40% of the global rise in sea levels, and the rate of rising has doubled over the past 30 years totaling 9cm. Coastal species are suffocating from declining oxygen levels. Since the 1960s, the ocean has lost 2% of its oxygen due to warming temperatures and pollutants, including wastewater and agricultural run-off. Coastal areas are especially impacted, with species finding themselves on the frontline of a battle to breath: roughly 500 “dead zones” identified where almost no marine life remains due to a dwindling oxygen-content.

Rising acidity is also a major cause for concern: with 25-30% of fossil fuel emissions absorbed by the ocean, this overabundance of CO2 is reshaping the very chemical composition of the ocean. Since pre-industrial times, ocean acidity has increased by 30%, and will reach 170% by 2100. UNESCO’s findings reveal that once again coastal species are the hardest hit: while the high seas are steadily becoming more acidic, coastal waters are seeing dramatic fluctuations from high- to low-acidity, which young generations of animals and plants too fragile to survive, causing mass die-offs.

Blue Carbon and MPAs: Beacons of hope. Marine forests including mangroves, seagrass plains, tidal marshes are able to absorb up to 5 times more carbon than forests on land. As well as being vital harbours for biodiversity, they represent one of the best ramparts against global warming. However, UNESCO reveals that nearly 60% of countries still do not include marine forest restoration and conservation in their Nationally Determined Contribution plans.

Marine Protected Areas[1] are known to protect biodiversity, harboring 72% of the 1500 endangered marine species on the IUCN Red List. UNESCO’s new data evidences that the higher the level of regulation in an MPA, the more it is effective at protecting local ecosystems.

UNESCO is leading the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, from 2021 to 2030. Since the start of the Decade, more than 500 projects have been launched in all regions of the world and more than a billion dollars has been mobilized to improve knowledge and protection of the ocean.The Organization is supporting dozens of scientific cooperation programs in all regions of the world, combining data sharing, high-definition mapping of the seabed, prevention of natural disasters and the search for innovative solutions to protect ecosystems. Through its more than 230 marine biosphere reserves and more than 50 marine sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, UNESCO is also the guardian of unique ocean sites which are home to critical biodiversity.

[1] A marine protected area is a defined region designated and managed for the long-term conservation of marine resources, ecosystems services, or cultural heritage.
Finance

World Economic Forum- Why Experts Expect Global Growth

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82% of chief economists expect the global economy to remain stable or strengthen this year – almost twice as many as in late 2023
Over two-thirds predict a sustained rebound of global growth, driven by technological transformation, artificial intelligence and the green transition.
There is near-unanimity that geopolitics and domestic politics will drive economic volatility this year. Read the May 2024 Chief Economist Outlook here

Geneva, Switzerland,May 2024 – The latest Chief Economists Outlook released today presents a growing sense of cautious optimism about the global economy in 2024. More than eight in ten chief economists expect the global economy to either strengthen or remain stable this year – nearly double the proportion in the previous report. The share of those predicting a downturn in global conditions declined from 56% in January to 17%.
 
But geopolitical and domestic political tensions cloud the horizon. Some 97% of respondents anticipate that geopolitics will contribute to global economic volatility this year. A further 83% said domestic politics will be a source of volatility in 2024, a year when nearly half the world’s population is voting.
 
“The latest Chief Economists Outlook points to welcome but tentative signs of improvement in the global economic climate,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “This underscores the increasingly complex landscape that leaders are navigating. There is an urgent need for policy-making that not only looks to revive the engines of the global economy but also seeks to put in place the foundations of more inclusive, sustainable and resilient growth.”
 
Regional variations
 
Growth expectations have improved, though unevenly, across the globe. The survey reveals a significant boost in the outlook for the United States, where nearly all chief economists (97%) now expect moderate to strong growth this year, up from 59% in January.
 
Asian economies also appear robust, with all respondents projecting at least moderate growth in the South Asia and East Asia and Pacific regions. Expectations for China are slightly less optimistic, with three-quarters expecting moderate growth and only 4% predicting strong growth this year.
 
By contrast, the outlook for Europe remains gloomy, with nearly 70% of economists predicting weak growth for the remainder of 2024. Other regions are expected to experience broadly moderate growth, with a slight improvement since the previous survey.



A challenging landscape for decision-makers
 
The latest survey highlights the escalating challenges confronting businesses and policy-makers. Tensions between political and economic dynamics will be a growing challenge for decision-makers this year, according to 86% of respondents, while 79% expect heightened complexity to weigh on decision-making.
 
Among the factors expected to affect corporate decision-making are the overall health of the global economy (cited by 100%), monetary policy (86%), financial markets (86%), labour market conditions (79%), geopolitics (86%) and domestic politics (71%). Notably, 73% of economists believe that companies’ growth objectives will drive decision-making, almost double the proportion that cited the role of companies’ environmental and social goals (37%).
 
Long-term prospects and priorities
 
Most chief economists are upbeat about the prospects for a sustained rebound in global growth, with nearly 70% expecting a return to 4% growth in the next five years (42% within three years). In high-income countries, they expect growth to be driven by technological transformation, artificial intelligence, and the green and energy transition. However, opinions are divided on the impact of these factors in low-income economies. There is greater consensus on the factors that will be a drag on growth, with geopolitics, domestic politics, debt levels, climate change and social polarization expected to dampen growth in both high- and low-income economies.



In terms of the policy levers most likely to foster growth in the next five years, the most important across the board are innovation, infrastructure development, monetary policy, and education and skills. Low-income economies are seen as having more to gain from interventions relating to institutions, social services and access to finance compared to high-income economies. There is a notable lack of consensus on the impact for growth of environmental and industrial policies.
 
About the Chief Economists Outlook Report
The Chief Economists Outlook builds on the latest policy development research as well as consultations and surveys with leading chief economists from both the public and private sectors, organized by the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society. It aims to summarize the emerging contours of the current economic environment and identify priorities for further action by policy-makers and business leaders in response to the compounding shocks to the global economy. The survey featured in this briefing was conducted in April 2024.
 
The Chief Economists Outlook supports the World Economic Forum’s Future of Growth Initiative, a two-year campaign aimed at inspiring discussion and action on charting new pathways for economic growth and supporting policy-makers in balancing growth, innovation, inclusion, sustainability and resilience goals. Learn more about the Future of Growth Initiative here.
The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. (www.weforum.org).
Earth

Quickening Ecological Restoration On St. Kitts

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May, 2024. UNESCO. On International Day for Biological Diversity, we highlight the remarkable efforts underway to accelerate ecological restoration at St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve on the island of St. Kitts. Home to thousands of species, this UNESCO-designated site spans vast marine areas, forested ridges, agricultural hills, cloud forests, mangroves, and coral reefs. Despite its rich biodiversity, 32% of the land is degraded, necessitating urgent restoration efforts. St. Mary’s is the first site to benefit from the expertise of volunteer scientists from the UNESCO Earth Network project, aimed at collecting key data, implementing restoration plans, and identifying sustainable livelihood opportunities.

St Mary’s Biosphere Reserve’s main challenges

Like many Caribbean islands, the socio-economic history of St Kitts and Nevis was marked by a heavy dependence on the lucrative sugar trade. Thanks to governmental efforts to diversify the economy since 1970s, the federation turned to tourism development, which brought unprecedented opportunities to improve the livelihood of locals. However, when the tourism industry came to a near standstill between 2020 and 2021, St Kitts and Nevis saw a 14.5% drop in its GDP, followed by another 4.3% contraction in 2021.

In addition, as a Small Developing State (SIDS), it faces a number of natural challenges accentuated in the last decade by climate change, with more frequent and violent natural disasters, including hurricanes and seismic events. The effects of climate change highlight the need to protect tropical forests and promote resilient and biodiversity-friendly agriculture.

What does agriculture have to do with biodiversity conservation?

UNESCO/Joan de la Malla

One of the primary goals of St Mary’s Biosphere Reserve is to conserve biodiversity, particularly one of the most emblematic species of the area, the critically endangered leatherback turtle. It may not seem obvious, but this goal is closely related with sustainable agricultural practices.

As explained by Dr Kimberly Steward (Ross University), leachate and chemicals used in farming end up on the beach and affect nesting zones as well as the algae, food and refuge for the leatherback and other turtle species.

What were the objectives of the UNESCO Earth Network mission to the biosphere reserve?

UNESCO/Joan de la Malla

With the generous support of the Government of Italy, the Earth Network project embarked on a mission to St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve site to promote and work on ecological restoration. The initiative addressed specific challenges associated with agricultural practices, tools and methods of the St. Mary’s Biosphere Reserve site: cultivation, preservation and monetization of sustainable and biodiversity-led agriculture processes.

Furthermore, an inventory of biodiversity loss, i.e., soil-erosion, tropical forest depletion, diminished mangrove cultivation, extent of fauna and different species of birds, bees and other pollinators etc., was prepated. The mission also analysed potential employment opportunities based on sustainable, biodiversity-friendly agriculture practices and tools, i.e., better use of tropical forests as sources of new fruit and vegetable cultivation, and introducing new seed varieties more tolerant to heat and drought; and examined opportunities for the creation of small enterprises associated with sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity.

Development of the mission and its first achievements

UNESCO/Joan de la Malla

The mission was conducted in two phases, both led by volunteer expert, Dr. Haydi Berrenstein. The first field mission took place from 20 – 24 February 2023 to collect data, assess the situation and exchange with local experts, as well as to interview local stakeholders.

A second mission took place in August 2023, when the Earth Network volunteer expert and local community members worked together to formulate technical advice towards an ecological restoration plan in line with available good practices and assess the feasibility of a local biodiversity inventory.

Additionally, in August 2023, a plan to improve their practices began to be implemented, through the creation of a Seed Bank, the development of natural fertilizers and a whole Biodiversity Agricultural Reforestation plan. The overall aim is to embrace better use of tropical forests, enhance the cultivation of new fruits and combat soil erosion.

Furthermore, the knowledge generated through the mission was consolidated and included in the UNESCO Biodiversity Portal, which provides real-time data from UNESCO-designated sites, as well as top-notch solutions.

Featured image- St. Kitts/Nevis natural springs.

Earth

Canada’s Changing Climate: What Key Cities Could Look Like With ‘Dune-Ification’

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How Climate Change Could Transform Cities into a Dune-Like Landscape

Dune’s cinematic and literary success reflects our fascination with desert landscapes. But the vast deserts of Arrakis, the movie’s fictional planet, hold a deeper meaning. They serve as a cautionary tale for our own planet threatened by desertification.

A new study by our friends at Top10Casinos.ca reveals how Canadian and other global cities threatened by climate change would look in the Dune Universe as TikTok searches around Dune: Part Two and climate change spike 7,700% in just 30 days.

Dune: Part Two, is already reaching massive box office milestones surpassing $150 million usd/ $204 million cad, and TikTok searches for the ‘new dune movie’ have soared 4,606% in just 30 days. In the past month, searches around the movie’s desert-like filming locations have increased 141%, while queries related to ‘climate crisis 2024’ have spiked 3,100% in the social media platform.

Known for its amazing cinematography and striking desert visuals, Dune’s landscape is something that makes it instantly recognisable. But the movie’s vast deserts are more than just a stunning backdrop. They serve as a stark warning of a potential future for our own world impacted by climate change.

Do Canada’s iconic outdoor skating rinks face a frosty future? While bundling up for harsh winters is a national pastime, a worrying trend is emerging. Since 1950, winter temperatures have soared by over 3°C, outpacing global warming by a factor of three.

Toronto, Ontario

Toronto, once known for its predictable seasons, is grappling with the impacts of climate change. The city is experiencing a rise in average temperatures, leading to more frequent and intense heat waves that strain infrastructure and threaten public health. Winters are becoming shorter and less severe, with unpredictable precipitation patterns bringing both heavier downpours that overwhelm storm drains and periods of drought that stress green spaces and water resources.toronto desertified

Vancouver. British Columbia

Like many coastal, seaport cities, Vancouver is feeling the brunt of climate change. Rising temperatures are a key concern, with projections for hotter, drier summers and wetter winters. Sea levels are also on the rise, threatening coastal areas with flooding. The City of Vancouver itself is planning for up to a 1.4 meter rise by 2100, which would inundate parts of the city during major storms.vancouver desertified

Montreal, Quebec

Montreal’s climate is expected to experience significant changes due to climate change. Average temperatures are projected to rise by 1.5-2.3°C by mid-century, leading to more frequent and intense heat waves. This can strain infrastructure, harm public health, and disrupt outdoor activities. The city is also likely to see increased precipitation extremes, with heavier rainfall events and the potential for more flooding.montreal desertifiedmontreal desertified

Niagara Falls, Ontario

Studies suggest Lakes Erie and Ontario, feeding the Niagara River, could see water levels drop a meter by 2050 due to increased evaporation and less snowfall. This decline could impact the Falls’ power and beauty. Additionally, more extreme weather events like flooding could damage surrounding areas. While milder winters might extend tourism, climate change poses significant ecological and aesthetic challenges.niagara desertified

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Philanthropy

UN Specialized Fund & Program Combats Hunger In World’s Fragile Contexts

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Storybook       JOINT PRESS RELEASE IFAD and WFP work together to combat hunger in fragile contexts 
Rome, Italy, March 2024. The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have today launched an action plan to work together in fragile contexts — countries simultaneously affected by economic shocks, and extreme weather, in combination with little or no institutional and government capacity to help people cope.

