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Published on Time magazine, this article titled « Why China, Russia, and North Korea Joining Forces in the Indo-Pacific Isn’t a Prelude to War » has been written and published by Chad DE GUZMAN the 5th of septembre.

We learn that Russia, China and North Korea could do naval tests together, proposal of the Kremlin. A senior fellow specialist of military and defense policy said that this potential military alliance is a consequence of the recently formalized US,Japan,South Korea defense pact.

In recent decades, there was security flash points in Indo-Pacific.

For example, China increased his military influence in the neighbourhood.

And North Korea test missiles. But, even if this naval test could emphasize the divid between China,Russia,ect, and USA and his allies ,some specialist think that it could stabilize tension by preventing from an attack.

However, experts agree that the war is not coming even if this new trilateral alliance were to be realized. And it would force neighbour countries to pick a side.

This type of news is a little bit scary for people like you and me who don't know to what extend the military coalition is a sign of peace or not. But we could think that if there is new military pacts, it is because of tension between countries, wich is not reassuring.

To what extend is a world war 3 possible this century ?

Adam CHANTEUX

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What to Know About China, Russia, and North Korea Possibly Joining Forces

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Experts say it would primarily be a diplomatic signaling of a counter-alliance in the Indo-Pacific to the recently revitalized U.S.-South Korea-Japan partnership.

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A crypto-currency company based in Pennsylvania is looking to burn tyres to reduce its electricity costs, which has sparked protests from nearby residents and environmental groups.

The production of crypto-currency is an extremely energy-intensive process. Its electricity consumption amounts to around 113 terawatt hours per year, almost equivalent to the consumption of Kazakhstan or the Philippines in 2022.

Stronghold has been burning coal waste to create cheap energy for the blockchain network since 2021, when it bought a power plant. It claims that all this waste is reused, but its opponents are concerned about the risks of emissions for human health. While removing waste from the ground is a good thing, incinerating it emits greenhouse gases and other harmful chemicals. To be less efficient than a traditional power plant.

That's why she burns tyres to improve it," she said. This shocked local residents, but in 2016 the US Environmental Protection Agency described burning tyres for fuel as preferable to landfill.

Environmental protection agencies are putting a stop to this activity because burning tyres produces highly carcinogenic chemicals. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was called in to help.

The DEP gave Stronghold Digital Mining seven violations for non-compliance with emission standards, despite the company's claim that it was at the cutting edge of filtering technology, and was thus able to free up more than 400 hectares of polluted land.

Which might lead us to wonder whether it is wise to put at risk people who are not even using blockchain technology for the sole purpose of increasing the profits of decentralised financial giants.

My view is that reducing the environmental footprint of this technology is a very good thing for the sector and for our planet, but we have to be careful not to make a mess of things by not measuring all the consequences.

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A crypto-mining company in Pennsylvania is seeking to burn tires to produce bitcoin, prompting an outcry from residents and environmental groups.

Stronghold Digital Mining says it is repurposing waste materials, while opponents worry about the risks of emissions to human health.

The production of cryptocurrency is an enormously energy-intensive process. Its electricity consumption accounts for an estimated 113 terawatt-hours a year, which is roughly the amount of electricity that countries such as Kazakhstan, the Philippines and Ukraine each used in 2022.

Stronghold has been burning coal waste to create cheap power for cryptocurrency since 2021, when it bought the Panther Creek power plant in Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania. It is a controversial approach because although the removal of coal waste can help remediate contaminated land, the process emits greenhouse gases and other harmful chemicals. It can take twice as much waste coal to produce the same amount of electricity that regular coal would produce.

The company also says it sometimes needs to burn tire-derived fuel - made of shredded vehicle tires - to make the combustion of waste-coal more efficient.

Additives such as the tire fuel "are especially needed when the quality of the coal refuse is low in energy content", Stronghold spokesperson Naomi Harrington told the Guardian. The crypto miner, which receives state subsidies to burn waste coal, already holds a temporary permit to test the use of tire-derived fuel. It is seeking permanent permission for tires to comprise up to 15%, or 78,000 tons, of its fuel.

"I was shocked," said Carol Etheridge, who lives less than five miles away from the Panther Creek plant. "It's terrible. I can't even believe that people would be allowed to burn tires."

The US Environmental Protection Agency has in the past - on an archived webpage last updated in 2016 - described burning tires for fuel as preferable to landfilling them, although environmental advocates criticize the practice.

"It poses risks to the health of people living nearby," said Charles McPhedran, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is fighting the company's tire application. "This sort of disposal of tires is a last resort."

Combusting tires can create dioxins and furans, highly toxic chemicals linked to cancer and known to be slow to break down in the environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), several of which are carcinogenic, are also associated with burning tires.

"They are clearly looking to reduce their fuel costs," said Rob Altenburg of local environmental group PennFuture. "There is no analysis for how this will add to the existing burden of legacy pollution in the area."

The facility is within two miles of communities the state has defined as environmental justice areas. Residents of Carbon county, along with environmental groups, have sent letters of concern to the county commissioner and the Pennsylvania department of environmental protection (DEP).

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Stronghold Digital Mining has received seven violations from the DEP for not complying with emissions standards.

It said in a statement to the Guardian that its operations use the "best available control technology for air pollution controls".

It also said that by burning waste coal, "Stronghold has reclaimed over 1,050 acres of once-unusable land in Pennsylvania. Without these operations, the waste coal would remain unremediated and continue to harm local communities by polluting waterways and emitting toxins into the atmosphere without any sort of emissions control."

There is an active local debate on whether it is environmentally sound to burn coal waste owing to the pollution this releases. If it remains in place it can leech toxins.

Now the question of tires has come to the fore.

"Burning tires, to fuel something like bitcoin or cryptocurrency, which gives no value to anybody here locally, in my mind, is really unacceptable," Etheridge said.

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Burning tires and bridges: US residents 'shocked' by firm's bitcoin-mining plan

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Stronghold Digital Mining contends it is repurposing waste material, but those living near by are outraged by the proposal

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The article I chose is « EU to rethink conservation status of wolves after numbers surge ». So this article is about farmers who want to change the laws about wolves because they are threatening their livestock. The wolf is a protected specie. There was not a lot of wolves because of humans who killed them massively so it became an endangered specie.

But nowadays, wolves are back and because of the protection they have, they reproduced themselves a lot during the past 10 years. In 2013, there was 12 000 wolves in Europe and last year, they were 18 000. The fact that their number increased is good on one hand because it is less in danger. But on the other hand, it is an issue because as they have to eat, they hunt and it has an impact on livestock. And it’s getting worse and worse for farmers.

So this is the reason why farmers would like the law from the EU to be changed sot hey can cull wolves that kill their livestock. But it’s tacking time and the EU wants to do things differently. They want farmers to take measures against wolves without killing them. They are asking them to put electrical fences or guard dogs or other things.

So this article raises a question. How will this situation evolve over the years with the wolves number increasing ?

-        Even if farmers take measures, the wolves will still need to eat so they will find a way to hunt livestock

-        With the number of wolves increasing, and the possibility for them to eat livestock, will they attack humans ? and if they do there is a risk that we remake history with massive killings of wolves

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The EU is to review the conservation status of wolves on the continent after a remarkable comeback of the carnivore species raised protests from farmers whose livestock have become prey.

"The concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger for livestock and potentially also for humans," the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said. "I urge local and national authorities to take action where necessary. Indeed, current EU legislation already enables them to do so."

It is a subject close to Von der Leyen's heart after her pony, Dolly, was killed last September by a wolf that broke into a well-guarded compound in north-west Germany.

Complaints about wolves have been growing, with some farmers' organisations calling for the right to shoot them.

A consultation process is designed to balance the interests of rewilding with commercial agriculture and public health concerns.

The commission is inviting all interested parties to submit data on the experiences of member states, and is seeking to update data on the wolf population as well as how the conservation status works in practice.

"The return of the wolf to EU regions where it has been absent for a long time is increasingly leading to conflicts with local farming and hunting communities, especially where measures to prevent attacks on livestock are not widely implemented," the commission said.

Wolves are a protected species under conservation laws but farmers have complained that the numbers have increased so much they no longer need such protections.

They want the commission to revise the habitats directive to reflect the increased numbers of wolves, particularly in alpine and forested regions of Scandinavia and central Europe.

Environmentalists have argued that instead of changing the laws to allow wolves to be culled, farmers can take preventive measures with electric fencing.

The farmers' association Copa-Cogeca estimated wolf numbers increased from just over 12,000 in 2013 to as many as 18,000 last year.

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Campaigners at Rewilding Europe say that in some areas of Europe the population of the Eurasian wolf ( Canis lupus lupus) had been stable until the mid-20th century, when hunting and "persecution" meant it had virtually disappeared as a species.

"Spreading outward from strongholds in Poland and the Carpathians, Eurasian wolf packs and individuals have now been spotted as far west as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In total, the grey wolf population in Europe is estimated to be at least 17,000 animals (excluding European Russia) in 28 countries," it says on its website.

With certain exceptions, including threats to life, the deliberate killing of wolves is illegal under the directive but the commission says it needs to update evidence from the last big data sweep in 2018.

The EU already has an infringement proceeding outstanding against Sweden, which culls wolves - but it has been open for more than 10 years, leading the EU ombudsman to launch an investigation this summer into why it is taking so long.

An EU-backed project to improve the coexistence between wolves and farmers ran between 2013 and 2018 with tailormade intervention strategies to protect livestock, including fencing, guard dogs and repellent acoustic devices.

The EU will use the fresh data from farmers' organisations, rewilding experts and national environment departments to come up with a proposal, probably within the next six months.

"On the basis of the data collected, the commission will decide on a proposal to modify, where appropriate, the status of protection of the wolf within the EU and to update the legal framework, to introduce, where necessary, further flexibility, in the light of the evolution of this species," it said.

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EU to rethink conservation status of wolves after numbers surge

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Ursula Von der Leyen calls for action as attacks on livestock prompt rise in complaints from farmers

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This article is about the climate crisis, more precisely about water contamination at Australia’s largest research station in antarctic.This article has been written by Donna Lu and was published on the 9th August 2023.

For the last 20 years; the contamination level was much higher than the international guidelines.Many contaminant has been found has Arsenic, toxic metals etc

Some research found that Stations can create an ecological risk and impact locally.

Guidelines were originally formulated for temperate and tropical ecosystems,

but environmental stewardship in Antarctica has seen enhancements since the implementation of the Protocol on Environmental Protection.Among all the sediments examined, those collected from the area neighboring the former waste disposal site exhibited the most elevated contamination levels.During the late 1990s, a significant surge in contaminant levels was observed, which subsequently saw a remarkable decline following an extensive cleanup effort.Nevertheless, scientists continued to introduce consumer products capable of releasing chemicals into the environment.internal documents vie that budget constraints within the Australian Antarctic Division may prevent the project”Cleaner Antarctica” from advancing.

This situation is very worrying. Finding objects that are that much toxic even after the Protocol and effort to clean is alarming,it shows that some scientists did not care about the critical situation that we are in. Before continuing their research they should find a solution to this problem.Also the fact that because of budget we cancel the cleaning project, is even more worrying, it lets us think that there are a lot of things more important than climate crisis and pollution.

