# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Global Gridded Model of Carbon Footprints

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One observation that can be made based on this model is in many countries, a small number of large and or affluent cities drive a significant share of national total emissions. This means concerted action by a small number of local mayors and governments has the potential to significantly reduce national total carbon footprints.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This is the first time a tanker has crossed the melted Arctic in winter unassisted

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A ship named after Russian explorer Eduard Toll is the first to tackle the treacherous Northern Sea Route without the help of an icebreaker.

# data[].attributes.headline
Household Products proven to be provider of carbon as much as emissions from cars:(

# data[].attributes.subject
Household Products proven to be provider of carbon as much as emissions from cars:(

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
US research has found that chemicals from everyday household products now contribute as much to air pollution in cities worldwide as vehicle emissions.

The study, led from Colorado University, focussed on so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

These are contained in petroleum-based products such as cleaning fluids and paints, and when they get into the air can form particles that affect health.

The scientists say the sources of non-vehicle VOCs have been underestimated.

This is a surprising result because by weight, we all use far more fuel than we do these other chemical products.

Brian McDonald and colleagues pulled together a wide range of information for their study.

They looked again at the statistics compiled by industries and regulatory agencies; they flew atmospheric sampling missions above Los Angeles to examine the air chemistry; and they also evaluated indoor air quality measurements made by other researchers.

The team concluded that in the US, the amount of VOCs emitted by consumer and industrial products is very probably two or three times greater than estimated by current air pollution inventories.

They add that these inventories likely also overestimate the motor vehicle sources.

The researchers cite as an example the current estimates from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA considers that about 75% of petroleum-based VOC emissions came from vehicle fuels, and roughly 25% from chemical products. The Colorado reassessment puts the split closer to 50-50.

"As transportation gets cleaner, those other sources become more and more important," said Dr McDonald, who is affiliated to the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES).

"The stuff we use in our everyday lives can impact air pollution."

Experts say the results of this research are broadly applicable to other industrialised nations.

Anthony Frew, a professor of respiratory medicine at Brighton & Sussex Medical School in the UK commented: "This research is a useful reminder that discussions of air pollution need to consider all sources of pollutants and that measures targeting cars only address part of the problem.

"Engineering changes to car exhausts have dramatically reduced the amount of pollution produced per mile, meaning that (a) there is now less to be gained from further changes to cars and (b) the public need more information on how their activities, apart from driving, contribute to current pollution levels."

The Colorado study is published in Science Magazine. It was also presented on Thursday to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas.

By Roger Harrabin, BBC Environment Analyst

The air we breathe contains such a diverse mix of compounds it's impossible for researchers to be sure what chemical is causing what problem.

And there's an even trickier issue - setting pollution limits that are appropriate for everyone. Air fresheners are loved by some people - but they make others choke. Cleaning sprays are useful - but they make some people's eyes run. I know someone whose childhood asthma is thought to have been provoked by chemical emissions from flat-packed furniture in his bedroom.

This is a neglected field of research as public and media attention has focused on cars outdoors at the expense of chemicals indoors.
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Consumer products 'affecting air quality'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
US research has found that chemicals from everyday household products now contribute as much to air pollution in cities worldwide as vehicle emissions. The study, led from Colorado University, focussed on so-called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are contained in petroleum-based products such as cleaning fluids and paints, and when they get into the air can form particles that affect health.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
German cities to trial free public transport to cut pollution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plan to be tested in five cities in effort to meet EU air pollution targets and avoid big fines

# data[].attributes.headline
South Korea could lose $10 billion hosting the Winter Olympics

# data[].attributes.subject
South Korea could lose $10 billion hosting the Winter Olympics

# data[].attributes.body
This links really well to the work we did on the Olympic Games.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Leave it to Andrew Zimbalist to throw cold water on an even colder Winter Olympics. The Smith College economics professor and long-time Olympics skeptic hopped on CNBC's "Squawk Box" to spill the beans on the pitfalls of the PyeongChang Games.

The most stunning nuggets? That South Korea is staring down a loss north of $10 billion for hosting this year's international festivities.

"At the end of the day, they spent $13 billion. They'll get back about $2.5 billion," Zimbalist said. "The only way you can justify that kind of a terrible balance is if, in the long run, it's going to promote tourism, promote trade and promote foreign investment.

"There's no evidence from other Olympics that that might happen."

That astronomical bill stems, in part, from building scantly used Olympic venues - and not just the $109 million ceremonial stadium in PyeongChang. The organizers also spent untold sums to clear 58,000 trees from a sacred forest on Mount Gariwang, where the Alpine skiing course was subsequently constructed.

Beyond that, South Korea spent billions on infrastructure to connect PyeongChang to the South Korean capital of Seoul. Even with the addition of high-speed rail, the commute still clocks in close to two hours.

Some of these costs might be justifiable if the host country's citizens were enthusiastic about snow and ice activities. But to hear Zimbalist tell it, "The South Koreans are not very fond of winter sports in general."

That helps to explain the shortfall in revenue that accounts for these games ranging so far into the red. Per Zimbalist, the organizers only sold about 60 percent of tickets to this year's Olympic events.

It doesn't help that PyeongChang is home to fewer than 44,000 people, making it the least populous host of the Winter Games since Lillehammer, Norway in 1994. Had all the locals turned out for the Opening Ceremony, they still wouldn't have filled the Olympic stadium, which seats about 50,000.

Backers of the PyeongChang Olympics would likely argue that the short-term pain pales in comparison to the long-term gains. As Chery Kang relayed during the interview, the South Korean government and various think tanks pegged the overall economic benefit anywhere between 20 and 65 trillion Korean won, which comes out to about $18.5-60 billion.

Those figures assume that these games will bring in money by painting a flattering portrait of South Korea. Trouble is, that may not be the case, what with frigid temperatures and a norovirus outbreak diverting attention from the actual athletics on display.

"I hope there is a feel-good effect, I hope that the games go off very well," Zimbalist concluded, "but either President Moon [Jae-in] or any other politician in South Korea who's promising the people that this is going to be a wonderful thing for the economy really should be more cautious."

All this said, the PyeongChang Games won't come anywhere close to the costliest and most debt-ridden Olympics in history. That honor might forever belong to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which ran up a reported tab of $51 billion, thanks in no small part to rampant corruption and graft benefiting President Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

Olympic games don't usually translate into an economic boom from CNBC.

More from Yahoo Sports:
* Passan: How money and TV put women's snowboarders at risk
* North Korean coaches encourage South Korean skier (photo)
* Your newest Olympic bromance? J.J. Watt and Matt Hamilton
* Check out this English-to-Korean guide worn by every U.S. snowboarder
* Wetzel: 'Let the record show Adam Rippon is an Olympian'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
South Korea likely to lose more than $10 billion for hosting 2018 Winter Olympics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leave it to Andrew Zimbalist to throw cold water on an even colder Winter Olympics. The Smith College economics professor and long-time Olympics skeptic hopped on CNBC's "Squawk Box" to spill the beans on the pitfalls of the PyeongChang Games.

# data[].attributes.headline
6.4 magnitude earthquake in northern Taiwan

# data[].attributes.subject
6.4 magnitude earthquake in northern Taiwan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A magnitude-6.4 earthquake shook northeastern Taiwan Tuesday night, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 250 others. More than 100 aftershocks have been reported to rattle the region, rocking buildings, buckling roads, and cutting off resources to thousands of families. Dozens of people are still unaccounted for.

So what's causing all these quakes? Some are calling the disaster an "earthquake swarm," but others are more hesitant.

What is an 'Earthquake Swarm'?

An earthquake swarm happens when a large number of quakes hit a single area in a relatively short period of time, usually within days or weeks. One earthquake must be identified as the main shock, and the rest are subsequent aftershocks. A swarm hit Reno, Nevada, in mid-January when more than 230 small temblors shook the region over the course of six days.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that the earthquake that happened on February 6 was the largest sequence of events in the region over the past several days. A M-4.8 quake hit on February 3, and as of Tuesday, 19 earthquakes in the area were measured at M-4.5 or larger.

Is Taiwan Facing an Earthquake Swarm?

Reviews are mixed. According to a report by Taiwan News, a geology professor at National Central University in Taoyuan City believes the country is entering an earthquake cycle that could last for the next century.

"For the next 10 years in Hualien, the probability of a magnitude 8 earthquake occurring is high. I predict that there will be another earthquake [similar in size] in 2025," says Lee Chyi-tyi, the academic who has been proposing this theory since 2013. "Earthquakes are cyclical and it is about time again."

He says the small area is experiencing massive pressure from tectonic forces, and the earthquake cluster could make it hard to figure out the pattern of the main quake.

Other experts are hesitant to use the loaded phrase.

"I believe that speaking about 'earthquake swarm' may be misused for our purpose," writes Alexandre Canitano in an email. Canitano is a postdoctoral fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Earth Sciences in Taipei.

"Long-term earthquake forecasting is a tricky exercise, and there is no evidence supporting the occurrence of a destructive earthquake in a near future," Canitano adds.

Rather, he says Taiwan is being hit by a "preshock-mainshock-aftershock" sequence. It's unclear how the sequence will develop in the coming days and weeks, but it would be interesting to study the relationship between the quakes.

Universiti Brunei Darussalam geology professor Afroz Ahmad Shah, who is also a National Geographic grantee, says these earthquakes seem different from a normal sequence, in which smaller aftershocks follow a larger mainshock. Shah says these quakes seem more like a swarm because they all have similar magnitudes and occurred over a short period of time.

He says we need to look for more accurate magnitude information, which can change based on how clear the data are.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's an 'Earthquake Swarm,' And Is One Hitting Taiwan?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A magnitude-6.4 earthquake shook northeastern Taiwan Tuesday night, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 250 others. More than 100 aftershocks have been reported to rattle the region, rocking buildings, buckling roads, and cutting off resources to thousands of families. Dozens of people are still unaccounted for.

# data[].attributes.headline
Taiwan mistaken to be apart of China in nuclear report

# data[].attributes.subject
Taiwan mistaken to be apart of China in nuclear report

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
THE US government was forced to remove and repost a report that accidentally labelled Taiwan as part of China.

An earlier draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review featured a graphic of the two countries together, simply labelled 'China'.

It also included the disputed Kuril Islands as part of Russia, and labelled the entire Korean peninsula 'North Korea'.

The draft was published by the Huffington Postlast month, more than three weeks before the amended version was released.

The Department of Defense temporarily removed the report after it was picked up by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.

The government acknowledged the errors, insisting they were not indicative of a changing stance on the issues.

"There was an error printed in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review," a spokesperson told The Japan Times over the weekend.

"U.S. policy toward Taiwan has remained consistent throughout seven presidential administrations, and is based on the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the three joint U.S.-China communiques, and the Six Assurances."

The US formally adopted its "one-China" policy in 1979, but has since maintained friendly relations with Taipei.

In December 2016, tensions between the US and China boiled after Mr Trump accepted a direct phone call from Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen.

Beijing is yet to respond to the document, but foreign companies have felt China's wrath over similar incidents.

Last month, the country temporarily shut down the Chinese websites of Marriott International, after the American firm listed Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as individual nations in an online customer survey.

Chinese media reported that some travellers cancelled their Marriott reservations in response.

Delta Airlines and Zara were similarly made to issue public apologies after listing Taiwan as an independent country on their websites.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can you spot the Pentagon's errors in these graphics?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
THE US government was forced to remove and repost a report that accidentally labelled Taiwan as part of China. An earlier draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review featured a graphic of the two countries together, simply labelled 'China'. It also included the disputed Kuril Islands as part of Russia, and labelled the entire Korean peninsula 'North Korea'.

# data[].attributes.headline
See how Ooredoo has developed in Qatar... 

# data[].attributes.subject
See how Ooredoo has developed in Qatar... 

# data[].attributes.body
Remember if you can't think of specific case studies then talk about Qatar!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our new Supernet video is out! Enjoy watching the history of Ooredoo firsts and celebrate another success for Qatar! #EnjoyTheInternet #Ooredoo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Post by ooredooqatar.

# data[].attributes.headline
BP invests in renewable energy since oil spill

# data[].attributes.subject
BP invests in renewable energy since oil spill

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
BP has declared it is looking to acquire more green energy firms, as the British oil giant pledged to set carbon targets for its operations.

However, while the chief executive, Bob Dudley, said the industry was in a period of major change, he made clear that hydrocarbons would remain the core of BP's business.

"It's not a race to renewables, it's a race to lower greenhouse gas emissions. As fast as renewables and clean energy can grow, faster than any fuel in history, the world is going to require oil and gas for some decades to come," he said.

The company reported on Tuesday that higher oil prices and growing crude production had pushed up profits 139% in 2017 to $6.2bn (£4.5bn) on an underlying replacement cost basis, the company's preferred measure.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

Dudley said the firm had enjoyed its most successful year for exploration since 2004. The company said it would start six new oil and gas projects this year, up from five previously, as it outlined a plan to return to growth into the next decade.

But much of the company's strategy update focused on clean energy, which BP said would amount to around $0.5bn of its $15bn-$16bn capital expenditure programme. The carbon targets, including one for methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, will be announced by BP in the next two months.

Discussing the shift to green energy, Lamar McKay, the deputy chief executive, said: "Our industry is changing faster than any of us can remember, certainly in my career."

BP recently bought a $200m stake in Europe's biggest solar developer, returning to solar power six years after it quit the sector, and is reportedly eyeing other bigger solar investments.

The oil company is not the only one active in diversifying its business. In the last three months of 2017, its Anglo-Dutch peer, Shell, bought a Dutch car-charging network, partnered with the electric car charging firm Ionity and bought First Utility, one of Britain's biggest energy suppliers.

One of the most eye-catching energy innovations of the last year - the deployment of the world's first floating windfarm - was undertaken not by a renewables developer but Norway's state-owned oil company, Statoil. Meanwhile, France's Total took a 23% stake in the renewable energy firm Eren for €237.5m (£211m).

Big oil has flagged a switch to greener energy before. In the early 2000s, spurred by investor pressure, the international oil companies appeared to be pivoting to move their businesses away from crude.

BP memorably tried to reinvent itself in 2000, promising that in the future its initials would stand for Beyond Petroleum, as the chairman, Sir John Browne, told the world: "We are not an oil company." Shell also moved heavily into renewables. But not long after the financial crash, Shell stopped investment in wind and solar, and BP shut its alternative energy HQ.

Later, around 2016, the oil giants began to take baby steps back into the world of renewables, and take greater notice of the rapid growth of electric cars.

Valentina Kretzschmar, the director of research at oil analysts Wood Mackenzie, said although activity had intensified in recent months, it was still small-scale. "It's buzzing, but the amount of money spent is still peanuts compared to their core business," she said.

Shell is seen by many industry watchers as the leader in this transition. The chief executive, Ben van Beurden, last week defended the company's $1bn-$2bn spend on clean energy as modest but "not a pittance".

"Ultimately, the only thing that matters to society is the carbon intensity of energy. How much we invest in aspects of our portfolio is only a secondary concern," he said, in a message similar to BP's.

Investor pressure, consumer attitudes and governments' climate change policies are all driving big oil's transformation. But increasingly it is the economics of renewables and electric cars that are key.

"For many of them, when they started diversifying it was because of investor pressure ... but I think now it's the market forces that are making them look into diversification," said Kretzschmar.

However, she noted that returns for renewables were still lower than for oil and gas. Irene Rummelhoff, the head of Statoil's low carbon unit, agreed that returns were lower but were often fixed at a set level, so diversifying made a "huge difference" to cutting risk from volatile oil prices.

"That's one of the advantages we are seeing in the renewable world; the risk profile is very different," she said.

But the rate of change is slow. Big oil companies own less than 1% of solar and wind capacity globally, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Oil companies' clean energy budgets

Jeremy Leggett, a former petroleum geologist turned solar entrepreneur, said: "All this is beyond greenwash, but far short of retreat consistent with the Paris [climate] agreement. The oil and gas companies and are essentially taking out hedge bets."

Still, observers think that big oil might really be serious about moving beyond petroleum this time round, for existential reasons.

"It is different this time around," said Kretzschmar. "This [the rise of renewables, electric cars and other clean technologies] is for the first time starting to pose a threat to their oil and gas businesses. That wasn't the case in the early noughties."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BP aims to invest more in renewables and clean energy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Boss says his industry is changing but 'the world is going to need oil and gas for decades'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Sun might emit less radiation by mid-century, giving planet Earth a chance to warm a bit more slowly but not halt the trend of human-induced climate change.

The cooldown would be the result of what scientists call a grand minimum, a periodic event during which the Sun's magnetism diminishes, sunspots form infrequently, and less ultraviolet radiation makes it to the surface of the planet. Scientists believe that the event is triggered at irregular intervals by random fluctuations related to the Sun's magnetic field.

Scientists have used reconstructions based on geological and historical data to attribute a cold period in Europe in the mid-17th Century to such an event, named the "Maunder Minimum." Temperatures were low enough to freeze the Thames River on a regular basis and freeze the Baltic Sea to such an extent that a Swedish army was able to invade Denmark in 1658 on foot by marching across the sea ice.

A team of scientists led by research physicist Dan Lubin at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego has created for the first time an estimate of how much dimmer the Sun should be when the next minimum takes place.

There is a well-known 11-year cycle in which the Sun's ultraviolet radiation peaks and declines as a result of sunspot activity. During a grand minimum, Lubin estimates that ultraviolet radiation diminishes an additional seven percent beyond the lowest point of that cycle. His team's study, "Ultraviolet Flux Decrease Under a Grand Minimum from IUE Short-wavelength Observation of Solar Analogs," appears in the publication Astrophysical Journal Letters and was funded by the state of California.

"Now we have a benchmark from which we can perform better climate model simulations," Lubin said. "We can therefore have a better idea of how changes in solar UV radiation affect climate change."

Lubin and colleagues David Tytler and Carl Melis of UC San Diego's Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences arrived at their estimate of a grand minimum's intensity by reviewing nearly 20 years of data gathered by the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite mission. They compared radiation from stars that are analogous to the Sun and identified those that were experiencing minima.

The reduced energy from the Sun sets into motion a sequence of events on Earth beginning with a thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer. That thinning in turn changes the temperature structure of the stratosphere, which then changes the dynamics of the lower atmosphere, especially wind and weather patterns. The cooling is not uniform. While areas of Europe chilled during the Maunder Minimum, other areas such as Alaska and southern Greenland warmed correspondingly.

Lubin and other scientists predict a significant probability of a near-future grand minimum because the downward sunspot pattern in recent solar cycles resembles the run-ups to past grand minimum events.

Despite how much the Maunder Minimum might have affected Earth the last time, Lubin said that an upcoming event would not stop the current trend of planetary warming but might slow it somewhat. The cooling effect of a grand minimum is only a fraction of the warming effect caused by the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. After hundreds of thousands of years of CO2 levels never exceeding 300 parts per million in air, the concentration of the greenhouse gas is now over 400 parts per million, continuing a rise that began with the Industrial Revolution. Other researchers have used computer models to estimate what an event similar to a Maunder Minimum, if it were to occur in coming decades, might mean for our current climate, which is now rapidly warming.

One such study looked at the climate consequences of a future Maunder Minimum-type grand solar minimum, assuming a total solar irradiance reduced by 0.25 percent over a 50-year period from 2020 to 2070. The study found that after the initial decrease of solar radiation in 2020, globally averaged surface air temperature cooled by up to several tenths of a degree Celsius. By the end of the simulated grand solar minimum, however, the warming in the model with the simulated Maunder Minimum had nearly caught up to the reference simulation. Thus, a main conclusion of the study is that "a future grand solar minimum could slow down but not stop global warming."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
sun; solar flare; astronomy; extrasolar planets; geomagnetic storms; climate; global warming; environmental issues

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reduced energy from the sun might occur by mid-century: Now scientists know by how much

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Sun might emit less radiation by mid-century, giving planet Earth a chance to warm a bit more slowly but not halt the trend of human-induced climate change. The cooldown would be the result of what scientists call a grand minimum, a periodic event during which the Sun's magnetism diminishes, sunspots form infrequently, and less ultraviolet radiation makes it to the surface of the planet.

# data[].attributes.headline
Touristic destinations recovered from natural disasters

# data[].attributes.subject
Touristic destinations recovered from natural disasters

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Natural disasters-from hurricanes to mudslides and earthquakes-seemed to be on the upswing in 2017, often with devastating effects. Storms in the U.S. alone racked up an estimated $306 billion in damages-the costliest year ever, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Still, these estimates cannot fully account for the economic losses to an affected region, and the impacts can reverberate long after the initial damage, particularly if visitors change travel plans.

Travelers have the chance to participate directly in the revitalization of affected destinations by choosing to visit impacted regions. In the coming year, consider visiting these six destinations recovering from natural disasters in 2017.

More than 320 people were killed when flooding rivers and a massive mudslide overtook the southern city of Mocoa, Colombia, in the early morning hours of April 1, 2017, the country's worst natural disaster in years. While recovery and restoration efforts in the capital city of the Putumayo department are ongoing, nearby natural attractions remain unaffected. Head to the region to explore Santuario de Flora Plantas Medicinales Orito Ingi-Ande-a conservation area at the boundary of the Amazon and the Andes home to culturally significant plant species-and the cloud and oak forests within the country's oldest national park, Cueva de los Guácharos.

Sonoma and Napa Counties, California

Some of the most destructive wildfires in California history ravaged 200,000 acres of wine country north of San Francisco in October. Blazes raged for weeks, claiming some 6,600 structures, and nearly two dozen lives. While some vineyards lost crops and others face smoke-tainted harvests, most of Sonoma and Napa counties' grapes grow in low lying areas that did not burn. The tiny, centrally-located town of Headlsburg, is a good base for a Sonoma County wine-tour-all of the town's tasting rooms and hotels are open for business. Headed to Napa? Stop in at the new Compline Restaurant & Wine Bar in downtown Napa for private wine classes or dinner pairings.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria delivered a one-two-punch, overwhelming much of the Caribbean last fall. Some 40 percent of Puerto Rico remains without power. But, some islands-including Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica, and the Bahamas-weathered the storm better than others, and all of the affected Caribbean cruise ports have since reopened. Most places are eagerly anticipating the visitors they've come to expect for the December to May high season. There's even a handful of new places to stay: the Quintessence Boutique Resort on Anguilla, Serenity at Coconut Bay on Saint Lucia, and the Jewel Grande Montego Bay Resort & Spa on Jamaica; Hodges Bay Resort and Spa on Antigua is set to open summer of 2018.

