# data[].attributes.headline
The Future Climate of the Earth is not fine!  

# data[].attributes.subject
The Future Climate of the Earth is not fine!  

# data[].attributes.body
I think the earths climate change is too far gone.  I think we are already at midnight.  https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/.
The term global warming is a confusing one for the average american. Cold winters and every yahoo fool online is spouting " what global warming" The extremes are obvious and only getting worse. The seas will rise, glaciers are melting and earthquakes are a happening. The current administration is rolling back environmental regulations that were not strong enough in the first place.  I can not depend on anyone but myself to make changes to help the earth.  My children and my future grandchildren depend on it.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/22/17/32768F0400000578-3504667-Most_scientists_agree_that_sea_levels_will_rise_but_some_say_it_-a-3_1458668971088.jpg

# data[].attributes.headline
Why Sugar is a Drug and it is the most Detrimental (Influential) Chemical derived from a plant.  

# data[].attributes.subject
Why Sugar is a Drug and it is the most Detrimental (Influential) Chemical derived from a plant.  

# data[].attributes.body
I have struggled with my weight most of my life. Now that I am in my mid Forties (Yes Capitalized!) Weight is harder and harder to lose. I have had to really look at what I eat and why I eat when I am not hungry.  SUGAR!  it is the chemical process in my brain that i am going for.  Not filling my belly because I am hungry!  "Brain scans have confirmed that intermittent sugar consumption affects the brain in ways similar to certain drugs.....next time you’re craving something sweet: it could be more than just a sweet tooth. It could be an addictive itch begging to be scratched."    https://www.healthline.com/health-news/addiction-sugar-acts-like-drug-in-the-brain-and-could-lead-to-addiction-091813#1

# data[].attributes.headline
GMOs catapulting India's Farmers into Global Society and suicide!

# data[].attributes.subject
GMOs catapulting India's Farmers into Global Society and suicide!

# data[].attributes.body
After viewing "The Mythodology of the Green Revolution" at the end of Unit 6 Part 1 notes , I was reminded about the Farmer suicides in India.  The stories were heartbreaking to say the least.  The following is a wonderful  summary.

"India has witnessed around 300,000 farmer-suicides over the past two decades . Biotech opponents attribute the majority of these suicides to the monopolization of the cotton seed sector.  They characterize this distressing phenomenon as ‘genocide’, averring that such suicides were unheard of prior to the commodification. These opponents argue that the 2002 introduction of Bt. cotton dramatized the situation.   Huge media coverage and a parliamentary committee report have intensified the debate. The Acharya report attributes the increase of farmer-suicides after 2002 to Bt. cotton cultivation ."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5427059/
https://youtu.be/XCqlH5XlQ44

Please watch "Bitter Seeds" by clicking on the above YouTube link

# data[].attributes.headline
Neolithic Revolution: Advantages and Cost of Agriculture

# data[].attributes.subject
Neolithic Revolution: Advantages and Cost of Agriculture

# data[].attributes.body
"Turning Point

The Neolithic revolution began in 10,000 B.C. when humans no longer obtained their food by hunting and gathering, but rather started to cultivate crops and domesticate animals.[4] The climate and geography of the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia led to the establishment of the first farmers in this area.  The natural resources available in the Fertile Crescent were adequate to sustain plant and animal domestication. The Neolithic revolution marks a shift in humanity from consumers of the environment to producers of goods. Therefore, agriculture radically changed the role of humanity within its environment.[5]This establishment of farming and the domestication of animals in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, northern China, Africa, southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, profoundly altered the direction of mankind.[6]

Effect

The Neolithic revolution affected humanity because it changed the way people lived. Farming caused humans to permanently settle. This way of life differed drastically from the constant traveling that occurred when hunting and gathering was the dominant structure in society.[7] As people began to settle in villages, these villages became towns and then cities.[8] The first cities emerged in Mesopotamia and Egypt, which eventually led to the first establishment of civilizations. The development of these cities provided the foundation for the social life that would consequently follow.[9]"https://humantp.weebly.com/neolithic-revolution.html
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/neolithicrevolution-110910123535-phpapp02/95/neolithic-revolution-6-728.jpg?cb=1315659257

# data[].attributes.body
The African Savanna is seeing record changes in its climate.  This Biome is warming faster than the global average. "Scientist Predict that over the next few decades it will experience some of the continent's most intense increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall."
The Most obvious change is seen in the death of many Baobab trees, The African Tree of Life.  "These trees are under pressure by temperature increases and drought.  Climate change certainly seems like a possible (or likely) contributor(to their deaths)it is very likely that human actions, whether by changing the local landscape or altering global climate, have contributed to the death of so many large baobabs.""https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/11/616085781/why-are-some-of-africas-biggest-baobab-trees-dying-off

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Baobab trees - ancient, otherworldly behemoths with bulbous trunks that splinter into a constellation of spindly branches - are some of Africa's most iconic living things.

