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Global Warming turning Antarctica Green?

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Global Warming turning Antarctica Green?

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Plant life on both poles is growing rapidly as the planet warms.

A new study has found a steady growth of moss in Antarctica over the last 50 years as temperatures increased as a result of climate change. The study, published yesterday in the journal Current Biology, shows that Antarctica will be much greener in the future, said lead author Matt Amesbury, a researcher at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

The continued retreat of glaciers will make the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been warming at a faster rate than the rest of the continent, a much greener place in the future, Amesbury said.

"It's a clear sign that the biological response to climate warming is pervasive around the globe," he said. "The Antarctic Peninsula is often thought of as a very remote and possibly even untouched region, but this clearly shows that the effects of climate change are felt here."

Amesbury and his fellow researchers used cores of the moss bank to arrive at their conclusion. They looked at 150 years' worth of data and found clear "changepoints" in the last 50 years that showed the increase of moss cover. Amesbury described the moss growth as a powerful signifier that the region is already undergoing change.

And even though plant life only exists on a tiny fraction of Antarctica, about 0.3 percent, researchers found it is likely to increase significantly as the region warms. As land cover increases and the snow and ice cover decreases, the area also absorbs more heat. That could bring an ecosystem shift to Antarctica that is more in line with what researchers have found in the Arctic.

"The sensitivity of moss growth to past temperature rises suggests that ecosystems will alter rapidly under future warming, leading to major changes in the biology and landscape of this iconic region," Dan Charman, who led the project at Exeter, said in a statement. "In short, we could see Antarctic greening to parallel well-established observations in the Arctic."

That echoes research published earlier this year that also shows an increase of plant growth in the Arctic. Scientists once thought tiny marine plants known as phytoplankton could not thrive under sea ice in the frigid Arctic ocean. But thinning ice has allowed them to thrive to such an extent that green patches of ice have been observed. The thinner ice lets sunshine in to previously dark areas, which allows the plankton to grow, and has the potential to dramatically change the ecosystem as animals migrate to the area earlier in pursuit of food.

Those who reject basic climate science have pointed to Antarctica as evidence for their skepticism, claiming that concerns over the transformation of the Arctic because ice cover in Antarctica was growing. The Arctic has shown undeniable signs of climate change by breaking records that show a significant pattern of warming. In recent years, the region has seen new lows for sea ice cover and set stunning temperature records.

Antarctica has been held up as an exception to the understanding of global climate change, but that may be because scientists haven't understood enough about why it is not warming at the same rate as the Arctic. Researchers say global warming has already transformed the Arctic into a "new state" and that further change is inevitable in the near future. In Antarctica, the observed change has been less dramatic. But that doesn't disprove the growing understanding of human-caused climate change, said Marc Salzmann, a researcher at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

For one, Antarctica is colder than the Arctic. But it also has a much thicker ice cover, thousands of feet thick in some areas, compared to Arctic sea ice that is just dozens of feet thick. The average elevation in Antarctica is more than a mile above sea level. That high land surface area could be why the melting in Antarctica is less dramatic, a separate study published yesterday in the journal Earth System Dynamics found. One reason is that the transfer of warmer winds blowing into the region from lower latitudes is partially obscured by the mountains and ice sheets. The higher elevation of Antarctica also allows less room for carbon dioxide and water vapor.

That difference in land height accounts for about 56 percent of the difference in the rates of warming in Antarctica compared to the Arctic.

"The general public has generally heard about the Arctic warming rapidly, and so if somebody asks themselves why Antarctic has not yet warmed so much, this actually gives the explanation," Salzmann said. "For a while, Antarctica has been cited as an example of a place which may contradict total warming theory; in this context we understand better, it's a piece of the puzzle to understanding why Antarctica hasn't warmed so much."

High temperatures continue to shape life on both poles. The globe experienced its second warmest April in recorded history, second only to last year, and sea ice cover in both the Arctic and Antarctic is near record lows, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced yesterday. Antarctic sea ice cover was 18.2 percent, or 520,000 square miles, below the 1981-2010 average, NOAA also said yesterday. That is the second lowest April sea ice extent since record-keeping began in 1979. In the Arctic, sea ice cover was down 6.9 percent, or 394,000 square miles. That's tied for the lowest ever recorded, with April 2016.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

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Climate Change Is Turning Antarctica Green

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Plant life on both poles is growing rapidly as the planet warms. A new study has found a steady growth of moss in Antarctica over the last 50 years as temperatures increased as a result of climate change.

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Terrorism does not deter international tourism

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Terrorism does not deter international tourism

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Worldwide, people's desire to travel remains unabated, despite terror attacks and political unrest. However, the geopolitical crises around the globe are influencing destination choices. Following attacks in Turkey and Egypt, the world's most popular destination, Spain, has now been affected. Las Ramblas in Barcelona, the target chosen by the attackers, is a popular tourist attraction. While North Africa and Turkey in particular have experienced a dramatic decline in bookings due to terror attacks, the effects on the tourism industry in Europe remain to be seen.

Close to half of all international travellers plan to change their travel behaviour
This year, for the third time, IPK International conducted a special survey on " Terror Threats and Tourism" in over 20 major source markets around the globe. The study revealed that for 45 per cent of international travellers the threat of terror attacks will have an influence on their travel plans this year, which compared to 2016 represents an increase of six percentage points. However, the latest survey exhibits regional differences between source markets in Europe, Asia as well as North and South America. Travellers from Asian source markets such as South Korea, China and Japan as well as Russia are more sensitive to terror threats and thus more likely to let instability and terror warnings influence their travel plans. In contrast, travellers from European source markets such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland are less sensitive to the threat of terror attacks. Singles are also relatively unimpressed by terror warnings, whereas people travelling with children are more cautious.

Shift in travel flows from "unsafe" to "safe" destinations
Due to the current global situation regarding safety, holidays in one's home country have taken on a new significance: 16 per cent of international travellers polled said they will not travel in the next 12 months or will only go on domestic trips within their own country. A further 29 per cent indicated they will continue to travel abroad, however only to countries they consider "safe". Compared to 2016, the safety perception of some travel destinations has further declined. Last year, 64 per cent of the respondents rated Turkey as "unsafe". In 2017 the figure rose to 76 per cent.

Overall, destinations with the weakest safety image are Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Tunisia, whereas Canada, Switzerland, Australia and Scandinavia were perceived as safest. Hence, the shift in travel flows from "unsafe" to "safe" destinations is expected to further continue.

Further results in November
IPK International will present new data on global travel behaviour covering the period from January to August 2017 and provide a forecast for next year at the 25th anniversary World Travel Monitor Forum in Pisa in November 2017. The conference is organised by IPK International in collaboration with ITB Berlin. The first results of the IPK special survey on travel safety will also be presented.

The World Travel Monitor Forum is an exclusive industry event, which discusses the latest travel trends and provides an outlook for developments in tourism. A summary of the Forum's main findings will be presented in the ITB World Travel Trends Report. The report "The Impact of Current Terror Threats on International Travel Behaviour" by IPK International contains detailed information on individual source markets and destinations with regard to the influence of terror threats.

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Worldwide, people's desire to travel remains unabated, despite terror attacks and political unrest. However, the geopolitical crises around the globe are influencing destination choices. Following attacks in Turkey and Egypt, the world's most popular destination, Spain, has now been affected. Las Ramblas in Barcelona, the target chosen by the attackers, is a popular tourist attraction.

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Saudi Arabia -Stage 3 of Butler's Model??

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Saudi Arabia -Stage 3 of Butler's Model??

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has announced it plans to turn a huge part of its pristine Red Sea coastline into a semi-autonomous luxury beach resort.

The 50 islands and 180km (110 miles) stretch of coastline - amounting to an area the size of Belgium - will be developed to home luxury hotels and other necessary infrastructure which will exist under laws "on par with international standards" in an effort to draw tourists to the country, the government said Tuesday.

The plans are part of" Vision 2030 ", Saudi Arabia's long-term blueprint for weaning itself off its reliance on oil revenue. It involves investments to the tune of $20m (£15.6m) - including a shot in the arm for the kingdom's nascent tourism industry.

While 18 million people visited Saudi Arabia from abroad in 2016, almost all foreigners came on pilgrimage to Mecca, rather than to spend time and money soaking up the country's other sights.

Although the Kingdom is home to many archaeological sites, pristine beaches and excellent diving, it is not a holiday destination like Egypt's Red Sea resorts or the city of Petra in Jordan. It currently does not offer tourist visas, making visiting difficult.

Conservative social rules, a lack of alcohol and restrictive dress codes coupled with blazing desert heat aren't the usual ingredients Western holidaymakers look for.

Forms of recreation such as theatre and cinemas are banned, and despite tentative efforts at reform, Saudi Arabia is still widely criticised for its institutionalised discrimination against women.

It is not clear whether western women - or local women - will be allowed to don bikinis or other clothing which does not fit the kingdom's strict dress codes while visiting the resorts, or travel without the presence of a male guardian.

The Kingdom's authorities say the new tourist zone will not necessarily be subject to the laws in place in the rest of the country, although there are no details on how the semi-autonomous area will function yet.

The government is working on introducing tourist visas to make it easier for foreigners to visit. It is hoped one million people a year - a combined domestic and international total - will stay at the new Red Sea destinations by 2035.

Construction at the Red Sea site will begin in autumn 2019 and be completed by the end of 2022, state news agency SPA said. The Kingdom's Public Investment Fund will provide the initial funding before international bodies are invited to invest.

Up to 35,000 jobs will be created by the project, which is eventually projected to generate 15 billion riyals (£3bn) a year.

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Saudi Arabia says it's turning 50 islands into luxury tourism resorts not subject to conservative kingdom's rules

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has announced it plans to turn a huge part of its pristine Red Sea coastline into a semi-autonomous luxury beach resort.

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Shoppers in England now far more likely to use their own bags

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Shoppers in England now far more likely to use their own bags

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Shoppers in England have become much more likely to take their own bags to the high street since the introduction of a plastic bag charge nearly a year ago, a study has found.

More than nine in 10 people now often or always carry their own bags, up from seven in 10 before the 5p charge came into effect, and the public became much more supportive after it started. The number of plastic bags taken from supermarkets and big retailers in England has fallen by 85%.

The authors of the Cardiff University study said that the charge's success suggested a charge on takeway coffee cups, an idea backed by campaigner and chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and former environment minister George Eustice, could be successfully brought in too.

Support for the England bag charge went from five in 10 people to six in 10 after the 5p fee came into effect, and the number of shoppers sceptical that the charge would go to charity dropped significantly after its introduction. The charge had raised £29m for good causes by July.

"One thing that stood out to me was the effects were universal, there weren't age, gender or income effects," said lead author Prof Wouter Poortinga. "Everyone changed their behaviour and everyone increased their support for the charge. I think that is important."

The research also revealed that the charge gave people in England an increased environmental awareness, and greater willingness to accept other waste policies too, such as a 5p charge on plastic bottles.

Support for 5p charge

But Poortinga conceded that while the bag scheme's success showed a coffee cup charge could work, that shift would likely be trickier. "It's not exactly the same. It's easier to adapt to a bag charge by bringing your own bag than by bringing your own cup. You have to find ways around the hassle factor," he said.

The government has ruled out a coffee cup "tax", though pressure for an end to the throwaway culture continued on Thursday with the launch of a 'cupifesto' by 140 environmental and social NGOs who said takeaway cups harm forests.

While single-use bag use has plummeted in England - as in Wales and Scotland who brought in charges earlier - the study found some evidence that people were building up bag for life mountains at home.

"We asked people to estimate how many bags for life they have at home: in England it went from 6.5 to nine [after the charge]. In Wales it's around 11. People are buying more bags for life than they really need. It seems it is accumulating a little bit," said Poortinga.

The study suggests the government should do away with the exemptions in the England scheme, which excludes small retailers. The study's survey found a majority of participants backed a blanket charge across England, Scotland and Wales, which Poortinga said would be much more straightforward.

The research involved a nationally representative survey with Ipsos Mori of people before, just after and six months after the England charge, as well as diaries and interviews, and observations of shoppers at four supermarkets.

Respondents in their diaries said they found the scheme easy to adapt to, despite predictions of "chaos" from some newspapers on its introduction.

"It [the bag charge] makes people think about what they're doing, and stops them from being lazy. It makes people think ahead and plan, and not just take things for granted," wrote one woman in England shortly after the charge. Another said: "I really think that along with carrier bags, the issue of other plastic going to waste should be looked at."

A spokesman for the environment department said: "These latest figures show that this great progress is the result of a real change in our behaviour - many more of us now stop, think and take a bag with us before heading out to the shops."

Efforts to cut plastic waste received another boost on Wednesday, when Lidl said it would remove single-use plastic bags from all its stores across England, Scotland and Wales by the start of July next year. The supermarket said it was making the move because of its commitment to "reduce unnecessary plastic waste" and estimated the change would save 63m bags annually.

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Shoppers in England now far more likely to use their own bags

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Shoppers in England have become much more likely to take their own bags to the high street since the introduction of a plastic bag charge nearly a year ago, a study has found.

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Number of plastic bags found on UK beaches falls by nearly half

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Number of plastic bags found on UK beaches falls by nearly half

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The number of plastic carrier bags found on UK beaches has dropped by almost half, according to conservationists.

The Marine Conservation Society said the introduction of a 5p levy on single-use plastic bags in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the past five years was instrumental in the reduction.

According to the charity's annual Great British Beach Clean report, there were 11 plastic bags per 100 metres of coastline cleaned in 2015, on average. This year, however, there was just under seven, which is a decrease of almost 40% and the lowest number in the past 10 years.

The charity began calling for action on single-use carrier bags in shops back in 2008 and was instrumental in getting a levy introduced in Wales in 2011, Northern Ireland in 2013, Scotland in 2014 and England last October.

The charity's beach watch manager, Lauren Eyles, said: "In the last decade, our Great British Beach Clean volunteers have found an average of 10 single use carrier bags for every 100 metres of coastline cleaned.

"It vindicates the charge, which we predicted would be good news for the marine environment. Thanks to our thousands of fantastic volunteers who collect beach litter data, we can now see the impact these charges have had."

Beaches in England and Northern Ireland saw the biggest drop in the number of plastic bags found during the September cleanup - more than half compared with 2015.

In Wales, where the charge has been in place for five years, there were just under four bags for every 100 metres cleaned. This number is significantly lower than any other year since 2011. In Scotland, volunteers found, on average, one bag fewer over the same distance this year compared with last year.

The charity said there has been a drop of almost 4% in the amount of litter found on UK beaches between 2015 and 2016, with 6,000 volunteers collecting 268,384 items.

Beaches in Scotland saw a decrease of 18% in overall litter levels, rubbish innorth-east England dropped by 14% and in the Channel Islands by 10%. But there were increases in the amount of beach litter in the north-west (24%), Wales and the south-west (15%) and in Northern Ireland (9%).

Bags graphic

Analysis of the data collected by volunteers also showed a rise of more than 4% in the quantity of drinks containers found on the UK's beaches. This included including plastic bottles, bottle tops and aluminium cans.

There was also a 53% rise over the past year in the amount of balloon-related litter found on beaches.

Turtles mistake plastic bags and balloons for their jellyfish prey, and the items can block their digestive systems, leading to death from starvation. Some species of seabirds are particularly attracted by the scent of this plastic junk "food".

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Number of plastic bags found on UK beaches falls by nearly half

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The number of plastic carrier bags found on UK beaches has dropped by almost half, according to conservationists. The Marine Conservation Society said the introduction of a 5p levy on single-use plastic bags in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the past five years was instrumental in the reduction.

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Evaluate a strategy at a local or national scale aimed at reducing the consumption of one resource. 

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Evaluate a strategy at a local or national scale aimed at reducing the consumption of one resource. 

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Our case study for tomorrow

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The law requires large shops in England to charge 5p for all single-use plastic carrier bags. Charging started on 5 October 2015.

We want to reduce the use of single-use plastic carrier bags, and the litter they can cause, by encouraging people to reuse bags.

1. Which shops charge for bags

Large businesses need to charge for single-use plastic carrier bags. This applies to retailers who have 250 or more employees.

It's not just supermarkets who are affected, many high street and out-of-town shops are also required to charge for bags. Smaller businesses can also charge on a voluntary basis if they wish.

As we said in our paper 'A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment' we want to extend the scheme so that small retailers also charge for bags. We'll first be looking at voluntary agreements with industries to achieve this, before we consider making this compulsory.

Whether or not a shop must charge for bags depends on the size of the company that runs the shop, not on the size of an individual branch. There's more information in our guidance for retailers.

2. Bags for life

As a shopper, you can avoid being charged by bringing your own bags. In some shops, you can buy thicker, reusable 'bags for life'. Typically, you pay for these once, and can return them for a free replacement when they wear out.

3. When you're not charged for a bag

There are some cases where retailers aren't required to charge you for a bag:

paper bags

shops in airports, or on board trains, aeroplanes or ships

bags which only contain certain items, such as unwrapped food, raw meat and fish where there is a food safety risk, prescription medicines, uncovered blades, seeds, bulbs and flowers, or live fish

We've set out full details of all of the exemptions from the charge in our guidance for retailers. In cases where retailers aren't required by law to charge for a bag, it is up to them to decide whether or not to do so. There is nothing in the law that prevents retailers from charging for bags, even where there's an exemption.

4. Biodegradable bags

There is currently no exemption for biodegradable bags. We completed a review of industry standards for the biodegradability of lightweight plastics in December 2015. The review found that there are a number of standards for plastic bag biodegradability.

We will continue to consider the technical specifications for a genuinely biodegradable bag and how an exemption for this could be implemented.

5. Benefits: why there's a charge

The scheme aims to reduce the use of single-use plastic carrier bags, and the litter associated with them, by encouraging people to re-use bags.

In 2014 over 7.6 billion single-use plastic bags were given to customers by major supermarkets in England. That's something like 140 bags per person, the equivalent of about 61,000 tonnes in total.

They take longer than other bags to degrade in the environment, can damage wildlife, and are extremely visible when littered in our towns, parks and the countryside.

Despite research showing that the average household already had 40 plastic bags around the home, the number of plastic bags taken from supermarkets increased for the fifth year running in 2014.

Similar 5p charges are also in place across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Since we introduced the scheme, the number of bags used has gone down by more than 80 percent in England.

We estimate that over the next 10 years the benefits of the scheme will include:

an expected overall benefit of over £780 million to the UK economy

up to £730 million raised for good causes

£60 million savings in litter clean-up costs

carbon savings of £13 million

6. How the proceeds are being used

This is not a tax and the money from the charge does not go to the government.

We expect retailers to give the proceeds of the scheme to good causes, but it is for them to choose what to do, and which causes to support. We ask retailers to report to us each year about what they do with the money from the charge. We publish a summary which includes details of the amounts of money given to good causes.

During the year from 7 April 2016 to 6 April 2017, almost two-thirds of retailers told us they gave over £66 million to good causes - amounting to 4 pence for every single-use bag sold by them.

7. Results from the scheme

The carrier bag charge has made a big difference. Since we introduced the scheme, the number of bags used has gone down by more than 80 percent in England. This means that more than nine billion fewer plastic bags have been used.

We publish a summary which includes the results reported to us by retailers.

8. Watch our video

Watch our short video for consumers and others explaining the 5p charge for single-use plastic carrier bags:
Single-use plastic carrier bag charge
Transcript of commentary on video:

From 5 October 2015, large shops in England will have to charge five pence for all single use plastic carrier bags they provide. In 2013, the major supermarkets in England gave out over 7.4 billion plastic bags - that's 133 bags for every person. To protect our environment from litter and pollution we are committed to bringing this number down.

The five pence charge on single use plastic carrier bags could reduce usage by as much as 80% in the big supermarkets. Small retailers don't have to charge but can do so on a voluntary basis. You can avoid paying the charge either by reusing single use plastic carrier bags, or by using multi-use bags for life. You also won't pay a five pence charge if you're using a paper bag, if you're in transit, or if your bag only contains certain items, such as unwrapped food, raw meat and fish, prescription medicines, uncovered blades, seeds, bulbs and flowers, or live fish.

Retailers need to keep track of how many plastic bags they've given out and where the proceeds have gone ... and report this to Government by 31 May every year. We expect good causes to benefit from the charge by tens of millions of pounds each year.

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The law requires large shops in England to charge 5p for all single-use plastic carrier bags. Charging started on 5 October 2015. We want to reduce the use of single-use plastic carrier bags, and the litter they can cause, by encouraging people to reuse bags. Large businesses need to charge for single-use plastic carrier bags.

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Recycling rates in England drop for first time

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Waste companies call for tax on packaging to drive up rates as UK likely to miss EU recycling targets

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EU Waste Framework Directive | The Waste Disposal Hub

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The EU Waste Framework Directive is the primary European legislation for the management of waste. Get complete guide about here.

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In the short term, the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) has significant influence on the price of oil. Over the long term, its ability to influence the price of oil is quite limited, primarily because individual countries have different incentives than OPEC as a whole.

For example, if OPEC and OPEC countries are unsatisfied with the price of oil, it is in their interests to cut the supply of oil so prices rise. However, no individual country actually wants to reduce supply, as this would mean reduced revenue. Ideally, they want the price of oil to rise while they raise revenue. This issue often comes up as OPEC pledges to cut supply, causing an immediate spike in the price of oil.

However, in time the price migrates lower as supply is not meaningfully cut. In the end, the forces of supply and demand determine the equilibrium price. OPEC announcements can temporarily affect the price by altering expectations. In recent years, OPEC's share of world oil production has declined, especially with new production coming from the United States and Canada.

Oil prices averaged above $100 per barrel between 2007 and 2014 due to geopolitical tensions, increased demand and tight supply. This elevated price of oil created huge incentives for innovation in new production techniques that led to oil extraction and more effective drilling techniques. Oversupply later lead to a crash in crude resulting in prices as low as $40-50 per barrel.

This has led to new non-OPEC supply that has dented OPEC's ability to influence oil prices, which caused oversupply and a subsequent crash with prices as low as $37 per barrel.

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How much influence does OPEC have on the global price of oil?

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In the short term, the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) has significant influence on the price of oil. Over the long term, its ability to influence the price of oil is quite limited, primarily because individual countries have different incentives than OPEC as a whole.

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The oil lies beneath about 20,000 feet of water, shifting sand, and a thick layer of salt. This so-called pre-salt region, stretching hundreds of miles, is the biggest oil reserve being developed in the world today, especially given the lack of headway in gaining access to Iraq's extensive deposits, said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy. It is also expected to be among the most complicated sets of projects in the history of the oil industry.

"The timing and scale of the development of the pre-salt will be one of the most significant factors for the global oil balance in the next decade, and even more so after 2020," when Brazil is expected to ramp up production even further, Mr. Yergin said. "If it doesn't happen it will be a big setback for Brazil in terms of revenue, and a significant loss for the world in terms of new oil supplies."

For Brazil, the stakes are high. Many here see the oil as a magic bullet for tackling the country's biggest social challenges. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's popular president, wants to alter energy laws to funnel more revenue from the undeveloped fields to government coffers and set up funds to improve education and health care. His proposal will be delivered to Congress sometime next week, one of his aides said Monday.