This makes me wonder, should we stop those polluting stations until we find a solution to reduce their pollution  even if their research is examining climate change impact?

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Pollution at Australia’s largest Antarctic research station exceeded guidelines for almost 20 years

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Levels of contaminants such as arsenic and lead at Casey eclipsed international quality guidelines between 1997 and 2015, study finds

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Hundreds of firefighter’s battles raging Greek wildfire

Since the beginning of the summer, Greece has been facing to a serious problem, the lack of water and the extreme drought. Resulting in extreme wildfire in all Greece. One of the most spectacular and dangerous is “The blaze” one of the largest wildfires in Europe, this wildfire has burn around 77 000 hectares and they are already 120 active fire hotspots. Around 290 firefighters and 7 planes were fighting the fire. But this wild fire is not the only one in Greece, last week, 122 blazes of which 75 were broke in less than 24 hours. These fires were huge and Greece firefighters can’t stop every fire, so, Greece ask to other European country to help them in their fire fight. However, this week, two men were arrested for intentionally put fire on grass and vegetation. Overall, 163 people were arrested on fire charged since the start of the season

Personally, I Can’t stand people can put intentionally fire on grass for fun, these people don’t understand the consequences of their acts, some people were lost their house, their job, when It’s not human life which were stole by the fire because one people wants to have fun. However, today with the climate emergency, wildfire had a main impact on the global warming and that impact everyone because that increase faster environmental problem

That make me wonder:

How could we make to reduce wildfire in summer?

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More than 600 firefighters, including reinforcements from several European countries, backed by a fleet of water-dropping planes and helicopters, are battling three major wildfires in Greece, two of which have been raging for days.

A huge blaze in the country's north-eastern regions of Evros and Alexandroupolis, believed to have caused the deaths of 20 of the 21 wildfire-related deaths in the last week, was burning for a ninth day.

The blaze, one of Europe's largest single wildfires, has destroyed vast tracts of forest and burned homes in the outlying areas of the city of Alexandroupolis. On Sunday, 295 firefighters, seven planes and five helicopters were tackling the blaze, the fire department said.

The EU's Copernicus Emergency Management Service said on Sunday that the wildfire had scorched 77,000 hectares (190,000 acres) of land and had 120 active hotspots.

Copernicus is the EU space programme's Earth observation component and uses satellite imagery to provide mapping data.

Firefighters in the Evros region. A massive blaze in the country's north-eastern regions of Evros and Alexandroupolis is believed to have caused the deaths of 20 people. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Pope Francis, addressing the public in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican on Sunday, said he wanted to express assurances that he is remembering "in prayer the victims of the fires that have burned in these days in northeast Greece." He also expressed "supportive closeness" to the Greek people.

On the north-western fringes of the Greek capital, another major wildfire has been blazing for days, scorching homes and burning into the national park on Mount Parnitha, one of the last green areas near Athens. The fire department said 260 firefighters, one plane and three helicopters were trying to extinguish the flames.

A third major wildfire started on Saturday on the Cycladic island of Andros and was still burning out of control on Sunday, with 73 firefighters, two planes and two helicopters dousing the blaze. Lightning strikes are suspected of having sparked the fire.

Greece has been plagued by daily outbreaks of dozens of fires over the past week as gale-force winds and hot, dry summer conditions combined to whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts. On Saturday, firefighters tackled 122 blazes, including 75 fires that broke out in the 24 hours between Friday evening and Saturday evening, the fire department said.

With firefighting forces stretched to the limit, Greece has called for help from other European countries. Germany, Sweden, Croatia and Cyprus have sent aircraft, while dozens of firefighters from Romania, France, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Albania, Slovakia and Serbia are helping on the ground.

With their hot, dry summers, southern European countries are particularly prone to wildfires. EU officials have blamed climate breakdown for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe, noting that 2022 was the second worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.

The causes of Greece's two largest fires have not yet been determined. Officials have said arson or negligence is suspected for some of the smaller blazes, and several people have been arrested.

Firefighters tackle a blaze in a forest near Athens. Photograph: Nicolas Koutsokostas/Shutterstock

On Saturday, Greek fire department officials arrested two men, one on the island of Evia and another in the central region of Larissa, for allegedly deliberately setting fire to dried grass and vegetation to spark wildfires.

Greece imposes wildfire prevention regulations, typically from the start of May to the end of October, to limit activities such as the burning of dried vegetation and the use of outdoor barbecues.

By Friday, fire department officials had arrested 163 people on fire-related charges since the start of the fire prevention season, said the government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis, including 118 for negligence and 24 for deliberate arson. The police had made a further 18 arrests, he said.

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Hundreds of firefighters battle raging Greek wildfires

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Gale-force winds and hot, dry conditions whip up flames and hamper firefighting efforts

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/30/graca-machel-rich-nations-must-pour-climate-funds-into-africa-for-all-our-sakes

This article deals with the future of our world, especially with the climate change. The author Graca Machel suggest to invest in poorer country in Africa in order to prevent the climate emergency, she wants to rich country like European country and north America to invest in Africa for durable development. Even though the returns will be far lower than the investments, it’s a need to the prosperity of the environment. By the way a lot of agreement was made during 00-20 like in 09 but no one really respected them like: rich countries promised to give 100 billion $/year (in climate finance to develop economies) but this pledge was never respected and will never be, but now this amount of money is no longer enough to prevent the disaster, roughly 5 to 10 times higher than what we needed now is required. If the summit in Nairobi can’t get a solid help from rich countries, GDP (gross domestic product) will highly degrade over the years in south Africa. She also blames the measures that European country decided to takes against climate change, cuz there are all short-term solution and not sustainable solution because they are more expensive. It raises a lot of issues but I wonder: “How rich countries should approach those kinds of request? Should they believe in this speech, but accordingly they will lose on green development in Europe, or just don’t give a sh*t and maybe harm the humanity?”

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https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/aug/26/i-love-my-midriff-why-flaunting-your-tummy-with-a-croptop-is-so-2023

This summer and since ten years, we could have seen a brand new fashion element down the streets of london : the ubiquitous midriff ! It make ten years since every brand in the world, including most luxurious ones, like LV or Balenciaga, started to sold crop tops, a short t-shirt that makes your stomach more apparent. This trend was boosted a lot by celebrities wearing tops with their tummy apparent, the first one is Beyonce on the cover of a magazine.

But the fashion looks to have reach its higher level this summer due to the incredible number of designs that are avalable for this type of clothes. And almost every summer devices are designed to let the stomach appear. Statistics shows that research for this type of clothes have increase during august. This is so popular that Elle UK’s dress of the year wasn’t a dress, but a very mini skirt with a very cropped top.

According to trend specialists, this fashion of the midriff was increased by the pandemic, due to a boost in women attitude, with powerful bodycon dresses, crop tops and bold colours. I don’t understand what I just wroten…

The tummy fashion is not only in summer for genZ. More and more we see GenZ girls who are wearing baggy jeans with a crop top.

Before this trend decade, last time we saw crop tops being at the top of the fashion was early 00’s, the period is called the Y2K.

In my opinion, if I pay no attention to the fact I didn’t understand one single word in this article because of his tehnical terms, fashion is a complex topic. We can see in this article that it is entirely made by celebrities. Beyonce imposed the crop top topic, but before her we can read that Britney Spears made it in early 00’s and in another style, Nirvana iposed the red squared shirt in every highschools in the world during 90’s. We can conclude that trend are created by few very important people, and we are just consumers here to make like them. This is true with every kind of fashion the world has known since the beginning of humanity, people want to be like their idols so wearing same clothes as them make them feel good, and who can bnlame them ?

It is true that Kurt Cobain, Britney Spears and Beyonce are beautiful in their closes, so because we like them we want to dress like them.

This way to think is very useful to big brands, they see what people like, they massively produce it and then they earn a lot of money, and they pay famous people to wear their brand so people will buy in their companies, that’s why fashion changes so fast in my opinion.

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“India lands spacecraft near south pole of moon in historic first” is a document published in The Guardian on 23rd of august 2023.

It deals with indian’s space organization that realised the achievement of being  the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. This event had a big impact on many points.

Its economic impact : this event is developing the private space sector in India for launcher and satellite development. So that means there will be lots of money invested and develop the country.

Its social impact : “This is a victory cry of a new India,” said the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Every indians watched this event. So that means pride is felt by the population, which generates confidence in the government. And this is good for the countries development.

Its scientific impact : the lander and the rover Will conduct experiments for three to six months to study  the moon’s composition, image and data(oxygen, water…)

To conclude we understand that this event is a revival for the whole country.Moreover it's a giant leap for the mankind and scientific progress. Finally it allowed them to change their image for a more  modern one.

I think this document is very interesting because we don't have lots of positive news on India mainly from their lead in the space sector.

To what extent our future depends on space exploration ?
2 point of view:
-space exploration is very unecological, it's a waste of money and time.
-space exploration is our future : living on the moon or Mars, exploiting lunar resources.

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India has become the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon, in a historic moment that drew cheers at watching parties around the country.

"India is on the moon," Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, the chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation, said as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft's Vikram lander touched down shortly after 6pm (1230 BST) near the little-explored lunar south pole in a world first for any space programme.

The successful landing marks India's emergence as a space power as the government looks to spur investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.

People across the country were glued to television screens as the spacecraft approached territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water and precious elements.

"This is a victory cry of a new India," said the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who was seen waving the Indian flag as he watched the landing from South Africa, where he is attending the Brics summit. "We are witnessing history."

A wave of nervous excitement has gripped Indians in recent days as the scheduled descent approached. Temples and mosques held special prayers for a safe landing. On the banks of the River Ganges in Varanasi, Hindu monks bestowed blessings on the mission and blew conch shells.

At street parties on Wednesday evening, Indians celebrated the double triumph of being the first to land on the south pole and the fourth to land on the moon.

In the final few minutes before touchdown, the lander executed a complex manoeuvre, slowing down from 3,730 miles an hour to nearly zero and turning from a horizontal to a vertical position.

The right tilt and thrust at this moment were vital. If too much force was applied, the lander would have toppled. Too little force and it might have hit the lunar surface at the wrong place.

It was this end manoeuvre that went wrong in the final few minutes of India's last moon mission in 2019, when the lander failed to change position and hurtled towards the surface during the final braking phase.

Chandrayaan-3 - "moon craft" in Sanskrit - took off from a launchpad in Sriharikota in southern India on 14 July, taking much longer to reach the moon than the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s, which arrived in a matter of days.

India is using rockets much less powerful than the US did back then. Instead, the probe orbited Earth several times to gain speed before embarking on its month-long lunar trajectory.

If all goes to plan, a rover called Pragyaan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom, will roll out of the belly of the lander on a ramp then roam around the moon's surface for two weeks. It has been designed to take pictures, conduct experiments on the geology and the origins of the Earth, and investigate the presence of water ice.

Isro staff celebrate the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon at the command facility in Bengaluru. Photograph: Aijaz Rahi/AP

If found in significant quantities, water ice could allow future crew missions to set up base there as it could be used to extract oxygen and fuel. Some scientists believe that the south pole, which is hidden from Earth's view and is full of craters and trenches, may be the most promising site for a future base.