Hurricane Harvey drenched the Texas coast with trillions of gallons of water over five days in late August. In Corpus Christi, jumbled boats, sodden farms, and leveled homes made the news, and more than 200 miles north, residents of Houston paddled in floodwaters over freeways and through inundated urban landscapes in scenes that recalled New Orleans post-Katrina. While large swaths of the Texas coast are still recovering, Houston has proven resilient. Base yourself at a downtown hotel like the new 21-story high-rise Hotel Alessandra and take a tour to explore the underground tunnels that connect 95 downtown blocks, now back in business after the floods. Then, head out into the open for a stroll through Hermann Park 's green space-it received only minor damage.

Two high magnitude earthquakes rattled Mexico in 2017. The first, in early September, struck off the southern state of Chiapas, leaving nearly 100 dead. The second came under two weeks later, but this time the epicenter was just 75 miles south of more populous Mexico City, eventually killing more than 360 people. It was only a day after the original earthquake that Hurricane Katia made landfall in Veracruz state, causing a mudslide that killed two more people. Despite being hard hit, Mexico is a large country, and entire regions weren't impacted by any of these natural disasters including the popular tourist areas of Cancun, Los Cabos, Riviera Nayarit, and Riviera Maya. Even in Mexico City, it's back to (mostly) business as usual with many city hotels and museums-including the Museum of Anthropology, the Frida Kahlo Museum, and the Palacio de Bellas Artes -reopened after building inspectors declared them structurally sound.

In May, unusually heavy monsoon rains bloated rivers in the southern part of Sri Lanka, triggering mudslides and burying homes and people. In 2016, similarly heavy rains caused landslides that buried three villages. Still, this charming country on the mend following decades of civil war, has a lot to offer-especially during the dry season. (In the southwest between December and March or from May to September in north and eastern regions). See the stunning beaches of Tangalla along the southeastern coast, then head inland to spot deer, sloth bears, leopard, and bathing elephants in Udawalawe National Park, or explore the impressive stone ruins in the ancient northern city of Anuradhapura.

Science and travel journalist Meghan Miner Murray is based in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. Follow her on Twitter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rocked By Natural Disasters, These Destinations Are Now Ready For Tourists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Natural disasters-from hurricanes to mudslides and earthquakes-seemed to be on the upswing in 2017, often with devastating effects. Storms in the U.S. alone racked up an estimated $306 billion in damages-the costliest year ever, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is often said that we know more about the surface of other planets than we do about our own deep ocean. To overcome this problem, we embarked on a voyage on CSIRO's research vessel, the Southern Surveyor, to help map Australia's continental slope - the region of seafloor connecting the shallow continental shelf to the deep oceanic abyssal plain.

The majority of our seafloor maps depict most of the ocean as blank and featureless (and the majority still do!). These maps are derived from wide-scale satellite data, which produce images showing only very large features such as sub-oceanic mountain ranges (like those seen on Google Earth). Compare that with the resolution of land-based imagery, which allows you to zoom in on individual trees in your own neighbourhood if you want to.

But using a state-of-the art sonar system attached to the Southern Surveyor, we have now studied sections of the seafloor in more detail. In the process, we found evidence of huge underwater landslides close to shore over the past 25,000 years.

Generally triggered by earthquakes, landslides like these can cause tsumanis.

Into the void

For 90% of the ocean, we still struggle to identify any feature the size of, say, Canberra. For this reason, we know more about the surface of Venus than we do about our own ocean's depths.

As we sailed the Southern Surveyor in 2013, a multibeam sonar system attached to the vessel revealed images of the ocean floor in unprecedented detail. Only 40-60km offshore from major cities including Sydney, Wollongong, Byron Bay and Brisbane, we found huge scars where sediment had collapsed, forming submarine landslides up to several tens of kilometres across.

What are submarine landslides?

Submarine landslides, as the name suggests, are underwater landslides where seafloor sediments or rocks move down a slope towards the deep seafloor. They are caused by a variety of different triggers, including earthquakes and volcanic activity.

As we processed the incoming data to our vessel, images of the seafloor started to become clear. What we discovered was that an extensive region of the seafloor offshore New South Wales and Southern Queensland had experienced intense submarine landsliding over the past 15 million years.

From these new, high-resolution images, we were able to identify over 250 individual historic submarine landslide scars, a number of which had the potential to generate a tsunami. The Byron Slide in the image below is a good example of one of the "smaller" submarine landslides we found - at 5.6km long, 3.5km wide, 220m thick and 1.5 cubic km in volume. This is equivalent to almost 1,000 Melbourne Cricket Grounds.

The historic slides we found range in size from less than 0.5 cubic km to more than 20 cubic km - the same as roughly 300 to 12,000 Melbourne Cricket Grounds. The slides travelled down slopes that were less than 6° on average (a 10% gradient), which is low in comparison to slides on land, which usually fail on slopes steeper than 11°.

We found several sites with cracks in the seafloor slope, suggesting that these regions may be unstable and ready to slide in the future. However, it is likely that these submarine landslides occur sporadically over geological timescales, which are much longer than a human lifetime. At a given site, landslides might happen once every 10,000 years, or even less frequently than this.

Since returning home, our investigations have focused on how, when, and why these submarine landslides occur. We found that east Australia's submarine landslides are unexpectedly recent, at less than 25,000 years old, and relatively frequent in geological terms.

We also found that for a submarine landslide to generate along east Australia today, it is highly likely that an external trigger is needed, such as an earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater. The generation of submarine landslides is associated with earthquakes from other places in the world.

Submarine landslides can lead to tsunamis ranging from small to catastrophic. For example, the 2011 Tohoku tsunami resulted in more than 16,000 individuals dead or missing, and is suggested to be caused by the combination of an earthquake and a submarine landslide that was triggered by an earthquake. Luckily, Australia experiences few large earthquakes, compared with places such as New Zealand and Peru.

Why should we care about submarine landslides?

We are concerned about the hazard we would face if a submarine landslide were to occur in the future, so we model what would happen in likely locations. Modelling is our best prediction method and requires combining seafloor maps and sediment data in computer models to work out how likely and dangerous a landslide threat is.

Our current models of tsunamis generated by submarine landslides suggest that some sites could represent a future tsunami risk for Australia's east coast. We are currently investigating exactly what this threat might be, but we suspect that such tsunamis pose little to no immediate threat to the coastal communities of eastern Australia.

That said, submarine landslides are an ongoing, widespread process on the east Australian continental slope, so the risk cannot be ignored (by scientists, at least).

Of course it is hard to predict exactly when, where and how these submarine landslides will happen in future. Understanding past and potential slides, as well as improving the hazard and risk evaluation posed by any resulting tsunamis, is an important and ongoing task.

In Australia, more than 85% of us live within 50km of the coast. Knowing what is happening far beneath the waves is a logical next step in the journey of scientific discovery.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Scars left by Australia's undersea landslides reveal future tsunami potential

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is often said that we know more about the surface of other planets than we do about our own deep ocean. To overcome this problem, we embarked on a voyage on CSIRO's research vessel, the Southern Surveyor, to help map Australia's continental slope - the region of seafloor connecting the shallow continental shelf to the deep oceanic abyssal plain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Terry Macalister

The world's worst ever nuclear accident, at Chernobyl in 1986, sent a plume of highly radioactive material into the atmosphere first detected outside the immediate region by atomic workers in Sweden.

Contamination arrived in Britain through light nuclear rain, and radiocaesium-137 was deposited in mainly upland areas of Wales, Scotland and England where it seeped into the peaty soil used mainly to breed livestock.

The European Commission ruled that a maximum level of 1,000 becquerels per kilogram (bq/k) of radiocaesium should be allowed in sheep being reared for meat to safeguard the consumer. Similar guidelines were given for fish affected by contaminated rivers.

A continuous assessment of restrictions on British farms has taken place over the last 23 years and the number affected has gradually been reduced. Animals are checked by hand monitors and if lower levels of radioactivity are found throughout a flock then the farm is considered for release from the restrictions. The monitoring work is undertaken by the Rural Payments Agency in England and Rural Inspectorate for Wales, answering to the Food Standards Agency.

Britain might see the end of all restrictions within a few years, but some nuclear experts believe there should be no agricultural production around Chernobyl for the next two centuries.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation believed there could be 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. A report commissioned by Greenpeace suggested the number of additional deaths due to Chernobyl could be as high as 200,000.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Terry Macalister The world's worst ever nuclear accident, at Chernobyl in 1986, sent a plume of highly radioactive material into the atmosphere first detected outside the immediate region by atomic workers in Sweden. Contamination arrived in Britain through light nuclear rain, and radiocaesium-137 was deposited in mainly upland areas of Wales, Scotland and England where it seeped into the peaty soil used mainly to breed livestock.

# data[].attributes.body
South Africa Water Deficiency - Extreme Environment
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/feb/03/day-zero-how-cape-town-running-out-water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
University of Wyoming researchers led a climate study that determined recent temperatures across Europe and North America appear to have few, if any, precedent in the past 11,000 years.

The study revealed important natural fluctuations in climate have occurred over past millennia, which would have naturally led to climatic cooling today in the absence of human activity.

Bryan Shuman, a UW professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Jeremiah Marsicek, a recent UW Ph.D. graduate in geology and geophysics, led the new study that is highlighted in a paper, titled "Reconciling Divergent Trends and Millennial Variations in Holocene Temperatures," published today (Jan. 31) in Nature.

Marsicek, a current postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was lead author of the paper. He worked on the study from 2011-16. Other contributors to the paper were from the University of Oregon, University of Utah and the U.S. Geological Survey in Corvallis, Ore. The study was largely funded by a combination of fellowships from the Environmental Protection Agency and the UW NASA Space Grant Consortium, and grant support from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"The major significance here is temperature across two continents over the last 11,000 years. The paper provides a geologically long-term perspective on recent temperature changes in the Northern Hemisphere and the ability of climate models, such as the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) models used in the study, to predict the changes," says Shuman, senior author on the paper and Marsicek's supervisor. "Climate simulations do a strikingly good job of forecasting the changes."

"I would say it is significant that temperatures of the most recent decade exceed the warmest temperatures of our reconstruction by 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit, having few -- if any -- precedents over the last 11,000 years," Marsicek says. "Additionally, we learned that the climate fluctuates naturally over the last 11,000 years and would have led to cooling today in the absence of human activity."

The study covers a period that begins at the end of the Ice Age and when there still was an ice sheet covering Canada, Shuman says.

Researchers reconstructed temperatures from fossil pollen collected from 642 lake or pond sites across North America -- including water bodies in Wyoming -- and Europe. The Wyoming locations included Slough Creek Pond and Cub Creek Pond in Yellowstone National Park, Divide Lake in Bridger-Teton National Forest, Sherd Lake in the Bighorn Mountains and Fish Creek Park near Dubois.

"When we collect sediment from the bottom of the lake, we can recognize sequences of plants that grew in a given area based on the shape of the fossil pollen left behind," Shuman explains. "Because different plants grow at different temperatures, we can constrain what the temperatures were in a given place at a certain time."

The reconstructions closely matched the climate simulations run by NCAR, which were conducted independently as part of separate projects. The computer simulations later became part of the study.

"Our temperature estimates and the NCAR simulations were within one-quarter of one degree Fahrenheit, on average, for the last 11,000 years," says Shuman, as he pointed to a graph that included a black line for his group's climate research temperature and a gray line that represents the computer simulations. "I was surprised the computer models did as good of a job as they did as predicting the changes that we estimated."

Long-term warming, not cooling, defined the Holocene Epoch, which began 12,000 to 11,500 years ago at the close of the Pleistocene Ice Age. The reconstructions indicate that evidence of periods that were significantly warmer than the last decade were limited to a few areas of the North Atlantic that were probably unusual globally. Shuman says results determined that the last decade was roughly 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer today than it was 11,000 years ago. Additionally, the decade was at least one-half degree Fahrenheit warmer today than the warmest periods of that 11,000-year time frame, even counting for uncertainties, Shuman says.

"In the absence of people, the trend would have been cooling," Shuman says. "It does show that what has happened in the last 30 years -- a warming trend -- puts us outside of all but the most extreme single years every 500 years since the Ice Age. The last 10 years have, on average, been as warm as a normal one year in 500 warm spell."

In prior climate change studies, long-term cooling has been difficult to reconcile with known global controls that would have forced warming and climate models that consistently simulate long-term warming. In those studies, marine and coastal temperature records were used. However, certain areas in the oceans could be unusually warm and skew the overall long-term average temperature results of some of those prior studies, Shuman says.

"These results help resolve a divergence in climate trends of the past 2,000 years recorded in marine sediments of the North Atlantic Ocean, compared with those recorded in fossil pollen from the continents of North America and Europe," says Jonathan Wynn, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, which co-funded a portion of the research with NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. "These new findings help us understand how the global climate system works over scales of decades to millennia and give us a new perspective from the distant past on recent and future climate changes."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
climate; global warming; weather; environmental awareness; early climate; fossils; origin of life; evolution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Most of last 11,000 years cooler than past decade in North America, Europe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
University of Wyoming researchers led a climate study that determined recent temperatures across Europe and North America appear to have few, if any, precedent in the past 11,000 years. The study revealed important natural fluctuations in climate have occurred over past millennia, which would have naturally led to climatic cooling today in the absence of human activity.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/05/lloyds-bank-bans-buying-bitcoins-credit-cards
This can link to the internet section in part 3

# data[].attributes.headline
Cape Town running out of water - extreme enviroments 

# data[].attributes.subject
Cape Town running out of water - extreme enviroments 

# data[].attributes.body
The article explains the effects of the heat on Cape Town and which places will follow the next

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: Since this story was first published on February 2, the "Day Zero" when Cape Town is set to turn off its water supply has been moved back several times, first to May, and then even later. As of March 5, the day was set for July 15. Thecity has gotten "a slight reprieve" thanks to area fruit growers using up their annual water allocation, making more available for the city, and some water routing and conservation measures.

By summer, four million people in the city of Cape Town-one of Africa's most affluent metropolises -may have to stand in line surrounded by armed guards to collect rations of the region's most precious commodity: drinking water.

Population growth and a record drought, perhaps exacerbated by climate change, is sparking one of the world's most dramatic urban water crises, as South African leaders warn that residents are increasingly likely to face " Day Zero." That's the day, previously projected for mid-April but now mid-July, when the city says it will be forced to shut off taps to homes and businesses because reservoirs have gotten perilously low-a possibility officials now consider almost inevitable.

"The question that dominates my waking hours now is: When Day Zero arrives, how do we make water accessible and prevent anarchy?" says Helen Zille, former Cape Town mayor and the current premier of South Africa's Western Cape province, in a guest newspaper column published earlier this winter.

For years, a shutdown of this magnitude in such a cosmopolitan city had been almost inconceivable. But as overdevelopment, population growth, and climate change upset the balance between water use and supply, urban centers from North America to South America and from Australia to Asia increasingly face threats of severe drinking-water shortages.

Nowhere has that threat seemed to come on faster and catch more by surprise than it has in Cape Town.

"I'm afraid we're at the 11th hour," says South African resource-management expert Anthony Turton. "There is no more time for solutions. We need an act of God. We need divine intervention."

Approaching "Day Zero"

The situation seems to be worsening by the day.

The city is prepping 200 emergency water stations outside groceries and other gathering spots. Each would have to serve almost 20,000 residents. Cape Town officials are making plans to store emergency water at military installations, and say using taps to fill pools, water gardens, or wash cars is now illegal. Just this week, authorities stepped up water-theft patrols at natural springs where fights broke out, according to local press reports. They're being asked to crack down on " unscrupulous traders" who have driven up the price of bottled water.

For months, citizens have been urged to consume less, but more than half of residents ignored those volunteer restrictions. So earlier in January, the city requested even steeper cuts, asking residents to consume just 50 liters per day-less than one-sixth of what the average American uses. If consumption doesn't drop steeply and quickly, city officials warned this week, everyone will be forced into Day Zero, where all will have to live on far less-about 25 liters a day, less than typically used in four minutes of showering.

"I'm not sure if we'll be able to avert Day Zero," says Kevin Winter, lead researcher at an urban water group at the University of Cape Town. "We're using too much water, and we can't contain it. It's tragic."

Says David Olivier, a research fellow at the Global Change Institute at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand, "The fundamental problem is the kind of lifestyle we're living. There's almost a sense of entitlement that we have a right to consume as much as we want. The attitude and reaction of most posts on social media is indignation. It's 'we pay our taxes' and therefore we should be as comfortable as possible."

The Complications of Climate

The path to Cape Town's crisis is both typical-and not.

Much like southern California, South Africa is arid, but Cape Town's most recognizable land mass, Table Mountain, traps onshore breezes coming off warm ocean waters, creating local rains that power rivers and fill underground aquifers. It is an oasis surrounded by desert with a Mediterranean climate. Its beauty has driven populations skyward and brought increasing wealth and prosperity. There are pools and water parks and wineries and lush gardens, though even as the city modernized, hundreds of thousands still live in impoverished settlements. Unemployment tops 25 percent.

Over the last 20 years, the city recognized some of the increased threat. It made strides in reducing water use from its six major reservoirs, which hold up to 230 billion gallons of water. Per capita consumption declined, the city reduced leaks, it forced large users to pay more, and generally promoted water efficiency, says Winter. Cape Town won several international water management awards. It even tries to shame top water users by publishing their names.

But officials also made an increasingly common mistake: They assumed future rainfall patterns would resemble the past, or at least not change too quickly.

"It's like driving a motor car and looking in the rear-view mirror," Winter says. "They solved the old problems, but they didn't recognize the risks ahead. Now here comes the juggernaut."

A decade ago, the city was told that population growth and shifts projected to come with climate change- drier, hotter weather, with less winter rainfall, and reduced stream flows -would require it find additional water sources.

"They were warned, but those warnings were not enough to shift attention from schools or hospitals or all the other things on the agenda," Winter says.

In the end, the dangers came suddenly. In 2014, the six dams were full, but then came three straight years of drought-the worst in more than a century. Now, according to NASA data, reservoirs stand at 26 percent of capacity, with the single largest, which provides half the city's water, in the worst shape. City officials plan to cut the taps when the reservoirs hit 13.5 percent.

While it's not clear how much of the current dry spell is driven by natural variability as opposed to climate change, "it's clear our current system is no longer reliable enough," Olivier says. "We may not have another drought like this for a few decades. But extreme events are only going to become more common."

And consequences could be felt in many other places across the globe.

Other World Cities at Risk

Already, droughts in recent years have helped spark famine and unrest in rural nations around the Arabian Sea, from Iran to Somalia. But water crises are also threatening massive cities around the world.

Already, many of the 21 million residents of Mexico City only have running water part of the day, while one in five get just a few hours from their taps a week. Several major cities in India don't have enough. Water managers in Melbourne, Australia, reported last summer that they could run out of water in little more than a decade. Jakarta is running so dry that the city is sinking faster than seas are rising, as residents suck up groundwater from below the surface.

Much like Cape Town's fiasco, reservoirs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, dropped so low in 2015 that pipes drew in mud, emergency water trucks were looted, and the flow of water to taps in many homes was cut to just a few hours twice a week. Only last-minute rains prevented Brazilian authorities from having to close taps completely.

"Sao Paulo was down to less than 20 days of water supply," says Betsy Otto, director of the global water program at the World Resources Institute. "What we're starting to see are the confluence of a lot of factors that might be underappreciated, ignored, or changing. Brought together, though, they create the perfect storm."

Competition for water is increasing, as population growth drives demand for drinking water and agriculture and as countries become more affluent. In fact, cities aren't always even aware that the water they think they can count has been claimed or polluted or is being consumed by other users.

Meanwhile, climate change is causing wider swings in weather, with more intense storms and more extreme events. "Think of southern California's record snowpack after five years of drought followed by more drought-such swings are likely to be the new normal," she says.

At the same time, as with Mexico City or Jakarta, infrastructure is often inadequate. Water management is unsanitary, leaky, polluted by heavy metals, or not sufficient to deliver enough supply to support demand. "It's simply not up to the task," Otto says.

Often the failure is about money, but there are almost always political dynamics at work, too.

Political Miscalculations

"Frankly, where it gets dangerous is the inability of our political institutions to keep up," says Geoff Dabelko, associate dean and director of the environmental studies program at Ohio University. "The overriding story of the coming decade is going to be about how well our institutions deal with the increased rate of change."

In South Africa, the ruling African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party that runs the city, each have some responsibility for maintaining or administering water. Experts suggest that each made fundamental missteps.

"Both believed that this would be a short-term drought and that things would return to normal at some point," Turton says. "But climate change is a factor now, and it's only begun to dawn on them how much the demand for water will just keep increasing."

For the moment, the region is scrambling to bring new supplies on line. Four new desalination plants are under construction. New water wells are being drilled and a plant that would reuse effluent is being built. Most of those projects are more than half completed.

All but one, however, is behind schedule, as city leaders push to at least get something up and running soon.

"Residents of Cape Town are very surprised by how dramatically the situation has escalated, says Magalie Bourblanc, a public policy analyst specializing in resource management at South Africa's University of Pretoria. "But I think people are realizing very quickly just how bad the situation could be."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Cape Town Is Running Out of Water, and Who's Next

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: Since this story was first published on February 2, the "Day Zero" when Cape Town is set to turn off its water supply has been moved back several times, first to May, and then even later. As of March 5, the day was set for July 15.

# data[].attributes.body
Extreme Environments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Carbon Capture

Researchers in Australia have made a strange new observation about how trees respond to extreme temperatures. After observing trees in the country for a full year, scientists from the University of Western Sydney's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment found that, in extreme heat, leaves "sweat" to survive.