Despite its recent economic boom, Brazil still struggles with extreme poverty, inequality and an illiteracy rate over 10 percent.

Government officials here insist Brazil will not be swept up in the sort of nationalistic fervor that has washed across Latin America in recent years. As Mexico did in the late 1930s, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have reduced the presence of foreign energy companies, only to have their production of oil and natural gas stagnate or decline.

Mr. da Silva's government is not proposing that foreigners be excluded altogether from energy projects, or even that they not be given the chance to win majority stakes in some cases. Foreign companies are already involved in the first set of pre-salt projects, including the giant field, called Tupi, that Petrobras estimates holds five to eight billion barrels of oil and natural gas.

Even without the next group of pre-salt fields, Brazil is looking to more than double its oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day by 2020.

Brazil, which discovered big oil late in its economic development, has a diversified economy that will help it to avoid the " Dutch Disease " of natural resource dependence that has afflicted several of the world's oil powers, said José Sergio Gabrielli, the president of Petrobras.

"Petrobras is very big," Mr. Gabrielli said, "but Brazil is bigger than Petrobras."

He said the nationalism bubbling up now "is not nationalism against foreigners" but rather a debate over the speed of the development, who will get the largest share of the income stream and who will benefit from the related technology and knowledge.

Still, he acknowledged that nationalistic winds were beginning to blow again. With Brazil's green and yellow flag draped over the stage, oil union members watched a new documentary here last month, "The Oil Must be Ours - Ultimate Frontier." In the film, geologists, union leaders and even a 92-year-old physician, Maria Augusta Tibiriçá, discuss how the new fields could generate "trillions of dollars" and transform Brazil's future.

A dozen union members led off the evening with a rendition of Brazil's national anthem, then "It Will Happen," a song written for the movie that blends bossa nova and samba rhythms.

If oil "is very deep under the sea," they sang, "will we play to win?"

The new nationalistic fervor recalls the 1970s and 1980s, when Brazil's military government declared that "the Amazon is ours" to ward off foreign encroachments on the rain forest.

And that evokes the initial protectionist concerns that were raised after a trickle of oil was discovered in Brazil in 1939. A few years later, a general declared "the oil is ours" amid fears that American oil companies would find a way to take it. Protesters demonstrated through the 1950s outside of Standard Oil's Esso Building in downtown Rio.

It was in that populist climate that, in 1953, President Getúlio Vargas founded Petrobras and awarded it an oil monopoly. Only in 1997 were foreign companies allowed to participate in exploration and production.

Mr. da Silva's plans for more control of the new fields will face a stiff battle in Brazil's Congress, where opposition leaders say they will push to delay the plan, to deny him a victory that could be a political boost to Dilma Rousseff, his chief of staff and chosen candidate to succeed him in next year's election.

Ms. Rousseff, who is in charge of the government's pre-salt proposal, is also the chairwoman of the Petrobras board of directors. The company is 55.7 percent government-owned; other members of the board are also political appointees.

"The government is going to use every ideological, nationalist and emotional argument to try to get this approved before next year's election, but it is going to be very difficult for it to pass," said Tasso Jereissati, a senator from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party who is critical of the government's proposal.

Brazil's Senate is already coping with a broad investigation into irregularities and improprieties at Petrobras, an inquiry brought by Mr. da Silva's political opposition.

Mr. Gabrielli, the Petrobras president, argues that the government has good reasons for wanting to limit foreign participation. In 1997, oil prices were much lower and Brazil's economy was struggling. Today, Brazil has more than $220 billion in foreign reserves, oil prices are higher and Petrobras has become the fourth biggest company in the Americas.

"The financial condition is completely different," Mr. Gabrielli said. And the development of the new fields, once seen as risky, "now is a winning lottery ticket."

With concerns over whether Brazil can procure the estimated $600 billion it will take to develop new fields over the next 20 years or so, the government is banking on international oil companies' willingness to bid high.

"This is the only large oil discovery in the last few years; there is no other," Ms. Rousseff said this month in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico.

But the decision to give Petrobras operational control is shortsighted and risky and could delay Brazil's ability to use the oil to help transform the country, said Christopher Garman, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy in New York.

"What if we have a technological breakthrough in renewable energy, and five to eight years from now the price of oil is not what it is today?" Mr. Garman said. "Is Brazil going to maximize investments now or keep the oil in the ground for longer?"

Lost in the debate, Mr. Gabrielli said, is the reality that the equipment needed to drill the new fields is in short supply. Petrobras executives are trying to motivate suppliers around the world to develop equipment.

Through 2017, Petrobras will need 40 oil rigs capable of drilling deep enough to reach the new fields - more than half the total number of such rigs that exist in the world today, Mr. Gabrielli said. The company is requiring that 28 of them be built in Brazil.

Mr. Gabrielli said the company was keeping its international expansion spending at $16 billion, so that it could focus on developing deepwater fields at home.

"The question is not whether to speed up or not to speed up," Mr. Gabrielli said. "We are at the limits of the world capacity for the industry."

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Brazil Takes More Control of Oil Fields, With Long-Term Risks

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The oil lies beneath about 20,000 feet of water, shifting sand, and a thick layer of salt. This so-called pre-salt region, stretching hundreds of miles, is the biggest oil reserve being developed in the world today, especially given the lack of headway in gaining access to Iraq's extensive deposits, said Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy.

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The first oil pipeline linking the world's biggest oil producer, Russia, and the world's biggest consumer of energy, China, has begun operating.

The pipeline, running between Siberia and the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing, will allow a rapid increase in oil exports between the two countries.

Until now, Russian oil has been transported to China by rail.

Concentrated in western Siberia, Russia's network of pipelines for oil exports has so far run towards Europe.

Russia is expected to export 15m tonnes of oil through the new pipeline each year during the next two decades - about 300,000 barrels a day.

'New phase'

The project cost $25bn (£16bn) and was partly financed by Chinese loans.

Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer in 2009.

China surpassed the US as the world's largest consumer of energy last year.

"The operation of the China-Russia crude oil pipeline is the start of a new phase in China-Russia energy co-operation," said Yao Wei, general manager of Pipeline Branch of Petro China, as he pushed a button near the Russia-China border to start the flow of oil.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said in the past that the pipeline would help Russia diversify its exports.

A second stage of construction on the pipeline is due to be finished by 2014. It will then span a distance of about 4,700 kms (2,900 miles).

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The first oil pipeline linking the world's biggest oil producer, Russia, and the world's biggest consumer of energy, China, has begun operating. The pipeline, running between Siberia and the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing, will allow a rapid increase in oil exports between the two countries.

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The West African nation of Ghana has begun to pump its first commercial oil after the discovery of the offshore Jubilee Field three years ago.

President John Atta Mills turned on the valve at an offshore platform.

A consortium led by UK-based Tullow Oil hopes to produce 55,000 barrels per day, increasing to 120,000 barrels in six months.

Ghana, one of Africa's most stable countries, is expected to earn $400m (£254m) in the first year.

Wearing safety gear and blue overalls, the president opened the valve in a televised ceremony some 60km (40 miles) off the coast from the town of Takoradi, Reuters news agency reports.

The discovery of oil off Ghana's coast has raised questions about whether Ghana can escape the "resource curse", where discoveries of valuable commodities fuel conflict and corruption instead of funding development.

I've completed school but I've not found any work to do - I hope oil will help me to get a job
Unemployed man in Accra

Will oil make a difference?
Analysts have raised concerns about the lack of laws to manage oil revenue and the lack of an independent regulator for the sector.

The government has said it is working to get an oil bill passed.

The government has forecast that the oil will boost Ghana's economic growth rate from 5% this year to as much as 12% next year.

Production is eventually expected to bring in $1bn a year.

The Jubilee Field is estimated to hold 1.5bn barrels of oil. A second offshore field was discovered in September that is believed to hold another 1.4bn barrels.

The fields are some of the largest oil deposits found in recent years.

Learning from mistakes

Analysis

It is a momentous day for Ghana - barely three years after that first vial of oil was presented to former President John Kufour.

Hopes are high, tempered by a fair amount of realism - most people seem to understand oil production is unlikely in itself to bring about lower fuel prices and that it will take time for real benefits to accrue.

The government is currently negotiating huge multi-billion dollar loans for infrastructure developments, using oil as collateral, which has met with some stiff opposition from the parliamentary minority and other civil society groups. "We've looked at the experiences of other countries and it has not been positive," says Mohammed Amin Adam of campaign group Publish What You Pay.

Other concerns are focussed on how the oil money is spent rather than when. "Politicians' decisions tend to be very short-term and short-sighted," says Kofi Bentil of Ghanaian think-tank Imani.

Observers say militant insurgency like that in nearby Nigeria's Niger Delta is unlikely as long as the government manages expectations.

"Transparency to population is very important," said Stephen Hayes, head of the Corporate Council on Africa - a group of some 180 mainly US firms that invest in Africa.

"They also have a fairly transparent society compared to other countries dealing in oil - so they've got a better opportunity to get it right," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa.

He says lessons can be learnt from others' mistakes and points out that Ghana's economy is more diversified than other oil-producing countries in Africa. It earns billions from cocoa and gold.

"The oil revenues expected only represents 6% of their economy - compare that to Nigeria where oil revenue represents 92% of the economy or Angola where it's almost 100%," he said.

"It indicates they won't be dependent on oil revenue... and are in a far better position to manage it more wisely."

The BBC's David Amanor in the capital, Accra, says there a positive mood about the pumping of the country's first oil - and plenty of advice about how the revenue should be spent.

"I'm very much excited because maybe that will be able to solve some of problems for us," a lottery-ticket seller said.

"The first area should be education, secondly agriculture and thirdly health."

Another man said the move was a blessing for him and the country.

"It's going to benefit me so I'm really excited. I've completed school but I've not found any work to do - I hope oil will help me to get a job."

Our reporter says Ghana also has a growing civil society community which is anxious to ensure environmental and development considerations are given a voice in the area where the oil is being bumped.

"A lot of the fishermen are now moving away because of the oil rig - they cannot fish within a certain parameter," says Adwoa Bame from the Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment group.

"The men go out and bring the fish to the fishmongers, who are normally women," she told the BBC.

"So we need to look at how we can develop programmes that can sustain these communities in terms of livelihoods."

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The West African nation of Ghana has begun to pump its first commercial oil after the discovery of the offshore Jubilee Field three years ago. President John Atta Mills turned on the valve at an offshore platform. A consortium led by UK-based Tullow Oil hopes to produce 55,000 barrels per day, increasing to 120,000 barrels in six months.

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But tensions over the sovereignty of the islands have never quite gone away.

Argentina still claims sovereignty over what it calls the Islas Malvinas.

The discovery of oil and gas in the area has added an economic dimension to the long-running dispute between the two nations over the islands.
What is the row about?
This week, Argentina has imposed new controls on shipping to the Falkland Islands in a growing oil dispute with the UK.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Tuesday signed a decree that requires all vessels travelling between Argentina and the islands or those that want to cross Argentine territorial waters en route to the Falklands to seek prior permission.

This also applies to vessels going to the other nearby British controlled islands in the South Atlantic - South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

It could make drilling in the area more complicated and expensive for foreign firms. A drilling rig from the Scottish highlands, the Ocean Guardian, is expected to arrive soon to begin oil exploration .

A government minister explicitly said the move was to protect control of "resources" in the area.

In April, Argentina formally laid claim to 1,700,000 sq km (650,000 sq miles) of ocean surrounding the Falklands - handing over 800kg of documents to the UN.

The country passed a law in December claiming to own the islands and several other British overseas territories.

When did they discover oil?
In 1998, six wells were drilled to the north of the Falkland Islands - an area about half the size of Texas.

With crude oil dropping as low as $10.35 a barrel that year, it was decided it was not commercially viable to drill the wells.

Now, with oil above $75 a barrel, there is a lot more interest to find out just how much oil is there.

A number of oil companies have exploration rights now. British oil firm Desire Petroleum hold the exploration rights to that area now.

The territory - which has fewer than 3,000 people - also started gold and minerals exploration in 2004.

Fishing accounts for the largest part of the economy, followed by farming and tourism.
So how much oil and gas is there?
The often-used figure based on geological surveys is that the Falkland Islands have the equivalent of about 60 billion barrels of oil in total.

But Ben Brewerton, spokesman for the UK-listed Falkland Oil and Gas, told the BBC this figure is "slightly mythical" and no-one knows where it came from.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia - the world's biggest oil producer - has proven reserves of more than 267 billion barrels of oil and produces more than 10 million barrels of oil a day.

Falkland Oil and Gas - which has the exploration rights for the south and east of the islands - said it estimates its four biggest prospects in the area have 8 billion barrels of oil.

Development of the island's energy resources are still in the exploration stage. Drilling will take place later this year.

If oil and gas is discovered in commercial quantities, then it will be no sooner than five years before oil is being extracted from the ground, Mr Brewerton said.

The recent political uncertainty has not deterred the companies there.

"There's been no disruption to our work thus far," Mr Brewerton said.

Neither has the uncertainty over how much oil may be there. Anglo-Australian firm BHP Billiton has partnered with Falkland Oil and Gas.

The fact that one of the world's biggest miners is there is a sign that experts are convinced the Falkland Islands have a future as an oil producer.

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But tensions over the sovereignty of the islands have never quite gone away. Argentina still claims sovereignty over what it calls the Islas Malvinas. The discovery of oil and gas in the area has added an economic dimension to the long-running dispute between the two nations over the islands.

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Changing Patterns of Energy Consumption (6hrs)

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Objective : To analyse the global patterns and trends in the production and consumption of oil. Starter - Watch the GOOD video to the right. Task 1 - W atch the videos embedded. Ensure that...

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Weak candidates had great difficulty trying to analyse how the global pattern of oil production has changed in recent decades. In many cases production was confused with consumption and the changes in global pattern of oil production were not addressed.

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The changing geopolitics of oil in the Middle East

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The changing geopolitics of oil in the Middle East

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The changing geopolitics of oil in the Middle East

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One in every three barrels of exported crude petroleum still comes from the Middle East. Yet significant shifts in this sector are transforming the geopolitical equation of oil in the reg...

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First coal-free day in Britain since Industrial Revolution

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First coal-free day in Britain since Industrial Revolution

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Britain went a full day without using coal to generate electricity for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the National Grid says.

The energy provider said Friday's lack of coal usage was a "watershed" moment.

Britain's longest continuous energy period without coal until now was 19 hours - first achieved last May, and again on Thursday.

The government plans to phase out Britain's last plants by 2025 in order to cut carbon emissions.

Friday is thought to be the first time the nation has not used coal to generate electricity since the world's first centralised public coal-fired generator opened in 1882, at Holborn Viaduct in London.

Cordi O'Hara of the National Grid said: "To have the first working day without coal since the start of the industrial revolution is a watershed moment in how our energy system is changing.

"The UK benefits from highly diverse and flexible sources of electricity. Our energy mix continues to change and National Grid adapts system operation to embrace these changes."

But Ms O'Hara says that while the country makes the transition to a low carbon system, coal remains an important source of energy.

According to Gridwatch.co.uk, around half of British energy on Friday came from natural gas, with about a quarter coming from nuclear plants.

Wind, biomass, and imported energy were also used.

Analysis
By John Moylan, BBC industry correspondent
Coal has powered Britain for more than a century.

But Friday's landmark moment - the first 24 hour period without any coal powered generation - is a sign of how the once mighty fuel is being consigned to history.

Part of the reason is that solar panels and wind turbines now provide much more electricity to factories and homes. Lower power demand is a factor too - that's normal on a Friday.

And as older, uneconomic coal fired plants have closed in recent years, the fossil fuel has been playing a much smaller role in our energy system.

The last deep coal mine in the UK, Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire, closed in December 2015, bringing to an end centuries of deep coal mining in Britain.

Hannah Martin, from Greenpeace UK, said: "A decade ago, a day without coal would have been unimaginable, and in 10 years' time our energy system will have radically transformed again."

Coal remained a dominant part of the energy supply until the 1990s, but its use has fallen in recent years, as plants closed or switched to burning biomass such as wood pellets.

It accounted for just 9% of electricity generation in 2016 - down from 23% the year before.

However, there have been claims that using wood pellets to generate electricity is actually speeding up, not slowing down, climate warming.

A study published by Chatham House in February said wood is not carbon neutral and emissions from pellets are higher than coal, making pellet use a flawed policy.

The energy industry rejected the report, saying that wood energy cuts carbon significantly compared with fossil fuels.

Key moments for coal-fired power

1882 - The world's first public coal-fired generating plant is opened at Holborn Viaduct in London

1956 - The Clean Air Act (1956) is introduced to tackle the smog created by coal fired stations. Coal-burning power stations are moved out of cities

1970s - Coal for heating homes is increasingly replaced by natural gas from the North Sea

1980s - Nuclear power grows to around 25% of electricity generation

1990s - 'Dash for gas' as natural gas grows to around 30% of electricity generation, largely substituting for coal

2015 - Renewables account for 25% of power supply

2016 - Government says it wants Britain's last coal power plants to close by 2025

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First coal-free day in Britain since Industrial Revolution - BBC News

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Britain went a full day without using coal to generate electricity for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the National Grid says. The energy provider said Friday's lack of coal usage was a "watershed" moment. Britain's longest continuous energy period without coal until now was 19 hours - first achieved last May, and again on Thursday.

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Unprecedented coral bleaching in consecutive years has damaged two-thirds of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, aerial surveys have shown.

The bleaching - or loss of algae - affects a 1,500km (900 miles) stretch of the reef, according to scientists.

The latest damage is concentrated in the middle section, whereas last year's bleaching hit mainly the north.

Experts fear the proximity of the two events will give damaged coral little chance to recover.

Prof Terry Hughes, from James Cook University, said governments must urgently address climate change to prevent further bleaching.

"Since 1998, we have seen four of these events and the gap between them has varied substantially, but this is the shortest gap we have seen," Prof Hughes told the BBC.

"The sooner we take action on global greenhouse gas emissions and transition away from fossil fuels to renewables, the better."

Almost 800 coral reefs across 8,000km were assessed by the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

The findings showed only the southern section was relatively unscathed.

Pheromones could foil reef-killing starfish

Great Barrier Reef storm damage 'likely'

Researcher Dr James Kerry said the damage was unprecedented.

"The central third this year, I would say, was as severe in terms of bleaching as what we saw as the northern third last year," he told the BBC.

"For those reefs that were hit two years in a row, it is effectively a double whammy. They have had no chance to recover from last year's events."

Mass coral bleaching

Coral bleaching is caused by rising water temperatures resulting from two natural warm currents.

It is exacerbated by man-made climate change, as the oceans are absorbing about 93% of the increase in the Earth's heat.

Bleaching happens when corals under stress drive out the algae known as zooxanthellae that give them colour.

If normal conditions return, the corals can recover, but it can take decades, and if the stress continues the corals can die.

The latest damage happened without the assistance of El Niño, a weather pattern previously associated with bleaching events.

The reef - a vast collection of thousands of smaller coral reefs stretching from the northern tip of Queensland to the state's southern city of Bundaberg - was given World Heritage status in 1981.

The UN says it is the "most biodiverse" of all the World Heritage sites, and of "enormous scientific and intrinsic importance".

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Damage to Australia's reef 'unprecedented'

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Unprecedented coral bleaching in consecutive years has damaged two-thirds of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, aerial surveys have shown. The bleaching - or loss of algae - affects a 1,500km (900 miles) stretch of the reef, according to scientists. The latest damage is concentrated in the middle section, whereas last year's bleaching hit mainly the north.

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Work through this ppt - Answer the two short questions, and then plan essay, check essay plan and then write essay. Due next lesson

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London's Congestion Charge Cuts CO2 Emissions by 16%

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London's Congestion Charge Cuts CO2 Emissions by 16%

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Summary

London is the largest city to have adopted a central area congestion charging scheme. It has led to a 20% reduction in four-wheeled traffic within the charging zone during charging hours, cutting an estimated 40-50 million litres of vehicle fuel consumption inside the zone and a total 100,000 tons CO2 emissions annually across London. The charge raises £122 M annually which is then spent on improving transport, including providing more buses, improving road safety and implementing energy efficiency in transport. The zone was further extended in February 2007, doubling its size, with initial estimates showing a 13% reduction in traffic in the new area covered. Monitoring of this extended zone has not yet been completed.

What is it?

Congestion charging was first introduced into central London in February 2003. It is a daily charge of £8 for driving or parking a vehicle on public roads within the congestion zone between 0700 and 1800 on Monday to Fridays, excluding public holidays and weekends.

How does it work?

The original central London congestion charging zone covered 22 square kilometres in the heart of London, with a western boundary from Vauxhall, through Victoria, Marble Arch to the Edgware Road. In February 2007, the zone was extended by about 50% to include parts of west central London and included a free route (the original western boundary) through the centre of the enlarged zone.

Features

There are no toll booths. Drivers can pay the charge on the web, by SMS text message, in outlets equipped with PayPoint - an electronic payment system, or by telephone;

Fixed cameras at the entrance points of the zone automatically capture the number plates of vehicles within the zone. A penalty of £100 applies to the registered keepers of vehicles recorded within the zone that have not paid the charge; this is reduced to £50 if paid within 14 days;

Various vehicle types are exempt, including buses, taxis, private hire vehicles and motorcycles; other types of vehicle can register for a 90% or 100% discount, such as vehicles used by residents of the zone or used by those with a disabled persons badge.

Impacts

Traffic levels inside the charging zone have been cut by 20%, equating to 75,000 vehicles;

The scheme has reduced congestion in the zone by around 30% during charging hours; Furthermore, the level of congestion on roads bounding the zone is also down;

The main response by car drivers is a switch to public transport - around 40,000 daily movements. There has also been a large increase in pedal cycle trips - an 83% increase across London - which the congestion charge has helped stimulate;

The scheme has resulted in net reductions of between 40-70 road traffic casualties per annum;

The retail sector in central London is now outperforming the rest of the UK and is returning to a long-standing pattern of year-on-year growth;

The charge has had no identifiable effect on commercial property values in the original zone;

The combined effect of charging and improved vehicle technology has resulted is that NOx emissions have fallen by 13% and total PM10 emissions have fallen by 15%.

CO2 reduction

A 16% reduction in road transport CO2 emissions were estimated within the original charging zone, amounting to 30,000 tonnes annually. Figures are not yet available for the extended zone

Approximately half of this is due to 75,000 fewer vehicles daily and half due to the remaining traffic experiencing less congestion, saving an estimated 40-50 million litres of vehicle fuel consumption;

The London-wide CO2 reduction is estimated at around 100,000 tonnes, ~1% of London's total road traffic CO2. Worth around £2.5m at a social cost of CO2 of £25/ton. CO2 reduction estimates are derived from the reduced consumption of petrol and diesel fuel by road vehicles as a result of less travel to the charging zone and improved fuel consumption as a consequence of less delays.

Financial investment

The original zone cost £160m to set up, with annual operating costs of £90m. The additional costs for the extension to the zone are £140m implementation costs and £43m annual operating costs.