India's successful landing comes days after Russia said its first moon mission in 47 years, which also targeted the south pole, had failed after its Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crashed. Russia's head of the state-controlled space corporation, Roscosmos, attributed the failure to lack of expertise due to the long break in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

The former Soviet Union, the US and China have already achieved a soft landing on the moon but in another region, near the moon's equator.

With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world's fifth-largest economy last year, Modi's nationalist government is eager to showcase the country's rising standing as a technology and space powerhouse. A successful moon mission dovetails with Modi's image of an ascendant India asserting its place among the global elite and would help bolster his popularity ahead of a crucial general election next year.

The anticipation for a successful landing rose after Russia's failed attempt and as India's regional rival China reaches for new milestones in space. In May, China launched a three-person crew for its orbiting space station and hopes to put astronauts on the moon before the end of the decade.

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India lands spacecraft near south pole of moon in historic first

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Vikram lander touches down at lunar south pole shortly after 6pm India time

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This article, entitled "Zero-degree line at record height above Switzerland as heat and fire hit Europe", was published on the newspaper "The Guardian" on Monday, 21 of August. It deals with the global warming effects on the altitude of the zero-degree line who reached a new record that which has a strong impact on the fauna and flora.

The zero-degree line is the altitude at which the temperature falls below freezing, considered a key meteorological marker,

especially in mountainous area. To measure this altitude, the Americans released a meteorological balloon composed of temperature sensors recording this one throughout its ascent, the objective being to assess the altitude at which absolute zero degrees is reached.

A few weeks ago, meteorologists were then able to perceive an altitude record in Payerne in Switzerland never reached for 54 years, of 5298 meters in the middle of the night. In recent years, new records have been regularly recorded and are clear proof of increasing global warming. These studies have noted the considerable impact on vegetation, the snowline and the water cycle, and consequently on the habitats of humans, animals and plants. Recently, in Greece, a shepherd was killed by the flames, in Spain several regions are expected to reach 40°C in the coming days and to top it all off, the fire in Tenerife has forced nearly 12,000 people to leave their homes.

In my opinion, global warming is probably the major current global problem that requires international cooperation to be resolved. We are seeing more and more of the effects, especially this year with never-before-seen temperatures peaks, and more and more forest fires recorded around the world. States like Canada experience temperatures that surpass them, even those countries that are accustomed to the cold. It is therefore necessary to mobilize quickly before a no return which will be very soon.
How much time do we have left before this climatic no-return ? Will it still possible to reduce by several months the overshoot day in each country (which was reached this year in Qatar in January) ? Will the ecological cause make even more people aware ? What future for our world ?

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A Swiss weather balloon had to climb to an unprecedented 5,300 metres (17,400ft) before the temperature fell to 0C (32F), meteorologists have said, as a late summer heatwave and wildfires continue to pummel swathes of continental Europe.

A man was found dead in a blaze raging north of Athens on Monday as the Greek government warned of an "extreme" risk of fire across the country, while more than half of mainland France was placed under an amber heat alert.

MétéoSuisse said the zero-degree line - the altitude at which the temperature falls below freezing, considered a key meteorological marker particularly in mountainous regions - was measured at 5,298 metres overnight.

The figure, which registered by a weather balloon flown from Payerne in western Switzerland, constituted "a record since monitoring began in 1954", the service said, and surpassed the previous high of 5,184 metres that was "only set in July last year".

The 0C line "affects vegetation, the snow line and the water cycle, so has a considerable impact on the habitats of humans, animals and plants alike", MétéoSuisse said. It had averaged 2,570 metres above sea level from 1991 and 2020, fluctuating between 1,000 and 2,000 metres in winter, and 3,000 and 4,000 metres in summer.

In recent decades "anthropogenic climate change has caused the altitude of the zero-degree line to rise significantly in every season", the service said, noting that successive records for the indicator had all been set in the past 10 years.

Experts have said an exceptional area of high pressure across continental Europe centred over the Alps has created a heat dome that is forecast to push temperatures to record or near-record levels in several regions until at least Wednesday.

In Greece, a shepherd who tried to save his animals was found dead as a fire raged near Boeotia, about 60 miles (100km) north of Athens. People on a beach and in two communities near the blaze were ordered to evacuate, AFP reported.

Another wildfire broke out on the island of Evia on Monday, while fires also continued to burn out of control for a third day in north-east Greece near the port city of Alexandroupolis, with 12 communities evacuated over the weekend. The minister for civil protection, Vassilis Kikilias, has called for "extreme public vigilance" nationwide.

In Spain, the state weather agency, Aemet, has placed five provinces in the southern region of Andalucía on amber heat alert, warning that temperatures are forecast to rise to more than 40C around Seville, Córdoba and in the Guadalquivir valley.

In the Canary Islands, firefighters were making progress, however, battling an out-of-control blaze on Tenerife that was started deliberately and has forced more than 12,000 people to flee their homes and has burned through more than 8,400 hectares (20,800 acres) of pine forest.

"The worst is behind us," the Canary Islands' regional leader, Fernando Clavijo, said. "Today, we will keep on working, consolidating the perimeters. We cannot talk about control yet - we'll see if we can stabilise all the fronts."

In France, record temperatures were expected in the Rhone valley, with temperatures set to peak on Tuesday and Wednesday. The most intense heat was forecast in the south, where the mercury is already pushing past 40C.

Fifty of the country's 96 mainland departments were on amber heat alerts, with some expected to be placed on a maximum red warning over the next few days. "Records could be broken, notably on Tuesday in the Rhône valley," MétéoFrance said.

Firefighters were battling a fire near the village of Chanousse in the south-east that had so far consumed about 100 hectares (nearly 250 acres) of forest, authorities said.

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Zero-degree line at record height above Switzerland as heat and fire hit Europe

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Weather ballon climbs to 5,300 metres before temperature falls to 0C amid late summer heatwave

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/10/russia-lunar-landing-mission-luna-25-moon

This article is dealing with the new russian lunar mission entitled luna 25.
A space rocket was launched on friday the 11 th, its goal is to join the moon and realise scientific studies on lunar ground during a year with the assistance of a robotic lander.
The last lunar russian mission took place in the 70', many following attempt to reach the moon were realise after but none of them were succesful.
In the one hand Despite the fact that this mission has a scientifical aspect, in the other hand it also have a geopolitical goal.
Indeed this launch take place during a critical moment for Russia that is imply in invasion of Ukraine, and submitted to economical sanctions.
Moreover, the parternship between rusian spatial agency and western ones were cut, therefore western knowledge and technologies were missing to russian ingeneer who where in charge of the project.
Thus more than a scientific mission it is also a way for the kremlin to show that russia can realise big things without the west.

To me, this expedition to the Moon come in parallel with the western  project entilted artemis which  goal to reach the moon and create lunar settlement on its ground. It is why the russian try
appear sounds like new race to the moon, but in stranger because russia have decades of delay in terms of spatial development. This mission reflect more a will of Kremlin to make a
sort of propaganda to reflect its past power.

So this article is rising the following question : "In the current geopolitical context, what are Russian claims in terms of spatial development?"

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A Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket carrying a lunar landing craft has blasted off on what Russia hopes will be its first successful moon landing mission in nearly 50 years.

The unmanned Luna-25 mission launched in the early hours of Friday on a journey to the moon that is expected to take about five days. A landing date has not been announced.

The Luna-25 mission will seek to land near the south pole of the moon, collecting geological samples from the area, and sending back data for signs of water or its building blocks, which could raise the possibility of a future human colony on the moon.

But the first goal was to prove that Russia still can launch a lunar landing mission after numerous failures in the past, generations of turnover among its scientific experts, delays due to sanctions and now isolation due to its war in Ukraine.

Post-Soviet Russia has launched two failed space landing missions, the Mars-96 in 1996 and Phobos-Grunt in 2011, both of which crash-landed into the Pacific Ocean.

Vitaly Egorov, a blogger who writes extensively on space exploration, said: "Now 12 years laterthey're launching Luna-25 and the main intrigue is whether or not it will succeed in reaching [the moon] or not, and if it does, can it actually land there?

"One of the main goals is to let modern specialists put down space probes softly on celestial objects. They haven't had that experience in 47 years. That knowledge needs to be restored for new specialists on a new technological level."

Moscow's last successful lunar mission came in 1976, when the Soviet Union launched the Luna 24 probe, which landed in the Mare Crisium lunar plain and returned geographical samples that Soviet scientists said showed the presence of water on the moon.

Simply reaching the moon without incident will be considered a success.

"The question of prestige always plays a role in interplanetary research, in China and the United States as well, that's why the Russian government gave money to this exploration," said Egorov. "I call this activity the Brain Olympics. It's a real competition, testing of strength, in a peaceful way, and they are comparing scientists, technology, and their economies."

The launch came shortly after the launch of India's Chandrayaan-3 space probe, which entered the moon's orbit earlier this week, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation. The probe includes a lander and rover, which will also explore the water-rich area near the south pole of the moon.

The area is one of the least-explored of the moon's surfaces. Only the Soviet Union, China and the US have previously managed to land probes on the moon, and marks an unlikely confluence of missions that almost indicates a new race.

Roscosmos has indicated it hopes that its Luna-25 mission will land on the moon before the Indian probe. "There is no danger that they interfere with each other or collide. There is enough space for everyone on the moon," the Russian state space corporation said in remarks published by Reuters.

Sanctions since 2014 and 2022 have hobbled the Russian space programme, cutting it off from western technology and funding. The launch in 2019 was delayed because a landing radar that Roscosmos planned to import from the west was no longer available after 2014, Egorov said. After attempting to manufacture the radar domestically, Roscosmos determined that it was unnecessary for the mission.

Tougher sanctions since 2022 will likely increase shortages for years to come, meaning that even if Russia is successful this time, it may not be able to repeat that mission or launch further probes without manufacturing its own alternatives.

"It is not clear when and if Russia will be capable to launch Luna-26 and -27," said Pavel Luzin, an expert on Russia's military and aerospace industries.

"Moreover, because of breakdown of space cooperation ties with Nasa and ESA [the European Space Agency], there are no other space exploration missions within the Russian space programme besides the Luna probes. In this way, Luna-25 plays today a mostly psychological and propaganda role for the Kremlin. It needs to demonstrate that it is capable to do something even without the west."

The Luna-25 lander, which is also known as the Luna-Glob Lander, has a robotic arm to collect surface samples from the moon and eight onboard scientific instruments, including a range of spectrometers and imaging systems, as well as communications equipment to beam data back to Earth. Its mission is expected to last for one year. The Indian lander will be active for just two weeks.

It will be carried into orbit by a Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket, which is a smaller launch vehicle than those used in previous unsuccessful missions.

Officials said they would evacuate residents of Shakhtinsky, a small village in the far east, on the very unlikely chance that a rocket stage could come crashing down on their homes.

Egorov said the mission was seen as having a higher level of success than previous missions, in part because of lessons learned from the mistakes that doomed the Phobos-Grunt and its predecessors.

He said: "Luna-25 is possible to show that Russia and the Russian space programme and its specialists can have some positive influence and enrich international science and not just play at militarisation and fulfil the wishes of the ministry of defence."