Until now, it was believed that photosynthesis and transpiration (the process of water release) couldn't occur without each other. The new study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, showed that during extreme heatwaves trees temporarily stop capturing carbon - even as they continue to release water through their leaves. The "sweating" action helps to keep trees cool, but the observations regarding carbon capture have raised concerns about what will happen as global warming progresses.

If current predictions hold true, these extreme heat events will only become more frequent and more severe. Prof Mark Tjoelker, an author on the study from the University of Western Sydney's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, told the Guardian that "If heatwaves occur over a large surface area. . .clearly, the trees and native forests in that area would take up less carbon. And if there is an increased frequency of heatwaves that obviously impacts their ability to serve as carbon sinks."

The question is, do these findings mean it's conceivable that trees might stop capturing carbon altogether?

Climate-Affected Trees

For the study, researchers planted a dozen "whole-tree capsules" with seedlings at two locations: the Hawkesbury forest and a site in Yarramundi, near Sydney. The pods were climate and temperature-controlled which gave the researchers the ability to control all the variables.

For half the capsules, the researchers simulated an environment for them to grow in where the average temperature had risen 3 degrees centigrade. This would model what far-future temperatures could be like if climate change is not curbed. Looking at all the trees in the study, they simulated several "heat waves" to see how they would cope. The trees grown in warmer temps didn't necessarily fare any better than the ones that hadn't. "It didn't matter whether the trees were grown under current climate conditions or the 3C increase of the future," Tjoelker told the Guardian," they responded equally well."

Trees are known to respond to stress in a number of ways, and it seems that "sweating" may be just one example. Often times, that stress comes from human activity: nearby traffic to accidental injuries from lawn mowers, this stress can change a tree's appearance and slow its growth.

Further studies will need to be conducted using other tree species to see if this coping mechanism holds true for more than just the species in Australia. If so, it could spell trouble for humans. Trees are an important part of our ability to survive on planet Earth. Aside from carbon emissions, when we exhale carbon dioxide, trees capture it and convert it into oxygen.

Without major steps to slow climate change, extreme heatwaves and heat events will only become more frequent and intense. If trees begin to capture less carbon or stop capturing carbon altogether, the impact it could have on the human species, as well as the other organisms on Earth which depend on oxygen, could be profound.

For now, more studies are needed to help researchers better understand the process of "tree sweating" and whether or not it's possible that trees could one day stop capturing carbon. If that's the case, though, perhaps the research will also reveal it's possible (and necessary) to genetically engineer trees to ensure their - and our - continued survival.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In extreme heat, trees stop sucking carbon from the air

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Researchers in Australia have made a strange new observation about how trees respond to extreme temperatures. After observing trees in the country for a full year, scientists from the University of Western Sydney's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment found that, in extreme heat, leaves "sweat" to survive.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Welcome to Calama, the city of sun and copper", proclaims the banner at the entrance to the city, near the Atacama desert. A little further along the road are tourist signs: "Los Flamencos national reserve", "Death valley", "Salt desert". And then, in rapid succession: "Cosmo Andino Expeditions - The Adventure Begins!", "Pachamama Bed and Breakfast". The stage is set: copper mines, unique natural sites and tourism shape this high, plateaued region of northern Chile.

The Lickan Antay situate their villages around oases. The key to their survival is the management of water. Manuel Silvestre Gómez, in his 40s, proudly wears his national reserve guard uniform. He loves to talk about his roots.

"To be a Lickan Antay is to be a son of the earth. Each of us knows who his ancestors are. In town you know your grandparents, maybe your great-grandparents," he says. "We also know how to stay alive in the most arid desert in the world. We've learned how to adapt, to manage water, to create our villages. It's our land. [Ours] is a culture of survival in a dry and salt flat-covered region.

"Of course, we've lost things too. Our language, Kunsa, was outlawed at one point and almost disappeared - we all speak Spanish now."

At more than 70 years old, Felisa López Ramo still tends her garden, organises the collection of water from the sparse rains, carries water from the river and lives off her modest cultivation. She recalls her youth, before the Pinochet dictatorship, before the mines, before tourism. "We had an abundance here, because we had our irrigation systems. You know, now they want to bring us irrigation systems from Israel. But we have our own systems.

"We know how to grow wheat and corn. We don't need detergent to wash our clothes: we have small berries that grow here which produce soap. When I was young, we made our own beer and wine for the ceremonies, and we used flamingo feathers. They were used as augurs, or to encourage the mountains, where the water is born. Wherever the water went, life was born. It's simple.

"Our people were invaded by the Inca, then the Spanish, then the Chileans, the miners. Now, conservation and tourists have arrived. They're all just passing through. Us, we're staying."

Tourism has had a major impact. In 1990, the Chilean government established the Los Flamencos national reserve. Rather than resist the move, the Lickan Antay - who, along with other indigenous peoples of Chile, are among the poorest in the country (pdf) - chose to negotiate and adapt. The national reserve is the first example in Chile of the co-management of a protected area by the state and indigenous people.

It is now seen as a strategic alliance that allows the government and the people to preserve the environment more effectively, and channel tourism. The co-management agreement also allows the Lickan Antay to attract other opportunities for development.

Leticia González-Silvestre was born in Toconau, one of the desert villages of the Lickan Antay. After studying away from home, she has returned with an agricultural engineering diploma.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

Leticia González-Silvestre, a respected member of the indigenous council.

She says co-management of the reserve has given them employment and training opportunities. The communities have formed a non-profit association to collect and redistribute money earned from the reserve. "It's a benefit in terms of economics and development, but it's also a recognition of our culture. We continue to negotiate an increasingly important part of the management, taking advantage of the fact that the government has neither the capacity nor the means to invest more."

The national forest corporation, Conaf, which coordinates the management of protected areas for the government, says the collaboration allows it to fill a gap in its teams. Alejandro Santoro, Conaf's regional director, says: "This gives us a constant and broader view of the situation. This way, the Lickan Antay are assimilated like personnel."

"It's a positive approach," adds Ivonne Valenzuela, who is in charge of a Conaf unitdedicated to relations with indigenous communities. "The model we've adopted is to engage in contracts with the communities. In this way, they can benefit from tourism while we concentrate on the protection of biodiversity. We work with them on many aspects of the management of the reserve, and on the planning and management of eco-tourism projects."

But not everyone is happy about the surge in the number of tourists spending time in thereserve, which is now the second most visited in Chile, with more than 300,000 visitors a year (pdf). While some welcome the economic advantages, others are concerned about the establishment of tour companies and agencies that ignore the Lickan Antay's customs and, in some instances, deny their existence.

The small town of San Pedro de Atacama is a succession of hotels, restaurants, bars, souvenir shops and tourist agencies. Nights are festive, the restaurants offer international cuisine and the wisest visitors go to bed early to be ready for their treks to discover the geysers and flamingos of the salt flats.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

San Pedro de Atacama lies in a region of volcanoes and salt flats, in an arid high plateau of the Andes mountains.

"All that interests them is filling the bus and visiting the sites, not experiencing a different way of life," says Sandra Flores, one of the Lickan Antay, who runs a small tourism company, Caravana Ancestral.

"For us it's very difficult to know that our existence is negated in this way. And we're unable to get a foothold in the tourism market. The guides say the desert is empty, that there are no more indigenous people. Sure, we're not in San Pedro, but we're everywhere in the desert. We dedicate ourselves to our animals, to farming the land.

"Before the creation of the reserve there wasn't a single tourist, and suddenly they're everywhere. We haven't had the time to react and to learn how to set up commercial establishments. But we exist. And our existence is a constant battle."

Flores set up her business four years ago. She and several members of the community receive tourists in their homes, share a moment together to talk about their way of life, let tourists take out the llamas, and show visitors a Lickan Antay archeological site. But none of them speak fluent English and the business is not well established.

However, the most serious impact of the tourism explosion has been to put pressure on the precarious water situation. The hundreds of hotels being built in San Pedro guzzle water.

"The hotels wanted to buy land and we sold it to them. Already we didn't have enough water to farm, and now we have to go to another river to fetch water, one we didn't go to before," says López Ramo.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

San Pedro de Atacama, a focus for tourism within the Atacama desert.

Because of the hotels, some of the Lickan Antay who live close to San Pedro say, their usual water source dried up. The community no longer has easy access to drinking water, and is forced to use supplies that have passed through a salt desert, meaning the water is more salinated.

The Lickan Antay have also been forbidden from selling their vegetables and fruit to tourists as they cannot guarantee that their water source is not polluted.

González-Silvestre concludes: "The problem with tourism is that it's not regulated. It's like wine: one wants to say, 'It's a good antioxidant.' Yes, but if you drink litres every day, you're not going to feel good."

Felipe Guerra Schleef is a lawyer for the indigenous rights NGO Observatorio Ciudadano. Convinced of the necessity for his country to conserve its cultural and natural heritage, he has defended indigenous people in cases where their land rights have been violated and resources exploited. "The indigenous people develop their culture according to the land itself. The sense of ownership is fundamental, and if they want to maintain their way of life, their rights over their lands and natural resources must be recognised," he says.

The Lickan Antay need to act to protect theirnatural resources, according toAntonio Cruz Plaza. He lives in Calama, next to a large copper mine, and is director of Consejo de Pueblos Atacameños, an indigenous council. A nearby lithium mine is now for sale and he wants the council to take out a loan to buy it so it can be run ethically, although so far no negotiations with the company have taken place, and no loan has been approved by a bank.

While the thought of a group of indigenous people owning a mine, and profiting from the exploitation of natural resources, may shock some, and is certainly not supported by all community members, Cruz Plaza thinks it is a sensible idea.

"We don't want confrontation, we want a better life. Our big problem is water. We don't want them to exploit and affect our water, so we prefer to negotiate where they will set up, ensure that this has the minimum impact on our environment. Our people are culturally rich, but we want to change our reality, to forge our own destiny. Why shouldn't we have the right to live well too?"

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

An arid region of the Atacama desert.

The travel for this reporting was supported by the European Journalism Centre's innovation in development reporting grant programme

Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tourism starting to bleed the Lickan Antay people of the Atacama desert dry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Welcome to Calama, the city of sun and copper", proclaims the banner at the entrance to the city, near the Atacama desert. A little further along the road are tourist signs: "Los Flamencos national reserve", "Death valley", "Salt desert". And then, in rapid succession: "Cosmo Andino Expeditions - The Adventure Begins!", "Pachamama Bed and Breakfast".

# data[].attributes.headline
Moving containerisation into the 21st Cent

# data[].attributes.subject
Moving containerisation into the 21st Cent

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The world's first fully electric, emission-free and potentially crewless container barges are to operate from the ports of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam from this summer.

The vessels, designed to fit beneath bridges as they transport their goods around the inland waterways of Belgium and the Netherlands, are expected to vastly reduce the use of diesel-powered trucks for moving freight.

Dubbed the "Tesla of the canals", their electric motors will be driven by 20-foot batteries, charged on shore by the carbon-free energy provider Eneco.

The barges are designed to operate without any crew, although the vessels will be manned in their first period of operation as new infrastructure is erected around some of the busiest inland waterways in Europe.

In August, five barges - 52 metres long and 6.7m wide, and able to carry 24 20ft containers weighing up to 425 tonnes - will be in operation. They will be fitted with a power box giving them 15 hours of power. As there is no need for a traditional engine room, the boats have up to 8% extra space, according to their Dutch manufacturer, Port Liner.

About 23,000 trucks, mainly running on diesel, are expected to be removed from the roads as a result.

At a later date, six larger 110m-long barges, carrying 270 containers, will run on four battery boxes capable of providing 35 hours of autonomous driving. Their use alone could lead to a reduction of about 18,000 tonnes per year of CO2, it is claimed.

According to the latest statistics from Eurostat, 74.9% of freight in the EU is transported by road, compared to 18.4% by rail, and 6.7% along inland waterways, although the use of water routes has been rising.

The barges are being developed in the Netherlands with €7m in subsidies from the EU and additional funds from the ports involved. Port Liner believes it could produce about 500 barges a year to revolutionise the freight industry, although the electric motors and batteries could also be retrofitted into older boats.

The company's chief executive, Ton van Meegen, told shipping industry trade journal the Loadstar that the barges would be the first in the world to sail on carbon-neutral batteries and that only the low bridges in the low countries prevented them from being loaded with more goods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World's first electric container barges to sail from European ports this summer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The world's first fully electric, emission-free and potentially crewless container barges are to operate from the ports of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam from this summer. The vessels, designed to fit beneath bridges as they transport their goods around the inland waterways of Belgium and the Netherlands, are expected to vastly reduce the use of diesel-powered trucks for moving freight.

# data[].attributes.body
Is this something that we should be doing here in Qatar?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Consumers will be encouraged to refill their water bottles free of charge in tens of thousands of shops, cafes, businesses and water fountains in England under plans announced by the water industry.

The national scheme aims to fight the growing scourge of waste created by single-use plastic by preventing the use of tens of millions of plastic bottles every year, as well as increasing the availability of quality drinking water.

Industry body Water UK said its members are joining forces with the pioneering Refill campaign, started in Bristol, to create a network of high street retailers, coffee shops, businesses and local authorities offering to refill water bottles in every English town and city by 2021.

Quick guide
Plastics and our throwaway society
Show Hide

Why is plastic being demonised?

Since the 1950s, 8.3bn tonnes of plastic has been produced. Plastic is seen as a versatile, indispensable product, but the environmental impact is becoming more stark. Plastic is now so pervasive that recycling systems cannot keep up and the leakage into the environment is such that by 2050 plastic in the ocean will outweigh fish. In 2017 scientists found plastic fibres in tap water, and plastic has been found in the stomachs of sea creatures in the deepest part of the ocean. Most plastic waste ends up in landfill sites or leaks into the natural environment, where it is causing huge damage to eco-systems on land and sea, creating near permanent contamination. According to academics in the United States, by 2015, of all the plastic waste generated since the 1950s, only 9% has been recycled, with 12% incinerated and 79% accumulated in landfill sites or the environment.

Why are the supermarkets under fire?

Producers of plastic include retailers, drinks companies and supermarkets. Supermarkets create more than half of the plastic waste in the household stream in the UK. But they refuse to reveal how much they put on to the streets and how much they pay towards recycling it. Supermarkets are under pressure to reduce their plastic packaging and campaigners argue they have the power to turn off the tap. Much of the packaging they sell to consumers is not recyclable: plastic film, black plastic trays, sleeves on drinks bottles and some coloured plastic. The Recycling Association and other experts believe supermarkets could do much more to make packaging 100% recyclable and reduce the use of plastic.

Who pays to clean up the waste?

The taxpayer, overwhelmingly. UK producers and retailers pay among the lowest towards recycling and dealing with their waste in Europe. In other countries, the "polluter" is forced to pay much more. In France, a sliding system of charges means those who put more non- recyclable material on the market pay more.

What can shoppers do to help?

Supermarkets are under pressure, not least from the prime minister, to create plastic-free aisles. A growing number of zero-waste shops are springing up and consumers are being encouraged to ask for products to be sold without plastic.
Sandra Laville

Photograph: ermingut/E+

Was this helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Users will be able to use an app on their phone to find out where the nearest refill point is, or seek signs in shop windows. Whitbread is the first company to sign up, pledging to provide free drinking in each of its 3,000 Costa Coffee and Premier Inn locations from March.

Although shops and cafes are already legally obliged to offer free water on request in England, Scotland and Wales, the new network makes it clear to people that they are welcome via both a sticker in the window and a location point on the Refill app. It aims break the stigma around asking for water for free, even if customers have not purchased anything else.

The national programme comes amid growing public concern over plastic pollution in the world's oceans. Last year the Guardian's "Bottling It" campaign revealed the surge in usage of plastic bottles. In the UK 38.5m plastic bottles are used every day; just over half of those make it to recycling, while more than 16m are put into landfill, burned, or leak into the environment and oceans.
British embarrassment over asking for tap water in bars fuels plastic bottle waste - survey
The Refill campaign persuades businesses to sign up to a scheme allowing people to refill their water bottles on their premises rather than throw them away. It already has more than 1,600 refill stations across the UK.

The new partnership will see all 15 water companies in England support the expansion of the scheme over the next two years. The announcement comes after London mayor Sadiq Khan confirmed plans for at least 20 new water fountains in the capital.

"We've seen a huge appetite for our Refill campaign across England, from individuals wanting to make a difference in their community to national chains," said Natalie Fee, founder of City to Sea, the organisation behind the Refill scheme. "Our Refill app puts the power to stop plastic pollution in people's hands."
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic waste: network of water refill points aims to tackle problem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Consumers will be encouraged to refill their water bottles free of charge in tens of thousands of shops, cafes, businesses and water fountains in England under plans announced by the water industry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Victoria Seabrook, Sky News Journalist

Thousands of tons of plastic scrap collected for recycling from British households have been transported and dumped on sites across the world, a Sky News investigation has revealed.

Experts have warned there is "no other solution" for dealing with waste which is now stockpiled in countries as far away as Poland and Hong Kong than to consign it to landfill.

Sky News documentary, Dirty Business, exposes a system that makes it more lucrative to export our plastic recycling than process it ourselves.

It raises concerns the system could be inflating our recycling rates and failing to channel investment into recycling here in the UK.

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the UK has "been exporting too much waste".

"What we need to do is to make sure that we reduce the amount that we produce and also process more of it at home," he said.

The statistics on plastics usage are staggering.

Every year British households throw 22 million tons of waste into the bin. EU targets demand that we recycle half of that by 2020 - but rates are stagnating at just 44%.

Cheaper land and labour abroad means a lot of our plastic is exported to be reprocessed.

But the reality is that once it leaves our shores, no one really checks whether it is recycled.

The documentary lays this truth bare, uncovering shipments of plastic wrapped in Chelmsford Council recycling bags sitting on a yard in Hong Kong, destined for landfill.

Tony Wong, the Chinese plastics trader who had imported the plastic to Hong Kong, expected to receive only clear bottles.

But the load was so contaminated with other materials, it was too expensive to sort and recycle.

Steve Wong, who often works with Tony Wong and is also president of the China Scrap Plastics Association, said there was "no other solution" to deal with the waste than consign it to landfill.

But Sky News has found the shipment has been registered as recycled by the exporter and therefore counted towards Britain's recycling targets.

Yet more plastics that had been exported from the UK are falling apart and polluting the environment in Poland.

It is cases like these that suggest the UK could well be "over reporting recycling rates", according to Dominic Hogg, chairman of environmental consultancy Eunomia.

China had been importing millions of tons of plastic rubbish every year to make the toys, mats, and parts that it sells back to the rest of the world.

Britain has become heavily dependent on that appetite, sending two thirds of its plastic scrap exports to China.

But all sorts of other rubbish was mixed in with it. So in July last year the Chinese government announced it would ban imports of the world's plastics from January 2018 - under a programme called national sword.

That means the UK will have to find somewhere else to take its unwanted plastics.

"Operation national sword had a big impact in that it's almost halved the amount of plastic going to China," says Phil Conran, chair of the advisory committee on packaging for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

"That's the problem we've got with China who are saying we don't want this low quality stuff anymore. So China have closed their doors and we've going to have to find somewhere else."

At one plastic-strewn site near Bangkok,Thailand, Sky News found worrying evidence that China closing its doors will merely mean the same thing happening in other countries.

It discovered waste from everyday household goods, including Tesco and Asda milk packaging and a Whitworths raisins bag, that had apparently been there for over a year.

More concerning still was the sight of workers stood knee deep in biohazard bags, processing them with their bare hands.

Chelmsford Council promised to investigate how recycling from its area had ended up stuck in a yard in Hong Kong.

The council later confirmed its recycling had been handled by companies accredited by Defra. It said it was confident that materials collected for recycling were "of high quality and free from contamination" and that its approach had "the least environmental impact" of all recycling practices.

But it will be up to Defra to handle the fallout from China's ban. In November 2017, MPs questioned the department's chief, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, on his plans to deal with the impact.

Mr Gove replied: "I do not know what impact it will have. It is a very good question and something to which - I will be completely honest - I have not given sufficient thought."

He later told the Sky News documentary that he was doing everything he could to "turn what is a challenge into an opportunity".

He added that the Sky News footage of recycling dumped in Hong Kong and Poland "reinforces the case for the reforms" of the recycling system that he planned to implement.

But his department had long known about the flaws in the system.

In 2015 it commissioned several briefing notes, which repeated concerns that the system lacked transparency, provided "little" benefit to local authorities and did not "encourage investment in the UK reprocessing industry".

These documents were never made public, but the programme obtained copies via a freedom of information request.

Recyclers, exporters and councils emphasised the importance of the public putting the right recycling in the right bins. But they called on the Government to do more to create a system the public can trust.

Industry hoped that plans would be laid out in the Government's 25-year environment plan, which was finally published in January 2017.

The plan promised to reform the relevant waste regulations but provided no detail on how it would do so. It also pledged more information in its resources and waste strategy, which is due out during 2018.

Rob Opsomer, from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, said the China ban could be an opportunity for Britain.

"It forces the UK to rethink how they deal with their plastics post-use," he said.

"It can also go the bad way. We continue exporting plastics abroad, where the infrastructure is even worse than in China, and we perhaps believe it gets recycled.

"But actually what happens there is it gets burned or it gets treated in a way that is negative for the local environment."

In the meantime, the industry is warning that we have to start taking more responsibility for our own waste, as the amount of plastics we produce soars.

Lee Clayton, managing director of Monoworld Recycling, said: "I don't think we're planning quick enough. It needs investment, it needs government support.

"We have to look at processing domestically. It's our waste, our problem, we should be recycling it."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Thousands of tons of UK plastic dumped across world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Victoria Seabrook, Sky News Journalist Thousands of tons of plastic scrap collected for recycling from British households have been transported and dumped on sites across the world, a Sky News investigation has revealed. Experts have warned there is "no other solution" for dealing with waste which is now stockpiled in countries as far away as Poland and Hong Kong than to consign it to landfill.