The UN agencies seek to leverage the strengths and expertise of each organization to enhance resilience in fragile environments and improve food security for those who need it most.

Fragility is a significant barrier to eradicating hunger and poverty. Moreover, frequent and severe extreme weather events are compounding these often-protracted crises worldwide. “We have decades of experience working in fragile contexts, because that is where so many of the rural poor live. But today, the rural environment is changing. It is becoming less predictable. Rapid changes in climate and demographics are making it harder than ever for rural populations to thrive on the land,” said Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD. “This new Action Plan is very exciting because together, we can be more than the sum of our parts,” added Lario.PR-20-2024©IFAD/Daniele Bianchi
Fragile situations are on the rise and could impact as much as 60 percent of the world’s extreme poor by 2030. Nearly 1 billion people are currently living in such contexts worldwide, according to the International Monetary Fund estimates. 
“WFP and IFAD teams work in many of the most fragile and challenging regions of the world, where millions of families who live on the frontlines of conflict, climate change and economic turmoil face a daily battle against hunger,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. Combining our expertise, resources and extensive global network, WFP and IFAD will step up our collaboration in key areas, such as food systems and climate resilience, to support sustainable development, peace and progress in the most vulnerable communities.”

IFAD and WFP will carry out joint assessments on fragility, integrate smallholder farmers into food assistance programmes, invest in rural communities’ climate resilience, and share logistical capacity, data, analysis and expertise, as well as provide technical and operational support.
For instance, IFAD’s investments in sustainable agricultural practices, such as the use of climate-resilient crops and climate insurance, will be combined with WFP’s climate-resilient local infrastructure and services.

Ethiopia, Haiti, Mozambique, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen and Zambia are the initial countries for collaboration to address fragility and food insecurity in addition to geographic areas across the Sahel and Pacific islands. The action plan aims at maximizing impact, being responsive to dynamic challenges, and focuses on tackling some of the main drivers of fragility. The partnership also builds upon the broader collaboration of the three Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which was reinforced with a new five-year partnership agreement signed last August during a joint visit to South Sudan.

Being able to work in fragile contexts is a priority for IFAD’s next three-year cycle (2025-2027), as the UN Fund plans to reach 100 million rural people. FAO, IFAD and WFP cover a spectrum of work that spans from humanitarian responses to emergencies and shocks, to resilience and development activities, aligning with the 2030 Agenda.

The Rome-based agencies are working together on agri-food systems transformation, nutrition, gender equality and women’s empowerment, resilience-building, youth, and climate change to achieving maximized impact and delivering tangible value added to countries and populations.
The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, via @wfp_media

For the Silo, Julie Marshall.

Art

Rice University Art Exhibition Focuses On Human Body & Land Connections

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Resonant Earth: Contemporary Perspectives on Land and Body features works from Kelly Akashi, Lisa Alvarado, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Andrea Chung, Sky Hopinka, and Anna Mayer On view through August 17, 2024.
Kelly Akashi, Life Forms, 2022. Collection of Barbara and Michael Gamson. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Paul Salveson.
March, 2024 [Houston, TX]— The Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University announces the exhibition Resonant Earth: Contemporary Perspectives on Land and Body opening May 31 and on view through August 17, 2024. Bringing together new and recent work by six contemporary artists based in the United States, the exhibition explores vital connections between the human body and the land. This focused presentation emphasizes how art and artists can build awareness toward integrated ecosystems in the face of intergenerational trauma, continued exploitation of the Earth’s resources, and climate change. 

Featured artists include Kelly Akashi, Lisa Alvarado, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Andrea Chung, Sky Hopinka, and Anna Mayer. Spanning a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, ceramics, collage, photography, video, and sound, the presentation also features two site-specific interventions commissioned by the Moody. Lisa Alvarado will create a monumental wall mural and Anna Mayer will mount an installation with locally sourced clay consisting of more than fifty new objects. The diverse practices presented in Resonant Earth demonstrate a critical engagement with histories of the land, primarily in the Western and Southern United States. Collectively, the exhibition addresses the local environment while considering the forced migration and displacement of people and plants across geographies.  

Executive Director Alison Weaver notes, “This project foregrounds artworks that speak to our lived experience in the United States, highlighting how personal and social histories shape our natural surroundings and our individual bodies. This summer we look forward to welcoming visitors who bring their own experiences to the galleries.” 
Sky Hopinka, Mnemonics of Shape and Reason,2022. Still. Courtesy of the artist.
About the Exhibition Resonant Earth: Contemporary Perspectives on Land and Body seeks to illuminate the intertwined social and material histories of specific ecologies, ranging from farms along the US-Mexico border, to former Japanese American internment camps in Arizona, to the extraction of land in and around Houston. With geographical references that privilege biological memory and somatically inherited knowledge over a dominant linear history, these artists highlight the intergenerational pain of displacement and the healing power of reconnection to our place on the planet.
The artworks on view echo our fraught engagement with the environment, while implying webs of interdependence in which the natural and the cultural are inseparable. The six selected artists draw on Indigenous and diasporic forms of knowledge, culture, and materials to envision modes of transformation and regeneration in relation to ongoing struggles for environmental and social justice. 
A selection of new and recent work by Kelly Akashi underscores the artist’s interest in temporality and memory as contained in the land and the body. Her sculptural work incorporates a range of material processes and is installed spatially as a constellation of objects that reference her personal and family history as well as the passage of time, the ephemerality of the human body, and the impermanence of the natural world. For example, in Conjoined Tumbleweeds, Akashi cast entangled plants growing at the site of a Japanese American incarceration camp in Poston, AZ. The bronze sculpture refers to her father’s imprisonment there during World War II.
A cast of the artist’s own body, fragmented, appears as a blue crystal hand in Inheritance. Adorned with Akashi’s grandmother’s ring, the fingers wrap around a stone from Poston, invoking the biological memory of the body as well as geological time.  Through double-sided hanging paintings, and a major site-specific wall mural accompanied by a sound installation, artist and musician 

Lisa Alvarado explores social histories of the land, including the Chicana/o Movement and her own family’s experience along the US-Mexico border. Her free-hanging abstract paintings allude to generations of migrant farmers in the region, while referencing textile traditions and muralism of the Americas.

Compositionally anchored at the corner of the gallery space and expanding outward along horizontal and vertical planes, Alvarado’s site-specific mural suggests “being in-between,” both spatially and conceptually. In the monumental painting that encompasses the viewer, Alvarado also considers meridians—both celestial, in relation to one’s position on Earth and the sky, and those used in traditional non-Western medicine to trace the pathways within one’s own body. Cast from the trunks of non-native trees in Los Angeles, large-scale sculptural works from Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s Caucho (Rubber) series reference intertwined histories of plants and people. The artist, whose family is from El Salvador, considers experiences of migration, solidarity, and civil war that resonate with some Central American communities in Los Angeles.
Deeply invested in the social histories of materials, Aparicio’s artistic media suggests layers of meaning and the inseparability of the natural and the cultural. For instance, his use of rubber, which is made from the bloodlike sap of trees, recalls its importance as an Indigenous Mesoamerican technology and subsequent exploitation by colonialist extraction and trade. An immersive planetarium installation together with collages by Andrea Chung reflect the interconnected histories of materials, processes, and places of the island nations in the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean. In her research-based practice, Chung often subverts tools of European colonialism while considering the multiplicity of the relationships that enslaved people had with the Earth. Inspired by star charts, and seeking to invert colonial maps, The Westerlies: Prevailing the Winds is a dome structure shrouded in cyanotype canvas that invites the viewer to be surrounded by the night sky and ocean as both expanse and enclosure.
In collages featuring late-nineteenth-century ethnographic photographs of African women, Chung adorns the images with intricate beadwork, gold ink, and reproductions of delicate flora atop traditional birthing cloth, exploring the relationship between the people depicted and the land. Videos by filmmaker, photographer, and poet Sky Hopinka portray landscapes traversed by the artist, interweaving personal and collective memory. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Hopinka explores Indigenous homeland and language through rhythmic and poetic accounts. In the selected videos, the artist layers visual and audio recordings, music, and text, to consider intergenerational connections to a place as well as the ongoing effects of colonialism while prompting the viewer to consider one’s own relationship to landscape and memory. 
Twenty-five pairs of newly created wall-mounted ceramic vessels and sculptures will be part of a site-specific installation by Houston-based artist Anna Mayer, who engages with the land locally. Known for her social and sculptural practice, Mayer’s process involves analog firing techniques while critically engaging pre- and post-petroculture. In her hand-built ceramics, the artist incorporates what she calls “gleaned clay” (available as a by-product of other processes such as flooding, drought, or construction), sourced from the Houston area. 
Described as “implements” by the artist, the shapes of the wall-mounted objects reference drill bits and hammers as well as body parts and geological sediment. The series will be installed over photographic wallpaper depicting damp cement, suggesting water seeping up from the ground into the gallery. Additionally, Mayer is making new large-scale ceramic vessels that will be positioned among existing furniture at the Moody, underscoring their corporeal presence and connection. 
This new body of work examines how tools function as an extension of the body, commonly used to excavate earth, while reflecting a polyvalent approach to the land. Resonant Earth is curated by Molly Everett, Assistant Curator, Moody Center for the Arts. The exhibition is made possible by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, the Brad and Leslie Bucher Artist Endowment, the Tamara de Kuffner Fund, the Kilgore Endowment Fund, and the Sewall Endowment. 
Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Ruta de las flores, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles
About the Artists Kelly Akashi’s (b. 1983, Los Angeles, CA) major solo exhibition, Kelly Akashi: Formations, originated at the San José Museum of Art (2022–23), and traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle (2023), and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2023–24). Her work is currently the subject of a solo presentation at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2023–24) and has been included in several group exhibitions internationally. Akashi is based in Los Angeles, CA. 

Lisa Alvarado (b. 1982, San Antonio, TX) has exhibited and performed widely, with recent solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (2023) and at REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA (2023). Originally from San Antonio, TX, Alvarado now lives and works in Chicago, IL. 

Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio’s (b. 1990, Los Angeles, CA) work is the subject of a solo exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, on view until June 16, 2024. His work is featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial in New York, NY, and Prospect.6 in New Orleans, LA. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles. 

Andrea Chung (b. 1978, Newark, NJ) has received solo presentations at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI (2023), the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2022), and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA (2017). Her work has been exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA (2021), the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2019), and in Prospect.4, New Orleans, LA (2017). Chung grew up in Sugar Land, TX, and is now based in San Diego, CA. 

Sky Hopinka’s (b. 1984, Ferndale, WA) work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil (2023), LUMA Arles, France (2022), Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY (2022), and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (2020). He is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow. Hopinka recently joined the faculty at Harvard University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, and is currently based in Cambridge, MA. 

Anna Mayer’s (b. 1974, Macomb, IL) practice spans Los Angeles and Houston. Her recent solo presentation at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (2021) was preceded by exhibitions at Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX (2016–17), and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2012). She lives in Houston, TX, and is an Associate Professor of sculpture at the University of Houston. 
Lisa Alvarado, Spinning Echo, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York.
Special EventsFriday, May 31, 6–8 p.m. Opening Reception for Resonant Earth: Contemporary Perspectives on Land and Body Celebrate the start of the exhibition with the artists.Saturday, June 1, 4–6 p.m. Dimensions Variable: National Information Society Together with her band National Information Society, featured artist Lisa Alvarado will activate the gallery space with a special musical performance.Fridays, June 7, 14, 21, and 28 at 12 p.m.

The Moody Wellness Series Join us on Fridays in June for meditation and yoga in the galleries, offered through a collaboration with the Barbara and David Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center. Saturdays, June 8, 15, 22, 29, 2–4 p.m.

Moody ArtLab Guests of all ages are invited to create a hands-on craft inspired by artwork featured in the summer exhibition at our self-guided activity station on Saturdays in June. Materials and instructions provided. Saturday, July 20, 12–5 p.m.

Summer Jam Community Day Celebrate summer at this all-day, family-friendly event featuring an indoor farmer’s market, art activities, and local food vendors. 
Featured image: Mnemonics. Sky Hopinka
About the Moody Center for the Arts Inaugurated in February 2017, the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University is a state-of-the-art, non-collecting institution dedicated to transdisciplinary collaboration among the arts, sciences, and humanities. The 50,000-square-foot facility, designed by acclaimed Los Angeles-based architect Michael Maltzan, serves as an experimental platform for creating and presenting works in all disciplines, a flexible teaching space to encourage new modes of making, and a forum for creative partnerships with visiting national and international artists. The Moody is free and open to the public year-round.