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Moon rocket blasts off, carrying Russia's hope of first successful lunar landing since 1976

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The Luna-25 mission will try to land near the south pole of the moon, seeking signs of water or its components

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/08/explainer-whats-behind-the-niger-coup

The article I have chosen is called : « Explainer : What’s behind the Niger coup ? »

Last week, a surprise coup in Niger took place, carried out by the military Abdourahamane Tiani. Russian government is taking advantage of the situation and the anti-French sentiment to increase their influence in Niger. The new government then led an anti-french policy and asked France, which had military bases in niger, to leave the country. It was recommended to all French people who lived there to leave the country. The Russian flags are regularly waved and Niger is forging relations with the paramilitary Wagner, to continue the leader of the Niger coup frequently travels back to meet leading figures.

But this development of pro-Russian ideas in Niger append also after the France’s failure to fight jihadist terrorism in the Sahel.

Moreover Niger population has a very positive view of Russia’s presence in Mali due to a very effective propaganda about Wagner group’s effectiveness to fight against terrorism. Russia has probably asked to Niger to end the defense agreements that had linked Niger to France.

Lots of Nigerians are really worried about the future due to the situation because Niger is also living a basic necessities crises and the nation is still threatened by terrorism. People have already started stocking up on foodstuffs to prepare any eventuality because the future of Niger remain really unstable.

This article makes me wonder :how the state coup and the pro-Russian politics threaten the future of the Nigerian country ?

First, I think that the presence of France in Niger was a real protection against terrorism or attacks from foreign countries but with the coup, they have no longer the French protection. Now, they have some agreements with Russia and Wagner military, but Russia is firstly dedicated to it’s own war in Ukraine and Wagner military is accused by lots of war crimes. This is making the new Niger situation very unstable. For example, if Russia were to lose the war, Niger would be totally without defense, and there new government may become more and more unstable. Moreover the terrorism risks are increasing they will be more and more exposed.

Why did I took this article :

I have chosen this article because I chose this article because it is very important on an international level, with the recent tensions between Europe and Russia, this case only increases the tensions already existing. In addition, it concerns a military coup in a democratic country, which generally announces an unstable and complicated period for this country.

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This is an article about the climate change especially about the Phoenix situation with the heat deaths surge. It was published by the Guardian and it wrote by Nina Lakhani.

During the July’s month, Phoenix made a new terrible record, 300 people died during the hottest ever month because the temperature in Phoenix topped 43 °C for 31 consecutive days. Moreover, Phoenix with 1.6 million inhabitants is accustomed to a hot desert climate, but with the global warming, the climate in this city become to more and more dangerous for every inhabitant. This a fact, the latest major heat waves in 2020, it just during 6 days. On Friday Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s governor declared the statewide heat emergency because so far this year, 345 people as suspected to died from the heat waves and the 911 calls up to 30% with the new heat waves.

In the new problem for the American south-west but a man tries to solve this problem, this is David Hondula, a heat expert. With her team, Hondula work about the program of urban forestry and built shade. But for make the city more comfortable for all, it is necessary to lead another action with more thing, to keep people safe with better shelters, addiction services and workplaces protections.

In Phoenix, the heat deaths are most common among people especially homelessness with the 56% of the death in 2022 compared to 18% in 2012. The unsheltered community is rising, thousands of people sleep in tents and the extra heat absorbed by the asphalt and concrete structures during the day, give the same heat in the night. For the year, the goal has been, create volunteer run cooling centres, air-conditioned hall…, like a last month, with a cooling bus to the downtown area and hundreds of people used the cooling bus but the heat continued to cause dead.

Finally, there are a lot of people without regular access to shelter in very dangerously hot environment and the Hondula teams and the government try to organised a new solution against this crise.

For me this article gives just one point of view of the situation about the climate crisis. In fact, this article give hope for the future but with the estimation like in the GIEC's rapport, this situation will be dramatic and generalized in some years, if we do not make progress.

The article raises several questions about the management of global warming: Why is no concrete action being taken against global warming? Is adaptation the best solution against global warming? And if we cannot find a new solution to combat the heat, what is the alternative plan?

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The heat expert leading efforts to make America's hottest city more bearable insists that Phoenix could eventually eradicate heat deaths - despite July's record-breaking death toll.

As many as 300 people may have died during the hottest ever month on record as the temperature in Phoenix topped 110F (43C) for 31 consecutive days. Heat deaths in the city have more than quadrupled in the past decade, and 2023 is on track to be another record breaking year as Phoenix braces itself for the next spell of 110F plus temperatures forecast to hit by Monday. Despite this, David Hondula, director of the city's heat response and mitigation team, insists that every heat death can be prevented.

"We can get to zero deaths with the right resources ... obviously no city yet anywhere in the world has yet demonstrated what the right mix of resources looks like for zero heat-related deaths, but [we're] at the forefront of pursuing them," Hondula said.

Phoenix, the capital of Arizona and America's fifth-largest city with 1.6 million people, is accustomed to a hot desert climate, but temperatures are rising due to global heating - made worse by decades of unchecked urban development that created a sprawling heat island.

Hondula was appointed as the Phoenix heat tsar in the fall of 2021 to coordinate the city's efforts to mitigate and adapt to the extreme heat that is killing and injuring more and more people every year.

July was the hottest ever month globally; Phoenix, meanwhile, had the hottest month ever recorded in a US city. Temperatures hit 115F on 17 days, breaking the previous record of six days set in 2020, according to the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

On Friday, Arizona's governor, Katie Hobbs, declared a statewide heat emergency and signed an executive order to better coordinate government efforts and open two new cooling centres on the grounds of the state capital amid growing criticism of the rising death-toll.

So far this year, 345 suspected heat deaths are under investigation by the Maricopa county medical examiner - a 20% increase compared to the same period last year - which itself was the worst year on record. Overall, 911 calls for heat-related emergencies are up 30% so far this year, but last month paramedic call-outs doubled and hospitals reporting a surge in contact burns requiring specialist treatment.

Two charts, one of temperatures in Phoenix this summer, and the other showing a spike in suspected head deaths over the same time period.

July's prolonged extreme heatwave would have been " virtually impossible " without the climate crisis, and climate scientists warn that failing to stop burning fossil fuels will make such hot - or even hotter - spells increasingly likely. According to Andrew Pershing, vice-president for science at Climate Central, the climate signal was strongest at night, as the temperature failed to drop below 90F for 16 consecutive days - including one night when the low was 97F.

The climate crisis is making the American south-west increasingly inhospitable but Hondula says that it is possible to make the city - and region - more livable.

"There is no reason that the Phoenix of the future can't be more comfortable for everyone, even if the temperature increases. I'm thinking about outdoors, access to shade and about people's experiences indoors - which for many in the population accounts for a majority of their time."

Hondula's team is leading the city's urban forestry and built shade program, as well as coordinating outreach efforts with a growing bank of volunteers to get the word out about the network of cooling centers. The team has expanded to six full-time staff, and funding for the tree shade program is about to double.

But, reducing heat-related illness and deaths - and making the city more comfortable for all its residents - is way beyond the scope of a single team or agency. Keeping people safe will require more affordable housing and temporary shelters, better addiction services, and workplace protections to limit heat exposure, as well as financial aid for those struggling to afford to keep their homes cool.

David Hondula talks with a woman about cooling shelters in Phoenix in July 2022. Photograph: Caitlin O'Hara/The Guardian

"It's not just that the city has never had a heat office. The city has never had a comprehensive coordinated response to heat, and I am increasingly recognizing that this needs to be nurtured and worked on. Simply having the programs that the heat office leads can only be part of the portfolio. We need to be the drivers of a change in approach and tactic across the whole organization. It's really through the big departments [health, housing, transit] with the big budgets, that we'll be able to accelerate impact at scale."

As heath deaths have risen over the past, so has drug use. In 2022, 54% of heat deaths involved drugs compared to 11% a decade ago.

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Heat deaths are most common among people experiencing homelessness, and last year accounted for 56% of the death toll compared to 18% in 2012. Four out of five deaths occurred outdoors last year. The unsheltered population is rising, and despite an increase in shelters, thousands of people are sleeping in tents, shop doorways, parks and parking lots where the ambient temperature is much much higher than the record-breaking air temps - especially at night when winds are weak, and the extra heat absorbed by the asphalt and concrete structures during the day is re-radiated into the atmosphere.

"The multifaceted nature of the challenge for the unsheltered community remains at the top of mind. It's not like there's one singular answer for all the different circumstances that folks are in ... it is challenging," said Hondula.

For years, the mainstay of the city's heat relief response has been a network of city and volunteer run cooling centres - air conditioned halls, libraries and other facilities, which are popular though there is little empirical evidence on their impact.

Most operate during office hours, none are open overnight, and some exclude people with pets or luggage or those who can't keep awake - which are often signs someone is homelessness. Last month, the city deployed a cooling bus to the downtown area where many of the unsheltered people are concentrated, as part of the emergency response to the unprecedented heat - which activists have criticised as inadequate.

Hundreds of people have used the cooling bus, but the death toll continues to rise - and ultimately reducing deaths is in what the heat team will be judged on. Hondula says he is both "disappointed" and "motivated" by the deaths, and that it's too soon to know which services and programs are effective - and have perhaps prevented some deaths and illness.

'The Zone', Phoenix's largest homeless encampment, is seen in July amid a record heatwave. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

"Clearly, if you're just looking out the door, there are a lot of people without regular access to shelter in a very dangerously hot environment. So the public health impact [the deaths and illness] can't be a total surprise. We are not close to the end vision of where we would be for a truly coordinated and comprehensive response program.

"A frustrating part of the experience so far is that we haven't really cracked the nut on evaluation ... I'm not in a position yet to be able to say the 1,002 volunteer hours that have gone into outreach so far this year has translated into less deaths ... but we see the individual examples, we recollect the anecdotes but how to compile them all together, remains a little bit elusive," he added.

The hotter nights are particularly alarming for public health experts because heat is cumulative, and the body cannot start to properly recover until the temperature drops below 80F.

Yet 80% of 911 heat-related calls are made between 9am to 6pm. The team is undertaking case analysis to figure out under whether there are simply more heat emergencies or Phoenicians are better at identifying and calling help for heat stroke - and what role hot nights contribute to daytime emergencies.

"Yes, there is the [heat response] plan but we have a lot of work to do in building out the tactical operational details so we do a better job of matching programs and services to what the need is in the community ... clearly, the city, county, state and region are all not fully effective yet in meeting that need."

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Heat deaths surge in the US's hottest city as governor declares statewide 'heat emergency'

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David Hondula, the heat expert leading efforts to make the city more comfortable, says every heat death can be prevented with the right resources

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With the men’s world chess cup championship currently happening as I’m writing those lines, some governments seem to interest themselves more on the centuries-old board game that is chess, that’s how the idea of investing in it may have emerged from the brain of Rishi Sunak, the actual prime minister of the UK. In this article which was published on the British newspaper the Guardian on the fourth of August, we get to read what those investments consists in.

With the investments of 500,000£ that should soon be announced, Sunak plans to provide funds for the men’s and women’s national teams in order to use more advanced computer technologies and hire more qualified trainers but he also wants more chess teaching in schools and finally the installation of 100 chess tables to play chess in public parks. The ambition for the prime minister is to come back to England’s peak performance of the 80s when the country was ranked second in the world. Actually, this attempt had already been planned by others, as Tony Banks, a sport minister from the 90s, who was hyped by the idea of considering chess as a sport which would have included more funds for the activity, as it has nowadays already been considered in most of the European countries, but the idea was quickly and is still rejected by England.