In 2005-06 the original scheme generated surplus revenues of £122m, all of which is required by law to be spent on projects and programmes in support of the Mayor's transport strategy. Recipients include:

bus network operations £100m
roads and bridges £14m
road safety £4m
walking and cycling £4m
It is forecast that the extension to the scheme will bring in an additional £25m to £40m per annum.

Next steps

Scheme is operating well. TfL is investigating adjustments to the charge to reflect CO2 emissions of cars: Higher charge for emission rates above 225g/km; zero charge for emission rates below 120g/km.

The current residents discount may also be withdrawn for vehicles with emissions rates about 225g/km - equating to an additional cost of over £6,000 per year for residents who drive every day within the zone

There are no proposals to further widen the zone as the area covered is considered to be the maximum size by which it could operate effectively.

Application

Numerous adjustments to the operation of the scheme have been made. For example alterations to the definitions of exempt vehicles and the introduction of 'pay next day' whereby drivers no longer need to pay the charge in advance or on the day of travel;

TfL Congestion Charging Scheme publications library, including annual impact monitoring reports is available from the Transport for London website.

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C40: London's Congestion Charge Cuts CO2 Emissions by 16%

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London is the largest city to have adopted a central area congestion charging scheme. It has led to a 20% reduction in four-wheeled traffic within the charging zone during charging hours, cutting an estimated 40-50 million litres of vehicle fuel consumption inside the zone and a total 100,000 tons CO2 emissions annually across London.

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London congestion charge should be scrapped 

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London congestion charge should be scrapped 

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Sadiq Khan should bring in radical plans for 'intelligent' road user pricing to tackle growing congestion across London, an influential report said today.

The London Assembly transport committee claimed the congestion charge was no longer "fit for purpose" and should be immediately reformed with the flat fee scrapped.

Transport for London should then roll out a system where motorists paid more for driving at peak times of day, for longer, on the capital's most gridlocked routes.

The road user pricing scheme could be extended across London, including congested suburban town centres, rather than restricted to the centre as it is now.

The committee warned the Mayor that delay was "not an option" as congestion on the capital's roads was getting steadily worse, while the cost to the economy was a staggering £5.5 billion a year.

Gridlock has been blamed on the increase in delivery vans and minicabs, rather than private car use, which has been falling. Roadworks, including for the cycle superhighways, are also a factor.

Transport committee chair Caroline Pidgeon said: "Something dramatic has to be done about the enormous congestion problem on London's roads. The issue is costing our city money and costing Londoners their health and wellbeing.

A quarter of London traffic was at a complete halt during Tube strike

"TfL is doing a lot to tackle congestion, but not enough. Road pricing would be a fairer approach as road users would pay according to how much they contribute to congestion.

"Gridlocked London needs to start moving again and tinkering here and there is not going to achieve that. The time has come for the Mayor to take a look at road pricing before things get any worse."

The report, London Stalling, said that planned new charges for emissions, proposed road tolls and vehicle excise duty should be integrated into one single road pricing scheme.

Minicabs, which are exempt from the C-charge, should also be included.

The committee admitted the proposal would not be universally popular but published research showing that half of motorists would back it, with just a fifth against.

The poll also found it had the potential to change driver behaviour by encouraging them to drive at less congested times or switch to public transport, cycling and walking.

Other recommendations included reducing restrictions on night-time deliveries, bringing in a workplace parking levy and considering a ban on personal deliveries for staff at their workplace.

The report said TfL should reconsider "click and collect" for online shopping at Tube and rail stations.

It suggested more could be done to reduce the impact of roadworks, many of which were caused by TfL itself as it modernised the roads network.

Business groups welcomed the road pricing proposal, with some caveats.

Colin Stanbridge of the London Chamber of Commerce said: "The congestion charge no longer serves the purpose for which it was created and we would not oppose targeted charging in principle.

"However our concern would be that businesses are not used as a money-spinner and any new scheme takes into account the economic value of a journey.

"Excessive new congestion charging on delivery vehicles will end up reflected in prices that customers will pay".

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London congestion charge should be scrapped, report finds

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Sadiq Khan should bring in radical plans for 'intelligent' road user pricing to tackle growing congestion across London, an influential report said today. The London Assembly transport committee claimed the congestion charge was no longer "fit for purpose" and should be immediately reformed with the flat fee scrapped.

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Transport for London | Every Journey Matters

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Why are we asking this now?

Ken Livingstone yesterday announced the most wide-ranging shake-up of the London congestion charge in its controversial history. The capital's Mayor is proposing that the daily fee, which next week marks its fifth anniversary, would more than triple to £25 for gas-guzzling vehicles. Meanwhile, the levy could be scrapped altogether for the most environment-friendly vehicles.

The scheme - a key pledge in Mr Livingstone's mayoral election manifesto in 2000 - has quickly become part of everyday life in central London and is much studied by other cities around the world desperate to tackle congestion. Opinion remains divided over its effectiveness, and the charge is rapidly developing into a major issue in the battle for the mayoralty in May.

How does the scheme work?

The revolution in London's transport system began at 7am on 17 February 2003, when a network of closed-circuit television cameras started capturing the registration numbers of motorists entering the City or the West End. Drivers have until the end of the day to pay the fee, which was originally set at £5 per day and rose to £8 in July 2005.

Last year, the charging zone was extended, despite strong opposition in local consultation exercises, to take in western Westminster, as well as Kensington and Chelsea.

Has it cut traffic?

At the end of the last decade, London suffered some of the worst congestion levels in Europe. The introduction of the congestion charge had an immediate impact, reducing the amount of traffic in the heart of the capital by about 15 per cent.

About half the drivers who left their cars at home took public transport instead, with the rest getting a lift, using motorbikes or cycles to get to work or avoiding the area altogether. Transport for London (TfL), which administers the scheme, said the overall amount of traffic fell by 21 per cent between 2002 and 2006. The result is that 70,000 fewer vehicles are on the streets every day than before the charge began.

Meanwhile, the number of taxis has risen by 13 per cent, bus and coaches by 25 per cent and bicycles by 49 per cent, confirming significant changes to London's transport patterns over the past five years. TfL says the extension of the charging zone to the West has produced a fall in traffic in the area of between ten and 15 per cent.

So does this mean less congestion?

Not necessarily. There was a drop in congestion (defined as excess delays per kilometre) of 20 to 30 per cent after the introduction of charging. TfL also claims that average traffic speeds in central London would have fallen from 10.6 mph in 2003 to 7.1 mph in 2006 but for the scheme. But the reduction in congestion has not been sustained and, to the dismay of transport experts, traffic snarl-ups appear to be slowly returning to the capital.

Despite fewer cars being on the roads, congestion rose markedly between 2005 and 2006. TfL suggests the unwelcome increase has been caused by a surge in street works, including the replacement of water and gas mains and construction of bus lanes. Peter Hendy, the commissioner of Transport for London, said yesterday: "If we had the volumes of traffic that were there before the scheme started, we would be in serious trouble."

What is the revenue from the scheme used for?

Last year, drivers handed over £252.4m in congestion charge payments to TfL, a fractional fall on the previous 12 months and just under 10 per cent of its total income. Running the scheme cost £130.1m and, when other costs such as administration and depreciation were taken into account, TfL was left with a net income of £89.1 m from the charges.

The organisation is required by law to reinvest its "profit" into public transport in the hope it will help create a virtuous circle, tempting former drivers back on to buses. All in all, the money is a welcome fillip for the system, even if it is significantly below early claims that £130m a year could be raised.

Has business in London suffered?

Many retailers were hostile to the congestion charge from the start. John Lewis blamed the levy for a 7 per cent drop in takings at its flagship Oxford Street store in 2003, while the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported that 25 per cent of businesses were considering moving outside the zone.

Colin Stanbridge, the chamber's chief executive, said yesterday: "We are still of the view that the charge has had a really bad effect on retailers, particularly small retailers." He fears its long-term impact will be to change the mix of shops in central London as shoppers look to out-of-town retail parks for their larger purchases.

"If you are buying anything bigger than a toaster, you don't want to take it home on the Tube or bus," he said. TfL countered that it had no found evidence that businesses were suffering because of the charge.

So what is the future of the charge?

It will remain, in one form or another, whichever party wins the mayoral election in May. If Mr Livingstone gains a third term in office, drivers of the most polluting vehicles, such as 4x4 "Chelsea tractors", people carriers and high-performance sports cars, will have to fork out £25 a day from October. At the other end of the scale, vehicles with the lowest carbon dioxide (C02) emissions would be allowed to enter central London for free.

What is the mayor's case for raising the charge for some vehicles?

Mr Livingstone explained: "The C02 charge will encourage people to switch to cleaner vehicles or public transport and will ensure that those who choose to carry on driving the most polluting vehicles help to pay for the environmental damage they cause. This is the 'polluter pays' principle."

Boris Johnson, the Tory mayoral candidate, has dropped his party's opposition to the charge. But he wants it to undergo radical surgery, and has promised to scrap the western extension and introduce a "fairer" pricing structure. He said of Mr Livingstone's proposals: "Londoners use their cars because of the appalling state of the transport system. A big car tax won't change that. We need better alternatives to get out of our cars - especially those who live in the outer boroughs with bigger families, many of whom cannot afford to swap cars."

Brian Paddick, for the Lib-Dems, also wants to consider getting rid of the western extension, with a new focus on the central zone, where "traffic grinds to a halt on an almost daily basis".

So has the charge achieved its aims?

Yes...

* Levels of traffic in London have fallen sharply at a time when overall car ownership is rising

* More people are now using environmentally-friendly transport such as buses and Tube trains

* Traffic congestion in central London is not as bad as it was a decade ago

No...

* Business leaders say that the congestion charge has adversely affected the takings of retailers

* The capital's streets have not been transformed - despite the reduction in traffic jams

* Not as much as cash has been raised from the congestion charge as was originally hoped

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Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent

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The Big Question: Has the congestion charge been effective in reducing

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Why are we asking this now? Ken Livingstone yesterday announced the most wide-ranging shake-up of the London congestion charge in its controversial history. The capital's Mayor is proposing that the daily fee, which next week marks its fifth anniversary, would more than triple to £25 for gas-guzzling vehicles.

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Greenfieldgeography - IB Geography Internal Assessment

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You should also mention how your internal assessment could be developed further. This might be adding a new or different hypothesis, or it might be collecting more primary or secondary data or it might be studying something slightly different e.g.

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Interesting comparisons: why did the death toll vary so much?

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Interesting comparisons: why did the death toll vary so much?

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An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday morning, killing hundreds and displacing millions. Although it was vastly more powerful than the quake that devastated Haiti, far fewer people have died and the country's infrastructure remains largely intact. Why did Chile's stronger quake take a relatively much lighter toll on the country than Haiti's ruinous temblor? ( Watch a CBS report about Chile's earthquake)

How much stronger was Chile's quake?
The earthquake that struck Chile at 3:34 a.m. on Saturday morning was an 8.8 magnitude quake and lasted approximately three minutes. Haiti's quake was only a 7 magnitude, and released a 500th of the energy.

How does that compare with other quakes?
This weekend's was the fifth-strongest in recorded history. The Haiti earthquake isn't even on the U.S. Geological Survey list.

How do the death tolls compare?
Chile's President Michelle Bachelet has said that over 700 people died as a result of the quake, though the number is expected to rise. Haiti's death toll is approximately 230,000, which makes it the third deadliest since 1900, behind the Indonesian quake of 2004 and one in Tangshen, China, in 1976 which killed 655,000.

Why were so many more people killed in Haiti?
Various reasons. Chile is a wealthy, developed country with a history of earthquakes, whereas Haiti is a third-world country with widespread poverty and no disaster-relief services.The epicenter of this weekend's quake was 70 miles away from the city of Concepcion (pop. 200,000), whereas the Haitian epicenter was 10 miles away from Port-au-Prince (pop. 3 million).

So Chile was better prepared?
Yes. In 1960, Chile suffered the worst earthquake in recorded history, a 9.5 magnitude quake which killed thousands. As a result, its people have an "earthquake consciousness", says the CS Monitor, and are "well versed in what to do" should a quake strike. Its buildings also withstood the quake better.

Why did fewer buildings collapse in Chile? twice as deep as in Haiti. That means there was "twice as much earth to absorb the shock before it reached building foundations,"
Chile established strict building codes in 1985 after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Valparaíso. According to Slate.com, Haiti has no national building code and no means of checking building safety. And while it was stronger, the Chilean quake also occurred 22 miles below the earth's surface - according to Newsweek.
How did the tsunamis compare?
Chile's was worse. But while it killed several people on a Chilean island and caused damage in coastal communities, the tsunami's effects were minimal elsewhere. It didn't stop thousands from evacuating beaches as far away as Japan and Hawaii, though. A 9-foot tsunami in Haiti was virtually ignored due to the enormous damage of the quake itself, though it did kill 3 people.
How prosperous is Chile compared to Haiti?
Chile has "Latin America's highest per capita GDP," reports Time, whereas Haiti is "the poorest country in the western hemisphere."

So Chile doesn't need international aid?
While Chile was able to pay for immediate disaster relief, it will likely seek the support of international agencies to rebuild its severely damaged infrastructure. The Red Cross said it could direct some of the $322 million it received after Haiti towards helping Chileans. Several American charities have already set up fundraising pleas for Chile.

How will Chile be affected in the long run?
In addition to those killed, some 2 million residents have been left homeless, and 500,000 buildings have been severely damaged. In Concepción, where looters have ravaged markets, gas stations, and banks, the military has taken control of security. "We face a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort" for Chile to recover, President Bachelet said on Sunday.

Why are all these earthquakes happening now?
In fact there are no more than usual, though it may seem that way between Chile, Haiti, and the earthquake that hit Japan on Saturday. "From our human perspective with our relatively short and incomplete memories and better communications around the world, we hear about more earthquakes and it seems like they are more frequent," says J. Ramón Arrowsmith on Livescience. "But this is probably not any indication of a global change in earthquake rate of significance."
..........................................
SEE MORE OF THE WEEK'S RELATED COVERAGE:
* Earthquake: Saving Haiti
* Can Bill Clinton save Haiti?
* Is the U.S. occupying Haiti?
* Is John Edwards 'exploiting' Haiti?

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An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday morning, killing hundreds and displacing millions. Although it was vastly more powerful than the quake that devastated Haiti, far fewer people have died and the country's infrastructure remains largely intact. Why did Chile's stronger quake take a relatively much lighter toll on the country than Haiti's ruinous temblor?

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Read this article and write three interesting things you found out:

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Read this article and write three interesting things you found out:

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If you want to see the world's climate changing, fly over a tropical country. Thirty years ago, a wide belt of rainforest circled the earth, covering much of Latin America, south-east Asia and Africa. Today, it is being rapidly replaced by great swathes of palm oil trees and rubber plantations, land cleared for cattle grazing, soya farming, expanding cities, dams and logging.

People have been deforesting the tropics for thousands of years for timber and farming, but now, nothing less than the physical transformation of the Earth is taking place. Every year about 18m hectares of forest - an area the size of England and Wales - is felled. In just 40 years, possibly 1bn hectares, the equivalent of Europe, has gone. Half the world's rainforests have been razed in a century, and the latest satellite analysis shows that in the last 15 years new hotspots have emerged from Cambodia to Liberia. At current rates, they will vanish altogether in 100 years.

About 12% of all man-made climate emissions now comes from deforestation, mostly in tropical areas

As fast as the trees go, the chance of slowing or reversing climate change becomes slimmer. Tropical deforestation causes carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, to linger in the atmosphere and trap solar radiation. This raises temperatures and leads to climate change: deforestation in Latin America, Asia and Africa can affect rainfall and weather everywhere from the US Midwest, to Europe and China.

The consensus of the world's atmospheric scientists is that about 12% of all man-made climate emissions - nearly as much as the world's 1.2bn cars and lorries - now comes from deforestation, mostly in tropical areas. Conserving forests is critical; the carbon locked up in Democratic Republic of the Congo's 150m hectares of forests are nearly three times the world's global annual emissions.

And as the forests come down, the people who live in or around them and depend on them become impoverished. Without the forests, people migrate to cities, or move to richer countries in search of work. The world's rainforests not only provide food, energy security, incomes and medicinal plants for 300 million people, but are home to the richest wildlife in the world.

So, what to do? The positive news is that all countries formally pledged at the Paris climate summit in December 2015 to reduce emissions and keep global temperature rises to well below 2C; and in so doing they recognised that this would not be possible without stopping or at least reducing tropical deforestation.

The 50 or more developing countries who share the world's tropical forests all recognised their contribution and promised to crack down on illegal forestry, replant trees and restore degraded forest lands.

Some countries were highly ambitious. China, Brazil, Bolivia and Congo DRC together put forward targets that could protect over 50 million hectares of forest over the next 15 years, an area the size of Spain.

Indonesia, the world's sixth largest carbon emitter, promised to cut its emissions by 29% by ending illegal deforestation and restoring 12m hectares of forested land. Ecuador said that it planned to restore 500,000 hectares of forest land by 2017 and then increase that amount by 100,000 hectares a year. Honduras committed to plant or restore 1m hectares of forest by 2030.

If countries stick to their pledges and let damaged forests recover, annual global greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by as much as 24 to 30% - an enormous step.

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A logging mill in the Amazon Basin, Peru. Photograph: Jason Edwards/Getty Images/National Geographic Magazines

The science and economics needed to stem deforestation are in place, but there is one huge caveat: countries with tropical forests are some of the poorest in the world, desperate to develop and use their natural resources to grow their economies. Their pledges to stop or reduce deforestation are mostly conditional on rich countries financially and technically helping them achieve this - and the onus on reducing emissions is on these rich countries which have historically caused most climate change.

Rich countries pledged at Paris to raise $100bn a year to help poor countries reduce their emissions. Some of that money should go to tropical forest protection.

In addition, a new UN-backed mechanism called Redd (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) has been initiated that involves rich countries paying countries to protect forests and the carbon stored within them. Tropical and sub-tropical countries could receive both public and private funding if they succeed in reducing their emissions from deforestation. But this is deeply controversial as global schemes are prone to corruption, difficult to implement and hard to measure.

If there is money to protect forests, will it go to big companies as subsidy, or lead to evictions of people and human rights abuses?

There must be safeguards, but Germany, Norway and the UK have together promised up to $1bn a year for Redd schemes until 2020. The World Bank plans to contribute a similar amount to work with African countries. A further fund is intended to benefit indigenous and other forest communities which have been the traditional protectors of the forest.

Until Paris, stopping tropical deforestation was at best unlikely and probably impossible. It remains very difficult, but a political and financial mechanism has now been created to incentivise countries, companies and communities to do so at a fraction of the cost of reducing comparable emissions in the US or Europe. Protecting the forests now depends on rich governments not ducking their responsibilities and playing their part.

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow@GuardianGDP on Twitter Topics

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cop 21: un climate change conference | paris

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We are destroying rainforests so quickly they may be gone in 100 years | John Vidal

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If you want to see the world's climate changing, fly over a tropical country. Thirty years ago, a wide belt of rainforest circled the earth, covering much of Latin America, south-east Asia and Africa. Today, it is being rapidly replaced by great swathes of palm oil trees and rubber plantations, land cleared for cattle grazing, soya farming, expanding cities, dams and logging.

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For those of you going... please check the Sri Lanka Padlet for VISA information.... yes that include you Juan!!!!

Please email me when you have applied for your visa...
lou.gillard@dohabritishschool.com

Thanks :)

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For all those going on the trip, follow this padlet for info!

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The world's eight richest individuals have as much wealth as the 3.6bn people who make up the poorest half of the world, according to Oxfam.

The charity said its figures, which critics have queried, came from improved data, and the gap between rich and poor was "far greater than feared".

The richest eight include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett.

Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said Oxfam should focus instead on ways to boost growth.

"As an 'anti-poverty' charity, Oxfam seems to be strangely preoccupied with the rich," said the director-general of the free market think tank.

For those concerned with "eradicating absolute poverty completely", the focus should be on measures that encourage economic growth, he added.

Ben Southwood, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said it was not the wealth of the world's rich that mattered, but the welfare of the world's poor, which was improving every year.

"Each year we are misled by Oxfam's wealth statistics. The data is fine - it comes from Credit Suisse - but the interpretation is not."

'Elite gathering'

Oxfam's report coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, a Swiss ski resort. The annual event attracts many of the world's top political and business leaders.

Katy Wright, Oxfam's head of global external affairs, said the report helped the charity to "challenge the political and economic elites".

"We're under no illusions that Davos is anything other than a talking shop for the world's elite, but we try and use that focus," she added.

The world's eight richest billionaires

1. Bill Gates (US): co-founder of Microsoft (net worth $75bn)

2. Amancio Ortega (Spain): founder of Zara owner Inditex (net worth $67bn)

3. Warren Buffett (US): largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (net worth $60.8bn)

4. Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico): owner of Grupo Carso (net worth $50bn)

5. Jeff Bezos (US): founder and chief executive of Amazon (net worth $45.2bn)

6. Mark Zuckerberg (US): co-founder and chief executive of Facebook (net worth $44.6bn)

7. Larry Ellison (US): co-founder and chief executive of Oracle (net worth $43.6bn)

8. Michael Bloomberg (US): owner of Bloomberg LP (net worth $40bn)

Source: Forbes billionaires' list, March 2016

UK economist Gerard Lyons said focusing on extreme wealth "does not always give the full picture" and attention should be paid to "making sure the economic cake is getting bigger".

However, he said Oxfam was right to single out companies that it believed fuelled inequality with business models that were "increasingly focused on delivering ever-higher returns to wealthy owners and top executives".

Oxfam's Ms Wright said economic inequality was fuelling a polarisation in politics, citing Donald Trump's election as US president and the Brexit vote as examples.

'Fair share'

"People are angry and calling out for alternatives. They're feeling left behind because however hard they work they can't share in their country's growth," she said.

The charity is calling for "a more human economy" and is urging governments to crack down on executive pay and tax evasion and impose higher taxes on the wealthy.

It also wants business leaders to pay a "fair share of tax" and has urged companies to pay staff the "living wage", which is higher than the government's National Living Wage.

Oxfam has produced similar reports for the past four years. In 2016 it calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.

The number had fallen to just eight this year because more accurate data was now available, Oxfam said.

It was still the case that the world's richest 1% had as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, Oxfam said.

Some of the eight richest billionaires have given away tens of billions of dollars. In 2000 Bill Gates and his wife Melinda set up a private foundation that has an endowment of more than $44bn.

In 2015 Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to give away 99% of their net worth in their lifetimes, which equated to about $45bn based on the value of Facebook shares at the time.

It takes cash and assets worth $71,600 to get into the top 10%, and $744,396 to be in the top 1%.

Oxfam's report is based on data from Forbes and the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth datebook, which gives the distribution of global wealth going back to 2000.

The survey uses the value of an individual's assets, mainly property and land, minus debts, to determine what he or she "owns". The data excludes wages or income.

The methodology has been criticised as it means that a student with high debts, but with high future earning potential, for example, would be considered poor under the criteria used.

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The world's eight richest individuals have as much wealth as the 3.6bn people who make up the poorest half of the world, according to Oxfam. The charity said its figures, which critics have queried, came from improved data, and the gap between rich and poor was "far greater than feared".