Website: moody.rice.edu

Social Media: @theMoodyArtsPhone: +1 713.348.ARTSAddress: Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University6100 Main Street, MS-480, Houston, TX 77005(University Entrance 8, at University Boulevard and Stockton Street)

Hours & Admission Exhibition spaces are open to the public and free of charge Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Sundays, Mondays, and holidays. Events and programs are open to the public. For schedule, tickets, and prices as applicable, visit moody.rice.edu.

Directions & Parking The Moody Center for the Arts is located on the campus of Rice University and is best reached by using Campus Entrance 8 at the intersection of University Boulevard and Stockton Street. As you enter campus, the building is on the right, just past the Media Center. There is a dedicated parking lot adjacent to the building. Payment for the Moody Lot is by credit card only.
For campus maps, visit www.rice.edu/maps.

About Rice University Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,879 undergraduates and 2,861 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as the best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
Politics

Disinformation Tops Global Risks 2024 

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  • Misinformation and disinformation are biggest short-term risks, while extreme weather and critical change to Earth systems are greatest long-term concern, according to Global Risks Report 2024.
  • Two-thirds of global experts anticipate a multipolar or fragmented order to take shape over the next decade.
  • Report warns that cooperation on urgent global issues could be in short supply, requiring new approaches and solutions.
  • Read the Global Risks Report 2024 here, discover the Global Risks Initiative, watch the press conference here, and join the conversation using #risks24.

Geneva, Switzerland, January 2024 – Drawing on nearly two decades of original risks perception data, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 warns of a global risks landscape in which progress in human development is being chipped away slowly, leaving states and individuals vulnerable to new and resurgent risks. Against a backdrop of systemic shifts in global power dynamics, climate, technology and demographics, global risks are stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit.

These are the findings of the Global Risks Report 2024, released today, which argues that cooperation on urgent global issues could be in increasingly short supply, requiring new approaches to addressing risks. Two-thirds of global experts anticipate a multipolar or fragmented order to take shape over the next decade, in which middle and great powers contest and set – but also enforce – new rules and norms.

The report, produced in partnership with Zurich Insurance Group and Marsh McLennan, draws on the views of over 1,400 global risks experts, policy-makers and industry leaders surveyed in September 2023. Results highlight a predominantly negative outlook for the world in the short term that is expected to worsen over the long term. While 30% of global experts expect an elevated chance of global catastrophes in the next two years, nearly two thirds expect this in the next 10 years.

“An unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives and insecurity, the worsening impacts of extreme weather and economic uncertainty are causing accelerating risks – including misinformation and disinformation – to propagate,” said Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “World leaders must come together to address short-term crises as well as lay the groundwork for a more resilient, sustainable, inclusive future.” 

Rise of disinformation and conflict

Concerns over a persistent cost-of-living crisis and the intertwined risks of AI-driven misinformation and disinformation, and societal polarization dominated the risks outlook for 2024. The nexus between falsified information and societal unrest will take centre stage amid elections in several major economies that are set to take place in the next two years. Interstate armed conflict is a top five concern over the next two years. With several live conflicts under way, underlying geopolitical tensions and corroding societal resilience risk are creating conflict contagion.

Economic uncertainty and development in decline
The coming years will be marked by persistent economic uncertainty and growing economic and technological divides. Lack of economic opportunity is ranked sixth in the next two years. Over the longer term, barriers to economic mobility could build, locking out large segments of the population from economic opportunities. Conflict-prone or climate-vulnerable countries may increasingly be isolated from investment, technologies and related job creation. In the absence of pathways to safe and secure livelihoods, individuals may be more prone to crime, militarization or radicalization.

Planet in peril


Environmental risks continue to dominate the risks landscape over all timeframes. Two-thirds of global experts are worried about extreme weather events in 2024. Extreme weather, critical change to Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages and pollution represent five of the top 10 most severe risks perceived to be faced over the next decade. However, expert respondents disagreed on the urgency of risks posed – private sector respondents believe that most environmental risks will materialize over a longer timeframe than civil society or government, pointing to the growing risk of getting past a point of no return.

Responding to risks


The report calls on leaders to rethink action to address global risks. The report recommends focusing global cooperation on rapidly building guardrails for the most disruptive emerging risks, such as agreements addressing the integration of AI in conflict decision-making. However, the report also explores other types of action that need not be exclusively dependent on cross-border cooperation, such as shoring up individual and state resilience through digital literacy campaigns on misinformation and disinformation, or fostering greater research and development on climate modelling and technologies with the potential to speed up the energy transition, with both public and private sectors playing a role.

Carolina Klint, Chief Commercial Officer, Europe, Marsh McLennan, said: “Artificial intelligence breakthroughs will radically disrupt the risk outlook for organizations with many struggling to react to threats arising from misinformation, disintermediation and strategic miscalculation. At the same time, companies are having to negotiate supply chains made more complex by geopolitics and climate change and cyber threats from a growing number of malicious actors. It will take a relentless focus to build resilience at organizational, country and international levels – and greater cooperation between the public and private sectors – to navigate this rapidly evolving risk landscape.”

John Scott, Head of Sustainability Risk, Zurich Insurance Group, said: “The world is undergoing significant structural transformations with AI, climate change, geopolitical shifts and demographic transitions. Ninety-one per cent of risk experts surveyed express pessimism over the 10-year horizon. Known risks are intensifying and new risks are emerging – but they also provide opportunities. Collective and coordinated cross-border actions play their part, but localized strategies are critical for reducing the impact of global risks. The individual actions of citizens, countries and companies can move the needle on global risk reduction, contributing to a brighter, safer world.”

About the Global Risks Initiative


The Global Risks Report is a key pillar of the Forum’s Global Risks Initiative, which works to raise awareness and build consensus on the risks the world faces, to enable learning on risk preparedness and resilience. The Global Risks Consortium, a group of business, government and academic leaders, plays a critical role in translating risk foresight into ideas for proactive action and supporting leaders with the knowledge and tools to navigate emerging crises and shape a more stable, resilient world.

Earth

Agrarians From Ancient World Knew About Biochar

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Agrarians from various ancient cultures around the world discovered the soil fertility benefits of charred biomass over two thousand years ago.

Now known as ‘biochar’, this ancient soil management practice has been enjoying a renaissance of late for a number of reasons largely related to the need for more resilient and productive soils and biochar’s ability to sequester carbon in a safe and beneficial manner.

Biochar is made by baking organic material in an oxygen-limited environment, called pyrolysis. Benefits vary depending on the soil, crops and climate where biochar is used with poor soils benefiting the most. Providing long-lasting organic material, improving water and nutrient holding capacity, and improving overall soil tilth are all potential benefits.

Due to its porous nature and cation exchange capacity, biochar can also be used as a filtration medium to prevent nutrient run-off from farms into local water bodies. In Europe livestock farmers are adding small amounts of biochar to feed rations to improve feed conversion ratios and overall animal health. Biochar as carbon fodder has also shown promise as a way to reduce enteric methane emissions.

Biochar
“When we first started in 2011 to load biochar with high amounts of liquid NP-fertilizer and tested them in pod trials, we could prove reduced nutrient leaching after simulated strong rain events. When we planted a second culture (paprika after radish) in the same pods without additional fertilization, plant growth was significantly improved in the biochar treatments (see image). From an economic point of view, the difference in growth might have been not relevant as some additional fertilization would have been cheaper than the price of biochar that saved some mineral fertilizer. However working with low amounts of nutrient enhanced biochar [1 t per hectare] applied as slow release fertilizer close to the roots every year seems very promising when viewed from both an economic and ecological perspective. ” Ithaka Institute

Biochar is increasingly available to purchase but farmers can also convert their on-farm waste biomass in to biochar.

Farm scale equipment for making biochar is evolving and shows promise not just as a waste conversion technology which produces a valuable soil amendment, but also as a means for farmers to generate renewable energy in the form of heat, and in some cases electricity.  For the Silo,  Kathleen Draper.

Seen here: “…we focused on organic plant nutrients and started multiple tests with a wide variety of nutrient rich biomass wastes including: liquid animal manure, urine, feathers, yeasts, wool, vinasse etc. Over the past four years we have developed a panoply of organic carbon fertilizer that can be produced commercially or manufactured by farmers themself all over the world. One of our favourites is the sheep wool, vinasse, pyrolyse ash, biochar pellets with 7% Norg / 6.5% P2O5 / 6% K2O “

Kathleen Draper is the US Director of the Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence, a non-profit focused on research, education and program services that promote climate positive solutions which enhance land management, urban design, and resource efficiency.  

Earth

Farmer Explains The Increase In Storms

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The Mechanics of World Weather Storm Systems 

A lot has been said, lately, about the increased activity and severity of storm systems around the World in the last 30 years.. Most will tell you it is because of the increased amount of  Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, some would even hazard the aberrations are caused by deities seeking retribution for our collective sins…

But the truth is, the balance maintained for millions of years in the weather patterns of this planet have been dented, impacted, and thrown off kilter by our own change of tastes.. The larger homes of today’s tastes often include “Exotic Hardwood” floors from non-domestic species imported from third World countries, just trying to make a dime from their only primary crop,.. timber..  Another reason for the felling of trees was to create farmland for the Third World’s bulging populations.. This has led to the clear-cutting of massive stands of Equatorial Forests on the order of hundreds of square miles, of of these massive trees, at a time..

One must consider the impact of this act.. The average large tree, in North America, has the cooling effect of 15 room-size air conditioners… The average large tree in the Amazon or Indonesian Archipelago can has the cooling effect of 100 or more air conditioners…

To demonstrate the physics, 1 pound of water, heated to increase the temperature one degree Fahrenheit, would take 1 BTU of energy… This is an even measurement throughout the change from a solid (ice) to a gas (steam), or, 212 degrees, Fahrenheit, OR, 180 BTU.. The amount of energy necessary to change the state of that 1 pound of water to steam, is 965 BTU… If you can imagine that an average North American tree can evaporate 30 gallons of water, an hour, or, remove 231,600 BTU’s per hour of heat energy from the atmosphere, and, an an average Equatorial Forest tree can remove as much as 180 gallons of water per hour, or, 1,389,600 BTU per hour.., THEN, you can imagine the effect of the removal of a Million of these trees on the stability of the moderation in the balancing of storm systems that these important Equatorial Forests have…

The loss of this amount of Equatorial Forest has had a devastating affect on the World’s weather systems over the last 25 years

Storms, particularly in Europe and the U.S., have been dramatically more severe… One never, ever, heard of a thunderstorm in Europe, some 30 years ago, packing winds of up to 125 miles per hour.. Now, they are almost a common occurrence.. One storm, in the South of France, in the Autumn of 1997, destroyed a forest of ancient oak and ash trees that were planted by workers under the auspices of King Louis the thirteenth..

Though a large part of the felled trees were salvaged by sawyers cutting board stock out of the logs, the forest was destroyed, and, only lately replanting efforts have made an impact on the landscape…

“WE are known by our acts, but suffer, our choices..”

For the Silo, Bill Stewart.

Philanthropy

WFP BREAKS RECORD WITH FOOD SUPPORT IN SOMALIA AMID FAMINE RISK

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MOGADISHU – The United Nations World Food Programme is delivering life-saving food and nutrition assistance to record numbers of people in Somalia, with over 4 million people a month receiving urgent humanitarian support to prevent famine in the face of the region’s worst drought in over 40 years.

The scale-up has helped keep the worst outcomes of Somalia’s hunger crisis at bay so far.

But the situation on the ground remains dire, with lives and livelihoods being lost. WFP is racing against time to avert a projected famine and a death toll that could reach the tens or even hundreds of thousands.