But still, without the upcoming investments, England has totally decent performance as it’s one of the best countries in Europe and has some  young prodigies as well as promising women who should benefits widely of the prime minister’s action by whom Lan Yao, a 22 year old lady who recently obtained the title of grandmaster, a prestigious title.

Moreover, in the article they tell us about the link between chess and politics which is tighter than we’d have expected. In fact many parliament members were successful in chess, starting all the way from 1851 and the first international tournament in London where one of the finalist was a member of parliament from Richemond in Yorkshire. Moreover, two current women members of the parliament are former chess champions from their young ages.

Finally, the reporter ends by giving news about the current world cup and notably that the England n°1 player and the only British contestant in the event David Howell is still in the race for the first place.

My point of view:
If we look at the past from chess, we’ll figure out how much of a political weapon this activity/game(/sport?) has been, always being a pride from many countries but moreover, it had a significant place during the cold war and was then a  great symbol of the soft power of the USSR as they were dominating the scene for decades, and the efforts the US put in order to strike this power down were remarkable. With that being said,on the one hand, I’m wondering if the efforts from the prime minister doesn’t actually hide the fact that the board game could still plays a part in the political state of the world and that Britain wants to keep an eye on it. on the other hand , more than just the question of chess being a sport or not which I think is a bit weird since it mostly doesn’t seem to require much physical activity besides maybe some tournaments where players have to sit and think hardly for hours, which could be exhausting, I think that the potential benefits from chess should be clarified since it’s actually being teach in some schools of many countries and that many seems to plan so (as France I believe). And if there are so much benefits as said especially on the kids’ concentration and their abilities to analyze and solve different problems that they may encounter, that means we should maybe reconsider the place of games in the educational system which are, I believe, mostly seen as a reward more than anything else and especially not a way to help kids improving their intellectual skills, or maybe this would only apply to chess? I don’t really have the answer to those questions sadly since I think it requires some psychological skills.
GULLON Florian

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Rishi Sunak will announce £500,000 funding for chess in the near future. The money will provide major support for England's men and women international chess teams, plus a boost for teaching the game in state schools along with a plan to install 100 chess tables in public parks.

The prime minister's new move is set to be unveiled at a ceremony featuring a giant set and board on the lawn at 10 Downing Street. For English Chess Federation officials, it marks the successful end to an initiative first launched in the 1990s, when the then sports minister, Tony Banks, was enthusiastic, but Sport England did not and does not consider chess as a sport.

This is different from the great majority of European countries, including France, Spain, and the Netherlands, where chess is recognised as a sport and funds have been used to help rising talents and potential grandmasters.

The ECF hailed Sunak's move as "potentially transformational". Part of the money will be used to set up training camps for the national team and talented children, where preparation for international events can proceed with the help of top grandmaster coaches and advanced computer technology like that used by Magnus Carlsen and other leading world players.

The ambition will be to restore England to the No 2 position it held, behind the former USSR, for a decade in the 1980s. That might be an unrealistic target, given the current strength of the US and India. Even without government funds, though, England's performance in the last two biennial Olympiads has been very respectable.

At Batumi, Georgia, in 2018, England men finished fifth out of 189 teams, while at Chennai 2022, although the team were run out of another fifth place due to an unlucky final round, David Howell won the individual gold medal for the best performance of the entire Olympiad, 7.5/8 with a performance rating of 2892.

Again without government funds, England's over-50 and over-65 teams have been dominant at European and world championships, while at the opposite end of the age range, eight-year-olds Kushal Jakhria and Bodhana Sivanandan are ranked among the world's best for their age.

The new breakthrough comes after a vigorous and imaginative campaign by Malcolm Pein, the ECF international director and head of the charity Chess in Schools and Communities It included a revival of the traditional Lords v Commons match and an England v Ukraine series hosted by the Speaker.

The personal contacts of the ECF president, Dominic Lawson, whose father Nigel was chancellor and a political hero of Sunak's, were also significant. In 2013, 11 Downing Street hosted the closing ceremony of the Candidates tournament, which Magnus Carlsen won before going on to start his decade-long reign as world champion.

Chess and politics may not seem natural partners, yet a handful of parliamentarians have achieved significant playing successes at the highest level. At the very first international tournament, played in London in 1851, the winner was the then world No 1, Adolf Anderssen, but the defeated finalist in an elite field, who lost by an honourable 2.5-4.5 margin, was Marmaduke Wyvill, the Liberal MP for Richmond, Yorkshire. Wyvill defeated the German with fine attacking play in the fourth game of their match.

At the 1937 Birmingham tournament, Julius Silverman, who had already stood for parliament in 1935 and who later represented constituencies in the city from 1945 to 1983, chose the swashbuckling King's Gambit against Erich Eliskases, who was then close to the world top 10, and was rewarded when the GM's queen made a fatal b2 pawn capture. Currently, parliament's best players include two former girl champions, Angela Eagle and the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The new funding could have an effect on the British Championship, where, last weekend at Leicester, Michael Adams won his eighth national title, directly challenging the long-standing records of Jonathan Penrose (10) and Henry Atkins (nine). They were both amateurs with full-time teaching jobs, Atkins as a Huddersfield headmaster and Penrose as an Enfield lecturer, yet at their peak were world class. Atkins was third at Hannover 1902 in the company of several international greats, while Penrose defeated the then world champion, Mikhail Tal, at the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad.

Adams could already have had more titles, but in his best years he gave preference to taking on the elite. Now 51, he still is still among the world's leading 100 players with a 2662 rating. He could expect more British crowns, but that the new deal for chess may increase competition for places in the national team, which in recent years has relied on its core players Adams, Luke McShane, Gawain Jones, and David Howell.

Their average age is close to 40. so that the new funds also provide a fresh incentive for players like Harry Grieve, Dan Fernandez and Matthew Wadsworth, who are all in their 20s and tied for third at Leicester, where the surprise runner-up was the 30-year-old Basingstoke champion, Steven Jones.

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The England women's team, which has often been unable to field all its best players in international competition, is likely to benefit most from the increased funding. In particular Lan Yao, who at 22 retained her British women's crown and gained the women's grandmaster title, has an opportunity to raise her game further.

Carlsen was imperious at Baku in Thursday's second round of the 206-player World Cup (see this week's puzzle) but some of the elite ran into problems. The biggest casualty was Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 18, the world's No 2 teenager, who was eliminated by Vahap Sanai of Turkey. The hometown favourite, Shak Mamedyarov, lost to Tin Jingyao of Singapore.

Some of the top seeds had narrow escapes, notably the United States world Nos 3 and 7, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So, who both survived lost positions before winning 2.5-1.5 against lower ranked opponents, Two of the best players in Western Europe, Anish Giri of the Netherlands and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, were also taken to Friday's rapidplay tiebreaks before winning 2.5-1.5.

England's only representative at the World Cup, the national No 1 David Howell, drew both classical games before outplaying Croatia's No 2, Ante Brkic in the rapids for a 3-1 margin. Howell now meets China's Wang Hao, rated 2701 against the Sussex grandmaster's 2675, in the round of 64. Their match starts at midday BST on Saturday, and can be watched free and live on several internet sites.

The women's world champion, Ju Wenjun, faced stiff resistance from Eva Repkova of Slovakia before winning 2.5-1.5, but there was a shock in the Women's World Cup when Russia's world No 7, Kateryna Lagno, lost 1.5-2.5 to Mary Ann Gomez of India. Favourites to reach the last 32 included Alexandra Kosteniuk of Switzerland, Irina Krush of the US, India's world No 4, Humpy Koneru, and Russia's world No 3, Alexandra Goryachkina.

3879: 1 Re8+! Kxe8 2 Qe4+ Ne6 3 Qa8+ Nd8 4 Qxd8+ Rxd8 5 Rxd8 mate.

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Rishi Sunak set to announce £500,000 government fund for chess

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There will be major support for England's international teams, plus a boost for teaching the game in state schools, and a plan to install 100 chess tables in public parks

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The article I picked was published on the guardian on August 1st 2023. It was written by Chris Stokel-Walker and addresses a serious issue that comes with technologies advancements. The article is entitled “Turns out there’s another problem with AI – its environmental toll”. As it is quite self explanatory, it raises the problem of the extend of resources AI consumes overtime and the environmental problems that are brought on subsequently.

The reporter starts by illustrating the fact that Technology always comes with its own consequences with the example of cryptocurrency, which, as we might not think of it, uses a huge number of powerful computer chips in order to treat the amount of information and calculations a device needs for crypto-money to be used. Then, the author talks about how AI is also a consuming technology we wouldn’t think of. Indeed, in the minds of all, AI seems to be unreal, not a physical device. We do not think enough of the support used to treat all the questions we ask the robot. And yet, the system needs to be very powerful in order to treat them all, along with the informations in its database “With AI, you can’t see the cloud-based servers being queried, or the chips rifling through their memory to complete the processing tasks asked of it, the huge volumes of water coursing through pipes inside data centres, deployed to keep the computers powering the AI tools cool, are invisible”.

Therefore, several scientists have been researching a way to reduce the environmental impact of AI on Earth. However, the latest studies have been quite disappointing in the way that it has traded the AI performance for environmental good. Moreover, the startups at the head of AI or producing the performing computer chips are not really willing to acknowledge their carbon prints and do not wish to reduce it.

The author conclude by asking what else could be done in order to combine AI performance and environmental free impact.

This article shows us how the most unmaterial things can condemn earth with their carbon print, especially in the technological domain. It raises some interesting questions such as “Would you be ready to abandon progress in order to favour earth well being and health,”, and “is there a carbon free solution that would let us use and consume progress?”

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echnology never exists in a vacuum, and the rise of cryptocurrency in the last two or three years shows that. While plenty of people were making extraordinary amounts of money from investing in bitcoin and its competitors, there was consternation about the impact those get-rich-quick speculators had on the environment.

Mining cryptocurrency was environmentally taxing. The core principle behind it was that you had to expend effort to get rich. To mint a bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, you had to first "mine" it. Your computer would be tasked with completing complicated equations that, if successfully done, could create a new entry on to the blockchain.

People began working on an industrial scale, snapping up the high-powered computer chips, called GPUs (graphics processing units), that could mine for crypto faster than your off-the-shelf computer components at such pace that Goldman Sachs estimated 169 industries were affected by the 2022 chip shortage. And those computer chips required more electricity to power them; bitcoin mining alone uses more electricity than Norway and Ukraine combined.

The environmental cost of the crypto craze is still being tallied - including by the Guardian this April.
The AI environmental footprint
A booming part of tech - which uses the exact same GPUs as intensely, if not moreso, than crypto mining - has got away with comparatively little scrutiny of its environmental impact. We are, of course, talking about the AI revolution.

Generative AI tools are powered by GPUs, which are complex computer chips able to handle the billions of calculations a second required to power the likes of ChatGPT and Google Bard. (Google uses its own similar technology, called tensor processing units, or TPUs.)

There should be more conversation about the environmental impact of AI, says Sasha Luccioni, a researcher in ethical and sustainable AI at Hugging Face, which has become the de facto conscience of the AI industry. (Meta recently released its Llama 2 open-source large language model through Hugging Face.)