Until late last year, the Platland tree in South Africa, also known as Sunland, was their queen. It was the continent's biggest baobab, at 111 ft. around, 62 ft. high and more than 1,000 years old. It had a cavernous central hollow that hosted a fully functional cocktail bar with seating for 15 people.

Beginning in Spring 2016, the tree began to split apart. By November 2017, it had crumbled completely.

The bar's owners blamed rot caused by heavy rain and threw a barbeque to honor its passing.

But if the Platland's demise was sudden and tragic, it wasn't unique: A new survey of baobab trees across several countries in southern Africa found that most of the two dozen oldest and biggest trees have died or significantly deteriorated in the last decade.

Scientists are wondering what's behind the mysterious die-off - and are looking at climate change as a likely culprit.

"Such a disastrous decline is very unexpected," says Adrian Patrut, a chemist at Romania's Babeș-Bolyai University who organized the survey, published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Plants. "It's a strange feeling, because these are trees which may live for 2,000 years or more, and we see that they're dying one after another during our lifetime. It's statistically very unlikely."

Patrut began to notice the deaths during a long-term effort to use radiocarbon dating to gauge the ages of major baobabs. Patrut's survey began in 2005 and eventually covered more than 60 trees. Of these, a group of around two dozen stood out for their exceptional size and, or, age. This included the Platland baobab and a few trees that appeared, by Patrut's calculations, to be more than 2,000 years old.

Baobabs are notoriously tricky to date because their strange shape and growth patterns can complicate traditional tree-ring analysis - and Patrut's method drew some controversy from other baobab ecologists. But his finding about the deaths came as no surprise: Anecdotal evidence of a die-off was already spreading in the baobab research community.

Patrut says more research is needed to understand the cause of the die-off, but he believes the most likely explanation is climate change.

"These trees are under pressure by temperature increases and drought," he says.

Scientists are growing increasingly worried about the status of baobab health across Africa, according to Carla Staver, an expert on savannah ecology at Yale University.

The survey "is consistent with a lot of concern in the conservation community in southern Africa about [baobabs'] long-term persistence," she says in an email. "Climate change certainly seems like a possible (or likely) contributor."

Southern Africa - including countries like Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where the trees catalogued by Patrut were found - is already warming faster than the global average. Scientists predict that over the next few decades it will experience some of the continent's most intense increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall.

Baobabs, especially old ones, can be more vulnerable to drought than their grizzled appearance might suggest, says David Baum, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But more evidence is needed, he says, to strengthen the link between climate change and the baobab deaths.

Other factors, including human interference with individual trees (installing a cocktail bar, for example), could also be responsible.

In any case, Baum said in an email, "it is very likely that human actions, whether by changing the local landscape or altering global climate, have contributed to the death of so many large baobabs."

Baobabs have deep cultural significance for many communities across southern Africa. A common myth among the indigenous people living near southern Africa's Zambezi river holds that the earliest baobabs were vain about their massive size, and as punishment were ripped from the ground by the gods and replanted upside down, with their roots in the air. They are often the site of shrines and meeting places, and support self-contained ecosystems of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects.

The trees could also be an underappreciated solution to economic development and food security in rural areas, according to research from the Kenya-based World Agroforestry Center.

The fruit is nutritious, with up to 10 times the vitamin C of an orange - and there's a booming global market for products made from the leaves and seeds, including cosmetics and herbal medicine.

The oldest tree in Patrut's survey was one in Zimbabwe called Panke, which died in 2011. According to Patrut, it was around 2,500 years old - meaning that it sprouted a few years after the founding of the Roman Republic.

But baobab dating is a tricky, controversial process. Baum says that many baobab specialists are dubious of Patrut's tree dating method, which could underestimate the age of a tree by up to 1,000 years.

The problem is the tree's so-called "architecture." Baobab bark is a favorite snack of elephants and is susceptible to rot. Because of these pressures, from a young age baobabs become pockmarked with "scars." The common theory, Baum said, is that as the tree slowly grows around these scars, they can become large hollows.