Somalia, Baidoa, 12 October 2022 Nuuriya Ali Mohammed Nuur (30) and her baby Mohammed Nuur Mohammed (2 years old) travelled to Baidoa from a rural town in Southwest state. After four failed rainy seasons, all of Nuuriya’s livestock died due to the drought. She lost ten cows and one donkey which supported her livelihood. She has ten children and was only able to bring four children with her and the oldest stayed behind with their father. There were several stops on her journey to Baidoa, including walking on foot until she reached transportation to reach the camp. Her child was weak and malnourished when she arrived, but with WFP assistance he is starting to gain weight and become healthier. With no expectation to return and nothing left for her at home, she now lives in an IDP camp on the outskirts of Baidoa town, receiving both WFP relief assistance and nutrition services. She is receiving emergency relief cash assistance, each month receiving a mobile cash transfer to buy food. For nutrition, WFP is providing screening services for the baby, nutrition educational services for the mother on child nutrition, distribution of plumpy food for the baby, and referral to relief assistance receiving cash transfers. Photo: WFP/Geneva Costopulos

Additional information:

Somalia, Galkayo, Galmudug state, 6 August 2022 In the photo: struggling livestock goats and farmer in Qarqora, Galmudug. Photo: WFP/Geneva Costopulos
  • Nutrition prevention activities were almost entirely suspended from the second quarter of 2022 as WFP was forced to prioritize treatment services due to limited funds. The agency has resumed some prevention activities for children and pregnant or breastfeeding women and is working to do more.
  • WFP is reaching new rural areas, including in the famine risk districts of Baidoa and Burhakaba, with food assistance and cash transfers. WFP’s mobile money transfers are an efficient way to getting assistance rapidly to people in hard-to-reach areas.
  • WFP deployed a new helicopter in Somalia in September to deliver food assistance to hard-to-reach areas and get aid workers to the places they are needed most. The WFP-led Logistics Cluster is also using the helicopter to deliver humanitarian relief on behalf of other UN agencies and NGOs. The helicopter has so far conducted over 30 flights in September and October.
  • WFP is the largest humanitarian agency in Somalia, with 12 offices across the country providing coverage in every state.
  • WFP’s massive scale-up has largely been made possible thanks to timely support from key donors, particularly in recent months. It is essential that this is maintained. WFP has a funding gap of US$ 412 million / CAD$ 565.3 million across all activities for the next six months to March 2023, including a shortfall of US$ 315 million/ CAD$ 432.2 million for life-saving food relief and nutrition assistance.

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

Featured image: Somalia, Baidoa, 12 October 2022 Nuuriya Ali Mohammed Nuur and her baby Mohammed Nuur Mohammed travelled to Baidoa from a rural town in Southwest state. After four failed rainy seasons, all of Nuuriya’s livestock died due to the drought. She lost ten cows and one donkey which supported her livelihood. She has ten children and was only able to bring four children with her and the oldest stayed behind with their father. There were several stops on her journey to Baidoa, including walking on foot until she reached transportation to reach the camp. Her child was weak and malnourished when she arrived, but with WFP assistance he is starting to gain weight and become healthier. With no expectation to return and nothing left for her at home, she now lives in an IDP camp on the outskirts of Baidoa town, receiving both WFP relief assistance and nutrition services. Photo: WFP/Geneva Costopulos

Earth

How Cell Phone Behavioral Data Can Help Save Our Planet

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Zurich, Switzerland- A report from a few years ago deserves a second look. That study demonstrated how leveraging mobile network data can estimate levels of carbon emissions and air pollution in cities, an approach that could substantially reduce the cost of implementing the Paris Agreement.

  • The study analyses mobility patterns derived from mobile network data to estimate the usage of different transport modes within a city and derive conclusions about the respective pollution they cause.

  • This innovative methodology allowed scientists to estimate the concentration of air pollutants in urban areas with up to 77% accuracy.

  • The method could provide a scale-able and cost effective way to help understand and combat greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cities worldwide.

Big data analytics company and ETH Zurich spin-off Teralytics, Telefónica NEXT and sustainability solution provider South Pole Group conducted the  study in Nuremberg, Germany and revealed the analysis of mobile network data is an effective way to estimate CO2 and NOX emissions in urban areas at very low cost. To achieve this, Teralytics examined aggregated and anonymized data, which is generated when mobile devices communicate with Telefónica’s mobile communication cells during user calls, text messages or while using phones to browse the internet. Teralytics was able to refine this raw data into human mobility patterns to understand how the different modes of transport, for instance trains or cars, are frequented. Combining this information with data on the emissions of the different transport modes, the three entities were able to estimate air pollution and GHG emissions in the city.

As each form of transportation produces a unique amount of CO2 and NOX emissions, understanding urban mobility patterns is vital to understand the source of emissions. The study in Nuremberg used this information to estimate with up to 77 per cent accuracy the concentration of air pollutants in the city. These findings encourage further exploration of how big data can be used to understand and ultimately solve environmental issues such as air pollution in cities across the world. This is particularly interesting with regards to the lower cost of analyzing and interpreting data compared to the higher cost of production and maintenance of elaborate measuring stations. The novel approach could thus allow an ongoing analysis on a nationwide scale.

George Polzer

“While our contemporary urban lifestyles result in the generation of harmful greenhouse gasses, it also generates large amounts of behavioural data. Our mission at Teralytics is to use this data for the benefit of society,” says Georg Polzer, CEO of Teralytics. “Our findings from Nuremberg showed that this data can be used to give city planners insights into how human mobility contributes to pollution. This is a vital part to efficiently design and implement clean air and low carbon strategies. We are looking forward to further exploring this opportunity.”

Using a three-level process, the fully anonymized and aggregated data was first transformed into movement flows by the data scientists at Teralytics, identifying over 1.2 million transportation routes during the analyzed time period, as depicted in Figure 2. The sustainability solution expert South Pole Group then used an atmospheric model to estimate air pollution levels caused by the usage of the different modes of transportation, taking into account meteorological data and information on the respective traffic carriers’ emission levels from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUB). In the third step, the accuracy of the method was examined by comparing the findings with existing data from air pollution measuring stations. The values measured at these stations were found to correlate up to 77 per cent with those from the Teralytics’ calculations.

The results of this pilot study in Nuremberg constitute a sound basis to further develop the methodology.

Following its success, the consortium was able to secure financial support from Climate KIC’s Low Carbon City Lab (LoCaL), an initiative that brings together cities, business, academia and NGO’s to deliver high environmental and societal impact. With this backing, the research partnership will expand and improve the methodology, focusing on short travel routes and taking into account local emission factors like airports, large-scale events, and types of vehicles on the road (i.e. electric cars and SUVs). Moreover, the influence of factors such as traffic jams and red lights will be taken into account in order to make even more accurate estimations of the air pollution levels in a city.

“The results from this pilot study exceed our expectations,” says Maximilian Groth, responsible for Business Development & Partnerships at Teralytics. “We are confident that we will soon be able to scale this product to cities worldwide to support urban planners in making our air cleaner and achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement at the lowest possible cost.”

This research follows other successful studies on usage of mobile network data, including a smart data analysis for transport in Stuttgart by Teralytics, Telefónica Germany, and Fraunhofer IAO.

Renat Heuberger

“Approximately 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated in cities, meaning that they play a key role in climate protection. We see great potential in the use of continuously generated data, such as mobile network data, to measure and reduce pollution levels in cities.” States Renat Heuberger, CEO of South Pole Group.

Florian Marquart

Florian Marquart, Managing Director of Telefónica NEXT for Advanced Data Analytics: “The pilot project in Nuremberg has clearly shown the specific added value of anonymised mobile network data for the environment. This is data from people for people. We see great potential in the results and will start the next phase of our research. The goal is to develop a product that German cities, German states and the German federal government can use to better face the challenges of emissions pollution”.  For the Silo, Ricky Sutton.

About Teralytics

Teralytics is the trusted data analytics partner for some of the largest telecom operators in North America, Europe and Asia. Using technology built for operators by data scientists, they have perfected the ingestion, modelling and transformation of raw signals from subscriber actions and movements on operator networks to deliver meaningful and actionable insights, that delivers new value to our mobile operator partners. By unlocking and processing a massive scale of device movement and consumer intelligence data from location and behavioral signals, they can analyze people, places and things and offer actual insights to help city planners, venue owners, retailers, NGOs and media companies make informed decisions, optimize operations and maximize ROI. Headquartered in Zurich, Teralytics has offices in New York, and Singapore.

Transportation

Self Driving Vehicles And The Trolley Problem

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With the imminent arrival of Autonomous Vehicles, many people have started worrying about the safety of this new technology, especially when an issue arises to do with choice.

In this piece, we’ll delve into the issue of the “Trolley Problem” and how AVs will deal with this and whether all manufacturers have the same stance.

Infographic courtesy of our friends at selectcarleasing.co.uk

Supplemental- Silo archives, Fall 2015: Ontario became the first province to test AV’s on Canada’s roads.

Culture

Canada Fights Food Crises By Committing highest-ever funding to UN agency IFAD

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Rome, December 2021 – At a time when rural people in low-income countries face steep increases in food prices and the devastating impacts of climate change are contributing to a rise in hunger and poverty, Canada has announced today its commitment to support the resilience of small-scale farmers and the prosperity of rural communities by increasing its funding to the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The Canadian Minister of International Development, Harjit S. Sajjan, announced at a side event of the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit today that Canada will commit an extra CA$37.5 million (about US$27.7 million) in support of IFAD’s Twelfth Replenishment – a process whereby Member States commit funds to the organization for its work over three years beginning in 2022. 

This represents a 50 percent increase to the government’s initial pledge of CA$75 million (approximately US$55.5 million) bringing the total contribution of Canada to CA$112.5 million (about US$83.2 million).

In addition, Canada contributed a loan on very favorable terms amounting to CA$340 million (around US$255 million) to support climate smart and gender-sensitive agriculture approaches. Actions like this will help IFAD meet its commitment to double its impact by 2030 while making much-needed progress on reaching the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG#1 (no poverty) and SDG#2 (zero hunger).

 “Canada and IFAD have a long-standing partnership to end poverty and hunger in rural areas. We would like to sincerely thank Canada for stepping up its commitment to help the world’s most vulnerable people build their resilience and ability to adapt to the devastation created by climate change and other recent shocks,” said Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD. 

“With this support, more small-scale producers, particularly women, will be able to increase food production, bring more nutritious and affordable food to markets and improve rural income opportunities.”

PR 81

“Canada is promoting innovative, gender-responsive financing, including through our efforts to advance women’s rights, leadership and decision-making in agriculture and food systems. We look forward to continuing our work with IFAD to achieve a low-carbon, food secure, and climate-resilient future for us all—especially for those working on the forefront: rural women,” said Minister Harjit S. Sajjan.

The Canadian contribution will be used by IFAD to help finance its programme of loans and grants which is expected to total up to US$3.5 billion over the next three years. This will help approximately 110 million rural people increase their production and raise their incomes through better market access and rural financial services. It will also increase climate resilience and contribute to creating employment, particularly for women and youth, while improving food security and nutrition for the world’s most vulnerable people.

Canada is a founding member of IFAD.

Over the years, it has committed more than US$551 million to the Fund’s core resources, with a particular focus on initiatives for women’s empowerment and gender equality, improved rural livelihoods, better nutrition and climate adaptation. With Canada’s strong support, IFAD has become a leader in rural women’s empowerment, with women now accounting for a full 50 percent of participants in IFAD-funded programs and projects.

IFAD is an international financial institution and specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. It is focused on transforming agriculture, rural economies and food systems by making them more inclusive, productive, resilient to climate shocks and sustainable.

Eight out of 10 of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas, and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Earth

US Climate Scientist Pushes For Canadian Carbon Tax Serfdom?

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(Calgary, Alberta) The Canadian Federation of Taxpayers (CTF) has issued a new report on global carbon taxes, showing most countries have frozen or rolled back carbon taxes, but US climate scientist James Hansen is pushing for a $210/t carbon tax in Canada by 2030. Hansen’s argument is that the tax has to be high enough that people will buy into the carbon dividend (rebate to lower income households) – effectively making Canadians into carbon serfs and a carbon welfare society. CTF reports: “About half of the emissions covered by carbon taxes are priced below US$10/tCO2e, according to the World Bank’s most recent State and Trends of Carbon Pricing (2019).”  Canada has more than 600 greenhouse gas reduction/incentive measures on the books, which have never been audited for effectiveness.

This begs the question of “what is a climate scientist doing dabbling in Canada’s domestic affairs on carbon taxes, pushing a carbon tax that is 21 times that of the world,” says Friends of Science Society. 

As revealed by Lawrence Solomon in the 2009 article “Enron’s Other Secret” “James Hansen, the scientist who more than any other is responsible for bringing the possibility of climate-change catastrophe to the public, was among the scientists Enron commissioned.”

Chart: How the World Puts a Price on Carbon | Statista

Enron had profited from cap and trade, but the company collapsed into a pile of ashes in 2001 due to off-book accounting and financial fraud.

None-the-less, a group of green billionaires took up the global cap-and-trade challenge, apparently working from the Enron carbon/cap-and-trade scheme model, as reported by Nisbet in 2018.  Like Enron, they have funded local and global environmental groups to agitate for policies in countries around the world, favorable to their proposed global cap and trade plan. The plans require a price on carbon with the intention of funding their trillions in vested interests in renewables.  Many of these groups are associated with the Tar Sands Campaign that has falsely created “Fear and Loathing” of the Alberta oil sands and driven a downturn in the economy.

Michael Moore’s recent movie “Planet of the Humans” revealed how this green crony capitalism is destroying the planet for no climate benefit.

Canadians now face an onslaught of Carbonbaggers – the number one being Mark Carney, now UN Climate Czar and former Bank of England and Bank of Canada governor.  Carney threatens firms with bankruptcy if they do not comply with his demands to report on climate risk and abandon fossil fuel investments.