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Some shocking facts about climate change to persuade that 37% of Americans that this issue is no myth...

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Some shocking facts about climate change to persuade that 37% of Americans that this issue is no myth...

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Global warming and climate change affect absolutely everyone and everything on this planet, but with so many models, theories, and predictions, it can get confusing to know who or what to believe about the environment anymore.

Here are 21 facts that we know about climate change and global warming and how the phenomena are literally changing the planet and how we live our day-to-day lives.

Prepare to be amazed, shocked, and hopefully moved to help make the changes needed to slow down the alarming rate of global warming that has been set in motion since the Industrial Age.

1. First off, let's be clear: In general, the greenhouse effect is a good thing. Without greenhouse gases, the temperature on Earth would be too cold to support life. With too much, it would heat up beyond survivable levels.

2. Approximately 600,000 deaths occurred worldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters in the 1990s, where 95 percent of those deaths took place in developing countries.

3. 2014 was the world's hottest year on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2010, tied with 2005.

4. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point in the past 800,000 years, and the U.S. produces 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning.

5. The Montana Glacier National Park has only 25 glaciers left from the 150 that were there in the year 1910.

6. Global warming is associated with hotter temperatures, but it can also cause the opposite. "On one side, [the] Amazon Rainforest is turning into [a] desert and [the] Sahara is becoming greener and greener," said the Plant a Tree Today (PATT) Foundation of the UK and Thailand.

7. Melting ice caps have caused sea levels in the north to rise. For the first time in hundreds of years, ships can pass through the fabled Northwest Passage above North America.

8. Over 100 million people living in coastal regions will be displaced by just a one-yard rise in sea levels.

9. The golden toad was the first species to go extinct because of climate change and habitat loss.

10. Among climate scientists, 97 percent agree that human-caused climate change is happening here and now. The sooner we act to slow the rate of climate change, the lower the risk and cost for future generations.

11. Cows produce more methane than the oil industry does: 20 percent of U.S. methane gas emissions is produced by farmed cattle burps and farts.

12. Of the land in California, 99.84 percent is experiencing drought.

13. The world lost about 16 percent of all coral reefs in 1998, the second hottest year on record.

14. While the U.S. is trying to reduce their greenhouse gases, China plans to construct one coal-based electrical power station each week for the next 10 years.

15. Coal combustion creates 40 percent of electricity worldwide but also is responsible for "30 percent of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide, and 72 percent of CO2 emissions from global power generation," making renewable energy sources like wind or solar more cost-effective in the long run.

16. Many airlines are encouraging "green" aircraft landings by descending in a smooth, continuous fashion to reduce fuel vibrational noise and save on fuel.

17. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent.

18. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius was the first to say that burning fossil fuels may eventually result in global warming.

19. Climate change costs the U.S. over $100 billion each year.

20. Studies on global warming, however, are not all bad. Some scientists want to induce global warming on Mars to make it habitable for life and eventual colonization.

21. Thirty-seven percent of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax, and 64 percent don't believe that climate change will seriously affect their way of life.

Photos:

Andrea Della Adriano | Flickr
European Commision DG ECHO | Flickr
Special Collections Toronto Public Library | Flickr
Brian Gratwicke | Flickr
grassrootsgroundwell | Flickr
Spend A Day Touring, LLC | Flickr
U.S. Department of Agriculture | Flickr
Lizzy Saldana | Flickr
Gustavo M | Flickr
Michael Rehfeldt | Flickr
Images Money | Flickr
European Southern Observatory | Flickr

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21 Amazing Facts About Global Warming And Climate Change

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Here are some facts about global warming and climate change that will amaze and shock you. Global warming and climate change affect absolutely everyone and everything on this planet, but with so many models, theories, and predictions, it can get confusing to know who or what to believe about the environment anymore.

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10 Percent of the World's Wilderness Has Been Lost Since 1990s:

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10 Percent of the World's Wilderness Has Been Lost Since 1990s:

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New research finds catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the last 20 years.

Credit: Liana Joseph

Wilderness areas around the world have experienced catastrophic declines over the last two decades, with one-tenth of global wilderness lost since the 1990s, according to a new study.

Since 1993, researchers found that a cumulative wilderness area twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon has been stripped and destroyed.

The shrinking wilderness is due, in part, to human activity such as mining, logging, agriculture, and oil and gas exploration. The researchers said theirfindings underscore the need for international policies to recognize the value of wilderness and to protect wilderness areas from the threats they face. [ In Images: One-of-a-Kind Places On Earth]

"Globally important wilderness areas - despite being strongholds for endangered biodiversity, for buffering and regulating local climates, and for supporting many of the world's most politically and economically marginalized communities - are completely ignored in environmental policy," study lead author James Watson, an associate professor in the School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Queensland, in Australia, said in a statement.

"Without any policies to protect these areas, they are falling victim to widespread development. We probably have one to two decades to turn this around," said Watson, who is also director of the Science and Research Initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Central Africa and the Amazon saw the most wilderness decline, the researchers found. Of the roughly 1.27 million square miles (3.3 million square kilometers) of global wilderness lost, the Amazon accounted for nearly one-third, and 14 percent of the world's wilderness was lost from Central Africa, according to the study.

The researchers determined that only 11.6 million square miles (30.1 million square km) of wilderness is left, which equates to just 20 percent of the Earth's total land mass.

"The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering," study co-author Oscar Venter, an associate professor of ecosystem science and management at the University of Northern British Columbia, said in the statement. "We need to recognize that wilderness areas, which we've foolishly considered to be de-facto protected due to their remoteness, is actually being dramatically lost around the world."

The researchers defined wilderness as "biologically and ecologically intact landscapes that are mostly free of human disturbance." In their new study, the scientists mapped these areas around the world to assess how their ecosystems have changed over the years. The researchers noted that wilderness areas do not exclude people, but rather have lower levels of human impact that results in biophysical disturbance to natural habitats.

Once wilderness is gone, it cannot be restored because the ecological processes that underpin the ecosystems are destroyed, the researchers said. The only option, they said, is to proactively protect what is left.

"If we don't act soon, there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change, and for some of the most vulnerable human communities on the planet," Watson said. "We have a duty to act for our children and their children."

The study was published online Thursday (Sept. 8) in the journal Current Biology.

Original article on Live Science.

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10 Percent of the World's Wilderness Has Been Lost Since 1990s

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Wilderness areas around the world have experienced catastrophic declines over the last two decades, with one-tenth of global wilderness lost since the 1990s, according to a new study. Since 1993, researchers found that a cumulative wilderness area twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon has been stripped and destroyed.

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Rudolph Is Shrinking: Climate Change Is Starving Santa's Reindeer:

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Rudolph Is Shrinking: Climate Change Is Starving Santa's Reindeer:

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A reindeer on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.

Credit: BMJ | Shutterstock.com

Reindeer are shrinking, and it's not because they're on a diet for the holidays. Rather, climate change is making it difficult for them - and their gestating fetuses - to survive extreme winters, new research shows.

The findings are the culmination of a 16-year study on the reindeer living in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between Norway and the Arctic. In 1994, the adult reindeer in Svalbard weighed an average of 120 lbs. (55 kilograms), but in 2010, they weighed less than 108 lbs. (49 kg), on average - a 10- to 12-percent drop in weight, said lead study researcher Steve Albon, an emeritus population ecologist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland.

The drop in weight was linked to warmer winters and summers, he said. Reindeer typically mate in late October and give birth in early June, he said. During the cold, dry winter months, reindeer, including those that are pregnant, forage under the snow for lichen, a slow-growing organism that's part fungi and part algae, Albon said. [ 6 Surprising Facts About Reindeer]

But warm winter temperatures have increasingly brought rain, not snow, Albon said. Then, when temperatures drop, the wet ground freezes like an ice rink, with the reindeer's tasty lichen stuck beneath the ice.

Unable to get to their food, hundreds, if not thousands, of reindeer die, and pregnant reindeer that survive either lose their fetuses or give birth to smaller calves, Albon said. In fact, 61,000 reindeer starved to death in Siberia following a rain-on-snow event in 2013 to 2014, according to a November 2016 study published in the journal Biology Letters.

"In the winter, over the 20 years we've been working there [Svalbard], the temperature has gone up 9 degrees Celsius [16.2 degrees Fahrenheit]," Albon told Live Science. "It's more likely that you'll get these periods where the temperatures go above freezing, and if there's any precipitation, [it later freezes]."

At first, the researchers noticed these ice-rink events happening every six years - in 1996, 2002 and 2008. But then, the icy events began happening every other year year, in 2008, 2010 and 2012, "and we realized that this was related to the warming climate," Albon said. "The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, especially this part of the Arctic."

Albon and his Norwegian colleagues initially visited Svalbard's reindeer to learn more about their response to parasites. As they measured and weighed the reindeer year after year to see the effect of parasites, they noticed a troubling pattern: There was a huge variation in the number of pregnant females in 1996, 2002 and 2008, the same years the ice-rink events happened. Moreover, the researchers recorded a decline in the adults' skeletal size and weight from the 1990s to the early 2000s, the researchers said.

This happened despite the warmer summers, which led to increased vegetation for the reindeer to eat. Over a 20-year period, the summer temperatures increased by about 2.7 F (1.5 C), Albon said.

"In the summer, 1.5 Celsius doesn't sound like much, but if you increase from a mean [average] of 6 degrees Celsius [42.8 F] in July to 7.5 degrees Celsius [45.5 F], you'll find you get a doubling in vegetation productivity," Albon said. "That's a very substantial change."

Despite this cornucopia of food during the summer, the winters continued to wear on the reindeer. "They were losing more weight, they were losing their fetuses, so there was fetal mortality," Albon said. [ Species Success Stories: 10 Animals Back from the Brink]

In contrast, "if the winter was cold and dry, the mothers could get to the food, and the calves would be born at size and likely to be more viable," he said. "That very early growth, even in utero, dictates the rest of life."

The warmer summer adds a complication, Albon said. When Svalbard is warm and sprouting with food, reindeer are more likely to mate. That means the reindeer population is growing despite the frequent, severe ice-rink winters, he said.

It's possible that limited winter resources due to increased population may partly explain the "shrinking"-reindeer phenomenon, Albon and his colleagues wrote in their study.

But regardless of the cause of the "shrinking," the smaller reindeer face different challenges than their normal-size brethren. These smaller reindeer have a disadvantage during the winter because their metabolism is higher than that of regularly sized reindeer, but there's less food available for them to eat. Yet during the warmer summers, these smaller reindeer may have an advantage because it's easier for them to dissipate heat, which is high when they're nursing, Albon said.

If too many reindeer shrink, it also spells bad news for the herd. If the adults in a reindeer population are, for the most part, more than 110 lbs. (50 kg) in April, the population tends to increase. But if the reindeer are mostly under that weight, the population tends to decline, Albon said.

For the time being, the researchers are waiting for the reindeer born in the past few years to reach age 6, when they become mature adults. Only then will the researchers have a better idea of how climate change is affecting the reindeer's population numbers, he said. However, another study, presented at the American Geophysical Union Meeting on Monday (Dec. 12), found that climate change might be responsible for shrinking reindeer populations in northern Russia.

Reindeer are hardly the only animal that is "shrinking" due to climate change. The phenomenon isn't a new one - when the planet got warmer in the past, beetles, bees, spiders and even pocket gophers also shrank, according to fossil evidence, Live Science reported in 2011.

More recently, reports have tied shrinking bison, salamanders and other animals to climate change.

The reindeer research, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented Monday at the British Ecological Society meeting in Liverpool, England.

Original article on Live Science.

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Rudolph Is Shrinking: Climate Change Is Starving Santa's Reindeer

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Reindeer are shrinking, and it's not because they're on a diet for the holidays. Rather, climate change is making it difficult for them - and their gestating fetuses - to survive extreme winters, new research shows. The findings are the culmination of a 16-year study on the reindeer living in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between Norway and the Arctic.

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Delaware-Size Iceberg Is About to Break Off from Antarctica: 

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Delaware-Size Iceberg Is About to Break Off from Antarctica: 

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An iceberg one-fourth the size of Wales is about to break off of Antarctica.

Credit: Copyright MIDAS Project, A. Luckman, Swansea University

An icy thread measuring a mere 12 miles (20 kilometers) long is all that's anchoring a massive iceberg the size of Delaware to its home in West Antarctica, climate scientists report.

If the iceberg breaks away - an event known as calving - the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica will lose more than 10 percent of its area, which amounts to about 2,000 square miles (5,000 square km), according to Project MIDAS, an Antarctic research project based in the United Kingdom.

MIDAS researchers noticed the rift in 2014, and have used satellite and other data to monitor it ever since. The rift made headlines late last year when NASA's IceBridge mission snapped a photo showing the eerily immense crack, which measured 70 miles (112 km) long, more than 300 feet (91 meters) wide and about one-third of a mile (0.5 km) deep as of Nov. 10, 2016. [ In Images: IceBridge Investigates Antarctica]

However, the rift has worsened since November, Project MIDAS announced yesterday (Jan. 5).

"After a few months of steady, incremental advance since the last event, the rift grew suddenly by a further 18 km [11 miles] during the second half of December 2016," MIDAS researchers wrote in a blog post. "Only a final 20 km of ice now connects an iceberg one quarter the size of Wales to its parent ice shelf."

A huge crack can be seen in the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf in this aerial image snapped on Nov. 10, 2016, as part of NASA's IceBridge mission.

Credit: NASA/John Sonntag

The Larsen C Ice Shelf is the South Pole's fourth-largest ice shelf, and holds back the frozen land-based glaciers behind it, Live Science previously reported. If the iceberg breaks off, the slow-flowing glaciers will have one less barrier between them and the sea.

It's possible that Larsen C will follow in the same footsteps as Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 after a similar rifting event, according the Project MIDAS blog. The Larsen A Ice Shelf disintegrated in 1995.

If the Larsen C Ice Shelf does break off from Western Antarctica, it will be among the top 10 largest icebergs on record, the BBC reported. (When a chunk of ice breaks away from a glacier or an ice shelf it is called an iceberg.)

"If it doesn't go in the next few months, I'll be amazed," MIDAS project leader Adrian Luckman, a professor in the geography department at Swansea University in the United Kingdom, told BBC News.

Once it breaks off, the iceberg isn't expected to raise sea levels, Luckman said. But if the shelf continues to fall apart, then the glaciers that flow off the land might have an impact on sea levels, he told the BCC.

Estimates show that if all of the ice held back by the Larsen C Ice Shelf were to enter the sea, global oceans could rise by 4 inches (10 centimeters), the BBC reported.

Original article on Live Science.

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Delaware-Size Iceberg Is About to Break Off from Antarctica

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An icy thread measuring a mere 12 miles (20 kilometers) long is all that's anchoring a massive iceberg the size of Delaware to its home in West Antarctica, climate scientists report.

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The climate crisis has increased the average global temperature and is leading to more frequent high-temperature extremes, such as heatwaves. Higher temperatures can cause increased mortality, reduced productivity and damage to infrastructure. The most vulnerable members of the population, such as the elderly and infants, will be most severely affected.

Higher temperatures are also expected to cause a shift in the geographical distribution of climate zones. These changes are altering the distribution and abundance of many plant and animal species, which are already under pressure from habitat loss and pollution.

Temperature rises are also likely to influence phenology - the behaviour and lifecycles of animal and plant species. This could in turn lead to increased numbers of pests and invasive species, and a higher incidence of certain human diseases.

Meanwhile, the yields and viability of agriculture and livestock, or the capacity of ecosystems to provide important services and goods (such as the supply of clean water or cool and clean air) could be diminished.

Higher temperatures increase the evaporation of water, which - together with the lack of precipitation - increases the risks of severe droughts.

Low-temperature extremes (cold spells, frosty days) could become less frequent in Europe. However, global warming affects the predictability of events and therefore our capacity to respond effectively.

Due to the changing climate, many European regions are already facing more frequent, severe, and longer lasting droughts. A drought is an unusual and temporary deficit in water availability caused by the combination of lack of precipitation and more evaporation (due to high temperatures). It differs from water scarcity, which is the structural year-round lack of fresh water resulting from the over-consumption of water..

Droughts often have knock-on effects, for example on transport infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, water and biodiversity. They reduce water levels in rivers and ground water, stunt tree and crop growth, increase pest attacks and fuel wildfires.

In Europe, most of the roughly EUR 9 billion annual losses caused by drought affect agriculture, the energy sector and the public water supply. Extreme droughts are becoming more common in Europe, and the damage they cause is also growing.

With a global average temperature increase of 3°C, it is projected that droughts would happen twice as often and absolute annual losses from droughts in Europe would increase to EUR 40 billion per year, with the most severe impacts in the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions. More frequent and severe droughts will increase the length and severity of the wildfire season, particularly in the Mediterranean region. Climate change is also expanding the area at risk from wildfires. Regions that are not currently prone to fires could become risk areas.

The sea level rose over the course of the 20th century, and the tendency has accelerated in recent decades.

The rise is mostly due to thermal expansion of the oceans because of warming. But melting ice from glaciers and the Antarctic ice sheet is also contributing. It is predicted that Europe will experience an average 60 to 80 cm sea-level rise by the end of the century, mainly depending on the rate at which the Antarctic ice sheet melts.

Around a third of the EU's population lives within 50 km of the coast and these areas generate over 30% of the Union's total GDP. The economic value of assets within 500 m of Europe's seas totals between EUR 500 billion to 1,000 billion.

Alongside other climate change impacts, sea-level rise will increase the risk of flooding and erosion around the coasts, with significant consequences for the people, infrastructure, businesses and nature in these areas.

Moreover, sea level rise is projected to reduce the amount of available fresh water, as seawater pushes further into underground water tables. This is also likely to lead to much more saltwater intrusion into bodies of fresh water, affecting agriculture and the supply of drinking water.

It will also affect biodiversity in coastal habitats, and the natural services and goods they provide. Many wetlands will be lost, threatening unique bird and plant species, and removing the natural protection these areas provide against storm surges.

Climate change is happening so fast that many plants and animal species are struggling to cope. There is clear evidence to show that biodiversity is already responding to climate change and will continue to do so. Direct impacts include changes in phenology (the behaviour and lifecycles of animal and plant species), species abundance and distribution, community composition, habitat structure and ecosystem processes.

Climate change is also leading to indirect impacts on biodiversity through changes in the use of land and other resources. These may be more damaging than the direct impacts due to their scale, scope and speed. The indirect impacts include: habitat fragmentation and loss; over-exploitation; pollution of air, water and soil; and the spread of invasive species. They will further reduce the resilience of ecosystems to climate change and their capacity to deliver essential services; such as climate regulation, food, clean air and water, and the control of floods or erosion.

Climate change is predicted to lead to major changes in water availability across Europe, due to less predictable rainfall patterns and more intense storms. This will result in increased water scarcity, especially in southern and south-eastern Europe, and an increased risk of flooding throughout much of the continent. The resulting changes will affect many land and marine regions, and many different natural environments and species.

Water temperature is one of the central parameters that determine the overall health of aquatic ecosystems because aquatic organisms have a specific range of temperatures they can tolerate. The changes in climate have increased water temperatures of rivers and lakes, decreased ice cover, thereby affecting water quality and freshwater ecosystems.

Climate change is a significant threat not only to human health but also to animal and plant health. While a changing climate might not create many new or unknown health threats, existing effects will be exacerbated and more pronounced than currently seen.

The most important health effects from future climate change are projected to include:

1. Increases in summer heat-related mortality (deaths) and morbidity (illness);

2. Decreases in winter cold-related mortality (deaths) and morbidity (illness);

3. Increases in the risk of accidents and impacts on wider well-being from extreme weather events (floods, fires and storms);

4. Changes in the impact of diseases e.g. from vector-, rodent-, water- or food-borne disease;

5. Changes in the seasonal distribution of some allergenic pollen species, range of virus, pest and disease distribution;

6. Emerging and re-emerging animal diseases increasing challenges to European animal and human health by viral zoonotic diseases and vector-borne diseases;

7. Emerging and re-emerging plant pests (insect, pathogens and other pests) and diseases affecting forest and crop systems;

8. Risks in relation to change in air quality and ozone.

People living in low-income urban areas with poor infrastructure, and, generally speaking, population groups with lower incomes and assets, are more exposed to climate impacts but have less capacity to face them.

Women may be disproportionately impacted by climate change and are at a disadvantage when expensive adaptation measures are required. At the same time, women are key actors in adaptation and more generally sustainable practices.

Unemployed and socially marginalised people are among the most vulnerable to climate risks.

Europe's ageing population, disproportionately affected by reduced mobility or health impediments, will result in a higher share of the population being vulnerable to climate change impacts.

Climate change has also already started to have an impact on displacement and migration. Although climate is only of several drivers of displacement and migration, many partner countries on their path towards sustainable development are among the most affected. People living there often depend heavily on their natural environment, and they have the least resources to cope with the changing climate

The impacts of climate change are particularly pertinent to infrastructure and buildings given their long lifespan and their high initial cost, as well as their essential role in the functioning of our societies and economies.

Buildings and infrastructure can be vulnerable to climate change because of their design (low resistance to storms) or location (e.g. in flood-prone areas, landslides, avalanches). Indeed they can be damaged or rendered unfit for use by any changing climatic condition or extreme weather event: rising sea level, extreme precipitation and floods, occurrences of extreme low or high temperatures , heavy snowfalls, strong winds...

Consequences of climate change for buildings and infrastructure will differ from region to region.

Climate change and climate variability are projected to have a substantial effect on agricultural production, both regarding crop yields and the locations where different crops can be grown. The crop season has lengthened and is projected to increase further due to an earlier onset of growth in spring, and a longer growing season in autumn. This would allow a northward expansion of warm-season crops to areas that were not previously suitable.

Due to a combination of heat and drought, substantive agricultural production losses are projected for most European areas over the 21st century, which will not be offset by gains in Northern Europe. While irrigation is an effective adaptation option for agriculture, the ability to adapt using irrigation will be increasingly limited by water availability.

Southern regions will be hit hardest, with an overall negative impact on agriculture. High temperatures, water shortage and extreme weather events may cause lower yields, higher yield variability and, in the long term, a reduction in suitable areas for cultivation. The impacts will depend on precipitation patterns and the crops considered.

Northern parts of Europe could expect some positive effects on agriculture through the introduction of new crop varieties, higher yields and expansion of suitable areas for crop cultivation. These are due to longer crop seasons, more frost-free periods and fewer cold spells. Negative impacts are also expected, however, mainly through increased pests and diseases, nutrient leaching and reduced soil organic matter.

Effects on forestry due to climate change include increased risk of droughts, storms and fires (abiotic) and pests and diseases (biotic) - all leading to disturbances to forest health.

The impact of fire events is particularly strong on already degraded ecosystems in southern Europe, and is projected to worsen in the future, with longer and more severe fire seasons projected in this area.

Forest growth is projected to decrease in southern Europe and to increase in northern Europe. However, the biodiversity of forests is expected to change across Europe, with changing tree species and increasing threats for specialised plant communities. The limited diversity of tree species in boreal forests is expected to enhance the risk of significant pest and disease impacts.