# data[].attributes.headline
Great site written byt a keen IB Student.... may help with your revision!

# data[].attributes.subject
Great site written byt a keen IB Student.... may help with your revision!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm a student SJI International (Singapore), currently taking my IB Diploma. All the materials here on this site are either my notes and videos (using various school textbooks), or other resources that I found useful for my revision. I will try to reference everything I've used; if I've violated any copyright issues please do let me know and I will take it down immediately!

My subjects:

HL Mathematics (Option: Statistics and Probability) - no notes... Sorry! My IA is available though.

HL Chemistry (Option A: Modern Analytical Chemistry; Option D: Medicines and Drugs)

HL English Literature A1

HL Economics

SL Biology (Option A: Human Nutrition and Health; Option C: Cells and Energy, and Option G: Ecology)

SL Chinese B

If you take any of these subjects, please feel free to use my revision notes!

Also some kind friends have sent in notes on these subjects:

(If you're still a freshman/ Grade 9 and take the IGCSEs, please refer to my IGCSE Revision blog.)

Have fun studying!

Plus special thanks to: Claire, Matthew, Canh, John, Stephanie, Pao, Laura, Thu, and Josh for sending in notes/ allowing me to post your work online. Thanks guys!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'm a student SJI International (Singapore), currently taking my IB Diploma. All the materials here on this site are either my notes and videos (using various school textbooks), or other resources that I found useful for my revision. I will try to reference everything I've used; if I've violated any copyright issues please do let me know...

# data[].attributes.body
Linking to Paper 3 with growth of technology and start ups in Kenya

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the summer of 2006, Timbo Drayson packed his bags and waved goodbye to Oxford University for a job at Google. He started in London, working on a fast-growing video product that eventually took him to the US. But by 2013 Drayson had quit and flown half way across the globe for Kenya's capital. What happened?

"During my time at Google, I was working on building our developer ecosystem in the Middle East and Africa," says Drayson. "I really enjoyed it and so decided to take a sabbatical, travelling around East and West Africa on a tech tour. [Along the way] I got inspired [by the] big problems that needed solving through technology."

My family think it's a good thing I've come to Kenya to develop my career, the Chinese believe Africa has a bright future. There are very many opportunities for young people and the salaries are higher - Peng

Nairobi has the most developed tech scene in East Africa rivalling hubs like Cape Town, Lagos and Cairo. This made it a smart, strategic choice for an entrepreneur like Drayson. Within a year, the Brit had co-founded OkHi, a company working to provide every person in Kenya with an address.

Yet, for most of the world Nairobi remains an enigma. "Isn't it dangerous" and "do people live in mud huts there" are some of the questions expats regularly field from family around the globe. They're surprised to hear Nairobi is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa, with over three million inhabitants.

Within eight years it has transformed in to a cosmopolitan hub drawing young people from across Africa and now India and China. There are skyscrapers and shopping malls; hotels and apartment blocks; cinemas, bars, restaurants and even an ice rink.

Since 2008, a crop of incubators, accelerators and funders have popped up, propelling many startups in to profit. Last year, for example, Sendy, Kenya's first on-demand delivery service, hit its $2m funding goal with the support of the Safaricom Spark Fund and XL Africa accelerator, which is funded by the World Bank.

A Disrupt Africa report, shows tech start-ups across Africa raised over $129 million in 2016, a 17% increase on the previous year, with Kenya attracting the second highest investment after South Africa. One of the beneficiaries, Moringa, a Nairobi-based coding school that develops African tech talent, has been able to expand globally with this financial support, launching offices in Hong Kong, Ghana and Pakistan since 2014.

Still, Nairobi isn't an obvious choice for a young expat. To be sure there are some significant downsides and cultural challenges for foreigners here, homosexuality, for example, is still illegal in Kenya. Crime is another concern, while walking around the city during the day is perfectly fine, exploring on foot at night is not recommended. Women can travel around the city alone and are free to dress as they like but conservative clothing is recommended in some areas beyond the city limits. Tribal and political tensions sometimes bubble up and cause violence, particularly around election times. Most people in the capital however, consider themselves to be 'Nairobians' first, and are happy to talk about their country's history, their tribes and their world views.

It languishes at number 186 on Mercer's Quality of Living City Rankings 2017 which highlights traffic congestion; poor public transport; crime levels; housing; access to good schools and electricity supply, which can be intermittent in the capital. And with its growing population, second-hand cars, burning rubbish, and wood-fired stoves, Nairobi's air pollution has become a significant problem.

However, Tia Peng, 30, believes a combination of opportunity, good weather and good people are what makes Nairobi appeal. She relocated from Guang Dong Provence in China to work for Shenzen Right Net Tech Co, an ecommerce company that sells Chinese goods to Africa and African goods to China. "I plan to stay in Nairobi for a long time, at least 5 years. The city is good, I especially love the weather, it's 25 degrees and sunny all year around, and the local people are friendly."

Where I come from [Mumbai, India] the market is very competitive. [In Nairobi] we Indians can apply the skills and technology we use at home more easily. The Kenyan market is responsive and they like the technologies we bring.

Asked what her family think about her living in Kenya, Peng says, "My family think it's a good thing I've come to Kenya to develop my career, the Chinese believe Africa has a bright future. There are very many opportunities for young people and the salaries are higher [in Kenya than in China]".

Utsav Misty, 32, is an Indian expat working for mobile gaming company Vuclip in Nairobi agrees. He also moved here because of the opportunities available to him: "Where I come from [Mumbai, India] the market is very competitive. [In Nairobi] we Indians can apply the skills and technology we use at home more easily. The Kenyan market is responsive and they like the technologies we bring."

What's the draw? High-speed internet, globally-renowned innovation, major funding and the presence of incubators and hubs all appeal to tech talent. "There's a large amount of brain power focusing on similar challenges [in Nairobi]. The barrier for entry [for new companies] is low because everything is concentrated - if you have all of the people and all of the money in one place it makes it way easier," says Samir Ibrahim, 29, a US expat and CEO of SunCulture, a company which provides solar-powered irrigation to farmers. Like many millennials, the ex-New York University student wanted a meaningful job, and says a tech start-up in Kenya provided that.

Money is being pushed in to infrastructure - from the newly built tarmac road link to Ethiopia, to the new Standard Gauge Railway between Nairobi with Mombasa on the coast. "Kenya is an English-speaking country, its generally safe, western investment has been coming into the country for a long time and it's a hub for tourism. These are the foundation points of a good hub," adds Ibrahim.

Where to go

Situated on the fourth floor of Piedmont Plaza on the Ngong Road - one of the main roads leading east to west across the city - Nairobi Garage, a co-working space for start-ups, techies and entrepreneurs has become a popular place for work. "There are a few main places to hang out and because the expat community is tight - when you're new in town older expats will invite you along to things. It feels like things are possible here, the mentality is 'the sky's the limit,'" says Hannah Clifford, 29, director at Nairobi Garage.

Kenya is an English-speaking country, its generally safe, western investment has been coming into the country for a long time and it's a hub for tourism.

Another favourite is Nairobi's first incubator, iHub, in Kilimani, a central Nairobi suburb. The terrace here offers great views of the city. Many expats choose to regularly work from coffee shops like Wasp & Sprout, a bohemian little café in Loresho serving cold brew coffee on colourful sofas. After work drinks are popular at Brew Bistro, a rooftop bar in Westlands complete with picnic tables, AstroTurf grass and home-brewed beers; The Alchemist, an open-air bar with live music most nights of the week, and J's, a restaurant and bar with outdoor seating and a DJ playing party tunes until the early hours at the weekend.

Westlands has long been a popular location for expats to live as well as party due to its central city location and the proximity to shops, restaurants and the Karura Forest, a huge forest with hiking trails and an open-air restaurant called the River Café. There's a range of accommodation here from apartment blocks for singletons to houses for families. Kilimani, Kilileshwa and Lavington are also popular areas in the leafy suburbs, yet a short drive to the central business district. Properties favoured by expats here tend to be plush modern apartments complete with gyms and swimming pools.
Spending power
Salaries in the tech sector in Kenya vary hugely from company to company and there is little information available for benchmarking one organisation against the next, for example, one start-up may pay a $40,000 salary for an I.T. project leader but according to Glassdoor.com others can be much lower ($15,000-$20,000). While wages aren't high versus the UK or US this income is enough to live comfortably in Nairobi. Fresh food is cheap and monthly rent for an unfurnished two bed apartment in Kilimani, a popular expat area, is approximately 90,000ksh ($874) a month. Beer in a bar costs on average KSH 200 ($1.90), and internet packages cost around KSH 4000 ($38) a month. Expat luxuries like cheese and wine can be expensive but according to website Expatisan.com, the cost of living in Nairobi is 17% cheaper than Johannesburg, South Africa.

The tight-knit community, social scene and outdoor activities that appealed to Drayson on his initial visit. Nairobi seemed like somewhere he could enjoy living. "I figured if I'm going to start a business in a new country where I don't know anyone, I need to be happy and I felt I could be happy," says Drayson. "It had the creature comforts of Ribena and Haribo in the supermarkets, and Kenyans have a great sense of humour. As a British person that makes me feel at home. I also love the outdoors and camping and the country is great for that."

We'll keep making a concerted effort to bring people together and to make expats feel welcome. We Kenyans are just loving people!

Drayson expects to see more like-minded ex-Googlites quitting Silicon Valley for Silicon Savannah. "As long as there are big problems to solve there's an opportunity. Every year companies are growing, hiring talent and training talent," he says.

Kenyan-born Maurice Otieno, 27, general manager at Metta, a club for entrepreneurs agrees. He too is confident that Nairobi's tech scene will keep attracting global talent. He believes one particular draw could be around the farming industry, which is a huge part of the Kenyan economy and much in need of tech innovation to develop in the coming years. "We expect to see big things in the agritech space [in 2018 and beyond], it's an optimistic time. We'll keep making a concerted effort to bring people together and to make expats feel welcome. We Kenyans are just loving people!"

To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, please head over to our page or message us on .

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why millennials are heading for a wilder tech city

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the summer of 2006, Timbo Drayson packed his bags and waved goodbye to Oxford University for a job at Google. He started in London, working on a fast-growing video product that eventually took him to the US. But by 2013 Drayson had quit and flown half way across the globe for Kenya's capital.

# data[].attributes.body
Google building more underwater cables to help with its cloud business.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Google is planning to build three underwater cables in 2019 to help expand its cloud business to new regions as it battles rivals Microsoft and Amazon.

The subsea cables will run across different routes. The first will go from Los Angeles to Chile, the second will connect the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, and the third will be from Hong Kong to Guam.

Alphabet-owned Google said it will open its Netherlands and Montreal regions in the first quarter of 2018, followed by L.A., Finland and Hong Kong.

The cables will be completed in 2019.

"Together, these investments further improve our network - the world's largest - which by some accounts delivers 25 percent of worldwide internet traffic," Ben Treynor Sloss, vice president of Google's cloud platform, said in a blog post on Tuesday.

The Curie cable, named after famous scientist Marie Curie, from Chile to L.A. will allow Google to serve cloud customers across Latin America.

Havfrue, the cable running from the U.S. to Denmark and Ireland, will boost capacity for North Atlantic customers. It is being developed in partnership with Facebook and will be built by TE SubCom.

The Hong Kong-Guam cable system will help Google reach customers in Australia and the Pacific region.

Building all of these cables will help Google deliver cloud services with a better experience. It means if servers in one region have a problem, then it can still service customers in those areas without taking a hit to performance.

Google now has direct investment in 11 cables, including those planned or under construction.

The U.S. search giant sees cloud as a promising new area and has been trying to aggressively expand the business to catch up to rivals Amazon and Microsoft.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Google to build 3 underwater cables to expand its cloud business in battle with Amazon, Microsoft

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Google is planning to build three underwater cables in 2019 to help expand its cloud business to new regions as it battles rivals Microsoft and Amazon. The subsea cables will run across different routes. The first will go from Los Angeles to Chile, the second will connect the U.S.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cultivated in Brazil, exported by Portugal and commercialized by America, the snack enriched India-until Vietnam and its automation took over. The story of the snack food shows how global trade can undercut countries just as quickly as it can raise them up.

# data[].attributes.headline
Even on the better days in the enveloping smog, the climate-compromised city hurts your lungs and reddens your eyes

# data[].attributes.subject
Even on the better days in the enveloping smog, the climate-compromised city hurts your lungs and reddens your eyes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It was 2am on Sunday in Delhi and a friend and I were travelling in a rickshaw, heading home from a party. It was a hellscape.

The highway was mostly empty, the air a greasy brown. On the shoulder was a group of men standing around a small fire. Ahead of us were trucks spraying the roads with salted effluent, used to keep the dirt in place so it would not spring up into a toxic cloud.

In the Delhi half-marathon that morning 30,000 people ran, some wearing breathing masks, with levels of the most harmful airborne pollutants hovering near 200 - eight times the World Health Organisation's safe maximum.

All that week and the last, the pollution was the only story in town. My friend had seen a near riot in an upmarket shopping mall as a group of women fought to buy up the last of the air masks. In a hospital, another friend saw smog in the hallways, making all the doctors red-eyed.

We monitored the air pollution compulsively on something that looked like an egg-shaped portable lava lamp, as well as various apps. "It got to 999 which is the highest the app recognised! It's literally off the charts!!"

To an outsider like me flying in, there was an end-of-days vibe in the (dirty) air. It was like a London pea souper or the inside of one of Blake's "dark satanic mills." But what it reminded me most of was a disaster movie. "Armageddon but with better food," said my friend.

The pollution had its own character and personality - like a super-villain in a Marvel comic

Anyone wanting a glimpse of what it is like to live in a severely climate-compromised city could experience Delhi.

Environmental disaster is no longer in the future; it is here now, in the world's most polluted capitals, such as Beijing and Delhi. This pollution is a regular occurrence across north India and Pakistan at this time of year as farmers burn post-harvest land and cooler temperatures prevent pollutants from dispersing. Instead they are trapped and sort of hover in the air, like a dirt curtain. Doctors liken the effect to the equivalent of smoking 50 cigarettes in a day.

My body initiated a series of reflexes designed to repel the toxins in the air: a dry, persistent cough, a tight throat and headaches if I spent too long outside. People I met at the party on Saturday night had bloodshot eyes, everyone seemed to have little deep coughs - the sort heavy smokers have.

"So [cough, cough], have you been to [cough] Humayun's Tomb? [cough]? You ought [cough] - it's lovely."

The pollution had its own character and personality - like a super-villain in a Marvel comic. It didn't move so much as hang around you like a malevolent veil.

It also had - to borrow a phrase from the wine industry - its own mouthfeel. There were notes of coal and tar, with an aftertaste of dirt. In the mouth, the smog felt meaty and dense. I thought of Cormac McCarthy's The Road where everything was rendered in this palette - a sort of grey, brown haze, everything leeched of colour and light. As well as fresh air, I began to miss the sun's arc against the sky, the gorgeous golden hour of the sun hitting the buildings and warming the red brick. The way shafts of light play on trees and make even the most straggly branches or unlovely tree sparkle and glow.

We cancelled a jaunt to Varanasi for later in the week, where the air would was even worse. How could that be possible?

The smog will clear, and already there are good days and bad days. After the rain, the air feels better in the lungs. But there is already here the sense that the pollution is the new normal.

The Hindustan Times on Sunday splashed with a good news headline, indicating even our late-night hellscape wasn't the worst of it. "People in Delhi woke up to the brightest morning in a while on Saturday." The pollution levels had dropped from "severe" to "poor". Even then it was still really bad. The sky above us was not blue but brown, and the sun was shrouded except during the dusks, which came early - and then sun then blazed briefly, like an angry turmeric ball - before disappearing again.

As I sat out on a balcony on Monday morning and looked out at the haze, it was almost a shock to see birds soar into the trees - these glorious hawks with their vast, elegant wingspan. That the birds weren't dropping from the sky and the leaves weren't withering on their branches seemed in the scheme of things a minor miracle. Breathing out there on the balcony felt almost as if I was drinking something in.

Already the main river of Delhi, the Yamuna, can no longer be really called a river. Pollution has stripped it of all the characteristics that enable it to be defined as a living entity. "It's not a river, it's a drain," said my friend.

For all the talk of India as an emerging superpower, the environmental devastation wrought on Delhi surely acts as a brake on growth.

It's harder to attract talent to work here. Who wants to get around town wearing a breathing mask? Delhi is classified just below Kabul and Baghdad as a hardship posting by the Australian government. People I spoke to in expat circles told of their family and friends cancelling holidays because of the unpleasantness of the haze.

Yet it is of course the nation's poorest that bear the full brunt of this climate catastrophe.

According to research published in the Lancet, about 2.5 million Indians die each year from pollution, the highest number in the world. And the majority of people affected are the poor, who cannot afford the air purifiers that retail for around US$400. For many in Delhi the conditions of daily life are so difficult and rough, that this pollution everyone keeps talking about doesn't even register for the city's very poor.

They are down in the pits cleaning the latrines or sleeping rough in the increasingly cold nights. A man called Sohail Abbasi told one of the local papers: "My job is to collect waste from the localities. I deal with dirt on a daily basis anyway. Once I'm out of the stinking pits, this polluted air is a luxury."

And Mohammad Shareff, one of the city's rough sleepers, said: "It's getting cold here, I need the blankets. I don't care how polluted the air is, at least there is air."

At least there is air.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Breathless in Delhi: a taste of environmental Armageddon | Brigid Delaney's diary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It was 2am on Sunday in Delhi and a friend and I were travelling in a rickshaw, heading home from a party. It was a hellscape. The highway was mostly empty, the air a greasy brown. On the shoulder was a group of men standing around a small fire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A 12-foot female tiger shark swims above a row of SCUBA divers at popular eco-tourist spot Tiger Beach, in the Bahamas.

Credit: Image courtesy Jim Abernethy.

Imagine swimming in crystalline ocean waters shot through with sunlight when one of Earth's most notorious predators swims into view - a very close view.

Such pulse-quickening encounters are, in fact, the whole point for visitors to Tiger Beach, an idyllic spot in the Bahamas where eco-tourists can get up close and personal with tiger sharks - indiscriminate eaters known to devour everything from sea turtles to kegs of nails (and occasionally a few unlucky humans).

Yet it is by playing to the sharks' voracious appetites that dive operators are able to lure them into view, courtesy of generous offerings of chum - minced fish.

However, some have argued that the free meals - and resulting close encounters between humans and sharks - could have bad consequences for both species.

A massive female tiger shark, about 14-feet long, glides past a group of divers.

Credit: Image courtesy Jim Abernethy.

Shark meal

"People are concerned that it could be causing sharks to associate people with food," said shark researcher Neil Hammerschlag, an assistant professor at the University of Miami. Some worry that, like cartoon castaways eyeing each other hungrily in a boat, tiger sharks might, essentially, begin to see humans as giant pork chops with legs.

"Shark attacks are so very rare, so it's really hard to draw conclusions," Hammerschlag told OurAmazingPlanet.

Another concern, he said, and one that is easier to test, is that all the free food might disrupt the sharks' natural wanderings, and artificially limit their movements to areas close to tourist sites. (Why go hunting out at sea when the bipeds regularly serve up snacks?)

Since sharks are apex predators - a bit like the Godfathers of the ecosystem - and keep potentially disruptive ecological usurpers in check, such a change could have negative effects.

"They help keep balance," Hammerschlag said, "so if this really changes their behavior long term, it could have ecological consequences."

Neither idea has been properly tested, he said. To that end, Hammerschlag, heading up a team of researchers, designed a study to investigate.

Shark testing

They used satellite tags attached to the sharks' dorsal fins to track tiger sharks in areas where eco-tourism packages offer plenty of free food to the sharks - the Bahamas' Tiger Beach - and an area where the practice is forbidden - Florida.

Researcher Neil Hammerschlag releases a newly-tagged shark back into the wild. The satellite tag is attached to the shark's dorsal fin with titanium bolts and steel nuts that eventually corrode, detaching the tag from the fin.

Credit: Image courtesy Jim Abernethy.

All told, they tracked 11 Floridian tiger sharks and 10 Bahamian sharks, in near-real time, for spans of six months to almost a year. Hammerschlag said he expected the Bahamian sharks, with access to cushy meals, to travel far less than their Floridian counterparts.

"But, in fact, we found the opposite," he said. The Florida tiger sharks traveled, at most, 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from their tagging site.

In contrast, "the tiger sharks from the Bahamas diving site moved massive distances," Hammerschlag said. "Definitely that area was important, but they didn't rely on it."

Some swam as far as 2,175 miles (3,500 km) out into the middle of the Atlantic and spent seven months there. The researchers noted that the difference could be related to size: The Bahamian sharks are bigger, and bigger animals tend to travel larger distances.

Their research is published today (March 9) in the journal Functional Ecology.

Shark people

Hammerschlag said that the work indicates that eco-tourism, when done right, may not be all bad for sharks - crucial predators that are disappearing from oceans around the world, many falling victim to the lucrative and devastating shark-fin trade.

With proper policies, he suggested, people could continue to see economic benefit from sharks, but in a way that keeps the animals alive.

"In the Bahamas, they've encouraged shark diving because it's good for the economy, and because of that they're protecting sharks in their water," he said - something that Florida policymakers might want to keep in mind.

"I would say that before we ban these things outright, we should do some research," he said. "Rather than basing our decisions on fear, we should base them on fact."

Reach Andrea Mustain at amustain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain. Follow OurAmazingPlanet for the latest in Earth science and exploration news on Twitter @OAPlanet and on Facebook.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Imagine swimming in crystalline ocean waters shot through with sunlight when one of Earth's most notorious predators swims into view - a very close view.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For many low-volume Kenyan farmers, the only source of information about the market rate for crops comes from the very people who are trying to buy them. The lack of pricing transparency means that farmers don't always get the best deal. MFarm seeks to solve this by providing up-to-date market prices via an app or SMS, direct to farmers. It also connects farmers with buyers directly, cutting out the middlemen.