As Robert Lyman’s new report shows: “Broken Promises: Why Renewables Offer No Resilient Recovery”, Carney is misleading the public and investors on global oil consumption and demand.

Both oil production and consumption have risen by more than one million barrels per day per year since 2012.

• Oil demand is at its highest level in history.

• In absolute terms, oil demand is growing twice as fast as renewables.

• Global oil reserves have risen throughout the period, from 1141 billion barrels in 1998 to 1730 billion barrels in 2018; peak oil is nowhere in sight. That is a 10 million barrel per day increase over the nine years.

• In absolute terms, natural gas is experiencing the fastest rate of growth of all energy sources, almost three times as fast as renewables.

• Natural gas demand is at its highest level in history.

Friends of Science Society says carbon dioxide from human industry is a nominal influence on climate change, known since the 2013 IPCC AR5 report.  The fact that financial ‘experts’ like Mark Carney are still pushing the climate-carbon dioxide catastrophe theme constitutes a violation of securities regulations related to ‘material change’.  Furthermore, as Roger Pielke, Jr. reports, climate catastrophe scenarios are the product of green billionaires pushing the ‘climate porn’ scenario, which is far from reality or business-as-usual.

“Green” groups in Canada are demanding that the new Canadian Infrastructure Bank be used to finance their green crony capitalist schemes. 

Friends of Science Society issued a request for ethics investigation into the development of the Canadian Infrastructure Bank in Nov. 2017.  The Conflict of Interest concerns expressed there are still valid in their opinion.

Evidence from Norway to Zimbabwe shows that carbon taxes have no discernible impact on emissions reduction and are simply oppressive to taxpayers and industry.  Friends of Science Society says Carbonbaggers should not be using carbon taxes as a means of creating a Canadian climate welfare state, especially not driven by foreign influences, street theatre, and deception.

See “The Roots of Global Warming”.

About

Friends of Science Society is an independent group of earth, atmospheric and solar scientists, engineers, and citizens who are celebrating its 17th year of offering climate science insights. After a thorough review of a broad spectrum of literature on climate change, Friends of Science Society has concluded that the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2).

Featured image by @HeatherLibby

Earth

The Biggest March On Climate Change Ever

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Way back in 2014, our community decided on a crazy goal – the largest mobilization on climate change in history. So on September 23rd, we blew past our wildest expectations, with a climate march *6 times* the size of anything before it!!! This was 80 city blocks of New York:

World March For Climate 2014 Avaaz

And this was London, Berlin, Bogota, Paris, Delhi, and Melbourne…

World March For Climate 2014

Over 675,000 of us marched around the world. It was a beautiful expression of our love for all that climate change threatens, and our hope that we can save this world and build a society powered by 100% safe, clean energy. Together, we made history, but it’s just the beginning. The crucial Paris climate summit is 15 months from now — that’s where we need a global deal. By March next year, countries have pledged to make their national commitments — so our movement will divide to focus on these national targets. But every few months until Paris we’ll come together globally again and again, bigger and bigger, to beat a drum for change, for 100% clean energy, that our leaders can only follow. The movement we’ve been waiting for has begun.

With gratitude, Ricken, Emma, Alice, Iain, Nataliya, Patri, Oliver, Diego, Rewan and the whole Avaaz team

PS – We worked with thousands of organisations to make this day happen and particularly love our friends at 350. But our community deserves to celebrate the step we’ve taken. The Avaaz team and community played a central role in almost all the marches and events held. The Guardian called it “an organising triumph” for Avaaz and the BBC said “the marches brought more people on to the streets than ever before, thanks to the organisational power of the social media site Avaaz.” We fielded hundreds of organisers and thousands of volunteers, and donations from our community provided millions in funding to the effort. The challenges of our time call us to be better, and together we’ve done that, growing and changing into a new and more effective kind of movement, a movement that is now both online, and offline. Huge gratitude to everyone who made it happen.

Avaaz.org is a 38-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Travel

Record-Breaking Global Mobility Grounded By COVID-19 Pandemic

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With global travel almost at a standstill, the latest results of the Henley Passport Index offer disturbing insight into the indiscriminate havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its inception in 2006, the index has provided the authoritative annual ranking of global passport strength. Travel freedom has increased dramatically over the period in 2006, a citizen could travel to 58 destinations on average without a visa from the host nation; 14 years later, this number has almost doubled to 107. 

The first ranking of the new decade published in January this year conclusively confirmed that overall, people were the most globally mobile than we had ever been in the history of humankind, with the top-ranking passport (Japan) offering its holders access to a record-breaking 191 destinations without requiring a visa in advance. Just three months later, the picture looks very different indeed.

Australia's Coronavirus Travel Bans Feed Old Fears
The result of the latest travel ban in Australia. Image: jacobinmag.com

Japan’s passport continues to hold the top spot on the Henley Passport Index as we enter the second quarter of 2020, but the reality is that current stringent travel restrictions mean that most non-essential travel for Japanese nationals is heavily curtailed.

This is true for almost every country of course, as more travel bans are implemented daily, and ever-more stringent coronavirus lockdown regulations are imposed by governments worldwide. With 3.5 billion people, nearly half the global population, presently living in voluntary or mandatory confinement, the latest results from the index — which is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) — raise challenging questions about what travel freedom and global mobility really mean, both currently and in a deeply uncertain post-pandemic future.

Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners and the inventor of the passport index concept, points out that in an unprecedented global health emergency such as this, relative passport strength becomes temporarily meaningless. “A Swiss citizen can, in theory, travel to 185 destinations around the world without needing a visa in advance, but the last few weeks have made it apparent that travel freedom is contingent on factors that occasionally can be utterly beyond our control. This is, of course, something that citizens of countries with weak passports in the lower ranks of the index are all too familiar with. As public health concerns and security rightfully take precedence over all else now, even within the otherwise borderless EU, this is an opportunity to reflect on what freedom of movement and citizenship essentially mean for those of us who have perhaps taken them for granted in the past.”

Q&A: New travel ban shakes up airlines, passengers - NEWS 1130
Image: citynews1130.com

The future of international mobility after COVID-19

Commenting on the latest Henley Passport Index, bestselling author and the Founder and Managing Partner of FutureMap, Dr. Parag Khanna, says the combined effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health, the global economy, and social behavior could lead to much deeper shifts in our human geography and future distribution around the world. “This may seem ironic given today’s widespread border closures and standstill in global transportation, but as the curtain lifts, people will seek to move from poorly governed and ill-prepared ‘red zones’ to ‘green zones’ or places with better medical care. Alternatively, people may relocate to places where involuntary quarantine, whenever it strikes next, is less torturous.

In the US, both domestic and international migration were surging before the pandemic, with Gen-Xers and millennials shifting to cheaper, second-tier cities in the Sun Belt or abroad to Latin America and Asia in search of an affordable life.

Once quarantines lift and airline prices stand at rock bottom, expect more people across the globe to gather their belongings and buy one-way tickets to countries affordable enough to start fresh.”

This is supported by emerging research and analysis commissioned by Henley & Partners, which suggests that despite freedom of movement currently being restricted as a temporary measure, there is a risk that this will negatively affect international mobility in the long run. Political science researchers Uğur Altundal and Ömer Zarpli of Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh, respectively, note that public health concerns have historically been used to justify restricting mobility, but governments usually adopt travel restrictions temporarily, in response to short-term health needs. Until now, health security has not been a significant determinant or requirement when negotiating visa waivers, but Altundal and Zarpli warn that “increasing public health concerns due to the outbreak of COVID-19 may change thisthe quality and level of health security of a country could be a significant consideration for visa waivers in future”. The unprecedented and overwhelming focus on health security and pandemic preparedness we now see may change the face of global mobility forever.

On the other hand, Prof. Simone Bertoli, Professor of Economics at CERDI, Université Clermont Auvergne in France, says that the necessity of international collaboration in fighting the pandemic could ultimately reduce current barriers to international mobility. “Humanity is confronted with a truly global challenge against which no country ­— irrespective of its level of income — can fully protect itself. This pandemic could therefore trigger renewed and more intense international cooperation, something that has (so far) not happened with the other main global challenge that the world is currently facing, namely climate change.”

No Official Travel Ban In The U.S., But Isn't It Time To Self-Ban?

Brexit, travel bans, and changing timelines

The chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has cast further doubt on the timeline for the implementation of the UK’s post-Brexit immigration system, according to Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. The UK, currently in 7th place on the Henley Passport Index, with citizens theoretically able to access 185 destinations without acquiring a visa in advance, was set to end free movement with the EU in January 2021. However, as Sumption says, “The UK can only implement its new immigration system when the post-Brexit ‘transition period’ is over, and if this is extended to give negotiators more time to discuss trade and other issues, we may not be seeing the end of free movement with the EU quite yet.”

In the US, also in 7th place on the Henley Passport Index, the impact of travel bans implemented at the beginning of the year appear to have been compounded by the pandemic, according to Greg Lindsay, Director of Applied Research at NewCities. “For the children of a rising global middle class with more and more options, this pandemic may prove to be the tipping point in terms of choosing educational destinations. When the world gradually recovers with China, South Korea, and Singapore already succeeding in slowing the outbreak through effective quarantines don’t be surprised if the best and brightest take coronavirus responses into consideration when deciding on their future options.”

A unique hedge against volatility in an uncertain future

Commenting on the ever-expanding growth and popularity of the investment migration industry, Dr. Juerg Steffen, CEO of Henley & Partners, says: “We believe that in the post COVID-19 environment, investment migration will take on a dramatically enhanced importance for both individual investors and sovereign states. Acquiring alternative residence or citizenship will act as a hedge against the significant macro-economic volatility that is predicted, creating even more sovereign and societal value across the world.” For the Silo, by Sarah Nicklin.

Supplemental

Global Headlines for Q2 2020: growth in travel freedom over past decade

  • Japan retains its top spot on the Henley Passport Index, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 191. Over the past decade its travel freedom score has increased by 31 points: in 2010, the country was ranked 6th worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 160.
  • Singapore continues to hold onto 2nd place, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 190. Over the past decade Singapore’s travel freedom score has increased by 35 points: in 2010, the country was ranked 11th worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 155.
  • Germany remains in 3rd place, with access to 189 destinations compared to the 161 destinations its passport holders were able to access a decade ago. It shares 3rd position with South Korea, which has increased its travel freedom score by 38 points: in 2010, South Korea was ranked 13th worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 151.
  • The UK is currently ranked 7th on the index, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 185. Over the past decade the UK’s travel freedom score has increased by 19 points: in 2010, the country was ranked 1st worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 166.
  • The US is also currently ranked 7th on the index, with a score of 185. Over the past decade, the US’s travel freedom score has increased by 26 points: in 2010, the country was ranked 7th worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 159.
  • The UAE has seen the biggest increase in travel freedom over the past 10 years. In 2010, the country was ranked 65th worldwide, with a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 64. It is now ranked 18th, with a score of 171  which means the country has added a remarkable 107 visa-free travel destinations over that period. 
Earth

Landmark Deep Sea Mission To Boost Ocean Action & Science

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A deep-sea scientific mission to uncharted depths in the Maldives and Seychelles will gather valuable data to support the Commonwealth Blue Charter on ocean action and train local scientists.

The newest Commonwealth member country, Maldives, has joined Seychelles to launch a major joint scientific expedition to investigate unexplored depths of the Indian Ocean.

The ground-breaking multidisciplinary research mission, known as ‘First Descent: Midnight Zone’, was officially launched at the Commonwealth headquarters at Marlborough House. 

Led by the UK research institute Nekton, the goal is to boost the sustainable governance of Seychelles and Maldivian waters, including the protection of 629,000 km2 of ocean. 

It supports the Commonwealth Blue Charter – a shared commitment by member countries to protect the ocean from the effects of climate change, pollution and overfishing.
 

FD mission2.jpg

Minister for Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture of the Maldives, Zaha Waheed, said: “It is vital to comprehensively understand what lies beneath our waters in order for us to be informed enough to take necessary actions towards a healthy and prosperous ocean.

“This mission will, for the first time, show a glimpse of what the deep sea features and the biodiversity it holds. It will also contribute to the wider goal of marine spatial planning and ocean governance.”

A 50-person crew will set sail on 16 March, using the world’s most advanced deep diving submersible, equipped with a suite of research tools including sensor and mapping technology.

The data they collect will help countries define conservation and management priorities and map out marine protected areas. It will also help measure the impact of climate change and human activity in the area. 

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland said: “We cannot protect what we don’t know and we cannot govern what we don’t understand. With 95 per cent of the ocean still unexplored by humans, we are only just beginning to grasp its profound influence on life, including its effect on global climate and ecosystems. 

“It is pleasing to see the commitments of our Commonwealth Blue Charter leading to such far-reaching and innovative science-backed ocean action in, with and for our member countries.”