"Fundamentally speaking, if you do want to save the planet with AI, you have to consider also the environmental footprint [of AI first]," she says. "It doesn't make sense to burn a forest and then use AI to track deforestation."
Counting the carbon cost
Luccioni is one of a number of researchers trying - with difficulty - to quantify AI's environmental impact. It's difficult for a number of reasons, among them that the companies behind the most popular tools, as well as the companies selling the chips that power them, aren't very willing to share details of how much energy their systems use.

There's also an intangibility to AI that stymies proper accounting of its environmental footprint. "I think AI is not part of these pledges or initiatives, because people think it's not material, somehow," she says. "You can think of a computer or something that has a physical form, but AI is so ephemeral. Even for companies trying to make efforts, I don't typically see AI on the radar."

That ephemerality also exists for end users. We know that we're causing harm to the planet when we turn on our cars because we can see or smell the fumes coming out of the exhaust after we turn the key. With AI, you can't see the cloud-based servers being queried, or the chips rifling through their memory to complete the processing tasks asked of it. For many, the huge volumes of water coursing through pipes inside data centres, deployed to keep the computers powering the AI tools cool, are invisible.

You just type in your query, wait a few seconds, then get a response. Where's the harm in that?
Putting numbers to the problem
Let's start with the water use. Training GPT-3 used by 3.5m litres of water through datacentre usage, according to one academic study, and that's provided it used more efficient US datacentres. If it was trained on Microsoft's datacentres in Asia, the water usage balloons to closer to 5m litres.

Prior to the integration of GPT-4 into ChatGPT, researchers estimated that the generative AI chatbot would use up 500ml of water - a standard-sized water bottle - every 20 questions and corresponding answers. And ChatGPT was only likely to get thirstier with the release of GPT-4, the researchers forecast.

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Estimating energy use, and the resulting carbon footprint, is trickier. One third-party analysis by researchers estimated that training of GPT-3, a predecessor of ChatGPT, consumed 1,287 MWh, and led to emissions of more than 550 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, similar to flying between New York and San Francisco on a return journey 550 times.

Reporting suggests GPT-4 is trained on around 570 times more parameters than GPT-3. That doesn't mean it uses 570 times more energy, of course - things get more efficient - but it does suggest that things are getting more energy intensive, not less.
For better or for worse
Tech boffins are trying to find ways to maintain AI's intelligence without the huge energy use. But it's difficult. One recent study, published earlier this month, suggests that many of the workarounds already tabled end up trading off performance for environmental good.

It leaves the AI sector in an unenviable position. Users are already antsy about what they see as a worsening performance of generative AI tools like ChatGPT (whether that's just down to their perception or based in reality isn't yet certain).

Sacrificing performance to reduce ecological impact seems unlikely. But we need to rethink AI's use - and fast. Technology analysts Gartner believe that by 2025, unless a radical rethink takes place in how we develop AI systems to better account for their environmental impact, the energy consumption of AI tools will be greater than that of the entire human workforce. By 2030, machine learning training and data storage could account for 3.5% of all global electricity consumption. Pre-AI revolution, datacentres used up 1% of all the world's electricity demand in any given year.

So what should we do? Treating AI more like cryptocurrency - with an increased awareness of its harmful environmental impacts, alongside awe at its seemingly magical powers of deduction - would be a start.

The wider TechScape

Workers dismantle Twitter's new X sign mere days after it was installed. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Turns out there's another problem with AI - its environmental toll

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AI uses huge amounts of electricity and water to work, and the problem is only going to get worse - what can be done? Plus, the wider TechScape

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/18/ai-society-humans-machines-culture-ethics

Artificial intelligences are often thought of as objective machines since they work using data’s and are “just” a program, however it isn’t the case. In fact, we are programming AIs, so depending on how we do it, they will tend to act differently, as AIs that plays music with people show. Some are made ton only accompany people, they may seem dominated by them, while others seems more independent, since they sometimes let the other musician play solos, and try themselves some other times to do solos.

There’s two ways to look at the relationship between a human and an AI. The first would be as a master-servant relationship, with the AI being dominated by the human, and the other, less known, would be a collaborative relationship, with each part doing what they can do best, without hierarchical order.

We have many uses for AIs, it is a technology still evolving with for instance “deep learning”, so we must make it so they have a positive impact on society, and to do so, we must address ethical issues when designing them, and be aware of the fact that indeed, it is possible for unfair biases to raise in their system, but that it doesn’t mean we should only have master-servant relationship with them, we can still have collaborating relationships with them, for a better use of them.

This article raises a couple of questions regarding AIs, such as :
What place in society should they have ?

Should there be laws concerning their development and design ?
In which way should we make them evolve ?

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Turn on your radio, you will hear news about the war in Ukraine. Turn on TV, you will see the dramatic consequences of the climate crises. Open Instagram, you will hear about people fighting for their rights all over the world. It seems to be catastrophic everywhere we look at, and it’s partly because of the media which often show us the frightening parts of news, but don’t necessarily highlight the good news… That’s why this article does with 13 reasons to be a little more optimistic! (I chose my 4 favourites)

1)     Remember, AI will not destroy humanity! It is built to help people (as it is mentioned on the first page of the site “Chat GPT”). For example, engineers created “rAIbow”, an IA which has the ability to help people suffering from domestic abuse in South Africa to understand their legal rights and improve justice system. It is important to be aware of the risks the technology brings, but also to see the incredible number of opportunities!

2)     Be optimistic about the climate crisis! Even though we still have a long way to go, the world has made significant progress in the last few years! In 2022, worldwide spending on green energy passed one billion dollars, which means, we spent as much on clean energy as we did on fossil fuels.

3)     Kids are addicted to screens, but it does not mean we must prohibit everything. According to a study from the University of Portsmouth, television can help children’s cognitive development. For instance, 2,350 children were studied, 34% of them were good readers by studying traditionally. When exposed to 30 minutes a week of subtitled broadcasting, percentage of good readers increases to 70%.

4)     Most Americans are convinced that more people believe in conspiracy theories than before and that we live in “infodemic” times. However, according to “Roper Center for Public Opinion”, conspiracy theories have not risen since 2021 because people are aware of misinformation.

To conclude, we must not be naive and keep a critical eye on the information we get. However, even though our generation is full of challenges, we have to keep in mind that we make progress and we need to be optimistic about our future to avoid living in fear and do nothing.

When we know that, in France, 95% of people (who were interrogated) aged 18 or more, feel anxious, partly because of the media, should the media be required be less anxiety-inducing?

-        On the one hand, it could be absurd because media share news as it is. If news is worrying, media will not omit the truth only to reassure people.

-        On the other hand, media share only stressful news because they know this is their unique way to send newspapers or generate clicks. I think it should be very beneficial for people’s well-being if the media make efforts to share serious improvements and good news.

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Kriti Sharma is a chief product officer for legal technology at Thomson Reuters and the founder of AI for Good
"AI for Good is about building AI in the right way and using it for social good. We're embedding our philosophy into organisations the world over, with more backing from business leaders, boardrooms, regulators and policymakers than ever before. We've learned there are good business reasons for building this technology safely - if you want people to adopt it and use it, they need to be able to trust it.

We've done a lot of work around helping domestic abuse victims in South Africa, with a chatbot called rAInbow. It was designed to help people understand their legal rights. It can be quite overwhelming to take that first step to getting help and trusted information if you don't know where to begin.

I think it's important to acknowledge the risks this technology brings, but there are also tremendous positive opportunities. I spend a lot of my time building AI that helps improve the justice system and helps people understand their legal rights. With this technology, we can produce legal drafts in minutes that used to take days. Courts can function better and faster, so people can get their hearing dates and we can make the system more efficient.

What excites me is that the new generation of technologists don't have to have my background. I went to geek school after geek school, but the newest programming language is human language. This means we can bring in people from many different backgrounds to build it. If we do this right, we will be opening up the profile of people who work in technology and AI."

Fanning the flames of a "culture war" might drive ratings, generate clicks and provide politicians with election fodder, but the idea there are ever-deepening divides in British social attitudes is misleading. When it comes to views on race, immigration, gender and sexual identities, we are increasingly aligned. The 2022 British Social Attitudes Survey found that 73% of people thought rights for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals "had not gone far enough" or were "about right", compared with 62% who thought this in 2013 (it's 64% in relation to transgender people); nearly half of people agreed that equal rights "had not gone far enough" for Black and Asian people, up from just 25% in 2000. The proportion of people who think being born in Britain is important for being considered '"truly British" has fallen significantly in the past 10 years. We also have more in common when it comes to economics than Westminster would have you believe: polling has found the overwhelming majority of the British public want to see services such as energy, rail and water brought back into public ownership.
Mathias Clasen is director of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University, Denmark
"At the beginning of the pandemic, a British science journalist made fun of me on Twitter because, 10 years ago, I talked about the potential adaptive functions of scary stories. She was asking sarcastically if I thought that horror fans were doing a better job of managing the psychological costs of lockdown. And so I thought: we're going to look into that.

We did a study where we looked at how many horror movies people had watched and then also looked at their psychological resilience, specifically in response to the first lockdown in 2020. We found those who had watched many scary movies reported fewer symptoms of psychological distress in response to the lockdown. Of course, it's a correlational study, we can't say watching scary movies is what caused them to have better mental health. But zombies are an interesting pop-cultural phenomenon, because we can precisely trace the evolution of the zombie. It was given its modern form in a horror movie from the late 1960s called Night of the Living Dead.

If we situate the zombie in a post-apocalyptic narrative, I think there's a pleasure in imagining worst-case scenarios. What if all the structures that uphold our everyday lives were to collapse? No police, no plumbing, no grocery stores? That's a scary thought. But also, I think, it is enticing in a way. It's a world of social danger that we can vicariously and imaginatively enter, and that can be beneficial."
Marcy Franck is author of The Climate Optimist newsletter from The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University
"There's a saying that 'Climate doom is the new climate denial.' Essentially, with climate denial we don't take action because we don't think it's a problem, but with climate doom we don't take action because we think it's a problem we can't solve.

We published our first issue of The Climate Optimist newsletter in early 2019. Back then, America had a government that was not exactly prioritising climate action. It seemed as if every other day we saw yet another news story that rolled back another rule or regulation put in place to tackle climate change. But the world has made significant progress since then. Last year, worldwide spending on carbon-free energy passed $1trn (£785bn). That means, for the first time ever, we spent as much on clean energy as we did on fossil fuels. We've now entered a 'new industrial age' of clean energy - by 2024, renewables will supply a quarter of US electricity. By 2030, it's projected to supply 80-90%. And carbon emissions are slowly bending in the right direction: in 2022 global carbon pollution related to energy rose by under 1%, less than originally feared.

Climate optimism isn't about denying what we can see or ignoring our grief for what we've lost. It's understanding the fact that we know how to prevent things from getting worse, that we are making real progress.

There's also been a shift in how we see climate action: it's not just about stemming climate change, it's about making our lives better. Climate action is lowering our energy costs, advancing equity, creating jobs, cleaning our air and improving our health. When you take a fossil-fuel power plant offline, the pollution it produces goes away, too. You see immediate health benefits. And these aren't small benefits: we see declines in the number of asthma flare-ups, heart attacks, strokes and premature births."