In a typical tree ring, it's easy to trace a straight line from the oldest part at the center to the youngest part at the edge. But on a baobab, new wood grows both on the outside and into the hollows, meaning that a straight line from the center of the tree can pass both forward and backward in time - or even skip decades altogether if they rotted out or were eaten. That makes it very hard to know which part of the tree is the oldest, or even to know if the oldest parts still exist.

But according to Patrut, the big central hollows were never filled with wood, and are instead the result of independent trunks fusing over time with a gap in the middle - "the only reasonable explanation," he says.

Diane Mayne, a baobab ecologist who worked with Patrut in South Africa, called his theory a "fantasy" that lacks "a single reference on wood, anatomy, allometry or biomechanics or the hollowing process - despite recent research in these fields."

A spokesperson for Nature Plants says the paper followed the journal's normal review process, which involves peer review by two or three outside experts.

The architectural debate doesn't change the finding that so many trees are dying off. But it matters because correctly identifying the oldest part of a tree is a prerequisite for knowing its age.

And a better understanding of the trees' ages may help conservationists know which baobabs may be the next to go - and to offer a chance to support and protect them before it's too late.

"The decline and death of so many large baobabs in recent years is so tragic," Baum says. "It is heartbreaking that any should die - but even worse that we might be seeing the beginning of the end of all the giant baobabs on the planet."
Tim McDonnell is a journalist covering the environment, conflict and related issues in sub-Saharan Africa. Follow him on and .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Are Some of Africa's Biggest Baobab Trees Dying Off?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Baobab trees - ancient, otherworldly behemoths with bulbous trunks that splinter into a constellation of spindly branches - are some of Africa's most iconic living things. Until late last year, the Platland tree in South Africa, also known as Sunland, was their queen. It was the continent's biggest baobab, at 111 ft.

# data[].attributes.body
The Georgia Pine scientific name is Pinus palustris.  It is also known as a Loblolly Pine.    "Loblolly Pine is the most important and widely cultivated timber species in the southern United States. Because it grows rapidly on a wide range of sites, it is extensively planted for lumber and pulpwood. This tree is dominant on 11.7 million hectares (29 million acres) and comprises over half of the standing pine volume in the south. A medium lived tree, loblolly matures in about 150 years, with select trees reaching 300 years in age. Sonderegger pine (Pinus × sondereggeri H.H. Chapm.) is a natural hybrid between loblolly pine and longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.), and occurs throughout the southeast."https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/dendrology/index/plantae/vascular/seedplants/gymnosperms/conifers/pine/pinus/australes/loblolly/loblollypine.html

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8FRcj9HLMtYOd9e_kz_lo5tF879Ys1Az113ftO_yOCfyMDCtRRxqvwMbn1WOQG-4R4FczHuPRupqceJS7kDaEMARvYmxr6GC2g=w600-h900

# data[].attributes.headline
If everything in life was applied to song, we humans would know everything!  This video is simplistic and catchy.  Sometimes things explained for children or for "dummies" are the best explanations you will ever receive.  I will not get this song out of my head for many months.  

# data[].attributes.subject
If everything in life was applied to song, we humans would know everything!  This video is simplistic and catchy.  Sometimes things explained for children or for "dummies" are the best explanations you will ever receive.  I will not get this song out of my head for many months.  

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Photosynthesis Song - Songs for children

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A song about photosynthesis; a Science lesson and Present Simple lesson (all at the same time). An indie style song to help learn the fundimentals of photosynthesis by plants. VOCABULARY: Chlorophyll, CO2, O2, Minerals, Roots...

# data[].attributes.body
"The Cosmic Tree of Life"
Without plants, there would be no life on earth as we humans know life today. We are dependent and should be grateful to every plant on our planet. The plants provide us food. They filter the air we breathe. They filter the rainwater. They provides us Shade. They provide us building materials for our homes, the fabrics that we wear and the medicines that we heal our bodies with(Synthetics created in a lab are scientific imitations , hybrids and variants of what grew naturally)https://doitgreen.org/topics/health/herbal-and-synthetic-drugs-comparison/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5297475/

. The way we treat the plants and the environment have a direct correlation with our human health and quality of life. This image was created by Wayne Herschel.  I am including his link for credit.  His viewpoints are more spiritual in nature, but there are historical references to his image.
http://www.oneism.org/index.php#link1