The expedition will focus on undersea mountains or ‘seamounts’ in the Midnight Zone – depths from 1,000 to 4,000 metres, where biodiversity peaks. This zone holds critical indicators to measure the impact of the climate crisis, fisheries management, heat absorption, acidification, ocean carbon cycle, and plastic, agricultural and industrial pollution. 

DSSV Pressure Drop at sea. Photo: Nexton

The damage or overexploitation of seamounts can have widespread consequences on ocean health, food security, and other benefits the ocean provides, such as the discovery of new medicines.

Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change of Seychelles, Alain Decormamond said: “Seamounts form some of the most fascinating and richest locations in our waters and beyond in the wider Indian Ocean. We are therefore looking forward to exploring even deeper depths of our ocean to have a better understanding of natural characteristics and richness of these locations.” 

The mission’s principal scientist Lucy Woodall from the University of Oxford added: “We find the greatest biomass in the upper few hundred metres of the ocean, but the peak of biodiversity is in the greater depths, in the Midnight Zone, from 1,000 to 4,000 metres. That said, less than 300 of 170,000 known major seamounts found in this zone have been researched to date, and they remain one of the least researched parts of the ocean.”

Nekton is also working with Commonwealth countries to develop the tools, skills, knowledge and networks to sustainably manage the ocean. Seychellois and Maldivian scientists will join the expedition to conduct pioneering research into their national waters. This is supported by training programmes, research grants and fellowships with the University of Oxford.

Seychelles champions the Commonwealth Blue Charter action group on marine protected areas. To date, 13 countries have stepped forward to lead on 10 topics they identified as priorities.

For updates on the expedition, visit nektonmission.org 

For more information about the Commonwealth Blue Charter, visit bluecharter.thecommonwealth.org

The Commonwealth Blue Charter

The Commonwealth covers a third of the world’s coastal oceans, 45% of coral reefs and the majority of the world’s big ocean states and territories. Forty-seven out of our 54 countries have a coastline, and three of the remaining landlocked states border great lakes. The Commonwealth Blue Charter is a landmark agreement that engages all 54 Commonwealth countries to commit to actively co-operating to solve ocean-related problems and meet commitments for sustainable ocean development. Visit our website to learn how to join action groups.

Seychelles

The Seychelles Blue Economy Strategic Roadmap and Plan has been developed and implemented by the Government of Seychelles in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat. A key component of this, the Seychelles’ Marine Spatial Plan, is being undertaken in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. By March 2020 this will result in the sustainable management of all the Exclusive Economic Zone including 30% within the newly formed Marine Protected Areas (445,000 km2 of 1,336,559 km2). The implementing partner for the expedition is the Ministry for Environment, Energy and Climate Change. Seychelles champions the Commonwealth Blue Charter Action Group on Marine Protected Areas.

Maldives

Maldives Blue Prosperity Programme is being undertaken by the Government of the Maldives in partnership with the Blue Prosperity Coalition and the Waitt Institute.  The Programme begins in 2020 with a goal of the sustainable management of the Maldivian Exclusive Economic Zone including a spatial target of at least 20% within newly formed Marine Protected Areas (184,000km2 of 923,000km2). The implementation partner for the expedition is the Ministries of Fisheries, Marine Resources and Agriculture. First Descent: Midnight Zone is the third of four expeditions being undertaken in Maldives in support of Maldives Blue Prosperity.  #KanduFalhuDhiraasaa and #NooRaajje

First Descent: Midnight Zone 

First Descent is a series of missions undertaken by Nekton in partnership with Governments in the Indian Ocean region. Beginning in Seychelles in 2019, the Mission concludes with a State of the Indian Ocean Summit in October 2022 to deliver scientific consensus on the state of the Indian Ocean and to galvanise 30% protection by 2030. Each mission combines national commitments to ocean protection, marine spatial planning, applied research to inform ocean policy, inspirational communications to strengthen the public support for political action and investments in capacity development to create a legacy of long-term sustainable ocean governance. #MidnightZone #FirstDescent

Seamounts 

Seamounts are undersea mountains formed by volcanic activity. Scientists estimate there are at least 100,000 seamounts higher than 1,000 meters around the world. Recent estimates suggest that, taken together, seamounts encompass about 28.8 million square kilometres – a surface area larger than deserts, tundra, or any other single land-based global habitat on the planet. Seamounts attract an abundance of marine life, many of which are endemic to individual locations. Seamounts are productive fishing grounds for more than 80 commercial species worldwide. 

Nekton 

Nekton is an independent not-for-profit research institute working in collaboration with the University of Oxford and is a UK registered charity. Nekton’s purpose is to explore and protect the ocean. Nekton’s missions are supported by a unique alliance of 40 business, government, academia and civil society partners uniting behind a common purpose to explore and conserve the ocean. They include: 

  • Mission Partners (2): Omega, Kensington Tours 
  • Strategic Partners (8): The Commonwealth; Teledyne Marine, Sonardyne (Official Subsea 
  • Technology Partners), Caladan Oceanic (Expedition Partner), Associated Press (Official News Agency Partner), Inmarsat (Official Satellite Communications Partner), Blue Prosperity Coalition, Waitt Institute (Maldives Blue Prosperity). 
  • Collaborating Partners (17): CEFAS (Subsea Research Equipment); Deep Sea Power and Light, Paralenz, Bowtech (Subsea Camera & Light Partners); Triton (Submersible Partners); Priavo Security (Maritime Security); Technicolor, AXA-XL & Encounter EDU (Education); University of Oxford; Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology – IMarEST; EYOS Expeditions (Logistics); Great Campaign (UK Government, Foreign & Commonwealth Office); Ocean Unite, Helly Hansen (Apparel), IUCN, Project Zero, Sky Plc. 
  • Founding Partners of Nekton (3): AXA-XL, Garfield Weston Foundation, Kensington Tours.

Blue Prosperity Coalition

The Blue Prosperity Coalition is a global coalition of NGO’s, academic institutions, and foundations working together to promote growth and prosperity while empowering sustainable management of marine resources and ecosystems. The coalition assists committed governments in developing and implementing sustainable marine spatial plans to protect the environment and improve the economy at the same time. Primary members in the Maldives partnership include Waitt Institute, National Geographic Pristine Seas, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Nekton. #BlueProsperity 

Waitt Institute

Established by Gateway, Inc. co-founder Ted Waitt in 1993, the Waitt Institute, partners with committed governments to develop and implement comprehensive, science-based ocean management plans that benefit both the economy and the environment with the ultimate goal of sustainable, resilient, and thriving seas that benefit all.

Earth

Canadian Group: Australian Wildfire Facts Blocked by IFCN

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(Calgary, Alberta) Australian wildfire facts are being blocked from public distribution by the International Fact Check Network (IFCN), Poynter Institute and facebook.  Friends of Science Society has issued a rebuttal to Climate Feedback’s Australian wildfire analysis, a member of IFCN, that claims human-caused ‘climate change’ is the culprit behind Australian wildfire stories, not arsonists or untenable fuel load.  In turn, relying on Climate Feedback’s ‘authority’, facebook has been demoting page quality of those who post Australian wildfire stories that don’t fit the climate catastrophe narrative. Friends of Science wildfire expert says “fuel rules” in the case of wildfires, not temperature.

Facebook and Poynter Institute have partnered in a journalism ‘integrity’ project intended to prevent the spread of false news, but instead, they are promoting a singular climate dogma narrative. Most mainstream media outlets toe the line on the pronouncements of Poynter’s IFCN/Climate Feedback without question. Friends of Science Society argues that this is contrary to the principles of freedom of the press and is damaging to the safety of the public. 

Decades of detailed wildfire research by the National Fire Protection Association, a global non-profit established in 1896, has shown that proper setbacks of shrubbery, removal of combustible material, and other house-proofing measures can significantly increase the likelihood that a house will survive a wildfire. Wildfire management techniques like clearing firebreaks and managing combustible fuel loads of dead or dry shrub vegetation and the cutting of firebreaks are well-known, successful wildfire risk reduction techniques.

In their rebuttal to Poynter’s “Climate Feedback”, Friends of Science Society points out that in Alberta, the 2011 statistics of human caused fires versus those caused by lightning reached 72% in the five-year average.  Human-caused wildfire includes arson, accidental or negligent activity and fires started from human infrastructure issues – like power lines sparking on contact with tree branches. Some of the largest Canadian wildfires, like the 2011 Slave Lake catastrophe, have been identified as arson.

For those people demanding climate action to reduce carbon dioxide from human industry, the grand irony is that poor forestry and fuel load management lead to wildfires which in turn emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide, as reported by Esquire.  Proper forestry management would reduce those emissions.

Many climate activists condemn Australia as being at fault for climate warming because it is a coal-producing nation. Based on those claims, Australia is facing economic trade wars by Greenpeace, BankTrack, and even Greta Thunberg.  But as discussed in Friends of Science Society’s “Burning Questions” 2015 report, wildfires, especially those that create huge Pyrocumulonimbus clouds, are a significant driver of climate change.  “The Untold Story of Pyrocumulonimbus” explains the complex findings of wildfire’s influence on climate and environment, with the research led by Mike Fromm of US Naval Research Lab. 

Likewise, Friends of Science Society’s report “Unfriend ENGOs – Befriend Facts” deconstructs the green trade wars against essential prime power industries like coal, natural gas and oil, driven by environmental groups acting as proxies for ‘green billionaires’ who are deeply invested in pushing global cap and trade, carbon pricing and their vested interests in renewables.

Climate activists, Poynter and facebook are suppressing freedom of the press and freedom of speech, while falsely proclaiming a climate emergency, a concept developed by a clinical psychologist in the US, intended to scare people into compliance. The same “Climate Mobilization” organization advocates for World War II style rationing, managed economy, and massive restrictions on freedoms.

On April 6, 2020, Friends of Science Society’s 17th Annual Event “Freedom of Speech! No Climate Emergency” will host investigative journalist Donna Laframboise to address these diminishing freedoms, and Dr. Roy Spencer, who will offer “10 Reasons Why There is No Climate Emergency.”

Friends of Science Society is an independent group of earth, atmospheric and solar scientists, engineers, and citizens who are celebrating its 17th year of offering climate science insights. After a thorough review of a broad spectrum of literature on climate change, Friends of Science Society has concluded that the sun is the main driver of climate change, not carbon dioxide (CO2).
Friends of Science Society
P.O. Box 23167, Mission P.O.
Calgary, Alberta
Canada T2S 3B1
Toll-free Telephone: 1-888-789-9597
Web: friendsofscience.org
E-mail: contact(at)friendsofscience(dot)org
Web: climatechange101.ca

Earth

Ministers Call On More Countries To Put Forward Stepped-Up Climate Crisis Education Plan

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Madrid, December 2019–Two pioneering countries this week committed to stepped-up climate and environmental education in order to equip a new generation with the knowledge, awareness and skills needed to navigate the emerging challenges of the 21st C.

Italy and Mexico, speaking at a press conference at COP25 in Madrid, urged other countries to follow suit in order to make strong, environmental education a world-wide phenomenon.

They proposed Earth Day in April next year as one of a series of milestones in 2020 where like-minded nations could announce higher ambition on climate and environmental education.

The plan is to have a critical mass of countries committed to the environmental and climate education agenda by the time of the UN climate conference (COP26) taking place in Glasgow, UK in November.

Lorenzo Fioramonti, Italy’s Minister of Education, Innovation and Research, said: “Young people are demanding that governments take climate change far more seriously. There are many areas of society where we must act, and act with increased ambition: compulsory education on these topics needs to be a key part of this national and international response to the big issues of our time”.

The Italian Education Minister said that Earth Day 2020 represents one of the key moments in this important year to recognize the centrality of climate and environmental education including through  ‘Teach-Ins’ as one way of raising awareness among the young.

He said he hoped other countries would take the same opportunity mark Earth Day’s 50th anniversary and the birth of the environmental movement.

Teach-ins, in which students organize debates and propose solutions to environmental challenges, was a key feature of the first Earth Day where over 20 million young people and citizens protested in 1970, triggering in the process new laws and action by the then US administration.

Martha Delgado, Vice Minister of Global Affairs in Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said her country had now incorporated mandatory environmental education into Mexico’s constitution as the first step in a new comprehensive plan.

“Mexico is now committed to mandatory environmental education at home, but we are also committed to promoting environmental education internationally. The challenges we are facing are national but also global. Young people everywhere need the knowledge to fully respond to what is unfolding on in our world,” he said.

“Great transformations can only be achieved through knowledge, awareness and the sense of collaboration. We are convinced that environmental education is the route to meeting Sustainable Development Goals, an essential tool to fight the climate crisis and can prompt a profound cultural change to contribute to our planet’s sustainability,” said Vice-Minister Delgado.

Kathleen Rogers, President of the Earth Day Network, said environmental literacy had been at the core of Earth Day since its inception in 1970 but that governments had not gone far enough.