The frequency and intensity of most types of extreme events is expected to change significantly as a result of climate change. In the short term, as long as due allowance is made for the underlying trend, premiums would rise gradually and the insurance market would absorb such changes without disruption. However, risk knowledge often advances in 'steps', which can lead to jumps in the price over a short period. In the longer term, particularly in most vulnerable sectors or areas, climate change could indirectly increase social disparities as insurance premiums become unaffordable for a fringe of the population.

The increase in temperature is particularly significant in many mountain regions, where loss of glacier mass, reduced snow cover, thawing of permafrost and changing precipitation patterns, including less precipitation falling as snow, have been observed and are expected to increase further. This could lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods in some mountain areas (e.g. in parts of Scandinavia) that can impact people and the built environment. Additional projected impacts include reduced winter tourism, lower energy potential from hydropower in southern Europe, a shift in vegetation zones and extensive biodiversity loss. Plant and animal species living close to mountain tops face the risk of becoming extinct due to the inability to migrate to higher regions.

The retreat of the vast majority of glaciers also affects water availability in downstream areas.

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The climate crisis has increased the average global temperature and is leading to more frequent high-temperature extremes, such as heatwaves. Higher temperatures can cause increased mortality, reduced productivity and damage to infrastructure. The most vulnerable members of the population, such as the elderly and infants, will be most severely affected.

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The Year in Climate Change: 2016's Most Depressing Stories: 

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The Year in Climate Change: 2016's Most Depressing Stories: 

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Author Bio

Kacey Deamer, Staff Writer

Kacey Deamer is a journalist for Live Science, covering planet earth and innovation. She has previously reported for Mother Jones, the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, Neon Tommy and more. After completing her undergraduate degree in journalism and environmental studies at Ithaca College, Kacey pursued her master's in Specialized Journalism: Climate Change at USC Annenberg. Follow Kacey on .

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The Year in Climate Change: 2016's Most Depressing Stories

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Author Bio Kacey Deamer, Staff Writer Kacey Deamer is a journalist for Live Science, covering planet earth and innovation. She has previously reported for Mother Jones, the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, Neon Tommy and more.

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http://www.mdgmonitor.org/millennium-development-goals/

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Complete this worksheet into your notes.

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Preparing for disaster: earthquake predicitons

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Preparing for disaster: earthquake predicitons

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Earthquake Destruction | National Geographic

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BBC Science: Predicitons & Tragedy - Earthquake Storms

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Scientists examine the published studies that clearly predicted the earthquake in Izmit Bay, and the subsequent lack of interest in the warnings. Watch more Earthquake Storms videos with BBC worldwide here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2EE08E4533B90789

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Earthquake Destruction | National Geographic

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BBC Science: Preparing for Disaster - Earthquake Storms

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Although there is still time to prepare for the potential disaster in Istanbul, to strengthen structures and create an evacuation plan, scientists worry that their words of warning might not be heard by the residents who cannot afford to miss a day of work for a prediction that might not come true.

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Watch and comment with your thoughts

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former finance minister of Nigeria, sums up four days of intense discussion on aid versus trade on the closing day of TEDGlobal 2007, and shares a personal story explaining her own commitment to this cause.

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Effectiveness on strategies designed to reduce disparities. 

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Effectiveness on strategies designed to reduce disparities. 

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Read through this powerpoint and take detailed notes.

Watch the videos and answer the questions on slide 6.

Do the tasks on slide 7.

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Miss Payne's IB class: watch this, then comment on the post writing a paragraph with your thoughts. 

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Miss Payne's IB class: watch this, then comment on the post writing a paragraph with your thoughts. 

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Andrew Mwenda: Aid for Africa? No thanks.

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In this provocative talk, journalist Andrew Mwenda asks us to reframe the "African question" -- to look beyond the media's stories of poverty, civil war and helplessness and see the opportunities for creating wealth and happiness throughout the continent.

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"Get off the square!" the security guard yells into his megaphone. "The place is going to be cleaned!"

It's 10pm on Friday night in Fatahillah Square in the heart of Kota Tua, Jakarta's old town, and the public are being herded out. Uniformed city workers take their place, sweeping up trash from the 1,300 sq metre pedestrianised area in the shadow of the Jakarta History Museum, formerly colonial city hall.

"After 10pm, people weren't coming for tourism," says Norviadi Setio Husodo, head of the Old Town Zone Management Unit, explaining the decision to limit visiting hours to what is ostensibly a public space. "They came to make out in dark corners. We saw lesbians, homosexuals. We saw people getting drunk in the square. Garbage was piling up. Now we see much less garbage."

For decades, Jakarta has wanted to "revitalise" the old town, the centre of old Batavia, which once bustled with life and trade under the colonial Dutch administration. The effort has seen its ups and downs, but in the past two years has gathered steam, with a bid for the area to become a Unesco world heritage site and the city preparing to host the 18th Asian Games in 2018.

In particular, the city has attempted to woo private investors. Buildings have been renovated, there are plans to make over the black and putrid river, upscale tenants are being encouraged to open up shops and security has been beefed up.

For the "undesirables" who currently live and work here, however, there is no such love. Street vendors and artists have been largely barred from the square. In April, the city demolished the homes of 400 families who had lived in Pasar Ikan for decades to make way for a food court, a plaza and a souvenir centre. In Jakarta's old town, development comes with a price - and the city administration gets to decide who stays and who leaves.

People weren't coming for tourism. They came to make out in dark corners. We saw lesbians, homosexuals

Norviadi Setio Husodo

In order to prevent what he calls "negative things" that are not specifically for "tourism", Husodo's team has, as well as limiting visiting hours, hired 73 men to guard the seven entrance points to the square. They work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And where there were once two cleaners, there are now 35.

The desire to revitalise the old town - which spans more than 300 hectares from Chinatown in the south to Sunda Kelapa harbour in the north - is not new.

In recent decades, however, the area became notorious for bad traffic and disreputable nightclubs. The distinct Dutch colonial architecture had begun to decay, as owners found it too expensive to renovate in compliance with heritage building regulations. As the buildings deteriorated, the seedy karaoke lounges, clubs and prostitutes moved in. Investment fled south, into Jakarta's "golden triangle": the streets that enclose the central business district.

So in 2007, the city renovated the square, making it a pedestrian area and encouraging museums and historical societies to hold events. It was a huge success. Fatahillah Square became a popular free gathering area for people from all walks of life, especially precious in a city with very little public space. Most of its visitors were from middle to low-income brackets, arriving via the Transjakarta BRT bus, commuter trains or motorbikes.

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The 'sterilisation' scheme has changed the atmosphere of Fatahillah Square. Photograph: Rony Zakaria

With its increasing popularity came the informal economy. Street vendors packed the square, sharing space with pedestrians, selling food, drinks, T-shirts, bags, shoes and accessories, and relying on busy foot traffic for sales. Mascots posed with tourists for pictures; performers wearing elaborate historical costumes acted as statues; there were street buskers, toy hawkers, traditional travelling performers, men carrying exotic snakes, reggae bands, pickpockets and a Dutch-style bicycle rental service.

With the square bursting at the seams, the historical and museum societies complained they were being sidelined. Three museums surround the square - the Jakarta History Museum, the Puppet Museum and the Art and Ceramics Museum - and they did not enjoy as much popularity as the square itself.

In 2013, the city invited in the corporate world. The Jakarta Old Town Revitalisation Corporation (JOTRC) is a consortium of nine companies, among them property giants, who each gave $1m - considered a "donation" or corporate social responsibility - to renovate more than a dozen buildings in cooperation with the owners, mostly state-owned companies. Once the JOTRC finished renovating a building, it would get a 20-year lease from the owner and rent the space to a retail tenant - clothing chains or restaurants - at a lower rate than Jakarta's upscale shopping malls.

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Street artists wait outside the old town square in Jakarta. Photograph: Rony Zakaria

"We want this to become a creative and tourism city. We want this place to be built by young people, we want co-working spaces and a marketplace for young people to develop a creative place," says Andy Budiman, a JOTRC spokesman. "We will have museums, performing art halls, like in European old town areas."

Profit was not the companies' aim, Budiman says. Rather, they want a sustainable development of the area, and to expand the market to include upper-income visitors as well.

The city administration had its own plans, too. The ambition of Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama was to create Jakarta's very own Cheonggyecheon - the modern public park built along what was once a clogged and filthy river in Seoul, South Korea. Renowned architect Budi Lim was hired to turn 600 metres of Jakarta's foul-smelling waterway Kali Krukut into a "water tourism space", by filtering and cleaning polluted wastewater that is dumped into the river by houses upstream. The project cost Rp 270bn (£16m), which was provided by the building corporation Sampoerna in exchange for permission to add more floors to their towers in central Jakarta.

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Many street vendors have been relocated to a semi-deserted market area. Photograph: Rony Zakaria

In September this year, the city "sterilised" the square, prohibiting street hawkers and performers, but allowing bicycle rentals, statue performers and street painters to stay. "They have something to do with art and culture, and the bicycles and statue performers are an iconic part of the old town," says Taofik, the head of the security detail.

Some visitors like it better this way. Teenagers still congregate here to eat instant noodles and drink orange juice. Others think the square has turned into a boring, sterile place.

"Before, there were street performers, pantomimes, pencak silat [traditional martial arts]," says Andrew Kansil, a 25-year-old auditor and amateur photographer who used to visit Fatahillah Square regularly to take pictures. "They were creative people. Every time, there was something new. There was a good dance and music group, there was cosplay. We didn't go there only to stare at the buildings."

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A relocated street vendor takes a rest in her new location. Photograph: Rony Zakaria

The street vendors - roughly 400 of them - were relocated to a nearby empty lot in a swampy area that is mainly used for parking rubbish trucks: a place that few people have a good reason to visit. The vendors say there were "left there to die".

Murni, 43, is lying on her piles of plush animals. In the past, she says, most of her sales came after 10 pm, when the "girls working in nightclubs" bought her stuffed bears. Since being relocated here two months ago, however, trade has plummeted. "I hardly sell anything here. Now, no one comes here. Before I could earn up to Rp 1m (£61) a night. Here, getting Rp 50,000 is already good."

To the authorities, the nightlife that once unfolded here after dark was negative and immoral. But for the street vendors, the revelers were customers. Aking, a corn seller in his 40s, says that over the past three years the old town was more bustling at night than during the day. Although some people were drunk, the area felt safe.

There are new plans to expand the "revitalisation" to the harbour, by creating a sea-themed public space near the Maritime Museum in Pasar Ikan.

This is where the most hardheaded evictees hold their ground. On demolition day in April, residents clashed with more than 4,000 officials, police and soldiers who were sent to accompany the bulldozers. Some Pasar Ikan residents refused to move to social housing, which is more than 12 miles away from their homes, and have spent the last seven months living in makeshift tents and shacks on the rubble of their old houses. They have filed a lawsuit against the forced eviction in Central Jakarta district court.

"Why can't we share the land? The city wants a plaza, fine, but share the space with us," says Dharma Diani, 40, a Pasar Ikan resident. She says she has paid taxes to the government for decades and finds it unfair she could not be part of the revitalisation. "We have been part of the tourism here. They want to build beautiful things here, why don't you create something good from us, too?"
Evi Mariani is the city editor at the Jakarta Post Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook and join the discussion Topics

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'Get off the square!': The unsubtle gentrification of Jakarta's old town

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"Get off the square!" the security guard yells into his megaphone. "The place is going to be cleaned!" It's 10pm on Friday night in Fatahillah Square in the heart of Kota Tua, Jakarta's old town, and the public are being herded out.

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http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf

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Have a look to see how well the goals were achieved

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How We Can Make the World a Better Place by 2030 | Michael Green | TED Talks

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About 8% of the world's money is in the form of physical cash, the rest is in the form of digital currency showing how dependent we've become on e-banking.

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Social networking as grown rapidly over the years and has received increasing attention from advertisement companies. Adverts pop up everywhere and can generate huge profits. However, don't be tricked! You can suffer personal losses! There have been many incidents with identity thieves who can cause real damage to your social media accounts and bank accounts. So folks, keep those passwords to yourself! ;)

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US election tracker and polls - Earliest possible time the election will be “called” - 7am Wednesday!

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US election tracker and polls - Earliest possible time the election will be “called” - 7am Wednesday!

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The White House has released an image of Michelle Obama speaking to Melania Trump - hours after the first lady and first lady-in-waiting met.

President Barack Obama has had what he describes as "an excellent conversation" with Donald Trump inside the White House, as the two former bitter enemies met in person for the first time.

Mr Trump, who has described himself as Mr Obama's "worst nightmare," told the president he was "a very, very good man."

On the campaign trail he repeatedly described him as weak, "a disaster," ineffective and "the most ignorant president in our history."

On Thursday, however, both men struck a conciliatory note after they met to discuss the transition from one administration to the next.

"We want to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed we all succeed," said Mr Obama.

There circumstances of the meeting were extraordinary. Mr Trump spent years claiming Mr Obama was born outside the US and was therefore not a legitimate president, while Mr Obama savaged him throughout the campaign as irresponsible and dangerous.

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Michelle Obama and Melania Trump pictured together at White House meeting as Donald Trump considers administration appointments

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The White House has released an image of Michelle Obama speaking to Melania Trump - hours after the first lady and first lady-in-waiting met. President Barack Obama has had what he describes as "an excellent conversation" with Donald Trump inside the White House, as the two former bitter enemies met in person for the first time.

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Interactive map showing global net migration!

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This map shows the estimated net immigration (inflows minus outflows) by origin and destination country between 2010 and 2015.

Blue circles = positive net migration (more inflows). Red circles = negative net migration (more outflows). Each yellow dot represents 1,000 people.

Hover over a circle to see that country's total net migration between 2010 and 2015. Click a circle (or tap the circle twice on mobile) to view only the migration flows in and out of that country.

Country-to-country net migration (2010-2015)
The data for this map comes from the U.N. Population Division, more information on how it was calculated at the bottom of the post.
Immigration: the new Godwin's Law

If you're not familiar with Godwin's law, it is an old internet adage that states, " As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler approaches 1. "

Lately, I've found a similar principle applies to immigration. No matter what topic is being discussed online, if the conversation goes on for long enough, someone will inevitably tie it back to immigration.

Immigration has always been an important and frequently debated issue. And for many current events, the connection with immigration is clear, for example: terrorism / ISIS, the Brexit, Donald Trump and this year's presidential race, the refugee crisis. But at some point in the last year or two, I started noticing immigration being mentioned in connection with all sorts of topics I never would have expected.

To see what I mean, here are some of the topics I've posted about where immigration came up in discussion, either in the comment section of the post or on social media:

Why is immigration suddenly the cause / result / solution of everything? (Not meant rhetorically. If you have a good answer, I'd love to know.)

Who is migrating from where to where?

For a topic that comes up as often as immigration, I've found the debate to be really lacking in factual information. Hopefully this map is helpful is clearing up at least the simple, basic statistics: how many migrants are there? Where are they coming from? And where are they going?

Please keep in mind, these numbers are only estimates. You can find the full details of how they were calculated at the bottom of the post.

That said, here are a few of the pieces I found interesting.

Syria

Between 2010 and 2015, the net migration from Syria to Sweden was more than Syria's net migration to the rest of Europe and the Americas combined.

Many Middle Eastern countries have been criticized for allegedly accepting few Syrian refugees. In Qatar and the UAE, the net migration appears to actually be negative. Though of the Middle Eastern countries that are accepting Syrian refugees, the numbers they are dealing with are orders of magnitude higher than in the West.

The United Kingdom / Brexit

In the Brexit debate, the loudest arguments in favor of leaving the EU have been about immigration. What strikes me as interesting is how small a portion of the UK's net immigration is actually coming from Europe.

Australia

Australia, another country where immigration has become a highly charged political issue, jumps out as an interesting case.

By these estimates, Australia's net immigration is negative with every country in the world, except for a small positive immigration balance with Sudan. Australia is the only country in the world to have significant positive net immigration with the US.

United States

Last month, I posted a map visualizing 200 years of US immigration (inflows only). I would have liked to do the same with US emigration, which may be the more interesting direction since it is not nearly as well known. Unfortunately the US does not keep good emigration records and the best data I've managed to find goes back only a few decades. So, I don't foresee being able to make a historical US emigration map.

Still, I think it's pretty interesting to see what US net immigration flows look like in the present.

As mentioned above, according to these estimates, the US has significant positive net immigration with only one other country, Australia. The country with which the US has the largest negative net immigration is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Mexico. Though the amount by which Mexico leads is down substantially compared to a decade ago. Illegal immigration in particular has fallen off sharply, as demonstrated by this time series of border apprehensions from Pew Research.

When US immigration is viewed by region, the area that really stands out is Asia, which now accounts for just as much US immigration as North + South America (Mexico included).

Immigration between the US and Mexico is particularly complex, since it involves both legal and illegal immigration as well as temporary laborers, deportations, and a large number of people living in immigration detention facilities. For that reason, America's true net migration with Mexico is uncertain, and may actually be much lower than what's shown here. If you believe Pew's estimates, net migration with Mexico is now actually negative: more people are migrating from the US to Mexico than vice versa.

Immigration perceptions

Wherever you stand politically on immigration, you have to admit, it's pretty strange how rarely basic stats like these enter the debate. For all the discussion in the US about border fences and immigration limits, the simple question of "how many immigrants are there?" hardly ever even comes up.

Public opinion about immigration was likely a deciding factor in Britain's decision to exit the EU. And it may very well determine who becomes the next US president. Yet the majority of Brits and the majority of Americans misestimate the size of their country's immigrant population by a multiple.

The data for this map comes from the UN Population Division's estimates for Total Migrant Stock - the number of global migrants, broken down by country of residence and country of origin. The numbers are not fully consistent. In some cases, they represent foreign citizens and in others they represent foreign born. See the dataset itself for the full set of footnotes.

To convert those figures into immigration estimates, I took the difference between the migrant stock in 2015 and that in 2010. Since some of that difference is due to mortality, not immigration, I adjusted the 2010 numbers down assuming an annual mortality rate of 0.8%, the global average.

The map was made in Javascript using D3, three.js, and MapboxGL.

View the map as a Youtube video or embed the interactive version using the HTML below.
My latest project, Elementus, aims to bring transparency to the cryptocurrency market. Check out our blog for some crypto-related data visualizations.

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All the World's Immigration Visualized in 1 Map

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Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn63.9KsharesThis map shows the estimated net immigration (inflows minus outflows) by origin and destination country between 2010 and 2015. Blue circles = positive net migration (more inflows). Red circles = negative net migration (more outflows). Each yellow dot represents 1,000 people.

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ICT Has enabled us to help others in time of need by donating online. It's fast and efficient! :)

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@tweetgeog
ICT has helped people manage their bank accounts online instead of a face-to-face approach...smh

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@tweetgeog
The number of #Facebook  users from #2009 to #2010 in #theUK has increased by 54%.

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Make your own development tree - change the criteria and see how development changes!

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Make your own development tree - change the criteria and see how development changes!

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What do you consider to be the minimal conditions under which a human being should live? Make your own tree to see how human development in the world has changed.

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Mitch Litala

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Case study - Cyclone Nargis

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Maher Habboub

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Sophia Diggins

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Global tweets during our lesson toady!

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Belize received 1.3 million tourists in 2015

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Belize received 1.3 million tourists in 2015

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BELIZE CITY, Wed. Jan. 20, 2016-The callous murder of American digital media producer Anne Swaney last week while she was vacationing in Belize for the second time, has sent shockwaves through what has been a very vibrant industry in Belize-one which saw record numbers particularly in the overnight sector in 2015-and stakeholders are hoping that the senseless killing of a woman who made Belize her preferred destination-like so many other US nationals-does not cause other tourists to shy away from coming to The Jewel.

The US Embassy in Belize has refuted reports that the US State Department had issued a travel advisory for visitors to Belize after Swaney's murder. In pledging to work with law enforcement agencies to improve visitor safety, the BTB said, "As always, the safety of guests visiting your businesses, our cities and our country remains our top priority."

In its 2015 tourism recap released today, the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) noted the US market holds the biggest share in the industry at 63.1%, with the European market being second at 12% and the Canadian market third, at 7% in what ended as a robust year for Belize's tourism market.

With more traffic coming to Belize in 2015, overnight tourism grew by 6.2%, with almost 20,000 more tourists visiting for more than a day, said the BTB. That's up from 321,220 visitors in 2014 to 341,125 tourists in 2015, according to further information which the BTB supplied to Amandala upon our request.

Added to those overnight numbers were 957,975 cruise passengers who ventured to Belize last year - a slight dip from 968,131 tourists in 2014.

The onset of winter in North America-Belize's primary tourism market-means that more visitors have been coming to Belize during those months, with an upsurge in numbers recorded for November and December 2015. The BTB reported "a strong increase in visitor traffic in the latter months of the year," with the bulk of the increase in overnight tourism recorded during the last 4 months of the year, compared with the same time in the previous year, 2014.

In fact, according to the BTB, "The month of December saw 39,977 overnight visitors to Belize, which is the first time in history that a month in overnight arrivals has approached 40,000."

Similarly, positive news was reported in the cruise tourism sector for the end of 2015, which saw an increase in November of 9.2% (81,113 passengers) and in December of 1.6% (143,598 passengers).

New flights and a new cruise tour in 2015 also helped to boost tourism arrivals.

The BTB notes that, "2015 also marked the beginning of South West and COPA Airlines' flights to Belize in October and December respectively, boosting overnight arrivals through the international airport. Since the first flight of Copa Airlines in December, South American visitors has increased 50.3% when compared to 2014.

It added that, "For 2015, there was only 1 call cancellation in the last quarter of the year amounting to a total of 3,070 less passengers arriving to Belize. Finally, in December, Belize received the newest Cruise line - the MSC Divina."

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Belize received 1.3 million tourists in 2015

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BELIZE CITY, Wed. Jan. 20, 2016--The callous murder of American digital media producer Anne Swaney last week while she was vacationing in Belize for the second time, has sent shockwaves through what has been a very vibrant industry in Belize-one which saw record numbers particularly in the overnight sector in 2015-and stakeholders are hoping that the senseless killing of a woman who made Belize her preferred destination-like so many other US nationals-does not cause other tourists to shy away from coming to The Jewel.

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This is one slump in growth rate that the nation can rejoice over. According to the Census of 2001- 2011, India's population has grown at 17.7 per cent as against 21.5 per cent in the decade.

The country's population at present is 1.21 billion, an increase of 181.96 million since 2001. What is even more comforting for the country's planners is the fact that female growth rate has been better than male growth rate.

The male population has gone up by 90.97 million, against a rise of 90.99 in the population of females over the last 10 years.

The rate of growth of the female population is 18.3 per cent, while the male growth rate stands at 17.1 per cent, according to the final census released by Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday.

While there has been a 3.8 per cent drop in the overall growth rate, there is still scope for improvement as 14 states and Union Territories have registered over 20 per cent growth in population figures.

Among the major states, Bihar has recorded the highest decadal growth in population (25.4 per cent), surpassing West Bengal, which occupied the first position in 1991-2001. More than two-third of the country's population lives in rural areas.