MFarm's CEO is Jamila Abass, a 29-year-old computer scientist from Kenya. She founded MFarm in 2010 after reading about how farmers have been "oppressed for decades and disconnected in terms of information". "Many farmers only have the produce, but don't have the means to market their produce themselves," Abass told Wired.co.uk. "They have to rely on middlemen who show up and give them both the price and the buyer. They have no information and no alternative market. We wanted to close that information gap between the farmers and the market."

Abass and her team developed a tool that allows farmers to SMS the number 20255 to receive information relating to the retail price of their products -- updated daily with information for 42 crops (including peas, sugar snaps, avocadoes, passion fruit, peanuts, potatoes, cassava and mangos) sold in 5 markets. But as they were doing this, they realised that they might be creating another problem. "Farmers don't have storage facilities and they know that the buyer who comes around to the farm can just go next door and get produce from someone else. So we could end up taking away the only access to market they have," Abass explained.

Others have come to the market using technology to create a trading platform that farmers are not ready for. They have also been set up by non-profit organisations and run out of money, leaving the farmers high and dry. This makes them sceptical.

MFarm realised that the root problem was not price transparency but the fact that farmers are producing in low volume and that many buyers in big cities don't want the hassle of getting the volume they need from multiple different farmers. This led MFarm into offering a group selling tool, which gets farmers to team up to bring produce to certain drop off points. They then send an SMS to the system promoting what they have to sell. "All of these farmers who are too small to market to a big buyer become visible because they have more product," Abass says.

In addition to pricing information and group selling, MFarm has also developed a group buying tool, allowing farmers to pool resources to negotiate better prices for things like fertiliser.

Transactions are all handled by MFarm's integrated mobile money transfer system -- drawing on mobile payment technology MPesa -- but can also be plugged into people's bank accounts (if they have one). When an order is placed through MFarm, the farmer takes his or her produce to the designated collection point and sends a message to confirm the produce has been delivered. The buyer then collects the produce and verifies the quantity and quality by sending a message to MFarm. Once that's been confirmed and the order has been fulfilled, the money is released by MFarm to the farmer's account. With larger orders where multiple farmers are involved, the money is distributed between different accounts.

A major challenge was getting farmers to trust the service, since many others have tried to crack the problem. "Others have come to the market using technology to create a trading platform that farmers are not ready for. They have also been set up by non-profit organisations and run out of money, leaving the farmers high and dry. This makes them sceptical."

Read next

MFarm is a for-profit organisation, taking a transaction fee for every deal done using its platform. This has allowed it to grow the number of users from 2,000 in early 2012 to 7,000 now. A study in central Kenya with 600 farmers showed that farmers could double their sales by using MFarm. "Mfarm can lower costs [of supplies] and offer better margins for farmers, but the other value proposition is a consistent market," says Abass. "It's not just about the prices but also knowing if a buyer will be available."

Furthermore, the network can be used to disseminate information relating to international regulations, for example information about any pesticides that might be banned. "There are so many things you can do with the technology once you have trust," she adds.

Abass is now focussed on the export market and has been in the UK to speak to large retailers who are keen to be more responsible in the way that they source their products. "They want to have social responsibility," Abass acknowledges. "By sourcing produce through MFarm they are playing a vital role in development and securing a consistent supply that is not dependent on middlemen."

In addition to taking a transaction fee, MFarm has also been selling its data to research organisations looking at consumer behaviour and food scarcity.

Entrepreneurialism is in Abass's blood. "Both of my parents were entrepreneurs; we had shops and restaurants. I grew up selling in a shop and in my spare time I used to have a kitchen garden where we would plant and sell to my neighbours. We also used to put on small plays for our neighbours to watch and sell sweets made out of milk and sugar."

After completing her computer science degree and working as a developer for a while, she set up MFarm in 2010, aged 26. The company later attracted $100,000 (£65,000) in seed funding from Techfortrade and now employs 16 people.

You can find out more about MFarm here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MFarm empowers Kenya's farmers with price transparency and market access

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For many low-volume Kenyan farmers, the only source of information about the market rate for crops comes from the very people who are trying to buy them. The lack of pricing transparency means that farmers don't always get the best deal. MFarm seeks to solve this by providing up-to-date market prices via an app or SMS, direct to farmers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Doha, Qatar - Change Detection - Earth Watching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Doha is the capital and most populous city of the State of Qatar. Doha has a population of 1,351,000 in the city proper with the overall population close to 1.5 million....

# data[].attributes.body
Sophie and Martina

# data[].attributes.headline
As I mentioned, the making of solar powered planes

# data[].attributes.subject
As I mentioned, the making of solar powered planes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To take the success of the solar-powered flight around the world further, the Solar Impulse Fo...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
shanghai_mega_city_case_study Mia and sophie and ayesha

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hyperloop may be more trouble than it's worth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Unless deployment comes hand in hand with significant transportation policy overhaul, system will not realise makers' ambitions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
China has implemented an unprecedented pollution crackdown in recent months as the country shuts down tens of thousands of factories. The effort is part of a national effort to address China's infamous pollution and has affected wide swaths of China's manufacturing sector.

In total, it is estimated that 40 percent of all China's factories have been shut down at some point in order to be inspected by environmental bureau officials. As a result of these inspections over 80,000 factories have been hit with fines and criminal offenses as a result of their emissions.

Safety officials have been moving from province to province (30 in total so far) shutting down factories as well as electricity and gas as they inspect the factories for meeting emissions requirements. This has resulted in late and missed orders, increased costs, and could ultimately result in higher prices on US shelves.

China's government has recently taken a more proactive approach in regulating environmental laws, something that was largely overlooked in past decades. The crackdown has resulted in everything from hefty fines to jail time for the more egregious violators. This has temporarily stopped production from wide swaths of factories along China's east coast and forced some factory owners to move supply chains to other countries.

China recently announced their plan to reduce the concentration of hazardous fine particulate matter from 47 micrograms per cubic meter to 35 micrograms by the year 2035. The recent crackdown appears to be at least partially in response to the new plan.

China's crackdown on polluting factories will result in cleaner air and a whole host of health benefits. However, there are certainly critics that point to a potential decline in China's industrial sector and GDP growth. Ultimately, factories will have to comply and find ways to both meet production goals and environmental laws.

For the average Chinese citizen, this will mean one step closer to swapping a polluted grey sky with blue skies. In this, China follows the realization the United States made in the early 1960's when implementing the Clean Air Act.

Environmental regulations are an essential part of governing, where population health is put before capitalism. There have been hundreds of studies that point to the overall positive effect of smart environmental regulations. From increased worker health (less sick days) to less government subsidized healthcare (Medicaid/Medicare) to increased employment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
China Shuts Down Tens Of Thousands Of Factories In Widespread Pollution Crackdown

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
China has implemented an unprecedented pollution crackdown in recent months as the country shuts down tens of thousands of factories. The effort is part of a national effort to address China's infamous pollution and has affected wide swaths of China's manufacturing sector.

# data[].attributes.headline
Links to drought and extreme environments

# data[].attributes.subject
Links to drought and extreme environments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The food produce destroyed by droughts would be enough to feed a country with a population the size of Germany's every day for a year, the World Bank has reported.

In a new study, it said, the "shockingly large and often hidden" consequences of prolonged periods without rain threatened to stunt the growth of children and condemn them to a lifetime of poverty.

The report said the lost food production related to drought would feed more than 80 million people every day for a year, adding that while floods and storm surges had an immediate impact, droughts were "misery in slow motion".

The World Bank said women that were born in droughts bore the marks for their entire lives, growing up mentally and physically stunted, undernourished and unwell.

New data shows that women born during droughts had less access to education, had more children and were more likely to suffer from domestic violence. Problems caused by droughts were passed on to the next generation, leading to a vicious cycle of poverty.

Droughts reduce crop yields, forcing farmers to expand into nearby forests, the Bank said, adding: "Since forests act as a climate stabiliser and help regulate water supplies, deforestation decreases water supply and exacerbates climate change." For firms, the economic cost of a drought was four times as big as a flood, it said.

Guangzhe Chen, senior director of the World Bank's water global practice, said: "These impacts demonstrate why it is increasingly important that we treat water like the valuable, exhaustible, and degradable resource that it is. We need to better understand the impacts of water scarcity, which will become more severe due to growing populations and a changing climate."

The World Bank said that many of the countries affected by drought overlapped with areas already facing large food deficits and that were classified as fragile, heightening the need to tackle the problem.

A woman walks across a dry riverbed in Turkana, Kenya on 18 October 2017. Photograph: Jennifer Huxta/The Guardian

Its report recommended constructing new water storage and management infrastructure, coupled with a strategy to control the demand for water. It urged tougher regulation of utility companies operating in cities so that they are given incentives to invest and improve their performance. Safety nets should also be put in place to help families cope when droughts turned into economic shocks.

"If we don't take deepening water deficits and the bigger and more frequent storms that climate change will bring seriously, we will find water scarcity spreading to new regions of the world, potentially exacerbating issues of violence, suffering, and migration," said the report's author Richard Damania. "Current methods for managing water are not up to the challenge. This sea-change will require a portfolio of policies that acknowledge the economic incentives involved in managing water from its source, to the tap, and back to its source."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Food ruined by drought could feed more than 80m a day, says World Bank

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bank calls for water to be treated as valuable resource as study into impact details lack of water's devastating lifelong scars on children

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
So far we've seen when you will die and how other people tend to die. Now let's put the two together to see how and when you will die, given your sex, race, and age.

I returned to the Underlying Cause of Death database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides data for the number of people who died in the United States between 1999 and 2014. The records are based on death certificates, which require an entry for a single cause of death.

The CDC classifies the causes into 113 subcategories, which fit under the umbrella of 20 categories of disease and external causes. More specifically, the CDC uses the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), which is published by the World Health Organization.

The simulation below covers the main categories, or chapters, as they're referred to by the ICD.

Enter your sex, race, and age. Each dot represents one of your simulated lives, and as each year passes, more of your simulated selves pass away. Color corresponds to cause of death, and the bars on the right keep track of the cumulative percentages. By the end, you're left with the chances that you will die of each cause.

Try shifting age down to zero and watch the rate of change. One thing that you should notice is that once you get past year one, it's low likelihood that you die in the next few decades. It's not until later years when the dots start to change color much quicker. You couldn't see this in the normalized chart.

The main point, which is what you'd expect, is that mortality rate is much lower in the earlier years of life than in the older years. But, if you do die at a younger age, it's much more likely due to something external rather than a disease.

You can also look at it the other way. Shift age to the older years, and let the simulations run. You're much more likely to die of a disease rather than something external. Shift past 80 years, and it's over 40 percent chance the cause will be circulatory, regardless of demographic group.

This surprised me, because it seems like cancer would be the leading cause just going off general news. This is certainly true up to a certain age, but get past that and your heart can only keep going for so long.

How Other People Die

Want to know how other people die? Here's causes of death all at once.

Nerd Notes

1. The CDC database only provides population estimates for 84 years and younger. For 85-plus, you can only get number of deaths by cause, which means I could not calculate a crude mortality rate for these years. Instead, I used probability of death from the Social Security Administration for the later years. Not ideal, but since we're focused on cause of death rather than timing, it was good enough for me.

2. Along the same lines, the CDC mortality numbers stop at 100 years old or greater.

3. The ICD chapters encapsulate many causes of death. It's worth looking at the database if you're interested in a specific cause.

4. I did analysis and data preparation in R and I made the interactive with d3.js.

Learn to visualize your data. Become a member.

Membership

This is for people who want to learn to make and design data graphics. Your support goes directly to FlowingData, an independently run site.

What You Get

Instant access to tutorials on how to make and design data graphics

Source code and files to use with your own data

Four-week course on visualization in R

Hand-picked links and resources from around the web

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
So far we've seen when you will die and how other people tend to die. Now let's put the two together to see how and when you will die, given your sex, race, and age. I returned to the Underlying Cause of Death database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. -Forrest Gump

The life expectancy for the average woman in the United States is 81 years and 2 months. For men, it's 76 years and 5 months. These are the most recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just subtract your current age from those numbers for a rough estimate of how many years you have left.

It feels accurate. It feels precise.

But people die at various ages. Life is imprecise. Otherwise, you could just plan your days all the way up to your last.

Also, life expectancy is typically quoted "from birth." It's the number of years a baby is expected to live the moment he or she escapes from the womb into the wondrous realities of the outside world. This is a good measure for progress in countries and is a fine wideout view, but it's just so-so for you and me, as individuals.

The range of your life expectancy is much more interesting.

Toggle your age and sex below to see the possibilities.

The graphic uses data from the Social Security Administration to simulate your possible lifetimes. That's plural. The line shows the probability you live to see your next birthday, given age and sex. Each running dot represents a possibility.

As expected, the probability that you live to the next year decreases as you age. More than 99% of people under the age of 60 live to see the next year, but the probability shifts towards zero relatively quickly after that.

Let the simulation run long enough (or flip on the "fast" switch), and the distribution always converges towards a curve that skews towards older. That's expected.

The individual data points? Those are much less predictable.

Well, depending on your age of course.

For example, if you are female and 50 years old, the average life expectancy is about 33 more years. However, let the simulation run, and that single average value represents a wide span that mostly rests between 20 to 49 more years.

There's less room for error if you're a centenarian.

That said, shift the slider higher, say 70 or older, and see what happens. Life expectancy increases and the balls tend to drop farther past the overall life expectancy point. That is, as you shift into later years, life is like, "Hey, you're pretty good at this aging game. Better than most. You're probably going to live longer than the average person." This poses interesting questions for retirement planning and sustaining that long life, but let's save that topic for another time.

As for me, a 34-year-old male, my distribution is still open to lots of possibilities. And I should probably look into life insurance.

How You Will Die

Now that you know how many years of life you have left, here's how it's going to end.

Learn to visualize your data. Become a member.

Membership

This is for people who want to learn to make and design data graphics. Your support goes directly to FlowingData, an independently run site.

What You Get

Instant access to tutorials on how to make and design data graphics

Source code and files to use with your own data

Four-week course on visualization in R

Hand-picked links and resources from around the web

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. -Forrest Gump The life expectancy for the average woman in the United States is 81 years and 2 months. For men, it's 76 years and 5 months. These are the most recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Su-24 plane rolled off the runway on takeoff from Russia's Hmeymim air base in Syria.

All of the crew died in the accident after they failed to eject themselves from the aircraft.

A technical fault is believed to be the cause of the accident.

GETTY

Putin's top guns tear up the skies within SPITTING distance of Pyongyang

Putin's warplanes have been photographed tearing up the skies at the Centralnaya Uglovaya airfield in the Primorye territory in Russia. Near the city of Vladivostok, the fighter jets were just an hour and a half's flight from Pyongyang

Yuri Smityuk/TASS

"An Su-24 skidded off the runway and crashed while accelerating to take off for a combat"
Russian Ministry of Defence

"An Su-24 skidded off the runway and crashed while accelerating to take off for a combat task from Khmeimim Airbase in Syria," a statement reads.

Russian aircraft have been based in the Latakia province since September 2015 - when Moscow launched its operation to battle ISIS terrorists in Syria.

Over the past week, Russian jets have intensified their campaign, conducting up to 150 airstrikes per day.

The final assault on the death cult in Syria began at the weekend.

The assault on terrorists in the centre of Raqqa was meant to focus on the area around the national stadium.

ISIS' loss of remaining streets and buildings in the city would mark a major milestone in the battle to destroy the jihadi group.

US forces believe their reign of terror is coming to an end because of lack of money and food.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supersonic Russian attack plane CRASHES killing all on board

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Su-24 plane rolled off the runway on takeoff from Russia's Hmeymim air base in Syria. All of the crew died in the accident after they failed to eject themselves from the aircraft. A technical fault is believed to be the cause of the accident.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate Change Is Turning Antarctica Green

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Increasingly unfamiliar and unpredictable weather events mean that business as usual is not an option for these islands to survive

s a Caribbean climate scientist, I am often asked to speak about how climate change affects small islands. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, one of two category five storms to batter the eastern Caribbean in just a week, three words resonate in my mind.

The first word is "unfamiliar". Scientific analysis shows that the climate of the Caribbean region is already changing in ways that seem to signal the emergence of a new climate regime. Irma and Maria fit this pattern all too well. At no point in the historical records dating back to the late 1800s have two category five storms made landfall in the small Caribbean island chain of the eastern Antilles in a single year.

The intensification almost overnight from a tropical storm to a category five hurricane and the devastating intensity that lingered for several days are also unfamiliar, even to a region that is used to seeing hurricanes. Alongside other emerging climate patterns, there is a strong case to be made that there is something unfamiliar about the Caribbean's climate today. We are seeing repeated and prolonged droughts, an increase in the number of very hot days, intense rainfall events causing repeated localised flooding, and rising sea levels that are consuming the beautiful beaches on which tourism in our region depends.

The problem with unfamiliarity is that daily existence in the Caribbean is built on familiar patterns of climate. Our economies are premised on industries and sectors that are extremely sensitive to climate variations, such as tourism and agriculture. In a year that follows expected patterns and pulls no surprises, we see favourable economic growth and improvements in our quality of life. Even when we've seen bad weather, we have always had a certain familiarity with the limits of how bad it can be. Until now, newer infrastructure in the Caribbean has largely withstood the ravages of hurricanes and tropical storms, as their design has accounted for the upper bounds of extreme weather experienced in the past.

Irma and Maria threw out the notion of planning and preparedness based on the expected and the familiar. Their ferocity destroyed even the strongest evacuation shelters and brought devastation of catastrophic proportions to our tiny islands. Just as climate change is heralding in an era marked by the unfamiliar, we need a paradigm shift in our approach to development planning in highly vulnerable regions.

The second word that comes to mind is "unprecedented". A business-as-usual scenario without global action suggests that by the end of the current century, the Caribbean region will warm a further 2-3C over the 1C already seen in the last century. We project annual rainfall amounts will decrease by up to 40%, posing a significant challenge to already water stressed islands. Projections also show sea levels rising by 1-2 metres, far exceeding the rise already recorded.

Most frighteningly, given our experience in the last few weeks, is the expectation that we will see more of the strongest tropical Atlantic hurricanes (though not necessarily more overall). Cumulatively, the science of projections suggests that the region's climate will be altered beyond recognition. This is to say, it will be outside the bounds of our lived experience to date. It will not just be unfamiliar at times, it may be unprecedented all the time.

The stocktaking is hardly complete from Irma and Maria. Yet for Barbuda and Dominica at least, the setback to their economies will be measured in years. The initial estimates for rebuilding are staggering. Perhaps even more heartbreaking is the loss of those things that are economically unquantifiable. The drastic reductions in living standards, especially for the most vulnerable, that will continue for months to come. The loss of irreplaceable culture and cultural assets, the mental anguish and loss of lives, the loss of biodiversity, and the destruction of "island life" as we know it.

Hurricane Irma destruction from space.

The small island of Barbuda, for the first time in 300 years, has no human inhabitants. They were all evacuated after the devastation wreaked by Irma and in anticipation of Jose and Maria. This seems to portend the challenge that climate change represents for the Caribbean region - a challenge that becomes more acute as the era of the unprecedented is ushered in faster than the region can prepare for its onset.

Finally, the third word that comes to mind is "urgent". Admirably, although the Caribbean islands are minuscule emitters of greenhouse gases, they have made bold commitments regarding future use. But in the end, the future viability of the region is premised on collective global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is for this reason that the Caribbean and other small island and developing states have argued for a limit to global warming of 1.5C. It is this message that must reach the global community when they see the images of Irma and Maria. For those in the Caribbean, the lessons are all too clear.

* Dr Michael Taylor is a physicist based at the University of the West Indies
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate change in the Caribbean - learning lessons from Irma and Maria

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Increasingly unfamiliar and unpredictable weather events mean that business as usual is not an option for these islands to survive s a Caribbean climate scientist, I am often asked to speak about how climate change affects small islands.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On October 6, more than a hundred thousand tourists gathered on the banks of China's Qiantang river to witness an extraordinary sight: a wall of water several feet tall racing its way upriver.

While this phenomenon may look like a tsunami, it's actually a tidal bore, a wave that flows upstream in some rivers as high tide approaches. More than 80 rivers around the world have tidal bores, according to one widely-cited 1988 catalog.

What creates a tidal bore?

"Two principal factors affect the size and strength of bores ... the magnitude of the tidal range and the shape of the river at its estuary," said Victor Miguel Ponce, a professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at California's San Diego State University, in a 2005 interview with National Geographic.

Barring extreme weather conditions, bores form only when a river's mouth is shallow, uniform, and resembles a funnel. Bore-bearing rivers also need to experience large swings in water level between high tide and low tide in their estuaries, where the river and sea meet and mix.

As high tide rolls into one of these bore-prone estuaries, the influx of water becomes more confined as it moves upriver. As it encounters shallow water, the crest of the wave moves faster than its trough, sharpening its peak. Eventually, the wave breaks-and a bore is born.

Some tidal bores have global reputations for their beauty and destructive power. Each year, the U.K.'s Severn River sees some 250 bores move upriver. The Lupar Benak bore in Sarawak, Malaysia, nearly drowned the British author Somerset Maugham during a 1949 visit. And as National Geographic reported in 2005, some bores in the Amazon have become tourist attractions, as thrill-seeking surfers try to ride them upriver.

The estuary's structure is textbook bore material. The Hangzhou Bay, into which the Qiantang river empties, is more than 60 miles across at its mouth, but it narrows to a gap less than 13 miles across where it meets the Qiantang. As high tides enter the bay, they're funneled in toward the river's mouth, spawning massive high tides and especially strong tidal bores.

These walls of water pack extraordinary power. Over the years, the Qiantang's bores have constructed a massive complex of sandbars with an estimated total volume of 42.5 billion cubic meters. That's enough sand to fill a box 2.6 miles to a side.

According to CCTV, China's state-operated television network, the best time of year to see the Qiantang bore is midway through the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, which happens to fall this year during mid-October. In general, tidal bores are at their strongest during spring tides, slightly more extreme tides that occur during full and new moons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On October 6, more than a hundred thousand tourists gathered on the banks of China's Qiantang river to witness an extraordinary sight: a wall of water several feet tall racing its way upriver. While this phenomenon may look like a tsunami, it's actually a tidal bore, a wave that flows upstream in some rivers as high tide approaches.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We'll close out our look at the weirdest weather in the world with a couple of phenomena that may or may not be related and that may or may not have a perfectly logical explanation, but that definitely share a distinctly goopy set of qualities.