“Young people, through movements such as Fridays for Future, have been asking governments to tell the truth about the climate and environmental emergencies that we are now facing—‘telling the truth’ needs to happen in the schools and universities, and needs to happen now,” she said.

Rogers said that while globally climate and environmental education exist across the spectrum, from decades of formal implementation to continued exclusion of the topic as a whole, it is time to make these critical subjects compulsory and to link them to civic education so that students will develop both the knowledge and the civic skills they need to fully engage in the solutions to climate change.

 “These are the core elements of transforming our societies so that a new, far better informed and active generation can emerge to ensure governments truly respond to the challenges of our time,” she said.

Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), welcomed the announcements of Italy and Mexico as a key contribution to realizing the aims of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Under the Agreement governments are looking to enhance their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) in 2020 as contribution to climate action but also the Sustainable Development Goals.

From Madrid and COP25, focus will also be on the Congregation for Catholic Institutes of the Holy See which has chosen Earth Day 2020 as a preparatory meeting for the Global Compact on Education that Pope Francis will launch on May 14th.  It aims to promote a global commitment that also teaches new generations respect for humankind and nature.

Earth Day Italia is working together with the Italian Ministry for the Environment and the Festival for Sustainable Education to support this initiative. For the Silo, Denice Zeck.

Earth

When Planting Native Ontario Trees Use This Tree Atlas

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There are many reasons to plant a tree – to shade your home, help the environment, or just for the pleasure and beauty it brings. There are many questions when it comes to choosing the right tree. What kind of tree will thrive in my community, and on my property? How fast will it grow? Should I worry about choosing a native Ontario tree?

The Tree Atlas

You can get answers to those questions and much more information from an online Tree Atlas (ontario.ca/treeatlas).

The Tree Atlas shows you which trees will work where you live, your soil type, and other conditions to consider. It can also help you find the kind of tree that helps you achieve other goals, like offering shade to keep your home cool in the summer, attracting birds, or a fast-growing, bushy species to hide an unsightly view.

The Tree Atlas describes trees that are native to Ontario, so you’ll be planting a tree that’s adapted to the province and supports a healthy environment. You’ll also find tips on when and how to plant a tree to give it the best chances to thrive on your property.

Trees clean our air and water, help fight climate change, increase wildlife habitat, provide shade and help prevent flooding.  When you plant a tree, you’re helping the environment.

The Tree Atlas was developed by the Ministry of Natural Resources, so you can be confident that the information provided is accurate and reliable.

 Many Ontario towns and cities have tree planting programs – check with your municipality for tree planting information and assistance in your area. For the Silo, Emmilia Kuisma, District Strategic Officer Ministry of Natural Resources.

Art

Nature’s Power Is Unleashed: Bold New Season At Boca Raton Museum Of Art

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The artist Maren Hassinger with children from Pearl City, the historic African American neighborhood where the majestic 100-year-old banyan tree, the “Tree of Knowledge,” still stands today. The children joined hundreds of community members to create together thousands of aerial branches from recycled newspapers for Hassinger’s new monumental installation.
Clifford Ross in the ocean surf, photographing hurricane waves.
The power of nature is unleashed with two timely, powerful exhibitions at the Boca Raton Museum of Art for the new season. Both of these original shows ─ Maren Hassinger: Tree of Knowledge and Clifford Ross: Waves ─ will kick off the museum’s 70th anniversary season (on view November 5th – March 1st). 

The museum is presenting both exhibitions together because the two shows sound a clarion call for environmental awareness. These shows also remind viewers that the beauty of nature can still inspire us, despite the over-saturation of society by hand-held devices and screens.
The two exhibitions are presented side-by-side in adjoining galleries.

The artist Maren Hassinger with children from Pearl City, the historic African American neighborhood where the majestic 100-year-old banyan tree, the “Tree of Knowledge,” still stands today. The children joined hundreds of community members to create together thousands of aerial branches from recycled newspapers for Hassinger’s new monumental installation.Clifford Ross in the ocean surf, photographing hurricane waves.The Clifford Ross exhibition features a new approach to his monumental depictions of ocean waves that the artist captures during extreme weather. The result is the most comprehensive survey of his process ever shown in a museum.

Ross dramatically presents the monstrous power of the seas in his new exhibition at a crucial moment in time for our planet: the United Nations recently issued a major new report warning that the dangerous effects of climate change on our oceans is much worse than previously thought.
The new findings warn about warming oceans and damaged ecosystems.

Sea levels are rising faster than previously predicted, glaciers and ice sheets melting more rapidly than expected, shrinking the fisheries that feed millions.  Watch the spectacular video of Clifford Ross in the ocean surf at vimeo.com/168830477 The new report warns that many cities around the world will experience annual flooding events by 2050 that previously occurred only once per century.

The world’s oceans have been warming since 1970 and have absorbed 90 percent of the planet’s excess heat, killing off vast stretches of coral reefs. Absorbing massive amounts of carbon has made the ocean more acidic and inhospitable to corals that millions of species depend on for survival.



“When I first began photographing these hurricane waves 30 years ago, most of us were unaware that global warming was seriously damaging our oceans,” said Clifford Ross. “Now, as I look back on my work, it takes on a whole new meaning.”

Above – the two artists headlining the new season: Clifford Ross and Maren Hassinger. MAREN HASSINGER: TREE OF KNOWLEDGERenowned sculptor and performance artist Maren Hassinger was commissioned by the museum for a residency that explored the staying power of nearby Pearl City, Boca Raton’s historic African-American neighborhood.

This is the largest installation that Hassinger has ever created in her long and celebrated career. Her new site-specific installation is based on Pearl City’s landmark, the “Tree of Knowledge.” This majestic, 100-year-old banyan tree still stands today and is protected by the Historic Preservation laws. The tree has served the people of Pearl City since the dawn of the 20th century, as a gathering place for sharing stories and communal spirit. The majestic 100-year-old banyan tree at Pearl City is the inspiration for Maren Hassinger’s Tree of Knowledge.(photo by Aylin Tito)
Hassinger vigorously engaged the public to recreate the tree’s aerial roots by gathering many groups over several months.

People from the community and visitors to the museum spent hundreds of hours twisting by hand thousands of recycled newspapers. Thousands of recycled newspapers were twisted to mimic the aerial roots of the banyan tree for Maren Hassinger’snew installation Tree of KnowledgeThese banyan “branches” will be suspended from the ceiling of the main gallery, representing the community-based “Creation-Stations.” The participants’ names will be incorporated into the monumental new work.

“I want visitors to the museum to think about the endurance of the tree and the endurance of the people who live beside it,” said Maren Hassinger. “I hope they realize it’s possible to build a world in which, like this installation, people work together side by side. Both the tree and the residents have inspired me with their mutual endurance.

In new reports, the United Nations warns that fires such as those causing de-forestation in the Amazon elevate concerns for the planet’s natural life support systems. This global call to action urges countries, companies and consumers to build a new relationship with nature.

The destruction of the world’s largest rainforest calls attention to the need to prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity.

This year, the leading scientists of the world warned that civilization was in jeopardy due to forest clearance, over-usage of land, climate change, and pollution, putting a million species at risk of extinction.

Hassinger’s new installation is about nature as knowledge and about education. The twisted ropes of newspaper are made of words and stories.

“I hope the community and all of the visitors to the museum take a moment to think about the materials used in the project, which are not traditional art materials, and realize that this giant project was made not by artists, but by the public, working together,” adds Maren Hassinger. 

“Both adults and children from the community welcomed my project with enthusiasm and proceeded to twist and twist to create the aerial branches. Their enthusiasm and spirit of camaraderie is uplifting and contagious,” says Hassinger.

Paper is a natural material, made from trees, and throughout the installation there will be fans that evoke the wind blowing gently through nature, as opposed to the hurricane winds of Ross’s work.Wind, the video by Maren Hassinger, will also be part of the exhibition. Watch the video trailer here vimeo.com/368811486

“Following the theme of nature for our new season at the Museum, how appropriate that Maren Hassinger would choose this legendary tree, known as the Tree of Knowledge, as the subject for her site-specific installation,” said Irvin Lippman, the executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
“From its inception to its installation, this has involved audiences of all ages from every corner of our community to participate in the making of the aerial roots from streams of recycled newspapers. Much in the manner of the Banyan tree, we are all connected to one another,” adds Irvin Lippman.  

Hassinger’s new exhibition will also feature the installation Love – an experiential portal for visitors to walk through. As the entranceway into the museum’s main galleries, it will surround visitors with hundreds of recycled pink plastic bags that will completely cover all of the surfaces around them. The shopping bags are filled with the air of human breath, and contain human love notes inside. Love, by Maren Hassinger. This installation will serve as the entryway featuring hundreds of recycled pink plastic bags, surrounding visitors.The bags are filled with human breath and contain human love notes.Maren Hassinger (still from her video Pink Trash). 

CLIFFORD ROSS: WAVES On the subject of Clifford Ross: Waves, Irvin Lippman adds: “It would seem obvious that a museum with a coastal address such as ours would naturally be ever fascinated by the subject of waves. The subject of Clifford’s photographs in this new exhibition, however, goes deeper into the unpredictable shapes of waves, as much about abstraction as realism.” 
The effect of being engulfed in a room full of his work is profound, causing some viewers to claim they can actually hear the sound of the ocean waves although there is no sound component.
Ross is celebrated worldwide for his Hurricane Waves series, monumental images that were photographed by the artist during storms and while hurricanes were off-shore, while he was attached by a tether to his assistant who remained on land as Ross braved the ocean surf.

The size of these images is humbling. The angle of vision, from as low as possible, is calculated to inspire awe. The waves dominate us, framed or cropped; we feel their full force.
These waves invoke the power of wind as well as the power of water, the great cyclical forces of nature that generate energy.  
This major survey includes his monumental hurricane wave images. The exhibition also features a site-specific installation of extremely large-scale prints on wood, as well as the artist’s Digital Waves – A computer generated video displayed on an LED wall that has been acquired by the museum for its collection.
Other sections include: the Horizons series (photographs that explore movement with the added power of obstruction); his Hurricane Scrolls; and the Grains series of bold abstract works exploring the purity of color.Clifford Ross, Hurricane LXIII, 2009. Archival pigment print.“The pure abstraction of the Grains series is an antidote to the hurricane, a space to calm down. A quiet end to this stormy story where we can recompose our thoughts,” said Clifford Ross. 
While it explores the limits of photography and abstraction, this exhibition is also a dramatic declaration about climate change.
“This exhibition is a thorough survey of my working methods,” said Ross. “an effort to show all the ways I have approached the subject of ocean waves. But there’s also a deeper theme of addressing climate change – unavoidable in this day and age.”A work from Clifford Ross’s Digital Waves series (computer generated videos displayed on an LED wall) has been acquired by the museum for its collection. “Somehow the apocalyptic quality of the show does not erase the basic lyricism and beauty that I see in nature. When I started out, wanting to celebrate nature by creating bodies of work that were an homage to the sublime, I didn’t understand that the images were also capturing evidence – evidence of our negative impact on nature.”

“The ferocity, the forms of these waves were partially due to global warming. This project has come full circle, as much a meditation on the medium of photography as it is a photographic reflection of our world,” said Clifford Ross. 
Photo of artwork
Clifford Ross, Wood Wave LIV, 2017. Triptych UV cured ink on maple veneer. 
Caption for first photo at top: Clifford Ross, Hurricane LI, 2009. Archival pigment print.
MORE ABOUT THE TWO ARTISTS: Above – the two artists headlining the new season: Maren Hassinger and Clifford Ross. Maren Hassinger has work held in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture in Baltimore; the California African American Museum in Los Angeles; Portland Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Williams College Art Museum in Williamstown; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.
Her many awards include: the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art, Maryland Institute College of Art; Joan Mitchell Foundation Grants; Anonymous Was a Woman; and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, among others.
More about Maren Hassinger here.
The works of Clifford Ross are held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, among others. He is the editor of the book Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, and is Chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. His work has been widely exhibited in the United States, Europe, Brazil and China.
He has lectured in numerous university and museum settings, including Princeton, Yale, and New York University. Ross is a member of the Yale School of Art Dean’s Advisory Board.
More about Clifford Ross here. 
Photo of artwork
The majestic 100-year-old banyan tree at Pearl City is the inspiration for Maren Hassinger’s Tree of Knowledge.
(photo by Aylin Tito)
Love, by Maren Hassinger. This installation will serve as the entryway featuring hundreds of recycled pink plastic bags, surrounding visitors.The bags are filled with human breath and contain human love notes.
Photo of artwork
Thousands of recycled newspapers were twisted to mimic the aerial roots of the banyan tree for Maren Hassinger’s
new installation Tree of Knowledge
A work from Clifford Ross’s Digital Waves series (computer generated videos displayed on an LED wall) has been acquired by the museum for its collection. 
Culture

NBA Player Ends Eating Red Meat To Lower Carbon Footprint

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The individual’s role in combating climate change is becoming a prevalent topic, following the release of the IPCC report this autumn. Leading by example, NBA star Lauri Markkanen is taking a stance by changing his daily eating habits. As his first action to combat climate change on a personal level, the Chicago Bulls player has given up eating red meat.