As per census 2011, 833.5 million people live in rural areas, while 377.1 million people live in urban centres.

Delhi has the highest proportion of urban population at 97.5 per cent.

Top five states in terms of urban population are Goa (62.2 per cent), Mizoram (52.1 per cent), Tamil Nadu (48.4 per cent), Kerala (47.7 per cent) and Maharashtra (45.2 per cent).

The literacy rate in India has risen to 73 per cent in comparison to 64.8 per cent in 2001.

While male literacy rate stands at 80.9 per cent, which is 5.6 per cent higher than the previous census, the female literacy rate has been recorded at 64.6 per cent, an increase of 10.9 per cent since 2001.

The gap in literacy rate between urban and rural areas and between males and females has also declined.

In Census 2011, the gap stands at 16.3 points. India's sex ratio in 2011 stands at 943 (females against 1000 males), which is 10 per cent more than the last census, when it was 933.

Haryana has the worst sex ratio at 879, while Kerala is the best at 1,084.

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India's literacy rate rises to 73 per cent as population growth dips

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According to the Census of 2001-2011, India's population has grown at 17.7 per cent, as against 21.5 per cent in the decade. The country's literacy rate has risen to 73 per cent in comparison to 64.8 per cent in 2001.

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By Bruno Philip
LE MONDE/Worldcrunch

BALI - The "island of gods." This paradise wasn't spared its deodorant-commercial-style cliché. For ages, this pearl of the Lesser Sunda islands, an Indonesian archipelago, has embodied the archetypal land of plenty: the natural splendor of its tropical landscapes, its dreamy white beaches, the tormented beauty of its Hindu temples, the friendly and tolerant reputation of its inhabitants. All of the necessary ingredients for the Garden of Eden brought together.

But this idyllic description may soon be a thing of the past. Bali is threatened to the point that it could soon be unrecognizable: the cumulated effects of mass tourism, frenzied consumption and an ecological disaster are forcing the most clear-sighted Balinese to sound the alarm.

So is Bali over? "Yes, if you compare it to what it used to be," is -- at the very least -- what many residents agree on. Indeed, paradises have no future: they are just fragile perfections in an imperfect world. And if you define them as the receptacles of a frozen past, they can only be victims of modernization. Bali, among other "paradises," seems ill-equipped to resist the 21st century's mutations.
The terrible toll of mass tourism
"Bali really became a touristic destination in the 1970s," says Wayan Suardana, a manager at the Walhi NGO, which fights to preserve the environment. "But in the beginning, it was mostly cultural tourism. Today, we are witnessing mass tourism. And that's the very problem!"

Indicators aren't very encouraging: hundreds of hotels absorb a large part of the fresh water reserves. Each room in a four star hotel consumes 300 liters per day. "In 2015, Bali could face a drinkable water crisis," says Wayan Suardana. Over a million tourists visited Bali in 2001, compared to approximately 2.5 million last year. All of this despite the 2002 terrorist attack by a small Islamist group that killed 202 people, including many Australians.

Each year, 700 hectares of land are converted into hotels, luxury residences for rich foreigners, or roads to improve the communication network of this 3.5 million inhabitants island. Each day, 13,000 cubic meters of trash are thrown into the public dumps, only half of which is recycled. Colossal traffic jams created by unchecked car growth congests many arteries: there are 13 % more cars every year, for a mere 2.28 % increase of roads suitable for motor vehicles.

To try and control the impact of mass tourism on the local Hindu culture -- an exception in the mainly Muslim Indonesia -- authorities came up with a "great plan" aimed at passing an environmental protection law: a 150 meter mandatory minimal spacing between touristic resorts and the beach, no hotel less than five kilometers away from Hindu temples -- or puras as they are known -- and their intricate architecture.

This nice idea went unheeded: decentralization was conducted to such an extent in Indonesia -- an archipelago of 17,000 islands populated by 240 million people -- that a disproportionate amount of power was vested in the bupati, the locally elected prefects. They take a dim view of the legislation.

"The environmental protection law was passed, but the bupati, who have financial interests and are in collusion with the real estate developers, did everything to keep the law from being applied. Their obsession is making money to pay off their electoral campaigns," says Ketut Adyana, a member of the provincial legislative assembly.

This affable and unassertive representative in his thirties is one of the only people in Parliament to truly act to try and save Bali. "It is good that Bali attracts tourists, but Bali shouldn't be devoted solely to tourism," he says. "Local authorities have no long term vision, they want a quick return on invested capital. And tourism enables that. The irony in all this is that one day, tourists won't find what they were expecting in Bali anymore..."

In January 2011, reacting to the current deterioration, Governor Made Mangku Pastika decreed a moratorium on new constructions in heavily urbanized areas. He warned: "Bali risks becoming a sterile land bristling with concrete constructions!" Needless to say that the moratorium isn't very popular with investors -- this could turn out to be yet another failed attempt to stem the damage.

"Tourism is a reality that is linked to the attractiveness of our culture: if mass tourism evolves in a way that threatens this culture, our specificity will disappear," says Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, president of the Bali tourist information office. He himself is the owner of a prestigious hotel in Sanur, one of the island's flagship destinations. "Nothing is lost yet," he says, even though he acknowledges that "Our big problems are the lack of roads, access to water, insufficient infrastructures, electrical potential and waste disposal."

"We used culture like a merchandise," says Ketut Yuliarsa, a poet and stage director from Ubud. The mischievous fifty-year-old, who writes poems about "exploring the road that leads beyond the world, perhaps to the soul..." is appalled by the evolution of his island. "The Balinese are people who are still deeply attached to their religion and culture, they spend a lot of time in temples, they respect the rites. But mass tourism is disrupting their practices: the diversity of local cultures and the specificity of rituals is being unified, homogenized. We offer a standardized 'package' to foreigners." One example: tourist guides use Polynesian practices, like giving out garland of flowers to new arrivals -- as though it was a Balinese custom!"
Changing tourism - and mentalities
The difficulty in curbing these excesses is all the more difficult that tourism does have positive aspects. "People have gotten richer, standards of life have increased. Many Balinese aren't aware of the current changes: most of them say they are satisfied with the evolution of things," says Ketut Yuliarsa.

A part of the youth is distancing itself from cultural constraints, often perceived has overbearing. The status of the farmer is starting to lose value in the face of the positively perceived "globalized urban" figure.

Audrey Lamou, former director of the French cultural center, Alliance Française, in Denpasar (Bali's administrative center) has been observing this phenomenon for several years. "Eighty percent of the Balinese society is still bound hand and foot to daily rites," says the young woman. "But some young people, who have to pay a sort of mandatory monetary compensation to the village when they can't attend these rites, are railing at these restrictive rules."

Audrey Lamou has also lived in Jakarta, and she says Indonesia's current democratization since the end of President Suharto's dictatorship -- when he was forced to step down in 1998 -- has brought many positive aspects that Bali is taking advantage of.

"People can express themselves much more freely than ten years ago, and more and more journalists and organizations are denouncing the corruption and amateurism of certain politicians," she says. However, "Balinese people are increasingly obsessed with easy money. Institutions like the gamelans -- traditional orchestras -- are disappearing and the Balinese language is slowly yielding to Indonesian. With this spectacular evolution, one wonders if the Balinese are culturally driving straight into the wall," she says.

These trends are naturally worrying those who transmit religious and cultural knowledge. "How can religion survive capitalism?" asks Ida Pandita Acharya, the Brahman of a small village temple near Ubud. Here is how he describes the current process: "Traditionally, people lived in fear of the gods. Because the Balinese were aware of nature's forces, rites enabled them to maintain the balance between man and divinity. Now, even though the rites are still respected, an increasing number of people are focused on material possessions. The authorities' policies are causing a loss of collective wisdom, a blurring of reference points and cultural uprooting."

Of course, Bali is still a magical place when compared to other "dream" destinations in Asia, like Thailand, where tourism has disfigured a large part of the coast. But if nothing is done to stop the excesses, the island of gods won't escape the cruel rule that no paradise has a future.

Read more from Le Monde in French

Photo - Jo@net

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How mass tourism is destroying Bali and its culture

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By Bruno Philip LE MONDE/Worldcrunch BALI - The "island of gods." This paradise wasn't spared its deodorant-commercial-style cliché. For ages, this pearl of the Lesser Sunda islands, an Indonesian archipelago, has embodied the archetypal land of plenty: the natural splendor of its tropical landscapes, its dreamy white beaches, the tormented beauty of its Hindu temples, the friendly and tolerant reputation of its inhabitants.

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Earthquake that hit Italy this morning.

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Numerous buildings are said to have been destroyed across central Italy after a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, followed by aftershocks, rocked the peninsula on Sunday morning. No deaths have been reported, but Civil Protection says a number of people have been injured.
FOLLOW UP: 'I saw hell': Norcia 6.6 earthquake devastates historic churches & buildings (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
The US Geological Survey's website puts the magnitude at 6.6.

Initial reports on the magnitude of the tremors varied - while USGS and Italian media first talked of a 7.1 earthquake, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said the tremor was magnitude 6.5 or 6.6.

Italy Civil Protection reported buildings collapsing in a number of locations following the tremors.

"No deaths have been reported, but there are a number of people injured, " Civil Protection chief Fabrizio Curcio told a news conference, as cited by Reuters, adding that at least one person was in serious condition.

Curcio added that 15,000 people had been left without electricity or drinking water, while roads were severely damaged, leaving access only to emergency vehicles. In addition, thousands of homes have been destroyed and people forced to seek shelter.

" There are between 10,000 and 100,000 people who will need to be assisted," said Luca Ceriscioli, the president of the Marche region, adding that if the seismic activity does not stop, " you are likely to get to 100 thousand displaced people. "

The USGS says the quake was centered 6 km (3.7 miles) north of Norcia, a town in the province of Perugia. The epicenter lay some 10 kilometers deep.

Norcia, famed for its Benedictine monastery and its cured meats, is home to some 5,000 people.

According to RAI Radio, at least two buildings collapsed there - the Basilica di San Benedetto, the 14th century cathedral in one of the city's main piazza, and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Argentea.

" It's as if the whole city fell down," Norcia city assessor Giuseppina Perla told the ANSA news agency.

Authorities said many towns and villages already battered by the 6.2 quake in August had seen further damage.

" This morning's quake has hit the few things that were left standing. We will have to start from scratch," Michele Franchi, the deputy mayor of Arquata del Tronto, told RAI TV.

According to the mayor of Ussita, a commune in the Marche district with around 450 inhabitants, 90 percent of the buildings in the area were brought down by the quake. While in the town of Amatrice the Church of Saint Augustine lost its bell tower.

Aftershocks with magnitudes of up to 4.5 rocked the region throughout the whole day and are expected to go on for a week.

Italians who live in the areas affected by the quake rushed to the web, posting videos of shaking furniture inside their homes.

According to those on Twitter, tremors were felt in Perugia, Rimini, Abruzzo, Naples and Rome, where the circulation of the metro-system was briefly suspended on lines A and B.

On Wednesday, central Italy was already rocked by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake, which left several thousand people.
READ MORE: Chilling images capture destruction as two earthquakes hit Italy (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
Italy's National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks (CGR) cautioned Friday that more powerful earthquakes could hit the region in the nearest future, identifying at least three areas at risk for further seismic activity.

" There is no current evidence that the (seismic) sequence underway is coming to an end," the commission warned.

Ok this earthquake almost brought the house down. Shit. The worst we've felt even worse than Aquila.
- Kristina Gill (@kristinagill) October 30, 2016

This week's quakes come mere two months after almost 300 people were killed in the region by a quake that leveled several small towns.
READ MORE: Italy mourns quake victims as death toll climbs to 247 (PHOTOS) FOLLOW UP: 'I saw hell': Norcia 6.6 earthquake devastates historic churches & buildings (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

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6.6 earthquake in central Italy hits 'the few things that were left standing' (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

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Numerous buildings are said to have been destroyed across central Italy after a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, followed by aftershocks, rocked the peninsula on Sunday morning. No deaths have been reported, but Civil Protection says a number of people have been injured.

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ÖZGEN ACAR

An interesting memorial ceremony was held on Sept. 7 in the Hungarian city of Szigetvar with the participation of Turkish, Hungarian and Croatian officials, as well as thousands of visitors.The Ottomans seized Szigetvar Castle 450 years ago on Sept. 7 but the head of the army, Süleyman the Magnificent (known in Turkish as Kanuni Sultan Süleyman), was not able to witness the success, having died the day previously.

In this place over the Danube River, meaning "Sziget (island) var (city)" in Hungarian, Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmet Pasha concealed Süleyman's death from the army. He dressed up the sultan's dead body and placed him on his throne in a way to greet the parading Janissary after the fall of the castle.

Later on, he had his body embalmed in his tent for transportation to Istanbul. To prevent any bad odor, the sultan's heart and inner organs were removed and buried there. His coffin was carried to Istanbul accompanied by 400 janissaries under the command of Ahmet Paşa and buried in an octagonal tomb built by the architect Sinan in Süleymaniye Mosque.

In the place where the sultan's heart was buried, his son Selim II constructed a tomb and mosque in 1573. The Hungarians named the place "Turbek," but it collapsed in 1693 after falling into the hands of the Austrian Habsburg Dynasty. Hungarians have erected the monumental statues of the commander Miklos Zrinyi, who defended the castle, and Süleyman in the region next to each other in recent years.

A statement reading "The heart and inner organs of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman are buried in this place and a monument was erected. Rest in peace," was hung in the Szüz Maria Church, which was built near the tomb.
Turkish and Hungarian experts, however, failed to locate the sultan's tomb in the church. But 12 experts, headed by Pecs University Geography Professor Norbert Pap, conducted research in the Vatican, Venice, Budapest and Istanbul archives with the aim of finding the possible location of the tomb.

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) gave financial support to research and facilitated collaboration between Turkish and Hungarian officials to locate the tomb. After excavations were conducted on 18 locations in the region, geophysical research was conducted with contributions from TİKA, providing some interesting results.

"The ruins of the Turbek were unearthed along with the walls of a mosque, a grave and the ruins of a lodge, silver coins, cloth, ceramic, glass and metal pieces," said Pap. "We did not search for Kanuni's internal organs but the place where they were buried," he added.

The monumental statues of Miklos Zrinyi and Süleyman the Magnificent

A six-angled star that was found provided some hope. One of the participants in the works, Professor Ali Uzay Peker, said the star was in the tomb of Kanuni in Istanbul as well as in the horse carriage that carried his body, and meant "Mühr-i Süleyman" symbolizing the seal of the Prophet Solomon. He said the sultan also used this star.

During this year's works in June and July, they found the ruins of a lodge and a mosque next to the tomb, Peker said. "The place of Kanuni's tomb has definitely been discovered."

"In terms of both the building material and building shape, we obtained a hundred percent definite result," said Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak, who attended the ceremony. "TİKA financed the project. Hungarian scientists also joined the work, too. This is an important gain both for us and the history of Hungary."

"The youth of Szigetvar migrates because of poverty in the region," Pap said. "Kanuni's tomb may draw tourists to the region; the economy may be revived. There are a few hotels in the district, which has a population of 100,000. New hotels may be built for tourism."

Szigetvar Mayor Peter Vass said he hoped that visitor numbers to Szigetvar, which is now 25,000, might double, and a field close to the castle has been reserved for the construction of three hotels.

Hungarian officials are hopeful of a growth in tourists both because the tomb of the sultan's wife, Ukrainian-born Hürrem Sultan, which is located in the garden of the Süleymaniye Mosque, is visited by Ukrainian tourists and because thousands of tourists visit the tomb for the internal organs of Sultan Murat I, who died during the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, just outside Prishtina.

"Lots of tourists are expected to visit Szigetvar," said Turkey's ambassador to Budapest, Şakir Fallı.
Turkish television viewers, who are under the effect of the TV series "The Magnificent Century," may want to see this place where the "Magnificent Century ended."

While studying political science, Acar started writing for daily Cumhuriyet in 1960. He worked as a parliamentary, economy and foreign policy reporter for the newspaper. He became the Turkey representative for the Reuters News Agency in 1972. He later worked as the Athens and New York representative for daily Milliyet before returning to Cumhuriyet, where he was chief editor from 1992 to 1994.

He ensured the repatriation to Turkey of some smuggled cultural heritages such as the "Karun Treasure," "Elmalı Treasure," "Weary Heracles" and "Marsyas" sculptures, as well as the "Çelenkli Tomb."

Along with various professional awards, he has received an honorary doctorate from Boğaziçi University and a special service award from Middle East Technical University. In addition to awards from Greece and Portugal, he has received the Order of Knighthood from Italy.

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End of 'Magnificent Century' could spell start for tourism

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ÖZGEN ACAR An interesting memorial ceremony was held on Sept. 7 in the Hungarian city of Szigetvar with the participation of Turkish, Hungarian and Croatian officials, as well as thousands of visitors.The Ottomans seized Szigetvar Castle 450 years ago on Sept.

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Some great images showing the large number of aircrafts that take off from some of the world's busiest airports.

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Stunning composite images show an armada of airliners

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Thousands of airliners take off and land every day. Photographer Mike Kelley's composite photographs show just how busy some of our biggest airports are.

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This story appears in the November 2016 issue ofNational Geographic magazine.

Fifteen years had elapsed since we last explored the Gardens of the Queen. In the necklace of keys, mangrove islets, and reefs about 50 miles off Cuba, we had discovered a marine wilderness that astonished us with its vibrant life.

We returned to Cuba anxious about what we would see in the wake of time and climate change in this national park now covering about 850 square miles. On our first dive we descended into a large stand of elkhorn coral, a critically endangered species diminished throughout the Caribbean. We found ourselves in a dense thicket, amazed as we watched grunts and snappers jostle for space among the broad branches, as if in a game of musical chairs. This is exactly what we hoped to see; we were inside a liquid time capsule, transported back to a world of coral draped in fish, what the Caribbean looked like to our eyes decades ago.

Noel López, a dive master who has observed these waters for two decades, guided us to a deeper reef where we encountered four species of grouper, including a goliath the size of a stove. The reef seemed even more crowded with large fish and sharks than on our first visit.

One morning we entered the mangroves and swam through a flooded forest filled with clouds of silversides. We ventured out to open water to dive with dozens of sleek silky sharks, which formed a perfect carousel around us. At dusk we returned to the mangroves and submerged into the dark water with powerful lights. We followed an American crocodile, hunting silent as a submarine. To encounter such abundant prey and super predators in a single system, let alone a single day, was incredible.

This oasis in the ocean flourishes, marine scientist Fabián Pina Amargós emphasizes, because Cuba actively protects the preserve, where tides and currents help retain nutrients and larvae. So far the marine ecosystem has proven resilient to coral bleaching, but it faces the same threat that other reefs do as the ocean warms, acidifies, and rises.

As the U.S. embargo draws to an end, the romance of Cuba's waters is sure to lure more Americans. There's an urgent need to strike a balance between ecotourism and conservation. Cubans know what's at stake: the living crown jewels of the Caribbean.

David Doubilet andJennifer Hayes, who work as a team, have photographed the oceans from the Equator to polar regions.

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Cuba's Underwater Jewels Are in Tourism's Path

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This story appears in the November 2016 issue ofNational Geographic magazine. Fifteen years had elapsed since we last explored the Gardens of the Queen. In the necklace of keys, mangrove islets, and reefs about 50 miles off Cuba, we had discovered a marine wilderness that astonished us with its vibrant life.

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The risk of big earthquakes on san andreas fault increases... 

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The risk of big earthquakes on san andreas fault increases... 

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Rio 2016 News - Latest Updats from the Rio Olympics

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The latest Rio Summer Games news direct from Brazil. Headlines covering the top athletes, medal-winning performances, and record-breaking moments.

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Cambodia signed a regional pact over the weekend to step up efforts to mitigate environmental hazards that affect public health, including marine and air pollution, according to a statement released by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Representatives from 14 countries convened in the Philippines over the weekend to sign the Manila Declaration as part of the triennial Asia-Pacific Regional Forum on Health and Environment, an initiative headed by WHO and the U.N.'s Environment Program.

The declaration "calls for action on the emerging issues of (1) antimicrobial resistance, (2) transboundary haze and air pollution, (3) transnational waste shipments, and (4) marine pollution and destruction of coral reefs," the statement said.

The event was a "concrete example of how we can best tackle emerging challenges when we come together and discuss issues of common concern openly," Shin Young-Soo, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, was quoted as saying.

Signatories recognized the need for stronger efforts to fulfill the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement, both of which seek to tackle issues caused by climate change, it added.

Ministry of Health spokesman Ly Sovann confirmed that Health Minister Mam Bunheng represented the country in Manila, but said he could not comment on the specifics of the pledge as he had not been briefed.

Vinntak Sung, deputy director of the ministry's department of international cooperation, said the government would be rallying officials on a local level to uphold the goals of the declaration. However, he declined to outline any specific strategies or potential policies that would contribute to its enforcement.

"We are dedicated to putting boots on the ground to get grassroots support for the initiative, and will be trying to get representatives from each district around the country to enforce [the declaration] within that district," he said.

Daniel Dimick, country director for the NGO Health Poverty Action, said he was skeptical about the potential impact of the declaration without financial support from major donors.

"The key thing for anything like this is how it gets ratified and funded," Mr. Dimick said, noting that the scope of the government's health budget would not normally cover something as broad and complex as environmental health, with most state funds going to basic costs such as staffing.

"Unless there's donor integration...you won't be seeing any changes on the ground from such a declaration-we've seen that in the past as well," he said. "Any impactful change will come from donors."

© 2016, The Cambodia Daily. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in print, electronically, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written permission.

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Government Pledges to Reduce Environmental Hazards - The Cambodia Daily

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Cambodia signed a regional pact over the weekend to step up efforts to mitigate environmental hazards that affect public health, including marine and air pollution, according to a statement released by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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Somali piracy survivor: 'We lived off rats and birds'

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Somali piracy survivor: 'We lived off rats and birds'

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In the northern Somali bush, Arnel Balbero trapped birds, wild cats and even rats -- anything to outwit his captors and survive.

"You need to eat everything, he said. "You need to eat to survive..."

Balbero was one of a 29-man crew of the Taiwanese registered fishing vessel, the Naham 3. Its crew of fishermen came from different corners of East Asia -- Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Balbero spent four and half years in captivity as one of the longest-held hostages in the history of Somali piracy. He spent most of it living outdoors in the Somali bush, close to the town of Galkayo.

Heading home

The crew members are now returning to their homes thanks to the efforts of the Hostage Support Programme, which has been fighting for their freedom by appealing directly to elders and religious leaders within Somalia for the past 18 months.

Balbero was 28 years old and sailing around the south of the Seychelles, and very far from his home in the Philippines, when on 12 March 2012, his vessel came under attack from Somali pirates.

This was at the height of Somali piracy. By February of 2012, figures from the UN suggested that 10 vessels had been held by Somali pirates, 159 hostages captured and some $146 million in ransom paid to the gangs.

But the Naham 3 was no merchant ship that belonged to a wealthy sea faring company -- and there was no forthcoming ransom. With few working for their release, these men were often called the "forgotten hostages."