First, the blob rain of Oakville. In 1994, a storm passed over the little town in Washington, but instead of raindrops, it left little gelatinous blobs of... something. Resident Sunny Barclift was particularly perplexed, since her farmhouse seemed to be the epicenter of the bizarre event. When she took the rice-sized blobs to the State Department of Ecology, they found they were teeming with cells - but what kind of cells, they couldn't say. One theory that gained some popularity was that they were bits of an unlucky jellyfish, blown up by bombing drills over the ocean. You know what? Even if it's true, that's still super weird.

Or maybe they were the mysterious substance known as star jelly. Stories about the stuff go all the way back to the 14th century, when it was believed that they were left on the ground following a meteor shower. Which isn't true. Nor is it true, like 14th century scholar John of Gaddesdon claimed, that the gelatinous stuff was an effective topical solution for abscesses. But so-called "star jelly" is real - it just might not all be the same stuff. Some examples could be slime molds, which can appear quite suddenly in the grass and have a distinctly alien appearance. Others might be the oviducts of amphibians, which are often regurgitated by predators after a nice meal of fresh frog. Whatever it is, it's definitely gross.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As unpredictable as the weather can be, we generally expect it to fall within a certain range of events. But sometimes, things get downright biblical. We're talking about the weirdest weather phenomenon ever observed. Blood-red rain is only the beginning.

# data[].attributes.headline
Wealth and participation in sports in high-school

# data[].attributes.subject
Wealth and participation in sports in high-school

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
EACH YEAR, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association compiles athletic participation data from public, charter, and parochial high schools across the state. In nine out of the past 10 years, the publicized narrative about the data has been the same: that athletic participation is increasing.
But below the surface, the data reveal some alarming trends about how athletic participation is distributed town by town and city by city. While youth in high-income school districts are playing as many sports as ever, students in low-income communities are far less likely to participate in school athletics at all.

In the state's 10 poorest communities, the data show sports participation is 43 percent below the statewide average. By contrast, sports participation in the 10 wealthiest communities is 32 percent above the average. The rich-poor divide is troubling because many educators and analysts believe that participation in extracurricular activities such as sports plays a key role in academic success.

Harvard political science professor Robert Putnam, in his book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, says extracurricular activities teach students valuable soft skills such as strong work habits, self-discipline, teamwork, leadership, and a sense of civic engagement. Students engaged in sports tend to have higher grade-point averages, better work habits, and lower dropout rates, he says.

"Fifty years ago," Putnam writes in his book, "offering opportunities for all kids to take part in extracurricular activities was recognized as an important part of a public school's responsibilities to its students, their parents, and the wider community. No one talked then about soft skills, but voters and school administrators understood that football, chorus, and the debate club taught valuable lessons that should be open to all kids, regardless of their family background."

Now, as the MIAA data reveal, sports inequality is a fact of life in Massachusetts. Kids who grow up in poorer communities tend to have far less exposure to sports than their counterparts in wealthier communities, and play far fewer sports in high school. Educators from poorer communities don't view lackluster sports participation as a trifling matter. They say sports and other extracurriculars are critical to a child's development and see the lack of participation in poorer communities as another measure of the growing divide between America's haves and have-nots.

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS

The MIAA's athletic participation data is less than ideal but still revealing. The association collects from 376 schools across the state the number of students participating in each sport, but doesn't account for students playing multiple sports. So the data don't tell how many students actually played sports, only how many sports seasons were completed by students. Still, by tracking the number of seasons completed - one completed season is counted for each athlete in a sport - the MIAA provides a useful tool to analyze the level of physical activity and sports involvement at high schools around the state.

The average sports participation rate statewide during the 2014-15 school year was 78 percent for all 376 schools, meaning there were an average of 78 sport seasons completed for every 100 students. Examining the sports participation data through the lens of a community's per capita income yields interesting patterns.

In the state's 10 wealthiest communities, the average sports participation rate was 103 percent, or slightly more than one sport season per student. Only three of the 10 communities had sports participation rates less than 100 percent, with the lowest being 65 percent in Lexington. The rate in Weston, the state's wealthiest community, was 115 percent. The Dover-Sherborn district, a combination of two of the state's wealthiest communities, had the highest participation rate at 147 percent.

Six communities with per capita incomes that rank halfway between the state's high and low extremes had a collective sports participation rate of 82 percent, four points higher than the statewide average. Within the group, however, there was wide variation, ranging from a low of 53 percent in Weymouth to a high of 147 percent in East Bridgewater.

The state's 10 poorest communities had an overall sports participation rate of 44 percent. Only one of the 10, the Ralph Mahar Regional High School in Orange, topped 100 percent. None of the others cracked 80 percent; Chelsea High School was the lowest at 29 percent.

Low participation is also pervasive in the state's 11 major Gateway Cities, mid-size urban centers around the state that face stubborn socioeconomic challenges. The group includes Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Springfield, and Worcester. The average sports participation rate in the 11 communities was 48 percent. The highest participation rate was 65 percent in Haverhill; the lowest was Brockton, at 23 percent.

In most of the Gateway Cities, participation has barely grown at all since 2010. In Brockton and Lowell, the average number of sport seasons completed has actually declined over the past five years.

In the Boston Public Schools, sports participation is 35 percent, but this reflects very different rates at the city's regular district high schools and its exam schools. At the city's three exam schools, Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and O'Bryant High School, the participation rates were 69 percent, 53 percent, and 46 percent, respectively. At the city's other public high schools, the participation rates were markedly lower, generally in the mid-20 percent range.

Municipal funding plays a key role in the level of participation in sports and other extracurriculars. Many communities, faced with budget deficits, have cut funding for sports or started charging fees to play sports, both of which reduce participation. Brockton, which has a low sports participation rate, pared back its sports spending during the 2014-2015 school year to deal with a $5.7 million deficit. Marlborough last year eliminated freshman sports to deal with a budget shortfall. Nationally, some reports have suggested that 40 percent of public schools impose fees on students who participate in sports.

But educators say poverty is the real cause of declining sports participation in many communities. In wealthy towns, sports are an important part of community life. Parents sign their children up for sports leagues at very early ages and often take time off from work to coach. Businesses sponsor leagues and teams. As children get older, parents sign their children up for summer travel teams or special AAU teams. It's not uncommon for children to play their favorite sport year-round.

At high schools in wealthy communities, most sports have freshman, junior varsity, and varsity squads. Competition for varsity positions can be intense, with parents often grumbling about lack of playing time. Many parents see sports success as a key asset as their children apply to colleges.

The situation is very different in poorer communities. Parents in these communities often don't have the money or the time for sports. Ray Cosenza, the athletic director at Fitchburg High School, recalls a time when the city had three youth baseball leagues, each with at least six teams. Now, he says, there is one league with a handful of teams. The lack of a feeder system may explain why the high school's varsity baseball program had some problems fielding a team two years ago, even though the school has 1,250 students.

Football and basketball still attract large numbers of participants in poorer communities, but other sports don't fare as well. Most schools have varsity teams, but junior varsity and freshman squads are less common. There just aren't enough athletes, and those students that do try out for teams often have a lot of catching up to do in learning about the sports.

"A lot of kids we deal with come to high school and have never played a sport before," says Brad Schoonmaker, director of athletics programming for Boston Scholar Athletes, which supports athletes in the Boston Public Schools.

PROMOTING SCHOOL SPORTS

Six years ago, Andre Ravenelle saw sports participation at Fitchburg High School slipping. The band's numbers were also down. Looking around the community, says the longtime superintendent of the city's school system, it was clear that parents were struggling to make ends meet and lacking the resources to send their kids off to play on sports teams or take music lessons.

"I realized that if kids were going to learn to play sports, they were only going to learn it from us in school," says Ravenelle. "If we didn't do it, it wasn't going to happen."

So Ravenelle launched sports in middle school at a cost of $70,000 a year. At the high school, he waives the $50-per-sport fee for 70 percent of the school's athletes. He is also expanding art and music offerings, while pushing more rigorous academic programs and standards. "These are not individual initiatives," he says of the academic and extracurricular programs. "These are parallel initiatives."

Ravenelle, who has a son who pitches for a Detroit Tigers minor league team, says playing a sport is about more than just exercise. He says sports boost a school's morale, encourage civic pride, and teach students all sorts of skills they need in life. Sports also expose students to coaches who can become mentors, says Ravenelle, who is the president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents.

"There are so few areas for our kids to work as a team, learn leadership, and have role models," he says. "For a lot of our kids, sports is where they're going to succeed."

Officials at other schools and foundations are also pitching in. Boston Scholar Athletes, founded by Suffolk Construction chief John Fish, raises money to provide tutors and other academic supports to help student athletes in Boston and Springfield maintain their academic eligibility.

"There's a lot of talented athletes who can't get on the course because they don't have the grades," says Schoonmaker of Boston Scholar Athletes.

Marquis Taylor, co-founder of Boston-based Coaching4Change, is using sports in a different way to help high school students. His program targets high school students interested in sports but who aren't playing on a team. They receive mentoring help on organization skills and then use those skills to coach teams at the elementary and middle school level.

By challenging high school students to lead a team of kids, and do the organizational work behind it, Taylor's organization has had success in improving the grades of participants. In Brockton, 80 percent of students participating in the program improved their grade-point average by at least a half a point on a 4-point scale during their time with C4C, Taylor says.

Jeff Riley, who became receiver of the Lawrence public schools three years ago, says his primary focus is on improving the quality of education. But he says sports and other extracurricular activities are a key part of that effort. "I can tell you anecdotally that kids need to have these kinds of opportunities," he says. "Sports are a huge part of a child's development."

Riley launched sports intramural programs at the middle school level when he took over and is taking advantage of an expanded school day to send elementary school students to learn to swim at the YMCA and get exercise at the Boys and Girls Clubs. He is also exploring whether the Play Ball foundation, which funds middle school sports programs in Boston, could do similar work in Lawrence.

"Fundamentally, this is about fairness. We talk about the achievement gap. What about the opportunity gap?" Riley asks. "Our kids have to have the same access to the American Dream as suburban kids do."
Hari Patel is a freelance writer currently attending Columbia University.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rich-poor divide in high school sports - CommonWealth Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
EACH YEAR, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association compiles athletic participation data from public, charter, and parochial high schools across the state. In nine out of the past 10 years, the publicized narrative about the data has been the same: that athletic participation is increasing. But below the surface, the data reveal some alarming trends about(...)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mo Farah has said he wants to give back, but what about the system? Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

The contrast between the recent announcement of a decline in overall participation in sport in England and British athletes' successes in the World Championships in Beijing stands as a prime example of the differing fortunes of grassroots and elite sport.

It has become almost customary for British athletes to deliver gold medals on the global stage while, closer to home, there are no signs of improvement in long-term trends in sport participation. Current figures indicate that fewer that one in five of the adult population take part in sporting activities three or more times a week.

On the back of these figures, Tracey Crouch, the new minister for sport, has launched a public consultation to inform a new government strategy. But it would be a major surprise if the forthcoming strategy brings much deviation to the current model of elite sport development that has brought so much success. Instead, as has been the case on numerous occasions before, a major reorientation of the national approach to sport participation may be on its way as Crouch has promised to "rip up" the existing strategy and "start again"

This historical lack of continuity has contributed to the absence of any improvement in sport participation rates. However, as recent approaches to developing participation have unsuccessfully mirrored those enacted for elite sport, there may be some merit in changing tack.

Carrot and stick approach

UK Sport and Sport England, the national agencies responsible for elite and grassroots sport respectively, have both implemented top-down "carrot and stick" approaches to distributing the exchequer and National Lottery funds at their disposal. Particular sports, and specifically their individual national governing bodies, have seen their funding increased or removed depending on their success or failure in achieving set targets for the number of medals won or participation rates.

There are, however, readily identifiable reasons why this approach has proved effective in elite sport but not in grassroots sport. First of all, the setting of medal targets offers a simple and effective gauge of elite sport success, but doing so for participation is far more challenging.

Since 2005, sport participation in England has been measured through the national Active People Survey. Criticisms that this survey offers a blunt instrument upon which to base funding decisions may be one reason why Sport England have launched a further consultation on how sport participation could be better measured.

www.shutterstock.com

However, designing nationally appropriate participation measures and targets is always likely to oversimplify a complex problem. This is especially the case when taking into account issues such as a desirable frequency of participation, differences in formal and informal sport participation and natural fluctuations across seasons and time.

Diversifying funding

It is also unrealistic to expect that widespread sport participation can be developed through streamlined systems similar to those which national governing bodies - such as British Rowing - use to provide specialist support for elite athletes.

Rather, a diverse array of organisations including schools and other educational establishments, sports clubs, charities and community groups, local authorities and health agencies, all have important roles in promoting and providing opportunities for sport participation. The suggestion that the forthcoming sport strategy will diversify existing funding streams may well be of benefit to some of these organisations.

However, this diversification could also lead to increased competition for scarce funding. If so then it will only serve to reinforce the current fragmentation and lack of coordination among organisations that work to address participation.

A deeper problem?

The greatest barrier to increasing sport participation may, nevertheless, be a problem that is shared with elite sport.

As with society in general, inequality continues to be deeply entrenched across all levels of sport. For example, a disproportionate number (37%) of Team GB medal winners at the London 2012 Olympics had previously attended private schools. Unfortunately, this statistic may not concern policy makers, especially when improvements in talent identification are one reason why elite sport success is not dependent on widening the participation base.

But inequality has long plagued grassroots sport as well and, in an age of austerity, gaps in sport participation rates between lower and higher social class groups have increased.

As has been argued elsewhere, this reproduction of wider societal inequalities gives rise to depressing conclusions for those hoping that a revised strategy may help boost participation in sport. Instead, those responsible for sport policy may be relatively powerless to address significant determinants of participation that are beyond their control.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why spend so much on elite sport while neglecting the grassroots?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The contrast between the recent announcement of a decline in overall participation in sport in England and British athletes' successes in the World Championships in Beijing stands as a prime example of the differing fortunes of grassroots and elite sport.

# data[].attributes.headline
Some interesting maps of the world! Which one do you like and why?

# data[].attributes.subject
Some interesting maps of the world! Which one do you like and why?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Images from new book New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before show Earth in a unique way

Using satellite technology and modern data research, each map reveals global activity in extraordinary detail

Spanning land, sea and air, the book covers everything from linguistic diversity to Twitter relationships

The world is a complex hive of activity.

From human behaviour to animal activity and natural phenomenon, our planet is a non-stop source of physical, political and cultural movement. But, until recently, much of this was difficult to document visually.

Thankfully, with the advent of satellite technology and modern data research, this has now changed - as the stunning images from forthcoming book New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before proves.

Written by Alastair Bonnett, who's a professor of social geography at Newcastle University, it shows unique depictions of global trends.

Spanning land, sea and air, it covers everything from linguistic diversity to Twitter relationships and drug use, plus sea level variations, sugar consumption and happiness rankings.

Here, MailOnline Travel reveals 20 of the 50 fascinating maps that feature in the book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The fascinating maps that visualise the world as never before

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Images from new book New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before show Earth in a unique way Using satellite technology and modern data research, each map reveals global activity in extraordinary detail Spanning land, sea and air, the book covers everything from linguistic diversity to Twitter relationships The world is a complex hive of activity.

# data[].attributes.headline
The great sprawl of China: timelapse images reveal 30-year growth of cities

# data[].attributes.subject
The great sprawl of China: timelapse images reveal 30-year growth of cities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thirty years ago, most of these cities were barely on the map. Take the trade hub of Yiwu, pictured above. In 1985 it was home to 73,000 people; 20 years later that had risen to 1.1 million - population growth of 1,380%.

Now their staggering growth has been captured by Google's Earth Engine timelapse interactive of satellite photography from 1984 to 2016.

To identify the fastest-growing Chinese cities over that period, we used the latest UN World Urbanisation Prospects population data, and calculated the highest percentage growth from 1985-2015, filtering for cities with current estimated populations above 1 million. Below are the 10 fastest growers. Yiwu ranks No 6.

10: Linyi, Shandong

Population growth 1985-2015: 840%

1955: 22,000 people

1985: 182,000

2015: 1.7 million

The eastern city of Linyi traces its history back 2,400 years, and was the home of statesman Zhuge Liang (the creator of empty fort strategy) and master calligrapher Wang Xizhi. The city recently expanded north along the Yi river under the slogan "Grand Linyi, New Linyi".

9: Cixi, Zhejiang

Population growth 1985-2015: 960%

1955: 5,000 people

1985: 123,000

2015: 1.3 million

The city of Cixi lies on Hangzhou Bay to the south of Shanghai. It was noted for its Yue ware porcelain.

8: Zhongshan, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,100%

1955: 71,000 people

Zhongshan lies to the south of the Pearl river delta. It was named after the founding father of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, whose name is Sun Zhongshan in Mandarin Chinese.

7: Huizhou, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,250%

1955: 58,000 people

To the north of the Pearl river, Huizhou is part of a number of economic development initiatives, pushing automotive, electronic, chemicals and hi-tech industries. International investors include Sony, Coca-Cola and Siemens. Huizhou is twinned with the village of Hallstatt in Austria, and is home to a notorious copy of the Unesco World Heritage site.

6: Yiwu, Zhejiang

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,380%

Yiwu is home to a large foreign population attracted by trade opportunities and boasts the world's largest small commodities market. Its 75,000 shops and stalls supply plastic stuff for discount stores the world over: fake flowers, coloured beads, hair ties, inflatable toys, tinsel, party hats, umbrellas and 70% of the world's Christmas decorations.

5: Puning, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,520%

1955: 19,000 people

1985: 62,000

2015: 1 million

In the east of Guangdong province, Puning is famous for fruit production and textiles.

4: Suqian, Jiangsu

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,620%

1955: 1,000 people

1985: 61,000

2015: 1.1 million

Two hundred miles north of Shanghai, Suqian is first recorded in 760AD and is home to two famous spirits brands, Yanhe and Shuanggou.

3: Zhuhai, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 1,740%

1955: 5,000 people

1985: 84,000

2015: 1.5 million

Zhuhai - literally 'pearl sea' - was one of the original special economic zones. It is on a stretch of coast near Macau known as the Chinese Riviera, and has China's second largest port (behind Shenzhen).

2: Dongguan, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 3,040%

1985: 237,000

2015: 7.4 million

This former agricultural town was transformed into a manufacturing hub as part of the Pearl river development in the 1980s. It gained a reputation as China's "Sin City" and reportedly has a much higher female than male population owing to factory owners' preference for female workers.

1: Shenzhen, Guangdong

Population growth 1985-2015: 6,040%

1955: 5,000 people

1985: 175,000

2015: 10.7 million

Shenzhen's transformation from fishing village to megacity is well documented. It attracted massive investment after its designation in 1980 a China's first special economic zone. A recent survey found the city had the world's fastest growing residential property prices.
Guardian Cities is dedicating a week to the huge but often unreported cities on the front line of China's unprecedented urbanisation. Explore our coverage here and follow us on Share stories via WeChat (GuardianCities) and by using #OtherChina on Twitter and Instagram

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The great sprawl of China: timelapse images reveal 30-year growth of cities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thirty years ago, most of these cities were barely on the map. Take the trade hub of Yiwu, pictured above. In 1985 it was home to 73,000 people; 20 years later that had risen to 1.1 million - population growth of 1,380%.

# data[].attributes.headline
Population density and distribution in Brazil 

# data[].attributes.subject
Population density and distribution in Brazil 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Population density and distribution of Brazil. - A-Level Geography - Marked by Teachers.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
See our A-Level Essay Example on Population density and distribution of Brazil., Population & Settlement now at Marked By Teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
This is an big change in Saudi Arabia!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has issued a decree allowing women to drive for the first time, to the joy of activists.

The Gulf kingdom is the only country in the world that bans women from driving.

Until now, only men were allowed licences and women who drove in public risked being arrested and fined.

Praise for the move has been pouring in from inside Saudi Arabia, as well as around the world. US President Donald Trump said it was a "positive step" towards promoting women's rights.

Campaigner Sahar Nassif told the BBC from Jeddah that she was "very, very excited - jumping up and down and laughing".

"I'm going to buy my dream car, a convertible Mustang, and it's going to be black and yellow!"

What happens now?

A ministerial body will be set up to give advice within 30 days

The royal order will be implemented by 24 June 2018

The country's US ambassador, Prince Khaled bin Salman, confirmed that women would not have to get male permission to take driving lessons, and would be able to drive anywhere they liked.

He said it was "an historic and big day" and "the right decision at the right time".

What has the road to reform been like?

Rights groups in the kingdom have campaigned for years to allow women to drive, and some women have been imprisoned for defying the rule.

Saudi woman live-tweets her arrest for driving

Is Saudi Arabia on the cusp of change?

Because of the law, many families have had to employ private drivers to help transport female relatives.

Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who was detained for 73 days in 2014 for flouting the ban, tweeted "thank God" following the announcement.

What was the reaction?

The move was welcomed by the US state department, which called it "a great step in the right direction".

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres echoed that sentiment.

Manal al-Sharif, an organiser of the Women2Drive campaign who has also been imprisoned for driving, said on Twitter that Saudi Arabia would "never be the same again".

The hashtags "I am my own guardian" and "Saudi Women Can Drive" quickly gained traction on social media.

Image Copyright @manal_alsharif @manal_alsharif Report

Image Copyright @manal_alsharif @manal_alsharifReport

Not everyone reacted positively, however, with conservative voices accusing the government of "bending the verses of Sharia".

"As far as I remember, Sharia scholars have said it was haram (forbidden) for women to drive. How come it has suddenly become halal (permissible)?" one critic tweeted.

Others emphasised that despite the latest development, Saudi Arabia remains a long way off gender equality.

Amnesty International's Philip Luther said it was "just one step", adding: "We also need to see a whole range of discriminatory laws and practices swept away in Saudi Arabia."