In the UK as well as the US, Sweden, Japan and other countries, there has been an overall decline in partnered sexual activities, with adolescents specifically delaying partnered sex. Should we be concerned about this decline? "Not necessarily," says Dr Debby Herbenick, a professor of Public Health at Indiana University and the author of many books, including Sex Made Easy and Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. Herbenick says that "Fewer teenagers and young adults are drinking alcohol, so at least some of the decline may be attributed to less substance use. Also, there's likely to have been some small but meaningful percentage of people who feel more confident in self-identifying as asexual and/or choosing to abstain." Conversations around consent on campuses have also become more mainstream, meaning young people feel empowered to set boundaries. And anyway, researchers believe that happiness with your sex life peaks at once a week.

By the time we hit our mid-20s, we're often led to believe that the best bits of our lives are firmly in the past. In fact, the data here is entirely inconclusive. One 2022 study suggests that our early-30s see us at our happiest; another reckons from our mid-50s we're at our smiliest. Yes, there's some research to suggest the 40s can be the most challenging decade for positive attitudes. Although that, too, is far from conclusive; there is evidence to show your mental health is - in general terms - on a constant upward trend. So, look on the bright side: the statistics show that your happiest days lie ahead and the most fulfilled among us are in their late 70s, 80s and 90s.

Illustration: Thomas Burden/The Observer

Too much solo screen time is a bad idea, but television can prove a useful tool for cognitive development. A University of Portsmouth study found that focused, supervised viewing of appropriate-age content can be beneficial for kids, particularly when an adult is on-hand to discuss what's happening and answer questions. Just think quality over quantity. Always shoving on the subtitles, meanwhile, can also be hugely beneficial. In a study of 2,350 children, 34% became good readers with schooling alone. When exposed to 30 minutes a week of subtitled broadcasting (in this case, Hindi film songs), that proportion more than doubled to 70%. Meanwhile, children watching foreign-language films with subtitles have been shown to have incidentally improved both their proficiency and vocabulary.

There's been hysteria for a while now about the massive growth of social media, which has seen us retreating into filter bubbles and echo chambers. As a result we only see and hear ideas that we self-select, which cuts us off from other opinions and perspectives. But Dr Amy Ross Arguedas of Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, says this simply isn't backed up by evidence. "Contrary to much of the public discourse on the topic, empirical evidence has quite consistently shown that politically partisan online echo chambers are much less widespread than is commonly assumed," she explains, "typically it's in the lower single digits. For example, in the UK, one survey study found that the proportion estimated to be in a left-leaning echo chamber was around 2% and the proportion in a right-leaning echo chamber was around 5%."
Joseph Uscinski is a professor at the University of Miami and author of American Conspiracy Theories
"Most Americans think more people believe conspiracy theories now than in the past. We call it the 'post-truth' world; we think we're living in an 'infodemic'. But are conspiracy beliefs actually on the rise in the internet age? To find out, we went to the Roper Center for Public Opinion at Cornell University, which is the biggest database of surveys taken in the past. We tried to identify all the surveys that had asked about a conspiracy theory to a national sample. We then re-polled them in 2021 to compare the data. We found conspiracy theories have not risen.

There are good reasons for this - people don't just believe anything they see. They are resistant to ideas that don't tell them what they already believe. Exposure to conspiracy theories doesn't do much to convert them.

It's also not the case that everyone who believes a conspiracy theory is taking to the streets and killing people. Most QAnon believers, for example, do not commit acts of violence. Most people who believe that the US election was rigged did not riot on 6 January 2021.

I don't want to say, 'Oh, there's nothing to see here.' Misinformation is bad. I'd prefer people's beliefs to be tethered to the truth. But are things getting worse? No."
Shadreck Mwale is a senior lecturer in the sociology of health and illness at the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory
"No matter what we do to stop ageing, we will finally get old, but we don't have to fear it. We are the ones who need to start the change to bring about better support and care for older people. The biggest innovations in the field currently relate to the advances in dementia treatment - we now know so much about what we can potentially do to reduce our risk of dementia, such as minimising head injury in sports, reducing harmful intoxicants across the life cycle and avoiding loneliness in later life.

There have also been significant biomedical developments in cardiology, surgery and orthopaedics that mean ageing well and living longer are real possibilities. At the same time, social attitudes, cultural expectations and representations of ageing have also radically changed. In 1989, at the age of 58, Sean Connery played a visibly aged and tired character in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, whereas Harrison Ford recently took the lead role at the age of 81 in the latest Indiana Jones offering."

There's no denying that digital technology has the potential to adversely affect adult users. Over-exposure can affect our sleeping patterns and cause addictions, with impacts on younger users particularly profound. But a recent study from medical experts at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California found a string of benefits in the use of digital tech, especially for older adults: online searching allowed for neural activation of circuits controlling decision-making and complex reasoning; video-games supported multitasking, reaction times and memory; online communities can also do vast amounts of good for our mental health.

You've heard the gripe: Gen Z are soft and mollycoddled snowflakes unwilling and unable to grow up. Not so, says Stanford University anthropologist Dr Roberta R Katz, co-author of Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age. "Older people," she says, "often evaluate young people based on their own experiences, without taking into consideration how much life has changed since the introduction of the internet." In the US, they're set to be the most diverse - and best educated- generation yet. " Our study found that Gen Zers are actually quite hardworking and pragmatic - far from being snowflakes. When we started our research, we were quite confused by and, I'll admit, even a little negative about today's young people. But after talking in depth with well over 100 of them in the US and Britain, and then surveying 2,000 more Gen Zers in the two countries, we could see that this is a remarkable generation."

OK, yes, there are probably hundreds of thousands of asteroids floating around in the sky up above us all with the devastating potential to smash into our planet and bring an end to life on Earth as we know it. According to the European Space Agency, based in Paris since 1975, near-Earth asteroids make up about a third of the roughly one million asteroids which have so far been observed in the solar system to date. But you can relax. There's really no need to panic. Currently, none of these near-Earth asteroids are thought to be a concern to the welfare of this planet for at least the next 100 years or so. And the scientists really do know their stuff: on 13 April 2029, for instance, Nasa predicts that the 340-metre wide asteroid Apophis will pass within about 20,000 miles of the Earth's surface - close enough to be clearly visible in certain parts of the sky - but it will cause no harm. We're in the clear when it's due to reappear in 2036 and 2068, too. In fact, the most common asteroids are also the smallest and have little effect, except for creating shooting stars as they beautifully burn up in the night sky. Lie back and enjoy the spectacle.

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Doom busters: why some things aren't (quite) as bad as we think

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We live in worrying times. From the climate crisis to the culture wars, there is always something to keep us fretting. But sometimes the facts tell a different story - a more hopeful one.

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This article, written by Lorenzo Tondo and Angela Giuffrida, comes from The Guardian. Its title is  : « Storms and wildfires kill seven in Italy as extreme weather continues » and it is about, as stated in the title, the scale and consequences of  extreme weather in Italy, last week.

Indeed, Italy was divided in two tipes of extrem weather events : the north of Italy, with violent storms and the south, with a lot of wildfires. These events were really dangerous for Italy : they have caused several deaths (for exemple a 16 years/old women who died as result of a tree which fall on her by being lightning-struck), but also lot of houses destructions, which has made many people homeless, with nothing left for them. There is also airports forced to close, in cause of wildfires near to these airports or just because of extreme temperature, which are dangerous for planes and for flights.
Temperatures reached 47°, a record for the country, and this is extreamly problematic because it could get worse if we don’t change things.
I want to pick up an interessant quote of this article : “What we are seeing is not normal. We can no longer deny that climate change is changing our lives. We can no longer turn a blind eye, and above all, we can’t not do anything.” I think that this quote shows us the importance of doing something because it becomes really unsafe, for everyone.

This article raise awarness, once again, about all bad consequences of global warming and makes us think about the fact that we have to do something to slow down this catastrophe for the environment and for humanity.
It mades me ask : What can we do, at differents scales, to reduce these weather events, which are destroying, little by little our planet ?

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https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/27/asia/north-korea-russia-china-war-anniversary-intl-hnk/index.html

This article comes from CNN news and was written, by Brad Lendon and Gawon Bae the 27th of July 2023.

The first part of the article relates what happened during this 7th birthday of the “Victory day” against South Korea during the war of Korea from 1950 to 953, which isn’t officially over. Russian and Chinese politicians were invited at the event. Kim Jung Un presented his allies his weapons arsenal and gave his support to the Russian folk in his “just struggle do defend his security and country”, implied the war against Ukraine and the Russian minister of  defence claimed that the Korean People’s Army is becoming the best in the world. A member of the Korean politburo tanked China for sending 270,000 soldiers to North Korea during the war and that they will never forget these heroes. It is important for North Korea to have the two delegations for the anniversary of the armistice because it proves the good relationships that the countries have.

This event shows that the number of friends of both Russia and china is very limited, even if they are powerful. Russia needs these allies to supply the Red army with missiles and ammunitions. Despite the Ukraine war Russian and Chinese armies still conduct military exercises together, the latest being at the beginning of 2023 on the japan sea (between Korea and japan).

Finally it is expected that North Korea exhibits new intercontinental missiles that could hit the USA anywhere the 28th of July throughout a parade, but could the money used to create these weapons not be used to feed the starving North Korean citizens?

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North Korea, China and Russia commemorate ‘victory’ 70 years ago, while aligning on Ukraine | CNN

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Delegations from Russia and China, North Korea’s key allies in the Korean War, gathered in Pyongyang this week to celebrate North Korea’s “Victory Day” in the war that ravaged the Korean Peninsula seven decades ago as they align over another very contemporary conflict – Russia’s devastating invasion…

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Our future has long been imagined in many ways in art. Today climate change being a major subject, it impacts our art. This article discusses the link between art and climate change with a questioning ton. Climate emergency inspires a lot of artists and there are two type of art as pointed out in the article. On one hand the optimist, enthusiastic aspect of the future of this crisis that show a playful visions of a better world. On an other hand the despair of the consequences of climate issues, where art show depicting negative scenarios.

Art looks ahead with numerous open-air exhibitions. Some venture into sociology, politics and economics, others focus on nature. The digital world is also getting into it with digital works exhibited on screens or augmented reality exhibition for exemple. Art offers some views of the future but also some solutions that maybe one day work and solve environmental problems. Arts above all raises awareness people and youth to react and help to reduce climate issues. But the question of the impact on people is raise also in this article. Art should not be too abstract otherwise people do not make the connection with reality and don’t want to change. We must show a near future and not very distopic.

This article is sobering and can lead us to the question : To what extent does art raise awareness among people and especially young people?

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The future was a fantastic place, once. Twenty years ago, the BBC's pioneering science show Tomorrow's World came to an end after 1,400 episodes. First beamed into living rooms across the nation back in 1965, the series envisioned the inventions of the near future, offering a blueprint of blue sky thinking.

As well as introducing products that soon became commonplace - such as artificial grass, the pocket calculator, the mobile phone and the robotic vacuum cleaner - it stretched the imagination to breaking point with the robot snooker player, paper underwear and the worm omelette, a protein-packed dish predicted to take over dinner tables.