Piracy reduced

Its crew of 29 was reduced to 26 when the captain was shot dead as the pirates boarded and two crew members later died from illness. The ship was forced to travel to the coast off Somalia.

On Monday, Balbero arrived in Nairobi as a 32-year-old man. During his captivity the story of Somali piracy had reached Hollywood screens with Tom Hanks starring in the title role of the film "Captain Phillips."

Since then, a more robust international naval presence in the dangerous waters off Somalia in the Indian Ocean has helped reduced the instances of piracy. There has not been a successful attack on a large commercial vessel since 2012.

Besides depriving the men of food and water, the captors would often beat the men.

"They had the mentality of animals," said Balbero.

"When you got sick and you asked for medical treatment, they said it's better to die. What can you say about that? Of course that is an animal mind to let people die."

It is the memory of the three crew members who did not survive this ordeal which appears to haunt Balbero the most.

He remembers that he joined the Naham 3 on the same day as the men who succumbed to illness early in captivity. He said their legs and faces swelled with an unknown disease before they died.

"We worked in the ship the same year and were on the same three-year contract. When we were told we were going home, I remembered these two crew members and the captain, and I said 'We're sorry.'"

After 1,672 days, Balbero's harrowing ordeal appears to be over, and he is soon to be reunited with his sister and family in the Philippines. But the psychological scars of such a lengthy time in captivity will surely be his next challenge.

Despite this latest hostage release, the fight against piracy has spread to West African shores, and has not been completely eradicated from the Somali coastline.

Somalis point to the increasingly unregulated fishing by international trawlers in their waters, and say it is robbing their young men of a livelihood and driving them back into the hands of the pirates.

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somali piracy survivor: 'we lived off rats and birds' - cnn

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Somali piracy survivor: 'We lived off rats and birds'

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In the northern Somali bush, Arnel Balbero trapped birds, wild cats and even rats -- anything to outwit his captors and survive. "You need to eat everything, he said. "You need to eat to survive..." Balbero was one of a 29-man crew of the Taiwanese registered fishing vessel, the Naham 3.

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How a volcano in Japan stopped an earthquake

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How a volcano in Japan stopped an earthquake

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Ash drifts south from Mount Aso, a volcano on Japan's Kyushu island, on Jan. 13, 2015.

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Mount Aso, one of the most active volcanoes in Japan, recently helped to stop a powerful earthquake before it subsided on its own, researchers discovered.

When a 7.1-magnitude quake struck Kumamoto, Japan, on April 16, 2016, it opened surface ruptures in a zone extending 25 miles (40 kilometers) in length. But scientists found evidence suggesting that the powerful earthquake was halted by a magma chamber under the Aso volcanic cluster, located 19 miles (30 km) from where the quake originated.

This finding provided scientists with a rare glimpse of how two geological phenomena - volcanoes and earthquakes - may interact. This topic is of particular interest in Japan, which is particularly vulnerable to both volcanoes and earthquakes. [ The 11 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History (Photos)]

An earthquake is a sudden release of pent-up energy in Earth's crust that has accumulated over time, generated by shifting tectonic plates. When two sides of a fault, or crack along a plate boundary, move apart or slide suddenly past each other, energy gets released. The waves of energy radiate outward from that jolt, often producing shaking on Earth's surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Japan is especially prone to earthquakes, as it lies in the Pacific Ring of Fire, a U-shaped area in the Pacific Ocean where several tectonic plates meet, and where many earthquakes are generated.

A number of volcanoes are also found in this Ring of Fire. And it was the particular interaction of the April 2016 earthquake with the Mount Aso volcano that triggered the researchers' interest in how seismic activity could be affected by the structure of volcanic clusters.

Shortly after the Kumamoto quake, the researchers visited the epicenter - the place on Earth's surface directly above where the earthquake originated - and spent 10 days investigating the ruptures left behind by the quake.

They discovered fresh ruptures that extended into Aso's caldera - a large, bowl-shaped depression at the volcano's summit - from the southwest to the northeast edge. And they abruptly ended there, at depths of 3.7 miles (6 km) below the surface.

Investigations of seismic activity deep under the caldera where the ruptures stopped indicated that there was a chamber holding magma - the same hot, fluid material called lava when it reaches Earth's surface - at that very spot,

Energy waves from the quake traveled toward Mount Aso through cool, brittle rock, the study authors wrote. But the sudden encounter with the extreme heat generated by rising magma under the volcano dispersed the energy upward and outward, sapping the strength of the quake's flow and stopping the rupture, they explained.

"This is the first case concerning the interaction between the volcano and co-seismic rupturing as we know so far," study lead author Aiming Lin told Live Science in an email.

Lin, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Faculty and Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University in Japan, said that although this is the first reported evidence of a volcano putting a stop to an earthquake, there are other historical examples that could represent similar activity.

In 1707, ruptures generated by the Houei-Tokai-Nankai earthquake (magnitude 8.7) extended northward and eventually terminated at the western side of Mount Fuji, Lin wrote. And in 1930, the rupturing of the magnitude-7.3 North Izu earthquake was interrupted at the Hakone volcano in Izu Peninsula.

"Along this line, we are studying the interaction between the active faults - including co-seismic rupturing - and large earthquakes in Japan," Lin said.

This discovery could help researchers more accurately anticipate earthquakes' duration relative to their interaction with volcanoes, according to seismologist Gregory Beroza, deputy director of the Southern California Earthquake Center and a professor of geophysics at Stanford University.

"What it might mean for earthquakes is that magmatic systems might segment faults and, by doing so, limit the size of earthquakes in a predictable way," Beroza, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.

"This is just one earthquake, however," Beroza added. "No matter how interesting it is, or compelling it looks, it's potentially hazardous to generalize to future earthquakes."

The findings were published online today (Oct. 20) in the journal Science.

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How a Volcano in Japan Halted an Earthquake

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Mount Aso, one of the most active volcanoes in Japan, recently helped to stop a powerful earthquake before it subsided on its own, researchers discovered. When a 7.1-magnitude quake struck Kumamoto, Japan, on April 16, 2016, it opened surface ruptures in a zone extending 25 miles (40 kilometers) in length.

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Isabela Endaya

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Ecotourism is often presented as the savior for wildlife and wild places - providing local communities with financial incentives to preserve nature while also reducing poaching and development pressure.

But, lately, others question whether rich Westerners jetting around the world really help much at all: They disturb animals, create demands for new development and only employ local people in low paying jobs.

Some conservationists even consider tourism to be a significant threat to natural areas.

Which view is correct? Is ecotourism a problem, or a solution?

My biases up front: I'd rather travel for the purpose of seeing wildlife and enjoying various outdoor activities than just about anything. My wife has remarked it's my drug of choice.

That aside, I still think the issue of ecotourism defies easy answers. Problem or solution?
It depends.
Certainly, the ecological havoc wreaked by tourists in places like the Galapagos is well documented. A fragile ecosystem, animals unafraid of humans and an increasing number of cruise ships has been a recipe for disaster.

One doesn't have to look hard to see tourists behaving badly in nature.

People harass and feed wild bison, leave trash strewn across the Himalayas, demand resorts in places they shouldn't be - the list is long.

And then there's the whole carbon footprint issue. We all know that flying has tremendous impacts, so can we really justify flying off to some far-off corner of the world to see animals or scenery?

These are important concerns. Without a doubt, ecotourism can be a threat. But is it always?

After all, would there even be a Galapagos left as we know it if it wasn't for tourism? Really?

Consider other island ecosystems and how difficult it is to conserve native island wildlife. If it wasn't for those tour boats, the Galapagos would likely be a highly developed, rat-infested island devoid of wildlife.

Yellowstone may at times be crowded with tourists behaving badly, but would there still be herds of bison and packs of wolves and grizzly bears without those tourists?

The Serengeti faces issues, to be sure, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the wildebeest population there continues to migrate, during a period of time when so many other large mammal migrations have disappeared.

Private ranches in places like Brazil's Pantanal and Namibia still have large populations of wildlife, in part because many ranchers here now attract tourists. It seems naïve to expect that they will keep conserving wildlife if visitors quit showing up.

Ecotourism, ultimately, is a complicated issue. And in that way, it's not so different from most other conservation issues.

Some conservationists have the tendency to declare activities as simply "good" or "bad" - whether it'secotourism, ranching, timber harvest, invasive species, hunting, fire, or agriculture. All have their proponents and detractors.

However, we should make decisions based on the reality of our world, not on utopian fantasies where humans no longer have any impacts on nature.

We can work to make sure that ecotourism is done in appropriate ways that benefit wildlife and local communities.

And as the saying goes, conservationists can't "let the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Ecotourism isn't perfect.
In many cases, though, it's the best solution we have. (Photo: Caimans draw tourists to Brazil's Pantanal. Credit: Matt Miller/TNC.)

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Ecotourism: Green, or Bad for the Environment? | Conservancy Talk

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Ecotourism is often presented as the savior for wildlife and wild places - providing local communities with financial incentives to preserve nature while also reducing poaching and development pressure. But, lately, others question whether rich Westerners jetting around the world really help much at all: They disturb animals, create demands for new development and only employ local people in low paying jobs.

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Article explaing if China can come back from the one child policy

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The change was much anticipated by demographers worldwide, who would have preferred scrapping the policy altogether, considering it an injustice of human rights that changed the population structure for the worse. Researchers explored the potential effect in a new study, published Thursday.

Almost a year after the decision, the study warns that the Chinese government's goal of a population increase may take more than two decades to arrive.

"It's something we've all been waiting for, for a long time," says Therese Hesketh, professor of global health at University College London, who led the research. "But the effects are only going to come through in the adult population."

In other words, at least 20 years away.

No boom in sight

The paper predicts that the updated policy will bring a peak in population size of 1.45 billion people in 2029, compared with 1.4 billion in 2023 if the one-child policy had stayed in place.

The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 when the government feared a rapid increase in population size after the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s. The country's fertility rate fell dramatically, from a peak of almost six births per female between 1960 and 1965 to 1.5 per woman between 1995 and 2014.

In the years in between, amendments and caveats were added, allowing rural couples to have a second child if their first was a girl and then allowing couples who are only children to have a second child.

In the time it has taken to overturn the ruling,many other factors about China's population and economy have changed, most notably its level of urbanization. As people go to increasingly larger cities in search of employment and income, their desire to have large numbers of children reduces, Hesketh pointed out, adding that a report of hers found that "90% of Chinese people only want one or two children."

Problems will persist

The paper further highlights that problems stemming from China's uneven population structure will continue to exist. There will still be a need for an increased labor force as the nation's elderly population increases rapidly and the country has more young males than females, in part because sons are more desired and considered better able to work and support the family.

"There were considerably more males than females in the country being born," Hesketh said. "(And) the number of elderly people is a major concern."

In 2015, 9.55% of the population in China was over the age of 65, compared with just 3.36% in 1965. China is home to 114 million people over this age, and up to 90 million people are expected to retire in the next three decades, leaving the labor force with even fewer people until this year's newborns are old enough to work.

By 2050, 29% of the population would have been older than 65, compared with 25% under the universal two-child policy, according to the paper. The labor force would be predicted to fall to under 750 million by 2050, compared with approximately 800 million under the two-child policy.

Then there's the problem of too many men.

At birth, there have been 1.15 males to every female born in China in 2016, the most skewed gender ratio in the world. The paper predicts that almost 30 years of the one-child policy will, by 2020, leave an excess of 30 million men who are unlikely to marry and that this ratio will take time to even out.

"We don't expect the sex ratio to go back to normal that quickly," Hesketh said, adding that a surprising benefit of the inequality in numbers has been to females, and it has helped empower them. "I hear people say this is because resources went to girls in a one-child family."

There are some likely positives from the two-child policy as well, as the researchers predict that certain societal issues that arose from the original policy, such as unregistered children and abortions of unapproved pregnancies, would fall significantly.

But the biggest challenge remains: the elderly.

Looking after the current population

To cushion the consequences of this lag in population increase, Hesketh has a series of recommendations to support the aging population. The first is to increase the national retirement age: China has one of the lowest in the world, at 55 for women and 60 for men. Next comes the strengthening of state pensions, particularly for rural pensioners who are more likely to be living alone while their child lives in the city, and to increase options for three-generational living, in which parents live with or near their children in the city.

Three-generational living would require both policies and subsidies, Hesketh highlights, because as with urban life in any other country, the cost of living is high.

Three-generational living "would be a controversial proposal," said Robert Pozen, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who specializes in this field and was not involved with the paper.

"It depends on what part of China you're talking about ... and the level of subsidy," he says. Pozen believes the reality will involve a dual approach with families encouraged to live as one but also for China to build more nursing homes and houses with assisted-living facilities.

"You already find more and more elderly people who are not looked after by their children or grandchildren," Pozen said. "The support of children has already declined."

But for the rest of the recommendations, he agrees wholeheartedly.

"We need to push the pension system in China to rural areas. We have already, but it is modest," he said, mentioning the "practical problem of collecting social security payment."

He added that a revised retirement age is also warranted "But that will have to be brought in gradually," he said. "If it's done too quickly, there will be protest ... but if it has to be gradual, it will not have a big effect immediately."

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china's one-child policy change: how quickly can population grow? - cnn

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How quickly can China come back from one-child policy?

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The change was much anticipated by demographers worldwide, who would have preferred scrapping the policy altogether, considering it an injustice of human rights that changed the population structure for the worse. Researchers explored the potential effect in a new study, published Thursday.

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Map showing the growth of underwater internet cables.

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Despite decades of growth, demand for more and faster internet connections continues to skyrocket. According to Cisco, total internet traffic for 2016 will exceed a zettabyte. (A one with 21 zeroes behind it.) That's enough capacity to stream approximately 143 billion hours of Netflix video at Ultra HD quality.

Though demand is concentrated in the most developed countries, much of the world's internet growth is driven by globe-spanning enterprises. Companies such as Facebook, Google, and especially, Netflix are pushing the limits of how much content can be shuttled around the world each day. Though satellite connections also exist, the vast majority of intercontinental traffic crosses a relatively small number of undersea cables-the arteries of the global internet.

The map above, created with data from Telegeography, shows how those cables have developed since 1990. Most existing cables were constructed during a period of rapid growth in the mid-2000's. This was followed by a gap of several years during which companies steadily exhausted the available capacity. Over the last few years, explosive new demand, driven by streaming video, has once again jumpstarted the the construction of new cables.

Most cables are laid by consortiums of providers that work together to fund the projects and to negotiate with the countries where the cables "land." Typically the largest members of these groups are major internet providers, such as Level 3 and Verizon. However, according to a Telegeography report (pdf), many cables under construction today are receiving significant funding from internet giants Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Those companies now consume so much bandwidth that they require dedicated connections across the ocean.

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This map shows the explosive growth of underwater cables the power the global internet

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Despite decades of growth, demand for more and faster internet connections continues to skyrocket. According to Cisco, total internet traffic for 2016 will exceed a zettabyte. (A one with 21 zeroes behind it.) That's enough capacity to stream approximately 143 billion hours of Netflix video at Ultra HD quality.

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Strong Earthquake in Italy overnight

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Two strong earthquakes have hit central Italy, damaging buildings and injuring dozens of people.

A 5.5-magnitude quake struck at 19:10 (17:10 GMT) near Visso in Macerata province, followed two hours later by a 6.1 magnitude tremor in the same area.

Emergency teams have worked through the night. In August an earthquake killed about 300 people south of Visso.

There are few reports of serious injuries but bad weather has been hampering efforts to assess the damage.

August quakes: Why so many buildings collapsed

History of deadly earthquakes

Can quakes be predicted?

Visso is 70km (45 miles) from Amatrice, which was badly damaged in the 6.2 magnitude quake in August.

Wednesday's earthquakes were felt across central Italy, including in the capital, Rome, where buildings shook and doors and windows rattled.

"Tens" of people were hurt, but only four people suffered serious injuries, Italy's civil protection chief Fabrizio Curcio said.

The second earthquake was considerably stronger than the first and numerous smaller aftershocks have occurred. One witness told Italian TV he saw part of a building collapse in front of him.

The town of Camerino is thought to have been badly damaged, and one resident told the BBC: "Everyone is leaving Camerino by foot or car to seek safety. Two churches are destroyed and many houses [have] fallen."

In Campo, near Norcia in the Umbria region, the late 15th century San Salvatore church collapsed. It had been weakened by the earthquake in August.

There are also reports of downed power lines, damage to historic buildings and a landslide on a main road north of Rome.

The first earthquake, 7km south-west of Visso, was relatively shallow, at a depth of 9km (nearly six miles). The second, at 21:18 local time, was 2km northwest of Visso, at a depth of 10km.

These tremors were linked to the August earthquake, Italian officials said.

"Aftershocks can last for a long time, sometimes for months," AFP news agency quoted Mario Tozzi of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics as saying.
Are you in an area affected by the earthquake? Tell us about your experience by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk .
You can also contact us in the following ways:

WhatsApp: +44 7525 900971

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Two strong earthquakes have hit central Italy, damaging buildings and injuring dozens of people. A 5.5-magnitude quake struck at 19:10 (17:10 GMT) near Visso in Macerata province, followed two hours later by a 6.1 magnitude tremor in the same area. Emergency teams have worked through the night.

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World to lose 2.3 of animals by 2020

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The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.

The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.

The creatures being lost range from mountains to forests to rivers and the seas and include well-known endangered species such as elephants and gorillas and lesser known creatures such as vultures and salamanders.

The collapse of wildlife is, with climate change, the most striking sign of the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era in which humans dominate the planet. "We are no longer a small world on a big planet. We are now a big world on a small planet, where we have reached a saturation point," said Prof Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in a foreword for the report.

Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF, said: "The richness and diversity of life on Earth is fundamental to the complex life systems that underpin it. Life supports life itself and we are part of the same equation. Lose biodiversity and the natural world and the life support systems, as we know them today, will collapse."

He said humanity was completely dependent on nature for clean air and water, food and materials, as well as inspiration and happiness.

The report analysed the changing abundance of more than 14,000 monitored populations of the 3,700 vertebrate species for which good data is available. This produced a measure akin to a stock market index that indicates the state of the world's 64,000 animal species and is used by scientists to measure the progress of conservation efforts.

The biggest cause of tumbling animal numbers is the destruction of wild areas for farming and logging: the majority of the Earth's land area has now been impacted by humans, with just 15% protected for nature. Poaching and exploitation for food is another major factor, due to unsustainable fishing and hunting: more than 300 mammal species are being eaten into extinction, according to recent research.

Pollution is also a significant problem with, for example, killer whales and dolphins in European seas being seriously harmed by long-lived industrial pollutants. Vultures in south-east Asia have been decimated over the last 20 years, dying after eating the carcasses of cattle dosed with an anti-inflammatory drug. Amphibians have suffered one of the greatest declines of all animals due to a fungal disease thought to be spread around the world by the trade in frogs and newts.

Rivers and lakes are the hardest hit habitats, with animals populations down by 81% since 1970, due to excessive water extraction, pollution and dams. All the pressures are magnified by global warming, which shifts the ranges in which animals are able to live, said WWF's director of science, Mike Barrett.

Some researchers have reservations about the report's approach, which summarises many different studies into a headline number. "It is broadly right, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts," said Prof Stuart Pimm, at Duke University in the US, adding that looking at particular groups, such as birds, is more precise.

The report warns that losses of wildlife will impact on people and could even provoke conflicts: "Increased human pressure threatens the natural resources that humanity depends upon, increasing the risk of water and food insecurity and competition over natural resources."

However, some species are starting to recover, suggesting swift action could tackle the crisis. Tiger numbers are thought to be increasing and the giant panda has recently been removed from the list of endangered species.

In Europe, protection of the habitat of the Eurasian lynx and controls on hunting have seen its population rise fivefold since the 1960s. A recent global wildlife summit also introduced new protection for pangolins, the world's most trafficked mammals, and rosewoods, the most trafficked wild product of all.

But stemming the overall losses of animals and habitats requires systemic change in how society consumes resources, said Barrett. People can choose to eat less meat, which is often fed on grain grown on deforested land, and businesses should ensure their supply chains, such as for timber, are sustainable, he said.

"You'd like to think that was a no-brainer in that if a business is consuming the raw materials for its products in a way that is not sustainable, then inevitably it will eventually put itself out of business," Barrett said. Politicians must also ensure all their policies - not just environmental ones - are sustainable, he added.

"The report is certainly a pretty shocking snapshot of where we are," said Barrett. "My hope though is that we don't throw our hands up in despair - there is no time for despair, we have to crack on and act. I do remain convinced we can find our sustainable course through the Anthropocene, but the will has to be there to do it."
Topics

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World on track to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020, major report warns

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The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends. The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020.

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The changing view on Geography as a subject!

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A star is born. Geography, for so long a Cinderella subject, the easy option for students who found physics or chemistry too daunting, is soaring in popularity. According to the Royal Geographical Society, 13% more took the subject at A-level this year than last, up to 37,100 - the biggest jump of any of the major subjects.

Part of the explanation is Michael Gove's determination to make schools focus on more traditional academic subjects at GCSE and A-level, rather than general studies or critical thinking. That is good for those who can benefit from a narrower academic focus, but not so much for those who struggle. It may be, however, that the bigger reason is that geography is a subject for our times. It is inherently multidisciplinary in a world that increasingly values people who have the skills needed to work across the physical and social sciences. Geographers get to learn data analysis, and to read Robert Macfarlane. They learn geographic information systems. They can turn maps from a two-dimensional representation of a country's physical contours into a tool that illustrates social attributes or attitudes: not just where people live, but how, what they think and how they vote. They learn about the physics of climate change, or the interaction of weather events and flood risk, or the way people's behaviour is influenced by the space around them.

All these are not just intrinsically interesting and valuable. They also encourage ways of seeing and thinking that make geographers eminently employable, which is why, according to the latest information from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit, only 5.8% of geography graduates were still job-hunting six months after they graduated, against an average of 7.3%. So, year 9, globalisation: good or bad? And for whom?
Topics

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The Guardian view on geography: it's the must-have A-level | Editorial

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A star is born. Geography, for so long a Cinderella subject, the easy option for students who found physics or chemistry too daunting, is soaring in popularity. According to the Royal Geographical Society, 13% more took the subject at A-level this year than last, up to 37,100 - the biggest jump of any of the major subjects.

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Various Facts

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15 facts

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BP oil spill disaster facts

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Malala Yousafzai on the Power of Education | Glamour

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Child refugees in Turkey making items for M&S and Asos.

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Syrian refugee children have been making clothes for British shoppers, an undercover BBC investigation has found.

Panorama investigated factories in Turkey and found children had been working on clothes for Marks and Spencer and the online retailer Asos.

Adult refugees were also found working illegally on Zara and Mango jeans.

All the brands say they carefully monitor their supply chains and do not tolerate the exploitation of refugees or children.

The kids who have to sew to survive

Marks and Spencer says its inspections have not found a single Syrian refugee working in its supply chain in Turkey.

But Panorama found seven Syrians working in one of the British retailer's main factories. The refugees often earned little more than a pound an hour - well below the Turkish minimum wage. They were employed through a middleman who paid them in cash on the street.