Analysis: A massive change for Saudi society
By Frank Gardner, BBC News
This decree is huge for Saudi Arabia. For decades now, Saudi women, many of whom are extremely well-educated and ambitious, have been waiting for their chance to participate fully in their country's economy.

For all this time families have had to stretch their budgets to the limit, as they have had to hire in imported chauffeurs from south and south-east Asia, house them, feed them and insure them.

An estimated 800,000 foreign chauffeurs currently ferry Saudi women around. The reason it has taken so long is the long-standing opposition from religious conservatives, who have expressed views varying from "they are too stupid to drive" to "it will lead to intolerable mingling of the sexes".

Yet this decree is in line with a programme called Vision 2030, promoted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to modernise Saudi society and bring it more into line with the rest of the world.

Lifestyle limits remain for Saudi women

Saudi law enforces a strict form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism and is known for its gender segregation rules.

Saudi girls' council launched - by men

Saudi women's rights video goes viral

Women have to adhere to strict dress codes, must not associate with unrelated men, and if they want to travel, work or access healthcare they must be accompanied by - or receive written permission from - a male guardian.

The kingdom recently faced a backlash from conservatives on social media after allowing women to participate in Saturday's National Day celebrations for the first time.

The festivities included fireworks, light shows and a concert in King Fahd International Stadium in the capital, Riyadh.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has issued a decree allowing women to drive for the first time, to the joy of activists. The Gulf kingdom is the only country in the world that bans women from driving. Until now, only men were allowed licences and women who drove in public risked being arrested and fined.

# data[].attributes.headline
Saudi Arabia -Stage 3 of Butler's Model???

# data[].attributes.subject
Saudi Arabia -Stage 3 of Butler's Model???

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

Reuse content

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Saudi Arabia says it's turning 50 islands into luxury tourism resorts not subject to conservative kingdom's rules

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.headline
Terrorism does not deter international tourism

# data[].attributes.subject
Terrorism does not deter international tourism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Odds are your city or town is haunted.

Just about every city has some supposedly haunted mansion, cemetery or lunatic asylum ("if you listen carefully to the wind on moonless nights, you can hear the screams of the insane..."). Most cities, in fact, have at least one company offering tours of their spookiest places.

Ghost tourism has boomed over the past decade, propelled by the public's interest in the mysterious and supernatural. There are hundreds of ghost tours offered across the country, from Hollywood ("Come see Haunted Hollywood and ghosts of the stars!") to New England ("Visit Boston's infamous haunted locales!").

Some places have more historical lore to draw upon than others. Salem, Massachusetts, for example, exploits its infamous witch trials of the 1690s, while tourists, goths, wannabe vampires, and Anne Rice fans flock to New Orleans, Louisiana, with its reputation for mysticism and voodoo.

Ghost hunting

Many tours tout their guides as " Certified Ghost Hunters" or "Certified Paranormal Investigators," though that's like claiming to be a "Certified Kitten Petter." For better or worse (usually worse), anyone can call himself or herself a ghost hunter; there is no accrediting institution, and "certifications" can be bought from online diploma mills for about $50.

Ghost tours can be a very lucrative business: It is a service with little overhead and start-up costs. Anyone can offer a ghost tour, and tickets often cost $10 to $30 or more per person. With a large group, a good storyteller can make $500 in one evening for guiding a walking tour and telling ghost stories. Everyone likes a good ghost story, and the tours can be fun. The best ones tell their audiences about fascinating local history, throwing in some spooky lore as well.

Tours are often run by self-proclaimed ghost hunters, but no one should confuse telling folklore with doing actual investigation. Ghost tours are one way in which the public learns about "real" ghost hunting, with many companies giving a "Ghost Hunting 101" course or talk along the way.

Reality

Unfortunately, much of what is taught (such as that spirit voices can be captured on audiotape, or that ghosts can be detected using electromagnetic fields) is unproven theory without any scientific basis. Most guides invite participants to take plenty of photos on the tour, and see if any "ghost orbs" (white spots) appear in the images.

If enough people take enough photos, usually a few will show something that looks odd, fooling the photographer into thinking a ghost has been photographed. What the tours often don't tell the customers is that these "orbs" could be any number of perfectly ordinary things such as insects, dust, or moisture on the camera lens.

So this Halloween, if there's a chill in the air and you want a chill in your spine, check out the local legends and lore-for entertainment only!

Frightening Features

More Scary Stuff

Benjamin Radford is LiveScience's Bad Science columnist and an investigator. He has written several articles about ghosts and ghost hunting for LiveScience.com. He is author or co-author of three books; they can be found on his website.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Odds are your city or town is haunted. Just about every city has some supposedly haunted mansion, cemetery or lunatic asylum ("if you listen carefully to the wind on moonless nights, you can hear the screams of the insane..."). Most cities, in fact, have at least one company offering tours of their spookiest places.

# data[].attributes.headline
Miami reopening tourism after Hurricane Irma

# data[].attributes.subject
Miami reopening tourism after Hurricane Irma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For those who don't live in Florida, Miami may - to them - look a little something like this right now: A vast swampland, devastated by Hurricane Irma, where residents live in the dark and take boats down its flooded roadways.

One Twitter user called the imagined assault of Hurricane Irma on the region "one of our country's biggest disasters in history." The city is flooded, said user @serenabeena in a now-deleted tweet. Several concerned would-be tourists want to know if Miami will recover by December. One traveler even thought Hurricane Maria had passed through Miami, "or passing through - not sure if Maria is affecting Miami," she amended via parenthetical on TripAdvisor.

And some runners coming for the Miami Marathon in January - four full months after Irma's passage - expect to be swimming in the streets instead of sprinting. Their calls were enough to raise alarm, said marathon co-founder Frankie Ruiz.

"Between the imagery of the storm showing that it took over all of Florida, people were thinking if Jacksonville lost power, Miami should be like an nuclear bomb dropped down there. I'm pretty sure Miami is no longer there," Ruiz said of the perception issues now plaguing Miami-Dade's tourism industry.

South Florida hotels and attractions were largely spared by Irma, but the $25 billion Miami-Dade tourism industry now has to focus on rehabilitating its image - a greater challenge in the social-media age than during storms of the past. Twitter was little more than an idea, let alone a website, in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma pummeled the area.

Ruiz said perception challenges have forced the marathon to create a new marketing campaign, called It's Not Miami Without You, to encourage travelers to return to the region. Part of the plan is to put out current images of the county to show it's not a storm-ravaged wasteland.

And while Ruiz expects the marathon to go as planned despite the storm-related inquiries, it's important for the local tourism industry that it does. The marathon draws more than 22,000 runners, 67 percent of them from outside Miami-Dade County, and had an economic impact of about $43 million this year.

The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau has been running all out with a message of a recovered and open-for-business Miami. The tourism bureau launched an "unprecedented value-offer promotion" this week through Oct. 31 that combines six of its monthly deal promotions: Miami Spice, Miami Spa, Miami Hotel, Miami Attractions, Miami Museums and Shop Miami Month.

"Our response had to be proportional and bold to blunt the misconception that was out there that we weren't open for business," said Rolando Aedo, chief marketing officer for the bureau. "We did feel that urgency at looking at the social media buzz and media coverage. And we did work more quickly than ever and more aggressively than ever."

Our response had to be proportional and bold to blunt the misconception that was out there that we weren't open for business.

Rolando Aedo, chief marketing officer for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau

Aedo said the marketing arm is doubling its effort to target business travelers because meeting planners who schedule visits to Miami often more than a year in advance are more susceptible to possible disruptions in the region.

So far, no meetings have canceled, outside of the Miami International Auto Show, which canceled its expo for the first time in nearly 50 years after Irma swept through Miami-Dade just days before the car show was set to open. Because the show draws many locals, Aedo said he doesn't expect it to impact tourism in a measurable way.

The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau is up to much of the same, extending its Spa tember and CraveGFL promotions through Oct. 15, rather ending Sept. 30. Just two days after the passage of Irma, Fort Lauderdale put out press releases saying greater Fort Lauderdale's tourism industry "rebounds after Hurricane Irma" featuring a photo of a wind-swept but otherwise unblemished beach.

The malice of Irma

Despite the aggressive marketing, the region's tourism industry has taken a hit.

Airlines and cruise lines are expected to have lost millions of dollars due to canceled flights, closed airports and seaports, in addition to relief efforts that led cruise lines to cancel sailings and send rescue ships to the Caribbean. Some airlines also capped fares for evacuees, creating another potential loss, experts said. Hurricane Harvey cost United Airlines alone an estimated $150 million. (The airline's second largest hub is in Houston.)

"Airlines lose hundreds of millions of dollars when hurricanes come," said Seth Kaplan, managing partner at trade publication Airline Weekly. "Irma is going to be somewhere in the hundreds of millions [of dollars] for airlines."

Irma is going to be somewhere in the hundreds of millions [of dollars] for airlines.

Seth Kaplan, managing partner at trade publication Airline Weekly

Major tourist attractions, including Zoo Miami, Jungle Island and the Miami Seaquarium, plan to remain closed as they pick up debris and repair damage until at least October, though none of the three have announced a set reopening date. The museums, Coral Castle, the Deering Estate and Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens have already reopened.

A handful of hotels remain closed after the storm with opening dates also slated for October, including The Raleigh, the Tides and the Ritz Carlton South Beach. But hotel expert Scott Berman said he expects several other properties are not functioning at normal levels, and may have rooms or areas of the hotel out of order.

"I can tell by the way my phone is ringing that there is quite a bit of business disruption and there will be a lot of hotels filing insurance claims around this disaster," said Berman, Miami-based industry leader for hospitality and leisure at PwC.

Many properties are also offering discounted rates as the region returns to normalcy, hoping cheap rooms will be a magnet for potential visitors, a practice Berman said is essential in the rebuilding effort.

"It had to be done because they needed to send a message to the marketplace that we are open," he said.

In the days before and immediately after Irma, South Florida's hotel performance took a steep nose dive.

In Miami-Dade, the number of room nights sold dipped as low as 40 to 60 percent below the same time last year, according to data analytics firm STR. Revenue and occupancy dropped by a similar measure.

But there ares some signs of recovery: Hotel rooms are filling up again to pre-Irma levels. After hotels reached a hurricane-induced occupancy low of 27 percent during Irma, by Sept. 16 they returned to usual levels at nearly 72 percent occupancy. Room nights sold and revenue were trending just about 2 to 5 percentage points behind the same time last year.

In Broward, the impact on the hotel industry was even slighter, with occupancy dropping to 42 percent at the lowest point in the storm, and trending back up to 76 percent Sept. 16, the most recent date for which data is available. Demand is now about flat with last year and revenue is up, by more than 14 percent on average last weekend.

In the long term, Berman expects Miami-Dade to actually experience a bump in tourism because so many resort destinations in the Keys, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other areas of the Caribbean will be offline due to storm damage that, in some places, was catastrophic.

"In a perverse way, it can be beneficial," Berman said.

This time next year though, travelers may still remember what was a seemingly unrelenting hurricane season that began with Harvey in Texas and, the region hopes, will be bookended by Maria in the Caribbean.

"I feel there is going to be a follow up period where people will say, 'Hurricane season? Why would I do my wedding in Miami then?' " said travel expert Terry Fisher. "You might see a change in tourism patterns."

Rebuilding the Keys

Most of all, Fisher fears, small businesses will suffer during the recovery period - especially in the Florida Keys.

"For airlines to have airplanes stuck and the planes can't fly out, for hotels to lose that revenue, that's pretty significant," said Fisher, CEO if concierge and destination guise companies Mapperarti and DigiMapps. "But for the small businesses, it could wipe them out."

For the small businesses, it could wipe them out.

Travel expert Terry Fisher

In the Keys, officials are still discouraging visitors from traveling to the area, setting a targeted reopening date of Oct. 20 - just in time for Key West's annual costume street party Fantasy Fest. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Silver Airways have resumed commercial service to Key West International Airport and Royal Caribbean International plans to call in Key West with Empress of the Seas on Sunday. Many hotels have reopened or plan to reopen by Oct. 1, while others are waiting for the official Oct. 20 opening date to get online again, and others still are in disrepair.

Mike Borguss, grandson of the founder of the family-owned Dolphins Plus attractions in Key Largo, said some properties are a year or even two away from reopening again. The damage increases further south in the Keys.

One of his properties, Dolphins Plus Oceanside in Key Largo, suffered five to six feet of storm surge to the first floor of the swim-with-dolphins attraction's main building. Five commercial refrigerators and two commercial freezers, priced between $10,000 and $18,000, were lost. Another 10,000 pounds of fish for the attraction's eight dolphins will be given away as chum.

But Dolphins Plus is lucky, he said, because its Dolphins Plus Bayside facility further north in Key Largo was largely unscathed, and the resources there can be used to provide vet services and meals for the dolphins at Oceanside. Still, construction at an upscale hotel project near the Bayside location more than 10 years in the works will be delayed, putting another blip on the Borguss' radar screen.

In the Keys, officials are still discouraging visitors from traveling to the area, setting a targeted reopening date of Oct. 20.

While Borguss expects to start welcoming a small trickle of visitors from the mainland to the Oceanside facility in the coming weeks, it will be long before it's operating at full capacity, and welcoming Florida Keys tourists.

"Only time will tell," Borguss said. "We are playing guessing game and trying to do our best to survive."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tourism industry to visitors: Don't #prayforMiami. We're fine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A perception of a destroyed Miami post-Hurricane Irma is keeping some visitors away from the region as tourism leaders work to spread a message of a back-to-normal Miami. In the Keys, the impact of Irma is expected to seriously impact the region's key industry - and its small business players.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Visiting a volcano comes with all the dangers of climbing a mountain, and then some.

Worldwide, more tourists are exploring volcanoes, but they can encounter surprise eruptions, toxic gas emissions - think misty clouds of hydrochloric acid - and scalding water, points out in the April issue of EARTH Magazine, published by the American Geosciences Institute.

More than 100 million people visit volcanic sites globally every year. About 2 million people visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home of the Kilauea volcano, every year. But between 1992 and 2002 at the Hawaiian park, 40 people died, 45 were seriously injured and 53 received minor injuries. Since then, incidents have decreased, according to the article, written by Sara E. Pratt. [ Images: Mt. Kilauea Erupts]

One of the more exotic threats associated with volcanoes is toxic gas. In addition to the gases the lava itself emits, such as sulfur dioxide and hydrofluoric acid, the lava can interact with seawater to produce what is called laze, or lava haze in the form of highly corrosive hydrochloric acid, which has claimed lives at the Hawaiian park.

Volcanoes are receiving more attention as a result of geotourism, an offshoot of ecotourism, and thanks to tourists seeking adventure. A survey at the Hawaiian park, with resulst published in 2004, revealed many tourists were unprepared to for standard hiking conditions, and 93 percent admitted to venturing past warning signs. Another study, published in 2006 by the same researcher, Travis Heggie, found that of 5,947 incident reports recorded in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park between Jan. 1, 1993 and Dec. 31, 2002, 53 percent of all visitor injuries took place at the park's eruption site; and of the 1,698 severe injuries, 69 percent occurred at the eruption site.

No international safety guidelines exist, but experts say U.S. parks, particularly Hawaii, have the best safety strategies, according to the article.

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Wynne Parry on Twitter @Wynne_Parry. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tourist visits to volcanoes are increasing, but visitors are often disregarding the risks, both mundane and dramatic, that come with these trips, according to EARTH magazine.

# data[].attributes.headline
Explains ethane tourism with the Jarawa tribe

# data[].attributes.subject
Explains ethane tourism with the Jarawa tribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tribes and tribulations: the rise of ethno-tourism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our increasing demand for adventure is pushing back the frontiers of tourism, but is it also posing a threat to tribal people? John Vidal investigates

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sub Units ​ 1. Population and economic development patterns ​ 2. Changing populations and places 3. Challenges and opportunities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sustainable Development Goals: Improve Life All Around The Globe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Sustainable Development Goals: Improve Life All Around The Globe" is a hip hop music video that was produced by Flocabulary in partnership with the Education Outreach Section of the Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information.

# data[].attributes.body
These online textbooks are useful if you have access to an ipad/kindle - they do cost but good value for money and will help add to your notes. I will paste the specific ones for the topics you need below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Planet Geography is a set of 10 books written specifically to meet the needs of the new IB Diploma Geography syllabus (first examinations in 2019).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introduction: Population explosion is not only a problem in India; it has reached a menacing proportion all over the world, especially in the poorer countries.

The population of India was around 361 million during the census of 1951. It reached over 1.21 billion during the census of 2011.

The developed countries in the West or in countries like Japan which are rich enough to employ all their people according to their abilities the growth of population may prove to be a boon, for the rapid growth of industries and national wealth always need greater workforce to implement the programs of development in ever-expanding spheres. However, a developing country like India, where the resources and employment opportunities are limited, the rapid increase in population during the post-independent has negatively affected its economy.

Meaning

Population Explosion refers the sudden and rapid rise in the size of population, especially human population. It is an unchecked growth of human population caused as a result of:

increased birth rate,

decreased infant mortality rate, and

improved life expectancy.

A drastic growth in population beyond normal limits is called population explosion. It is more prominent in under-developed and developing countries than in developed countries.

Population explosion mainly refers to the surge in population post-World War II. However, in context to India, it refers to the rapid increase in population in post-Independent era.

Also read: Short Paragraph on Population Explosion

Causes

The causes of population explosion are as follows:

Accelerating birthrate: Due to lack of awareness about the positive impact of using birth-control method, there has been a steady growth in birthrate.

Decrease in infant mortality rate: An improvement in medical science and technology, wide usage of preventive drugs (vaccines), has reduced the infant mortality rate. There has been great improvement in medical and health-care facilities during the past few decades.

Increase in life expectancy: Due to improved living conditions, better hygiene and sanitation habits, better nutrition, health education, etc. the average life expectancy of human population has improved significantly. Steady supply of good quality food make sure that the population is well nourished. Populations grow when they are adequately nourished.

Increased immigration: An increase in immigration often contributes towards population explosion, particularly in developed countries. It happens when a large number arrive at an already populated place with the intention to reside permanently.

Less space than required: In urban cities, it is often found that there is very less scope for making available extra space to absorb the additional population. In such cases, a large population is seen packed into a smaller space.

Effects

The effects of population explosion in India are as follows:

Over-population: Population explosion may lead to overpopulation, i.e., a condition where population surges to a level that the earth cannot accommodate comfortably, and poses a threat to the environment.

Unemployment: In developing countries like India, with a backward economy and little scope for fruitful employment, millions of people find no work to do. The unemployed, having nothing to do and without an ensured living, are left frustrated and demoralize, losing their faith in life itself. As it happens in India and several underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa, the unemployed threatens the very process of development and plunge the country in gloom. It is only natural. Those who are born with two hands consider it a curse when they are denied the simple right to work and earn a living. While their numbers go on multiplying and the growth rate becomes menacing, the fruits of development are found to be too inadequate to bridge the yawning gulf.

Poverty: High birth rate, both historically and statistically, is associated with poverty and low standard of living. It may be noted that poverty is both the cause and effect of population explosion. Due to poverty, there has been massive growth of population. On the other hand, the large masses of people live in poverty due to overpopulation.

It may sound queer, but the law is that the poorer a country the greater is the growth rate of its population. India, caught in the morass of her age-old poverty, finds herself in the midst of a population explosion. The population that was less than 400 million in the forties was found to be about 1.21 billion in 2011 census. As a result of this even the six plans completed by now have so far failed to cope with the enormous problem of unemployment.

Whatever our plans might have achieved in some sixty-five years is found to be too little to eradicate poverty. More than seventy percent of Indians live in villages and most of them languish in their dark, dreary nooks; the fruits of our plans have not quite reached them. Many of them have no occupation. Due to lack of awareness, poor people fail to check population growth. In the towns too the poorer sections always have bigger families, while the rich and well-off sections live comfortably with small families. The poor in India are ignorant and superstitious, and so they do not see the advantages of planned family. Many of them never think of going against the law of nature and the will of their God; so they never refrain from breeding children, though they know that they cannot even feed them and keep them away from the curse of poverty and ignorance. Perhaps the sickening monotony of living in their world of despair leads them to torment their women with a vengeance and seek as much pleasure as they can. These poor people do not have the education necessary for planning their present with a view to ensuring a better future. This is why while their hope wears off they leap in the dark and break their neck, making things grimmer for their world. The millions of famished, under-nourished and naked children everywhere in India show the chaos this country is in.

Illiteracy: The resources available are fixed. In theory and in practice, the total available resources are shared by the people using them. Population explosion is the key reason for illiteracy in India. People prefer engage their children in economic activities, rather than providing them education.

Poor Health: If people do not get adequate food and nutrition, then they may suffer from poor health.

Economy: People need food, clothes, shelter, and occupation to make their living. The demand for consumption should never exceed the production or resource limit. The economy of any country is negatively impacted, if there is massive population explosion beyond the tolerance limit.

Pollution and Global warming: Too much population causes too much pressure on earth. There arises excessive demand for finished products leading to over-industrialization and over-utilization of resources. The industrial discharges, and fumes are the chief causes for water and air pollution. Further, the poisonous gases released because of burning of fossil fuels in factories is widely responsible for Global warming.

Control Measures / Initiatives

The government cannot ignore or shelve the problem of population explosion, for it is a rot and entire development of the country depends on how effectively it is stemmed. This awareness made our governments, both at the centre and in the states, to think about the adopt official programme to educate public opinion and reduce the birth rate so that the population can fit in well with the evolving pattern of developing economy.

The Family Planning as an official programme was launched with much fanfare in 1952. The government is still trying to educate the people. All government agencies and institutions mobilized all their resources to attain the goal of planned families. The propaganda machinery was geared up with the help of public media. The people were reminded of the advantages of small families, of healthy and happy children and of the need for eradicating the age-old poverty. The parents were persuaded to go in for sterilization after the births of two children, for the contraceptive were not always found to be safe and full-proof. Many parents, especially the educated, came forward to see things in the new light and were amenable to persuasion. However, many others resisted, at places quite violently, and refused to see reason. The government was very serious about making the programme a success. The state governments also came forward to help the center in its bid to achieve success. Cheap contraceptives were distributed in even the remotest villages, sex education was popularized, vasectomy operations were conducted and abortion was legalized.