“As my first action for #DontChoke, I pledge to stop consuming red meat as a concrete step towards minimizing my personal carbon footprint. Every move counts, play your part”, Markkanen declares on social media.  

Following his #DontChoke collaboration with renewable energy company Neste, the decision is an exemplary step in doing his part in the fight against global warming.

Markkanen explains, that having recently become a father has made the well-being of the environment even more significant to him. Markkanen encourages his fans to follow in his footsteps to ensure a better environment for generations to come. “I want to do everything in my power so that my child will grow up in a clean environment, like I did. This is a call to all my fans to do their share”, Markkanen explains.

The #DontChoke campaign is a call to action for individuals to do their share in battling climate change. The NBA player kicked off the campaign by shooting hoops with a basketball covered with a hand painted visualization of this year’s heat map. Throughout the on-going campaign, Markkanen will consider the elements of his own lifestyle and opt for more sustainable alternatives. Leading by example, the NBA player hopes to encourage others to make their own climate pledge.

Earth

Winds Of Change Bring New Environmental Reality

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The Ontario government is taking action to address issues of climate change.  Once in office, we have been acting as quickly as possible to fulfill our commitment to Ontario families and businesses.  For example, we revoked the cap-and-trade carbon tax and ended emissions trading and allowances. In addition, we have now released our Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan that takes concrete steps to protect our air, water, and land and fight climate change.

Climate change is here.  It is a reality and our environmental legacy will be predicated on our capacity to adapt, and to stop the worst consequences from materializing.

Fortunately, another reality is the fact the Ontario government is committed to protecting the environment using a sensible and balanced approach that creates jobs, respects taxpayers and grows the economy. But it is important to discuss what we’re fighting…the actual impact climate change can have on all of us.

Our government understands that climate change is a reality. It is a serious, worldwide problem.

More frequently, we hear media reports of severe weather that results in flooded basements, structural damages, and costly cleanups—sometimes in our own backyard. And the insured losses we’ve incurred in Ontario during 2018 give an unnerving snapshot of the consequences.

Earlier this year, a storm caused more than $46 million of insured damage in Brantford, Cambridge, London and the GTA. A spring storm in southern Ontario resulted in almost $80 million in costs. Soon after, winds and rains hit Hamilton and the GTA and caused over $500 million in damage. Last summer, a rainstorm in Toronto caused $80 million in damage. Further, we can’t forget the destruction left in the path of the Ottawa tornadoes this September.

The people across Haldimand-Norfolk are close to the land and are among the first to notice changes in the weather and the attendant damage and costs extreme weather can inflict on crops and buildings.  Farmers and those that work outdoors have long been aware of fluctuating temperatures and are taking note when scientists predict that the average annual temperature in Ontario could be increasing significantly.

Prediction Ontario Rising TemperaturesMilder winters and hotter summers create a paradise for insect and plant diseases. Are you getting more tick and mosquito bites? Lyme disease and West Nile virus, and other mosquito and tick-borne diseases, have been moving northward as our part of the world warms.  And with increasing temperatures and phosphorus loads, many have taken notice of Lake Erie’s more frequent algal blooms and accelerated aquatic plant growth.

These aren’t news items from a far-off land.  These events effect our health, increase food costs, hurt our communities, and can mean large repair bills and higher insurance premiums.

In a subsequent column, I’ll discuss our Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan and how it’s constructed to meet the needs of Ontarians by protecting and conserving our air, land and water; fighting litter and waste; building resilience to the impacts of climate change—particularly extreme weather—and illustrating ways for all of us to do our part to decelerate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As one with a background in agriculture and the outdoors, I’m excited about our environment plan. It draws on the expertise of environmentalists, scientists, stakeholders, Indigenous people, and the general public—more than 8,000 ideas and recommendations were received through our online portal.   But more on that in a future column. For the Silo, Toby Barrett.

Earth

How Your Startup Company Will Benefit From Energy Consultant

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If you’re just starting your own company, then it’s understandable that you’ll be very busy at first. After all, you have so much to do to nurture and grow your business. But sooner or later (preferably sooner), your startup needs to take advantage of the services of a top-notch energy consultant.

Here are some compelling reasons why you should use an energy consultant right away.

size doesnt matter Shakespeare quote1. Size doesn’t matter. Maybe you think your company has to grow bigger first before you can enjoy the benefits of energy consulting. But that’s not entirely true. Even a small company can enjoy huge advantages when an energy consultant is on board.

2. Unbiased advice. Since an energy consultant isn’t really part of your company, you can get independent advice. You won’t have to worry about getting recommendations and findings from your employees or departments which may or may not be biased.

3. Energy usage patterns. Every company has its own patterns of energy usage. Some days and time frames will see a very heavy use of energy, while during other times there may not be a lot of energy use at all. Your energy consultant can then identify these times as part of their examination, and that can eventually help your company become more energy-efficient.

For example, it may be possible to arrange the heavy use of electricity during the time of day when the cost of electricity is at its lowest.

4. Alternative energy sources. Your energy consultant will have the necessary knowledge and experience regarding other ways of powering your business. Your company can get a comprehensive analysis regarding your possible use of these energy sources.

The report may examine several alternative sources of energy regarding their suitability for your business, and these may be solar energy or wind turbine power. The energy consultant may find out exactly how much it will cost your business to buy and install these systems. They may also determine how long it will take to complete the installation, and how easy it is to operate these systems. At the same time, the consultant can also find out exactly how much money you can cut from your current energy bills.

meme by ICANHASCHEEZBURGER.COM
meme by ICANHASCHEEZBURGER.COM

5. Using green energy. Many businesses today focus on being environmentally friendly. It’s not just right for the world, but it’s also right for your business as you can include your use of green energy as part of your marketing plan. When your company can help reduce carbon emissions, you can make your place and your neighborhood healthier, while it also boosts the reputation of your company.

6. Regular advice. Your energy consultant may be asked to come in on a regular basis. Because of this, your company may keep current on the latest developments regarding the use of renewable energy. This means you’ll learn about new technology and changes in alternative energy laws. Also, your energy consultant can fine-tune your use of alternative energy and also make sure that your renewable energy system is running at peak efficiency. For the Silo, Dimitry Karloff.

 

Earth

Ontario Law Protects Bees By Reducing Neonicotinoid Corn And Soybean Crops

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On July 1, 2015, Ontario was the first jurisdiction in North America to protect bees and other pollinators through new rules to reduce the number of acres planted with neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seeds by 80 per cent.

Over the years, Ontario beekeepers have experienced unusually high over-winter losses of honey bees, reaching 58 per cent following the winter of 2013-14. image: naturalblaze.com
Over the years, Ontario beekeepers have experienced unusually high over-winter losses of honey bees, reaching 58 per cent following the winter of 2013-14. image: naturalblaze.com

To support this goal, new requirements were put in place for the sale and use of neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seed that will help ensure treated seed is only used when there is evidence of a pest problem. Reducing neonicotinoid use in these two crops presents the greatest potential to reduce pollinator exposure to the neurotoxic insecticide.

Pollinators, including bees, birds and butterflies, play a crucial role in agriculture and our ecosystem. The level of over-winter losses considered to be acceptable and sustainable by most apiculturists is 15 per cent.

 

The new rules are one part of Ontario’s strategy to improve pollinator health. The province will also develop a pollinator health action plan in consultation with the public and experts to address other stressors that affect pollinators.

Ensuring a strong and healthy agricultural sector is part of the government’s economic plan for Ontario. The four part plan is building Ontario up by investing in people’s talents and skills, making the largest investment in public infrastructure in Ontario’s history, creating a dynamic, innovative environment where business thrives, and building a secure retirement savings plan.

A flowering tobacco plant. Close to 100 per cent of corn seed and 60 per cent of soybean seed sold in Ontario is treated with neonicotinoid insecticides.
A flowering tobacco plant. Close to 100 per cent of corn seed and 60 per cent of soybean seed sold in Ontario is treated with neonicotinoid insecticides.

QUOTES

“Much of the food we eat and the vibrancy of Ontario’s natural habitats depend on a healthy pollinator population. Our government is taking necessary action to protect these vitally important species and the ecosystems they support from the effects of neurotoxic neonicotinoids.”

— Glen Murray, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change

“Farmers are environmental stewards of their land and this regulation will enable our province’s farmers to strengthen their approach to protecting their crops. To have a significant impact on improving pollinator health, over the coming months, we collectively need to focus on three additional contributors: habitat and nutrition, disease and pests as well as weather and climate change.”

— Jeff Leal, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

 “Farmers care about the health of pollinators. That’s why the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA)  has worked closely with the Government of Ontario to have these new regulatory requirements work for the province’s farmers. The OFA supports the need for a complete pollinator policy.  The OFA will continue to work with the government toward the successful implementation of this regulation, keeping the concerns of farmers top of mind as part of a pollinator strategy.”

  • Don McCabe, President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

 “Friends of the Earth is pleased and impressed by Ontario’s leadership in finalizing this first permanent reduction in the use of neonicotinoids in Canada. With its new pesticide regulation, Ontario is delivering important benefits for nature including honey bees, native bees and other vulnerable species.”

  • Beatrice Olivastri, Chief Executive Officer, Friends of the Earth Canada

“Doctors are delighted Ontario will be North America’s first jurisdiction to introduce regulatory restrictions on bee-killing neonic pesticides. Assuming Ontario hits its target of an 80% reduction by 2017, this will be the most important pollinator-protection policy on the continent — and a major contributor to food security.”

  • Gideon Forman, Executive Director, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

 

QUICK FACTS

 

  • There are more than 400 pollinator species in Ontario and bees are the most common pollinator.
  • Bees and other pollinators are responsible for pollinating roughly 13 per cent of agricultural crops in Ontario (crops worth about $897 million), and support $26 million annually in honey production.
  • The province conducted a comprehensive, two-stage consultation process with the public and stakeholders to develop its neonicotinoid regulatory requirements.
  • Neonicotinoid-treated seeds are widely used in agriculture. Close to 100 per cent of corn seed and 60 per cent of soybean seed sold in the province is treated with neonicotinoid insecticides.

 

LEARN MORE

 

Learn more about the new regulatory requirements to protect pollinators

Learn about the importance of protecting bees and other pollinators

Supplemental- New York Times: Bee death may be linked to Tobacco ringspot virus

Politics

Funding Announced To Help Ontarians Save Energy And Money In Homes And Businesses

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I’m sure we all read the distressing poll that about a third of Canadians still don’t believe the threat of climate change is real.  Even more illuminating: only 30 per cent even know we are taking action in Ontario to fight climate change.

This is the reason why Canada and Ontario are working together to take action on climate change and find clean solutions to help homeowners and families save money, reduce energy waste, create jobs and support healthy communities.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, and the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, announced a federal investment of up to $100 million to help the people of Ontario make energy efficient retrofits to their homes – including apartments, townhouses and low-income housing – and businesses.

This funding will support the province’s GreenON Rebates program, which helps cover the cost of eco-friendly retrofits across the province. This investment is supported by the Government of Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund.

GreenON Rebates will assist property owners make energy efficient changes like installing better insulation, high-efficiency ventilation systems and heat pumps, and other devices to save energy and reduce costs.

This is an opportunity for us here in Haldimand-Norfolk to take action and do our part in fighting the climante change. We can take advantage of receiving some of our own tax dollars back by improving our houses and businesses while saving money in the long run at the same time.

As part of its Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), Ontario in investing up to $1.7 billion over the coming years into GreenON to support a wide range of programs, including rebates and programs to help families, business and farmers make environmentally friendly changes. The CCAP is a five-year action plan that is making life more affordable for people across the province and making Ontario a leader in the global fight against climate change. Revenues from Ontario’s carbon market, which puts a cap on the carbon pollution businesses can emit, are funding this action plan.

The Government of Canada’s Low-Carbon Economy Leadership Fund provides $1.4 billion to provinces and territories that have adopted the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCF), to deliver on commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Today’s announcement is part of the almost $420 million Ontario is receiving through the Leadership Fund.

Did you Know:

  • Through GreenON, property owners are currently eligible for rebates up to $7,200 in savings on new insulation; $5,000 in savings on replacement windows; $5,800 in savings on some air source heat pumps; and $20,000 in savings on installation of some certified ground source heat pumps.
  • In January, Ontario became part of the second-largest carbon market in the world, which forms the backbone of Ontario’s strategy to cut greenhouse gas pollution to 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.
  • Ontario’s carbon market has generation approximately $2.4 billion in revenue to improve schools, hospitals, transit and other projects like new bike lanes that are building a greener, more energy efficient province.
  • Ontario has committed up to $1.7 billion over three years to support a wide range of programs under the Green Ontario Fund (GreenON).

 

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