'Unacceptable'

One of the refugees told Panorama they were poorly treated at the factory. He said: "If anything happens to a Syrian, they will throw him away like a piece of cloth."

The youngest worker was 15 years old and he was working more than 12 hours a day ironing clothes before they were shipped to the UK.

A spokesperson for Marks and Spencer said the programme's findings were "extremely serious" and "unacceptable to M&S". It is offering permanent legal employment to any Syrians who were employed in the factory.

"Ethical trading is fundamental to M&S. All of our suppliers are contractually required to comply with our Global Sourcing Principles, which cover what we expect and require of them and their treatment of workers.

"We do not tolerate such breaches of these principles and we will do all we can to ensure that this does not happen again."

But critics say the retailers are not doing enough to stop the problems highlighted by Panorama.

Danielle McMullan, from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, says the brands need to understand that they are responsible: "It's not enough to say we didn't know about this, it's not our fault.

"They have a responsibility to monitor and to understand where their clothes are being made and what conditions they are being made in."

'Pitiful wages'

Many clothes are now made in Turkey because it is close to Europe and used to dealing with last-minute orders. This allows retailers to get new designs into shops more quickly than if they are made elsewhere.

But Turkey is a challenging place to do business. Concerns are rising about the exploitation of workers after the arrival of almost three million Syrian refugees.

Most of the refugees do not have work permits and many of them are working illegally in the garment industry.

Panorama reporter Darragh MacIntyre spoke to dozens of Syrian workers who felt they were being exploited. He said: "They speak of pitiful wages and terrible working conditions. They know they are being exploited but they know they can do nothing about it."

In one back-street workshop in Istanbul, the programme team found several Syrian children hard at work. They also discovered an Asos sample in the office.

Asos accepts its clothes were made in the factory, but says it is not an approved factory. The company has since inspected and found 11 Syrian adults and three Syrian children under 16 at work.

Hazardous chemicals

Asos says the children will be financially supported so they can return to school and the adult refugees will be paid a wage until they have been found legal work. A spokesperson for the company said: "We have implemented these remediation programmes despite the fact that this factory has nothing to do with Asos."

The investigation also found Syrian refugees working 12-hour days in a factory that was distressing jeans for Mango and Zara.

The refugees were involved in spraying hazardous chemicals to bleach the jeans, but most of the workers did not even have a basic face mask.

Mango says that the factory was working as a sub-contractor without its knowledge. Its subsequent inspection did not find any Syrian workers and found "good conditions except for some personal safety measures".

Zara's parent company, Inditex, says its factory inspections are a "highly effective way of monitoring and improving conditions". It had already found significant non-compliance in an audit in June and had given the factory until December to make the necessary improvements.

In another Istanbul factory, Panorama found Syrian adults at work alongside Turkish children as young as 10.

The owner said he had been working for Next and showed the undercover team a set of Next pyjamas that he said the factory had helped produce.

Next says the pyjamas were actually made by another supplier and the pyjamas we saw may have been a sample. It says samples circulate widely and that the presence of a sample in a factory does not mean it was made there.

Panorama - Undercover: The Refugees Who Make Our Clothes is on BBC One at 20:30 BST on Monday 24 October and available on the BBC iPlayer afterwards.

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Syrian refugee children have been making clothes for British shoppers, an undercover BBC investigation has found. Panorama investigated factories in Turkey and found children had been working on clothes for Marks and Spencer and the online retailer Asos. Adult refugees were also found working illegally on Zara and Mango jeans.

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How migration has enriched the UK's booming food culture!

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Seconds from Disaster: Deepwater Horizon

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Seconds from Disaster: Deepwater Horizon

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May be worth a watch!

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Seconds from Disaster: The Deepwater Horizon (Full Documentary)

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The Deepwater Horizon rig has finished drilling the Macondo Well for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. The well, in water 1500m deep, extends to a depth of 4000m. The crew test the well to ensure it is safely sealed so the Deepwater Horizon rig can move on before another rig starts oil extraction.

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Information on the purpose and assessment of the Report.

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The Global Gender Gap Report 2015 - Subtitled

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http://www.weforum.org/ The Global Gender Gap Index featured in the 2015 Report ranks over 140 economies according to how well they are leveraging their female talent pool, based on economic, educational, health-based and political indicators.

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This is how China's New Silk Road initiative could impact European trade

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A Bruegel working paper looks at the impact of China's Belt and Road initiative on European trade.

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In 2009, there were 145 million rural-urban migrants in China, accounting for about 11 percent of the total population. Among them, an estimated 85 million to 100 million were born after 1980 - a period when three distinct government policies converged to shape the circumstances for increased rural-to-urban migration within China.

After its introduction in 1979, the controversial One Child Policy, which promoted late marriage and delayed child bearing and limited the number of children born in rural families to 1.5 (two for a first-born girl, otherwise one), was firmly implemented and shifted the vast rural China household structure - and thus, agricultural workforce - dramatically to fewer children.

Then in the mid-1980s, the Hukou System - a residence registration system devised in the 1950s to record and control internal migration and which ultimately hindered rural-to-urban movements - began to loosen in response to the demands of both the market and rural residents wishing to seek greater economic opportunity in cities.

At the same time, China's "Reform and Open" economic policy was already on track for creating unprecedented growth and ultimately resulted in a booming economy with increased incomes across China and large foreign investments directed to the manufacturing industry in Eastern urban areas. Slower income growth for rural families, increased demand for cheap labor in China's new manufacturing sector, and booming development that encroached on rural lands pushed a large amount of rural surplus labor to the cities.

These young rural-urban migrants are referred to as "new-generation" migrants, and this population is becoming the driving force behind China's migrant labor.

According to a recent report by the China National Bureau of Statistics, 44.4 percent of new-generation migrant workers are employed in the manufacturing industry compared to 31.5 percent of the previous generation. Construction, which was traditionally the primary magnet for rural-urban migrants, now draws just 9.8 percent of new-generation workers compared to 27.8 percent of the previous generation.

New-generation migrants are young, lack experience in the agricultural sector as well as in city life, and face a variety of challenges. The National Bureau of Statistics report found that the first migrating age of migrants born between 1980 and 1990 is 21.1, while the age for those who were born after 1990 is 17.2 - considerably younger. Having migrated after limited years of schooling, migrants face high pressure from work, low satisfaction in terms of their wages, unsure self-identification (villager or citizen), and an overall lack of happiness.

The tragic string of 13 suicides in a factory owned by one of China's largest employers of rural migrant workers, Taiwanese-owned Foxconn Technology Group, in Shenzhen City brought the challenges of these new-generation migrants into focus. There are also indications that young migrant workers are at a greater risk for falling victim to crime, and may have higher rates of participation in crime. In 2010, for example, it was estimated that about one-third of urban crimes were related in some way to new-generation migrants.

There is still much to learn about this cohort of rural-urban migrants. They may have more individualistic goals and higher expectations than the previous generation, and thus might demonstrate different migrating patterns, particularly in terms of their motivations for migrating, choice of jobs, socioeconomic integration in cities, and their go-return patterns. This article explores some of these issues by analyzing recently collected survey data.

The subsequent analysis is based on surveys conducted in December 2006 and February 2007 by the author and a fieldwork team from the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Beijing Normal University and Jinan University in Guangzhou. A total of 200 in-depth interviews with randomly selected migrant workers in Guangzhou and the rural areas of Bozhou (while the migrants were home for Spring Festival) were conducted, 86 of which were with new-generation migrants born after 1980.

Guangzhou was chosen because it is a major labor-receiving city in southern China. Bozhou is on the border of Anhui and Henan Provinces, both of which are among the most heavily populated labor-sending provinces in central China.
Migration Motivation
China's rural-to-urban population movement is largely viewed as a response to the economic reform, and better employment opportunities in destination cities have generally been the main determinant in the decision to migrate. For new-generation migrants, economic motivation is still unquestionably the primary motivation behind their movements.

In our survey, however, we asked an open-ended question to ascertain the motivation behind respondents' migration and attempted to discern primary and secondary reasons.
Primary Migration Motivation: "Why I left the Village"
In the interviews, we asked each of the migrant workers the question of why they first decided to migrate out of the village. Instead of having been pushed by harsh economic times in the village, it turns out many were pulled by opportunity and the excitement of city life.

Interestingly, being tired of school was one of the most frequent answers to the primary migration motivation question, surpassing economic reasons. Many of our interviewees expressed little interest in school and did not complete their compulsory nine years of education before migrating. A secondary reason emerged, however, for not finishing school: the inability or unwillingness to pay for schooling when job opportunities in cities became available. After dropping out, the Chinese school enrollment structure all but precludes youth from going back to school and continuing their education where they left off.

Attending a skills training school thus becomes a very important path for migrant workers who want to improve their professional knowledge and skills. The most popular training schools migrants attend are for computer, technology, sewing, construction, and beauty. Some factories provide on-the-job training for some unique techniques, such as operating a computer-assisted sewing machine. Sometimes training schools and firms cooperate to educate and then provide employment for rural students.

Many interviewees also mentioned the attraction of city life, broadcast as exceptional and exotic by both earlier migrants returning to the village and the media, as a primary motivator in their decision to migrate. A related motivator is the desire for material things and luxury items available only to urban workers. We found throughout our interviews that these two considerations, coupled with uncertainty regarding academic investment (despite relative achievement), prompted many youth to migrate while especially young.

Quite a few of the younger migrants also shared the sentiment of wanting to migrate "for fun" or to "explore the world." Some emphasized their curiosity or their boredom with village life, while others noted the pursuit of freedom from their parents, an expected career, or an arranged marriage.
Secondary Migration Motivation: "Why I Changed Jobs or Cities"
We asked respondents to reconstruct their migration history and explain why they chose each job or decided to move to a new location. As with first migration motivations, we found that the motivations behind the secondary migrations were complex and consisted of a variety of noneconomic reasons.

The major noneconomic reasons for changing jobs included harsh or unfair treatment by management, being overworked with insufficient pay, a desire to learn more skills and techniques, and for individual development. Consistent with the overall mindset of new-generation migrants, however, respondents in our study also cited fun, being with friends, and being bored with the status quo as additional reasons to relocate.

For many years, rural-to-urban migration was associated with a tolerance of any task work: Migrants never complained about poor or unfair treatment. With new-generation migrants, however, this characterization is far from reality. Since life in the villages has been generally improved in most places and land has become increasingly scarce, the only child (or one of the only two children) of a rural family is no longer used to heavy agricultural work at home. As a result, they tend to choose light labor jobs, are highly preferential in the work they choose, and are more likely to switch jobs if they feel they are being treated too harshly.

For rural-urban migrants who are under economic pressure, it is a luxury to pursue the career in which they are really interested. But some of today's young migrants are doing just that. We found that new-generation migrants often use their first job as a bridge to their second: They gain experience, save money for additional training, and make contacts in order to build or work toward career goals. Some also reported using second and third jobs in much the same way.

Meanwhile, young migrants who relocate for fun or freedom put more emphasis on their personal lives, leisure time, the balance between work and play, and their right to enjoy life.
Patterns of Social Migration
After months of interviewing new-generation rural-urban migrants, I generated four representative social migration patterns these youth generally follow based on their educational attainment, job-hunting methods, social network usage, remittance behavior, and reasons for relocation: Career Builder, Family Helper, Emotional Explorer, and Lost Follower.

As shown in Figure 1 (below), each vector is labeled with four or five migration characteristics. The opposite directions represent two extreme behaviors of one characteristic, and each pattern is defined in a separate quarter. Two patterns that share the same direction of vector share the characteristics on that vector. For example, a typical Career Builder and a typical Emotional Explorer both tend to have a higher education level or are better at using training (same features), while a typical Career Builder tends to remit or save more in direct contrast with the tendencies of Emotional Explorers.

Theoretically, this quartered model divides the young migrant population into four mutually exclusive types. However, the division is only suggestive, since young migrants change their social migration patterns as they become more mature.

Career Builders usually operate independently in their job-seeking process, often have achieved a relatively high level of education, are able to quickly and consciously gather professional knowledge and skills during their migration process to promote their career development, and tend to stay within the same business. They also tend to remit with greater frequency and are able to shoulder more of the family's financial burdens.

The Career Builder is the core type because he or she is already aware of the social ladder and is prepared to grasp the opportunities that present themselves. This type of migrant is the most efficient group as career managers. They are of special interest to policymakers in China, because they are seen as the potential elite group stuck in the bottom of China's rural-urban binary societal structure.

The Family Helper group mostly inherits the traits of the traditional Chinese rural-urban migrants who send home every cent they save and lead a hard life in the city. The chief concern of these migrants is their family members in the village. Since economic motivation is the primary reason for Family Helper migrants to move to the city, earning, saving, and remitting cash is their main behavior.

Most migrants of this type prefer a relatively stable working environment, like a factory job, and they usually migrate together with somebody they already know. They relocate only to earn a higher salary or to attain better working conditions. Switching jobs or cities after the Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival in China), which is January 23 this year, is a very common pattern found among Family Helpers. In fact, tens of millions of rural migrants leave the cities each year in the weeks surrounding Spring Festival to return to their home villages. During the 2009 holiday, a total of 70 million migrant workers participated in this mass migration - about half of China's migrant workers. Employers will usually liquidate their payment before the end of the lunar year, and migrants returning home for the holiday will exchange information and decide where to go the following year.

Family Helper migrants are not necessarily the main bread earners of the family (though some certainly are), but their employment and life in the city are often heavily dependent on the financial situation of the family back home. Migrants with extremely heavy family burdens will usually have to tread a fine line between legal and illegal activities, and many work more than one job in order to remit as much as possible.

Some migrants show a hybrid remittance behavior, which can be placed between those of Career Builder and Family Helper: Their remittances are saved by their parents for the migrant's future use, such as for his or her marriage or to fund postmigration life.

Emotional Explorers occupy the quadrant opposite of Family Helpers because their behavior is vastly different. They often resemble the prototype of the one-child generation, which is typically described as spoiled and egotistical.

Respondents classified in this group often explained that they seldom or never remitted funds to their families and even found that their salaries were not sufficient for sustaining the urban lifestyle they desired. Their motivations for relocating cities or workplaces were often in the realm of the emotional, either for fun, to alleviate boredom, or to follow friends or a love interest. Compared to Family Helpers, who change jobs more rhythmically (around Chinese New Year, for example), Emotional Explorers change jobs more randomly - though we see little planning in both types of migrants. Thus, Emotional Explorers' migration patterns and attitudes towards life and relationships seem to diverge from traditional Chinese rural-urban migrants' values.

Fewer new-generation migrants from the study fell into the category of Lost Follower, and those who did were likely too young to have yet developed into any of the other three patterns. Lost Followers commonly follow relatives or friends when they migrate. When young migrants are not well-prepared, are not knowledgeable enough to protect themselves, and are not under the umbrella of their relatives or friends, their migration journeys can become dangerous.

Migrants in this category may be illiterate or innumerate, might lack identification documents, may not have enough built-up experience to guide them, and may not know where to turn when they get into trouble. This makes them especially vulnerable to human trafficking, exploitation, abuse, victimization by criminals, and engaging in crime themselves.

This helps to explain the high rate of urban crimes associated with this new generation of rural-urban migrants, along with "discrimination, limited accessibility to occupational and educational opportunities, disparity in economic and politics, absence of social protection and welfare, and cultural and psychological shock when moving to the city," as the Chinese Academy of Social Science has pointed out.

We found that most of the young migrants' spouses or fiancés were from the same hometown or province. The strategies used by migrants within certain categories to find jobs and partners share some similarities: Most of those who found partners across regions were classified as Career Builders or Emotional Explorers, who also tend to depend on themselves or the market more when finding jobs and housing in the city. Family Helpers, on the other hand, turn to their village network much more frequently.
The Transition from One Social Pattern to Another, and Back Again
Theoretically, the four types of new-generation migrants are exclusive, but since people and environments change, it is highly possible that one could transfer from one type to another with age and migration experience. There were many examples in the survey data of Lost Followers growing into Family Helpers who are able remit on a regular basis, of Family Helpers growing restless and transitioning to Emotional Explorers, and of those who spend enough time as Emotional Explorers beginning to settle down and work toward becoming a Career Builder.

We also see that some new-generation migrants have already completed the full rural-urban migration cycle of leaving the village, following others, helping family, exploring the wide world, building their career, returning home, and getting married. One may even repeat all or part of this cycle again, as the migration journey does not stop when a migrant returns to the village. Once a migrant gets married and has children, he or she may well decide to move to the city again. Research suggests that, as a migrant's role within their family changes, so too will their migration motivations, destinations, and patterns.

This article is based on a larger work, "China's 'New Generation' Rural-Urban Migrants: Migration Motivation and Migration Patterns," the full text of which is Available Online. The original article includes a more in-depth discussion of the research findings than that which is presented here.
Sources
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Fix, Michael, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova, Aaron Terrazas, Serena Yi-Ying Lin, and Michelle Mittelstadt. 2009. Migration and the Global Recession. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Available Online.

Huang, Youqin. 2001. Gender, Hukou, and the Occupational Attainment of Female Migrants in China (1985-1990). Environment and Planning A. 33: 257-279.

Lee, Ching Kwan. 1999. Engendering the Worlds of Labor: Women Workers, Labor Markets, and Production Politics in the South China Economic Miracle. American Sociological Review. 60 (3): 378-397.

Legal Daily. 2011. 中国社科院法治蓝皮书总结2010中国刑事犯罪九特征中国社科院2011法治蓝皮书-法制网 (Nine Characteristics about China's Criminal Crimes in 2010 by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' 2010 Blue Book of Rule and Law). News release, March 17, 2011. Available Online.

Li, Si-ming. 2006. Population Migration and Urbanization in China: A Comparative Analysis of the 1990 Population Census and the 1995 National One Percent Sample Population Survey. International Migration Review. 38(2): 655-685.

Liang, Zai. 2001. The Age of Migration in China. Population and Development Review. 27 (3): 499-524.

Massey, Douglas S., Joaquin Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kouaoci, Adela Pellegrino, and Edward Taylor. 1993. Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal. Population and Development Review. 19 (3): 431-466.

National Bureau of Statistics of China Report. 2011. 新生代农民工的数量、结构和特点 (Numbers, Structure and Characteristics of New Generation Rural-Urban Migrant Workers in China). March, 11, 2011. Available Online.

National Population and Family Planning Commission of P.R. China. 2001. 中华人民共和国人口与计划生育法 (Population and Family Planning Law of P.R. China. Government legislation). December 29, 2001.

Suicides at Foxconn: Light and death. The Economist. May 27, 2010. Available Online.

Todaro, Michael. 1969. A Model of Labor Migration and Ubran Unemployment in Less Developed Countries. The American Economic Review. 59 (1): 138-148.

Urbanisation: Where do you live? The Economist. June, 23, 2011. Available Online.

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China's Young Rural-to-Urban Migrants: In Search of Fortune, Happiness, and Independence

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Most of China's roughly 145 million rural-to-urban migrants were born after 1980, making this population the "new generation" of internal migrant workers. Having been directly influenced by China's rapid economic growth and recent sociodemographic policy changes, this cohort of rural-urban migrants offers much to learn with respect to their motivations.

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Highlights key debates in migration policy

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Highlights key debates in migration policy

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http://www.oecd.org/migration/migration-policy-debates.htm

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A really good link to videos, pictures, information about the current 'migrant crisis"

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Supporting IDPs, refuge
es and asylum seekers and managing the uncertainty of mass migrations

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Over the course of the past decade, it has become more and more evident that the ability to provide viable solutions to the challenges brought about by human migration is one of the greatest tasks facing our world.

The challenge is complex and ranges from important human rights concerns to foreign policy tensions, and from national identity and security anxieties to nothing short of democracy and social cohesion being increasingly tried by the rise of populism, nationalism, radicalization, and violent extremism.

However, even though all of these aspects are predominately debated and decided on the level of national governments, migration is increasingly an urban challenge.

More than 60 percent of all refugees and 80 percent of all internally displaced persons today live in urban areas. This comes at a time when many of our cities are already struggling with overpopulation and depressed economies.

If cities fail to manage and support these displaced people, they could face increasing public health, security, and human rights issues, but most important, they will be missing the opportunity to improve their infrastructure, services and governance systems, to enhance their democracy and response capacity of their local communities.

Why cities matter

Many nation-states seem unprepared to handle the challenges brought on by migration. Increasingly, they seem to regress into being more conservative, sectarian, xenophobic and authoritarian in the face of it.

Within national contexts, cities are more and more called to serve as migrants' first points of arrival, transit hubs, and ultimate destinations thanks to the infrastructure, services and opportunities that urban centers provide.

We can manage our resources and plans based on today's numbers, but the future is unknown.

In fact, despite often lacking adequate resources or policies to support sudden influxes of migrants, cities play a central role for displaced persons in the short, medium, and long term - from providing emergency food, shelter and healthcare at arrival, to granting housing and subsistence, to ensuring employment and social integration in the long run.

Due to their central role, cities are called on to be the agents of change.

We are here to create new instruments and new alliances in order to turn the challenges of migration into assets. We can do that by addressing multiple challenges at the same time and prioritizing key interventions that allow us to yield co-benefits, or what we call the "resilience dividend."

The Greek context

In Greece, national and regional authorities are unable and unwilling to think about long term solutions: from being prepared for possible future scenarios to having an integration strategy.

Over the last few months, Athens has moved from being a hub and place of transition - almost a million people came through the city last year - to a de facto destination. We don't know if Athens will remain a destination in the future, which primarily hinges on how the status of the EU-Turkish agreement will affect migration.

Planning for the unknown

Uncertainty makes it difficult for cities to plan. We can manage our resources and plans based on today's numbers, but the future is unknown. This is why we have to plan in a resilient way. We have to create benefits for all residents and plan for the unknown.

Cities such as Ramallah, Paris, and Thessaloniki - all represented by chief resilience officers and resilience teams at this week's Network Exchange - have great uncertainty about migration in their cities.

Refugees don't come to stay, don't know if they can or will stay, or how long they'll be able to stay. In turn, cities have a hard time understanding how to plan for their accommodation and integration. It's clear that cities must create opportunities and benefits for the whole city and plan with this uncertainty in mind.

This uncertainty and resolve unites cities. Brought together and supported by 100RC, the cities at our exchange can share knowledge, identifying key projects, programs and policies that cities can leverage. We can apply resilience thinking to our challenges, reflecting on how interventions can be enhanced to build our cities' resilience for everyone. We can identify opportunities for multi-sectoral collaboration to advance new solutions

Lastly, it is a call to action - a challenge to better understand the barriers to implementation and figure out how we can address them.

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A migration crisis in Greece offers a global resilience lesson

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Over the course of the past decade, it has become more and more evident that the ability to provide viable solutions to the challenges brought about by human migration is one of the greatest tasks facing our world.

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Link to documentary about the border.

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Walls of Shame: The US-Mexican Border - Featured Documentary

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US-Mexico border wall: The great wall of America A border of more than 3,000 kilometres separates the US from Mexico - but it is defined not only by physical barriers made of concrete and steel but by an immigration policy which is failing to address the issues behind illegal migration.