However, even then family planning has a lot more to achieve, for the population in India has already become about 121 billion and at this rate of growth it may very soon become 150 billion and then 200 billion and so on.

The problem of population can be solved only by creating awareness and educating the people to control birthrates. The advantages of adopting to various birth control methods should be properly explained to common people.

Conclusion: Population explosion has caused more pressure on earth. We should save energy so that the entire population can enjoy its benefit. We can control the global warming issues by curbing the usage of fossil fuels. Food security is another area that need attention. The agricultural output should increase with growing population to make sure steady supply of food to all. We should use potable water carefully. With larger population, there is a need for harmony and peace among nations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Population Explosion in India: Meaning, Causes, Effects, and Control Mesures - Important India

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Introduction: Population explosion is not only a problem in India; it has reached a menacing proportion all over the world, especially in the poorer countries. The population of India was around 361 million during the census of 1951. It reached over 1.21 billion during the census of 2011.

# data[].attributes.body
A problem that happens all over the world, especially in poorer countries is population explosion. An example of a country that has experienced this is India, where the population was approximately 361 million during the census of 1951, and by 2011 it dramatically increased and has reached around 1.21 billion people in the nation.
HIC’s, taking Japan for instance, have the money to be able to employ all their people, whilst on the other hand India being a developing country employment opportunities and resources are very limited, making it hard to employ everyone.
The meaning of the term 'population explosion’ is the sudden rise of human population. This can be caused by increased birth rate, decreased infant mortality rate and improved life expectancy. This is more likely to occur in developing countries rather than developed countries. Other examples include increased immigration. Large quantities of people are constantly coming into countries to there live permanently, therefore contributing to the ‘population explosion’, dramatically increasing and adding to the population overall.
Due to these dramatic population increases, this highly affects the country. Firstly, this will obviously lead to overpopulation which can lead to unemployment rates rises as well. It may be hard to find a decent job, as there are so many people who are taking up those jobs. One of the most common effect is poverty, which may relate to high birth rate. There are going to be more needs and wants, there might be an exhaust in resources, leading to a poor lifestyle and therefore may force to live in poverty. In addition, due to overpopulation people prefer to have their children be involved in the economy rather than getting an education. Next poor health is a big effect, relating to the lack of resources, people may suffer from hunger due to lack of good nutrition. Lastly, a big population can have a big toll on the earth's environment due to more use of things like fossil fuels.
The Family Planning is an official programme, launched in 1952. They have a plan to educate people on the advantages of having a smaller, healthier family, hopefully to try and decrease population in the future, and are reminded that they should be well educated.
To conclude, population explosion has affected the earth dramatically, and we need to learn to help reduce the further effects of this problem. We need to learn to use our resources more effectively and conserve energy that we need for our future.

# data[].attributes.body
Population explosion is the huge increase in a population of an area. The article that was given talks about how are people affected by it through examining its causes and at the same time offering standard measures to reduce population explosion. Firstly, the article has chosen to make India (second most populated country in the world) which encapsulates 1.324 billion people. However, during the year 1951, it only had 361million people living in the country. Generally speaking, developed countries tend to not experience population explosion since it is rich enough to provide job opportunities and most people have been educated about family planning. Although, in developing countries such as India and most countries in Asia and Africa, there isn’t an abundance of jobs leaving a lot of people unemployed and uneducated. This may spark the events of population explosion which creates its causes like accelerated birth rates; this is because most people in developing countries aren’t aware of birth-control methods. Also, due to increasing life expectancy and the decline in infant mortality rate which is all because of healthcare and advancement in medication. All of which and much more causes (immigration, urbanisation, etc.) result in the effects of population explosion such as overpopulation, which also results in unemployment rates increasing since the country can’t make a lot of job opportunities. In addition, the causes may be a factor affecting the rates of poverty, and generally the poorer a country the higher its birth rate and growth rate, therefore limiting and exhausting some supplies which people have no choice but to live in poverty. In my opinion, this somehow becomes a vicious cycle that population explosion gives. Since there is overpopulation it leads to unemployment which leads to illiteracy and uneducated individuals and an increase in growth rates, then the cycle repeats itself. That is why it is vital that the government promotes family planning to remove or erase the scourge of leaving people unaware and blindly living in poverty.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1951 the population of India was around 361 million. now , it reaches over 1.21 billion. Population explosion means a sudden increase in population in a certain area. While developed countries like Japan are able to take care of this problem, developing countries like India are often unable to. Population explosion can often have negative effects on the country.
Population explosion is caused by many things: accelerating birthrate (lack in use of birth control), decrease in infant mortality and increased life expectancy(modern medical technology), increased immigration(people moving to urban areas in a search for a job) and less space required to house a certain amount of people(buildings and skyscrapers in urban areas).
It also has many effects: overpopulation, unemployment (businesses can not create enough jobs to cover the need for them), poverty(due to high unemployment and lack of family planning), illiteracy (children are often not provided with education), poor health (due to poverty), pollution and  global warming (over-industrialization and overuse of resources), lastly, economy as whole is negatively affected.
The government of India is trying to overcome this problem. The Family Planning program was launched in 1952. The government is trying to tell the people that it is more comfortable to live with a small family. Also people are constantly reminded that children need to be educated as well. Parents are persuaded to go for sterilization after having 2 children so there is no unplanned pregnancies. Cheap contraceptives are distributed all over India to try and prevent the population growth.
Overall, the population explosion has created pressure on Earth. To be able to comfortably live, population needs to stop rising so rapidly, otherwise there will not be enough resources for everyone.

# data[].attributes.body
Population Explosion is a problem that has impacted poor countries (such as India) in a negative way. The meaning of Population Explosion is the rapid and sudden rise of a population. Developed countries are able to handle these situations better than developing countries which will usually affect its economy. Japan (a highly developed country) are rich enough to employ all their people which means that the increasing in population will give a positive impact on the economy which contrasts with India as they bring a negative impact to their economy. The article gives us statistics on how drastic the growth of population was on India showing that in 1951 it was around 361 million people whereas in 2011 it has reached 1.21 billion. It also shows us the causes of such rapid population growth. These causes are accelerating birth rate, decrease in infant mortality, increase in life expectancy, increased immigration and that there is less space than required. All of these causes have led up to the population explosion which has made India the 2nd largest country in our world. All these causes have had a negative impact to the country. The most obvious effect is that the country is over-populated which gives a threat to the environment. Furthermore, these causes have led to a massive amount of unemployment leaving millions having no work to do which then leads to Poverty ,which can be one of the reasons why the population has exploded. Living in poverty has made the people uneducated and blinded into having a better future. Also pollution and global warming are increased because of mass population which puts so much pressure on the Earth. Other factors such as Literacy, Health and the Economy are badly impacted. The economy have tried and help the people by launching The Family Planning program in 1952 which hasn't helped much as the population is too big and will continue to grow. In conclusion, population explosion has made earth in a lot of pressure which we wont be able to undo. In order to keep the planet safe we should all help and make peace with one another in order for us and the future generation to keep living.

# data[].attributes.body
Population explosion is the fast growth in population, in particular human population, which is caused by accelerated birth rate (due to lack of education about birth control), a decline in the infant mortality rate (due to medical advances), more immigration (however, this is mostly in HICs), lack of space and improved life expectancy (due to a higher quality of life). It is a worldwide problem, but LICs are more affected by it as they have a limited amount of jobs and resources and therefore their economy is negatively affected by this population explosion. For example, India's population increased from 361 in 1951 to over 1.21 billion in 2011. In India, the effects of population explosion are over-population (which negatively affects the environment), unemployment (due to limited work opportunities and a bad economy and which may stop the country from developing), poverty (due to a high birth rate caused by a lack of awareness) which is also a cause of population explosion, illiteracy (because parents want their children to work and make money instead of go to school), poor health (caused by a lack of food), a bad economy (because there's more demand for resources than supply) and pollution and global warming (because there are too many people, demand exceeds the resource limit and gases from the factories cause pollution). An initiative by the government called the Family Planning program was made in 1952 and is attempting to educate people about the benefits of having a small planned family with healthy children and get rid of poverty. Educated parents were persuaded but others rejected the program. State governments helped the program by giving out contraceptives, ensuring people have sex education and allowing abortions and vasectomies. To solve this problem, education is needed to explain why birth rates should be controlled and why people should use different types of birth control.

# data[].attributes.headline
Population Explosion in india: Meaning, Causes, Effects and control measure. (summarised) - JasminPopulation Explosion is when there is a sudden, rapid rise in population. This generally occurs in Under developed countries such as india. In the forties india had a population of 400 million however it was said in 2011 the population was 1.12 billion and is still growing with an estimate that in soon years the population will grow to 150 billion and more.The main Causes of Population explosion are as follows; High birth rates. Low death rates. People are immigrating to already densely populated ares. Good food supply and limited space and areas of living.This can affect counties such as india in ways such as Over-population. This can pose as a threat to the environment and cannot accommodate the population comfortably. It can also increase Unemployment meaning that families struggle to earn for their already big families therefore struggling to leave the circle of poverty. Because of poverty there has been a mass in population, however there are large masses of people living in poverty, due to overpopulation. As well as this families are preferring to involve there children in economic activities rather than providing an education for them for there own benefit. This can also affect the country and result in poor health as they cannot acquire  good nutrition and food. People need food, water, clothes for life and there is a negative impact on the country, if the tolerance level is exceeded. Global warming and pollution are huge factors within population explosion. The more population, the more demand for excessive goods and services leading to over industrialisation.The Government has awareness of this issue, and a Family Planning was launched in 1952. The government is still today trying to educate people with important things such as ‘sex ed.’ The idea was to help remind the public of the advantages to smaller families with happier, healthier children in attempt of eradicating child poverty. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Population Explosion in india: Meaning, Causes, Effects and control measure. (summarised) - JasminPopulation Explosion is when there is a sudden, rapid rise in population. This generally occurs in Under developed countries such as india. In the forties india had a population of 400 million however it was said in 2011 the population was 1.12 billion and is still growing with an estimate that in soon years the population will grow to 150 billion and more.The main Causes of Population explosion are as follows; High birth rates. Low death rates. People are immigrating to already densely populated ares. Good food supply and limited space and areas of living.This can affect counties such as india in ways such as Over-population. This can pose as a threat to the environment and cannot accommodate the population comfortably. It can also increase Unemployment meaning that families struggle to earn for their already big families therefore struggling to leave the circle of poverty. Because of poverty there has been a mass in population, however there are large masses of people living in poverty, due to overpopulation. As well as this families are preferring to involve there children in economic activities rather than providing an education for them for there own benefit. This can also affect the country and result in poor health as they cannot acquire  good nutrition and food. People need food, water, clothes for life and there is a negative impact on the country, if the tolerance level is exceeded. Global warming and pollution are huge factors within population explosion. The more population, the more demand for excessive goods and services leading to over industrialisation.The Government has awareness of this issue, and a Family Planning was launched in 1952. The government is still today trying to educate people with important things such as ‘sex ed.’ The idea was to help remind the public of the advantages to smaller families with happier, healthier children in attempt of eradicating child poverty. 

# data[].attributes.body
Developing countries such as India now face the crisis of a 'population  explosion'. This means that the population has increased dramatically over a short period of time in a . In this case the population of India increased from 361 million to  1.21 billion in just the span of 60 years.
On the other hand, more economically developed countries such as Japan are facing the opposite problem which is a decline in population. This can be blamed on the fact that Japan manages to employ most of their people resulting in less of a want/ need to have a family and make children, hence, a population decline.
It is believed that the main reasons for a population explosion are increased birth rates and higher life expectancy. This means that people are having more children even though life expectancy has been improved resulting in a surplus of people. Also, with under-developed countries like India there is a lack of awareness concerning sex education which could have led to poor family planning. However this might be because majority of people have strong religious belief and do not want to submit to family planning therefore they choose to keep making children. Another reason could be that immigration has increased (however this mainly implies to developed countries) because the immigrants will add to the already growing population and cause it to overflow. One of the consequences of population explosion is over-population. Urban areas where many jobs are available will be packed with people and could potentially threaten the environment. Another effect is that with so many people looking for a job, unemployment levels will be very high. This could result in a lot of people ending up homeless and in poverty. Lastly, another major effect would be that the environment will face pollution as deterioration as it can't cope with all the human activities occurring at such a large scale.

# data[].attributes.body
Population Explosion is defined as a sudden rise in the population of a given country.
Developed countries are able to handle the position better than the less developed countries like india which are experiencing this "Population Explosion" in an unfavourable manner. which means its population has drastically risen in a short span of time
In contrary, Japan (A developed country) is Indias exact opposite as they are wealthy enough to have the ability to provide jobs and employ people which imply that an increase in population cause a positive impact on the economy instead.
Judging from the article provided, India have reached 1.21 billion in population in 2011 from 360 million in 1951, which is approximately 760 million births in over 60 years!
This crisis india is facing causes a lot of effect in their countries such as unemployment leaving millions wandering about the streets.
Furthermore,overpopulation is another matter to take as this and unemployment both causes severe impact on other countries due the to the fact that the unemployed may and will scourge overseas to find work causing other nations to provide more and more jobs and over time may face the same effect india has.
all these unfortunate impacts could have been avoided if factors causing 'population explosion' could have been avoided, such as rapid immigration,and less space in ratio to its demand. Take their  accelerating birthrates as a prime example which exposes the fact that sex education and birth control in India are not taken into consideration showing their lack of awareness of its alacrity.
A Family Planning Program was launched in 1952 that promotes propaganda through the public media and over the years, the government assembled all resources available to attain the scheme. However this programme was deemed unsuccessful due to the still rapid population increase so they still have a lot more to achieve.
To conclude, population explosion causes tension around the globe that may not be undone.With more countries facing similar problems,solutions such as promoting sex-ed should be taken into concern

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The US has insisted it will leave the Paris climate accord, despite reports that it may be softening its stance.

Following a meeting of environment ministers on Saturday, the EU climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete, said Trump officials had indicated the US would either stay in the 2015 accord or review its terms.

But the White House insisted there had been "no change" in the US position.

In June President Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from the deal.

He said it was part of his "solemn duty to protect America" and he would seek a new deal that would not disadvantage US businesses.

But opponents say withdrawing from the accord is an abdication of US leadership on a key global challenge.

The Paris agreement commits the US and 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C.

Only Syria and Nicaragua did not sign up to the deal.

What did Trump originally announce in June?

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, he characterised the Paris agreement as a deal that aimed to hobble, disadvantage and impoverish the US.

He claimed the agreement would cost the US 6.5 million jobs and $3tn (£2.2tn) in lost GDP - while rival economies like China and India were treated more favourably.

"In order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord... but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States," he said.

During his visit to France in July, however, Mr Trump hinted that the US could shift its position on the deal - but did not elaborate.

"Something could happen with respect to the Paris accord... We'll see what happens."

What is now being reported?

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal quoted Mr Arias as saying that Trump administration officials said the US would not pull out of the agreement, and were offering to re-engage in the deal.

The WSJ said the shift in the position came at a meeting of environment ministers from about 30 countries at a gathering in Montreal, Canada.

That meeting was attended by a US observer.

The US "stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris Accord, but they [will] try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement," Mr Canete said.

He said that "there would be a meeting on the sidelines of next week's UN General Assembly with American representatives "to assess what is the real US position", according to the AFP news agency.

"It's a message which is quite different to the one we heard from President Trump in the past," Mr Canete added.

What is in the Paris climate deal?

Will this hurt Trump?

At the same time, Chilean Environment Minister Marcelo Mena tweeted (in Spanish): "I was in the meeting, and the [US] negotiator effectively did not close the door on continuing in the agreement, and ruled out looking for a new agreement."

But in a statement later on Saturday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "There has been no change in the United States' position on the Paris agreement,

"As the president has made abundantly clear, the United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favourable to our country."

How could this change things?

Bloomberg reported that the US is "no longer seeking to withdraw from the pact and then renegotiate it, but rather wants to re-engage with the Paris Agreement from within".

While the White House insists its stance has not changed, deciding not to withdraw from the Paris deal and instead focus on negotiating while remaining a signatory would represent a significant about-turn.

The Los Angeles Times said staying in the Paris deal would be "one of the most controversial" reversals of the Trump presidency.

It would also risk angering Mr Trump's more conservative supporters at a time he is facing criticism for engaging with Democratic leaders, the liberal magazine Mother Jones wrote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The US has insisted it will leave the Paris climate accord, despite reports that it may be softening its stance. Following a meeting of environment ministers on Saturday, the EU climate commissioner, Miguel Arias Canete, said Trump officials had indicated the US would either stay in the 2015 accord or review its terms. But the White House insisted there had been "no change" in the US position.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The term newly industrialized country ("NIC") is an economic classification used by economists to represent economies that fall somewhere between a developed country and a developing country. The countries falling under this categorization are characterized by rapid export-driven economic growth and a secular migration of workers from rural to urban areas.

Some examples of newly industrialized countries include China, India, and Brazil, although definitions of so-called NICs vary between economists.

The one thing most economists can agree upon is that NICs tend to be attractive investment destinations given their strong economic growth rates, which makes them very important for international investors.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at some of the key characteristics of NICs, explore some common NICs, and take a look at how to invest in these markets.

Characteristics of Newly Industrialized Countries

Developing countries are often classified as those with a low living standard, an under-developed industrial base, and a low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries with more advanced economies. Newly industrialized countries share some of these characteristics, but tend to be heading in the direction of becoming a freer and stronger developed market country.

Some common attributes seen in newly industrialized countries include increased economic freedoms, increased personal liberties, a transition from agriculture to manufacturing, the presence of large national corporations, strong foreign direct investment, and rapid growth in urban centers resulting from a migration from rural areas into larger and more populated city centers.

Many emerging markets fall under the NIC categorization, as opposed to frontier markets that tend to be a lot earlier-stage. For instance, many frontier markets still have a relatively unstable government that entails a higher level of political risk and/or a dependence on a single commodity or industry.

List of Newly Industrialized Countries

Economists and investors commonly use the term newly industrialized country, but there is no single agreed-upon definition. As a result, there are many different countries that are considered NICs but not everyone agrees on what those countries are. Moreover, the classification can rapidly change over time, depending on a country's economic conditions.

Some commonly cited NICs include Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey. Countries that have moved beyond newly industrialized countries and to developed countries in the 1970s and 1980s include countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, as their economies have matured.

Some countries may also be demoted from NICs to frontier markets if their economies have regressed due to deteriorating economic or political environments. For example, some countries have made strides in installing a democratic government but have slipped with an autocrat taking power. The lack of strength in their institutions could result in a demotion of their economic status.

Investing in Newly Industrialized Countries

International investors seeking exposure to this fast-growing classification of countries have numerous options.

The easiest way to invest in these countries is by using exchange-traded funds ("ETFs") that offer broad exposure to these economies in a single security that can be easily traded on U.S. stock exchanges without the risks associated with trading on foreign exchanges.

Some NIC ETFs to consider include:

iShares MSCI BRIC Index Fund (BKF) - Brazil, China and India are three newly industrialized countries, making BRIC ETFs like this one a good option.

iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) - China is the largest newly industrialized country, making this a large and popular ETF for those looking for exposure.

iShares MSCI South Africa Index (EZA) - South Africa is one of the most non-correlated NICs, making this ETF a good option for investors looking to diversify.

International investors may also want to consider one of many country-specific ETFs, like the two mentioned above for China and South Africa, or American Depository Receipts ("ADRs") to target specific companies within these countries.

ADRs are U.S.-traded securities representing fractional ownership in foreign equities traded on international exchanges.

Important Considerations to Remember

The term newly industrialized country is very broad and ill-defined, meaning that international investors should be careful when using it. Many countries falling under this categorization also face numerous hurdles associated with their economic development, such as China's economic struggles or Brazil's political turmoil in 2015 and 2016.

However, newly industrialized countries shouldn't be ignored. China is expected to become the largest country in the world within the next 50 years, while India isn't very far behind, which makes these countries very important for global growth. International investors should carefully build exposure to these areas in their portfolios, while taking into account the risks.

The Bottom Line

Newly industrialized countries - or NICs - are important markets for international investors. While they aren't as safe as developed countries, they are significantly less risky than developing countries and offer compelling growth rates. Investors should carefully analyze these opportunities and build them into a diversified portfolio.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Guide to Investing in Newly Industrialized Countries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The term newly industrialized country ("NIC") is an economic classification used by economists to represent economies that fall somewhere between a developed country and a developing country. The countries falling under this categorization are characterized by rapid export-driven economic growth and a secular migration of workers from rural to urban areas.

# data[].attributes.body
Population explosion is where the population rapidly increases within a short period of time, it is a problem affecting a large portion of the world (particularly poorer countries.) An example of how big a deal population explosion has become is with India, where in the 1951 census the population was only 361 million people, and by 2011 the population reached over 1.21 billion.

However richer, more developed, countries -like Japan- are able to benefit from a population explosion, as they're able to employ a large number of people.

Population has become a problem due to several factors, including: increased birth rate, decreased infant mortality rate, increased life expectancy, and more immigration.

While these causes have been able to benefit the richer countries, like Japan, the effects on poorer countries are more negative.

For exapmle, in india population explosion has caused overpopulation, unemployment, this leads to poverty. Another effect is poor health, due to a large sum of people not being able to afford health care, and a quick spread of disease. Finally population explosion also results in pollution and global warming, as there is a higher demand products.

To control these causes governments had implemented ‘The Family Planning’ programme, in 1952, with the goal of more people having planned families. This was mainly achieved through media, where people were reminded of the benefits of having small families with healthy children. This worked well with more educated parents, however others refused the mere thought of it. Another way the state governments tried to persuade people, and control population sizes, was by distributing cheap contraceptives, teaching sex education and legalizing abortion.

However it is evident that more needs to be done, as the population of India may soon reach 150 billion, it can only really be solved through educating people, and making them aware.