While the early episodes of Tomorrow's World opted for 60s optimism and, towards the series' end in the 90s, dreamed of better things, the future of the planet today has never looked bleaker. We are living in a global climate emergency, with record heatwaves across the globe. Closer to home, wildfires increased fourfold in England last year and annual flood damage costs could rise by 20% due to the crisis. Eggy worms don't seem too scrambled an idea now.

It is no wonder, then, that art in recent years has looked ahead, like Tomorrow's World, to the future of the planet.In 2018, the artist Michael Pinsky created a series of Pollution Pods at London's Somerset House, filling five domes with the particulate matter of five cities. Last year, the Our Time on Earth exhibition at the Barbican in London brought together 18 works from across the globe that imagined possible planetary futures. Liam Young's film Planet City, for example, pictured a future mega-metropolis of 10 billion, based on the biologist EO Wilson's idea that humans could live on just half of the Earth and regreen the rest.

Michael Pinsky's Pollution Pods.Installation at Somerset House, London, 2018. Photograph: Malcolm Park/Alamy

Meanwhile, Dear Earth, showing at the Hayward Gallery at London's Southbank Centre until early September, features works from 15 international artists that examine, in the gallery's words, how art can "deepen our psychological and spiritual responses to the climate crisis".

While these shows venture into sociology, politics and economics, others focus squarely on nature. The BBC Earth Experience in west London is inspired by the Seven Worlds, One Planet television series and takes viewers on a journey through the world's wildlife. Large digital screens display videos narrated by David Attenborough; each room in the space is dedicated to a different continent.

All these exhibitions have deeper roots. In 2009, the exhibition Earth at the Royal Academy in London broke ground by examining the climate through abstract art. "I didn't want penguins or icebergs," curator Kathleen Soriano explained to the Guardian at the time: "We wanted people to have an aesthetic response."

Then there is the Eden Project. First opened in 2001, the Cornwall attraction, which features huge enclosures with more than 1,000 plant species, has since blossomed, attracting more than 1 million visitors a year, with a new marine venue in Morecambe, Lancashire, set to open in 2026. Sam Smit, the Eden Project's creative head, believes the venue's multisensory approach helps to inspire action. "In the rainforest, you can smell it, see its visual abundance, feel the humidity and temperature on your skin, hear the sound of the waterfall, and the odd bird," he says, citing the recent installation, Blue (Infinity Blue), a nine-metre monument to bacteria that fires O-shaped vapour rings into the air fragranced with "primordial" aromas.

Blue (Infinity Blue) 2018. A nine-metre homage to micro-organisms at the Eden Project, Cornwall. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Other features invite visitors to complete the story. Seeing the Invisible, an augmented reality exhibition, is accompanied by a Call to Action trail and activity book that invite young visitors to create a mind map, illustration or short video imagining what's next. Technology has often been used by the Eden Project to give viewers the opportunity to see the planet through other species' eyes. The AI powered app Pollinator Pathmaker imagined gardens from a bee's eye view; audio experience Vegetal Transmutation encouraged listeners to view the Eden Project as a plant might; while the film Kinommic Botany took this to the extreme: shot from a potato's perspective and giving new meaning to the role of the YouTuber, it challenged our anthropocentric view of the world.

The aim of these exhibitions is to offer a preview of the near future: but they also show what's in the pipeline to change the timeline. The hope behind the work of attractions such as the Eden Project is not only to show a glimpse of the future but also to spur change. "These exhibitions can tangibly help people visualise what a different world can look like," says Our Time on Earth curator Luke Kemp. "We felt that historically a lot of exhibitions and experiences depicted the problem of the climate crisis."

"Facts and data can leave one feeling disempowered and disengaged," the Eden Project's senior arts curator Misha Curson says. "Immersive experiences like ours are more powerful than talk of environmental disasters that are already in the media every day. It's a positive approach rather than an apocalyptic one."

If the eco-narrative becomes entertainment, the message may be lost. Bad art doesn't communicate much

Malcolm Miles

But does eco-art actually make us act? A study led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology examined the behaviour of visitors to Pinsky's Pollution Pods. Using interviews and a questionnaire to measure the emotional responses of the audience, it concluded that the exhibition did increase people's intention to act, but that very few attendees later went on totrack their climate crisis emissions - something they were encouraged to do.

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Studying the effectiveness of different works at COP21's eco-art festival, the researchers Laura Kim Sommer and Christian A Klöckner later defined four categories of environmental art: what they termedthe comforting utopia (playful visions of a better world); the challenging dystopia (depicting negative scenarios); the mediocre mythology (imagery drawing on myth and folklore); and awesome solutions (beautiful representations of nature that offer viable outcomes).

Andrea Bowers's Memorial to Arcadia Woodlands Clear Cut, 2014;part of Dear Earth at the Hayward Gallery, London. Photograph: Mark Blower/Hayward Gallery

They discovered only three of 37 artworks made a positive behavioural impact: Mur Vegetal, an upcycled carpet made from flowers; The Blue Whale, a representation of a captured whale; and Honey Roads, 80 photographs of hives across the world. All three, they found, belong to the "awesome solutions" subset; they were sublimely beautiful, were exhibited outside, clearly showed the effects of human behaviour, and were regarded as something new. "We suggest environmental art should move away from a dystopian way of depicting the problems of climate change ... and keep in mind the power of offering solutions and emphasising the beauty and interconnectedness of nature," Sonner wrote in the report.

Malcolm Miles, the author of Art Rebellion: The Aesthetics of Social Transformation, is more doubtful, arguing that increasingly less realistic depictions of nature can numb the emotional effect on the viewer and lead to inaction. "If the eco-narrative becomes entertainment, the message may be lost: people go home at the end of the film," he says. He also warns against the damaging effects of climate art that tries to say something good, but isn't very good at all. "Bad art doesn't communicate much; the same with immersive technologies."

There is hope, though, if the art actively showcases the future and "imagines what alternative futures might be", he continues. "That matters because it is not easy to foresee something which does not yet exist. The underlying message is: there are always alternatives to the way things are, and another world is possible."

Back in 1989, an episode of Tomorrow's World that imagined a family home in 2020 was strikingly accurate - it got automatic lights and voice-activated music right - but crucially got something wrong.

"There will be enormous pressure on us to cut down our burning of fossil fuels to protect the environment," it predicted, before showcasing a honeycomb-shaped insulating material that could bring heating bills down to zero and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. That future has yet to fully arrive but if we treat artists' solutions as fantastic, rather than fantastical, we may have a better tomorrow.
Dear Earth, Hayward Gallery, London, to 3 September; BBC Earth Experience, Daikin Centre, London, to 7 January.

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'It's positive, not apocalyptic': can climate change art help save the planet?

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The climate emergency has inspired a raft of disquieting art, and opinion is divided as to whether it encourages action or despair. But some artists and venues are showcasing a more optimistic vision of tomorrow's world

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/16/the-real-deal-young-graphic-artist-zoe-thorogood-nominated-for-five-eisners

This article is an article rote by the independent journalist David Barnett and have been published the Sunday 16th of July in the newspaper the Guardian

how we can thought with the title, this article treat about an artist who come from the United Kingdom and who is nominated for five time at the equivalent of Oscar’s ceremony but for the comic books authors. And this article is more centred of the advice of different people for the industry and the identity of this author both civil and artistic.

This author is a young 24 years old woman named Zoe Thorogood who come from Bradford will head to San Diego for the Eisner Awards which is as I said before the comic books reward equivalent of the Oscars and is nominated more than any professional in the sector. She is presented many times in the article like the future of comics and shared by Lisa Wood an artist who works under the name Tula Lotay and the co-founder of the annual Yorkshire comic convention which is an annual comics art festival and comic book convention held in Yorkshire. Lisa explains how the work of Zoe is incredible and how she has no doubt about her success but also affirms that the British comic world is a field male dominated and how Zoe’s success are bigger than we people outside of the field can suppose.

Actually Zoe Thorogood wrote two graphic novel, the first-one talk about a young artist who discovers she is going blind just as she start to gain some success. But the one who really brought a lot of attention from the readers and the comic industry to her is the second one named “It’s Lonely“

and depict the personnal story of Zoe’s battle with depression, represented by a monster following her everywhere, her suicidal thoughts and also how creating comics saved her life.

And even if the work of Zoe is relatively small the impression she has made on the comic books field, industry is already impressive and massive for her age.

This article raise me few questions :

-To which reasons a women have to do biggest thing like zoe ones to impress to comic books domain ? Why this domain his so male dominated ? And how many talented women have never receive the chance Zoe Throgood had ?

Why have I chose this article ?

First because I because I want to express how this woman has talent and how people should read the two graphic novel that are pretty beautiful and talk about serious thing. Also by reading this article I learn that the domain where Zoe evolved is so much hard to women so because this work allow me to do research on subjects than I would never do, I prefer using it to disclose important things like this one. It couldn’t be normal that women have less interest in some kind of art that men because art is suppose to be subjective and no one can impose it vision to an other.

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China is facing a number of problems in terms of growth,

Firstly, for the past few years, huge companies were censored by the communist party, which was worried that they took too much notoriety and so freedom. Adding that there is a shortage of jobs in cities, teenagers are leaving university with useless degrees and can’t find anything except small jobs. Due to the huge inequality between cities and countryside, they don’t want to leave knowing that they are going to have bad conditions and the impossibility to come back as a result of the “residence permit” set up by the CCP¹.

But this issue is temporary and will soon transform to the exact opposite: the single child policy created an elderly² population, unapt to work and who need to be paid. The Chinese economy based on mass production and on a mighty work force may disappear in coming years…

Still the main issue stays the “protective” and “security” policy set up by the government, censorship, important people disappearing when they start to be controversial and tensions with Taiwan are creating an unsafe atmosphere for investors and entrepreneurs which leads to potential lack of trust in relationships between China and other countries and companies, pretty bad for a country which is almost entirely based on exchange.

However, all of those factors are not affecting only the private sector, the middle class in suffering because it is dealing with an unstable economy, high mortgage³, expensive healthcare and unsubsidised⁴ retirement and this is turning to be the exact opposite of the Chinese communist dream for their population…

Key question:  do you think that a real communist policy could work (for everyone) in our world and how?

Please respond if you have time, I am more on the "no" side for now but I am in search for other point of view!

1: CCP = Chinese communist party

2: elderly = aged people

3: mortgage = un prêt (immobilier)

4 : unsubsidised  = non subventionné

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Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are both putting faith in a five-point plan. Never knowingly undersold, China's government announced last week that it's going for a 31-point strategy.

Last week, there were alarmed faces in Beijing at the news that its GDP had improved by just 0.8% in the second quarter of 2023, prompting a sense that China's economy needs a rapid boost. For the past few years, the private sector has been a target for high-profile crackdowns by the Chinese Communist party (CCP), worried that companies such as Tencent and Alibaba were enjoying too high a profile. Now, it says it wants to make the atmosphere for entrepreneurs " bigger, better, and stronger ".

This feels urgent, because China's economic recovery seems to have stalled, and the CCP's standing at home still depends on Xi Jinping's government creating a "Chinese dream" of a middle-class lifestyle. The end of Covid restrictions, just eight months ago, seemed to mark the start of a powerful bounceback in consumption; travel agencies were besieged by people booking holidays they had been denied for nearly three years. But in the past few months there have been more worrying signs. Youth unemployment is growing: about one in five of China's 16- to 24-year-olds were unemployed in June. Many university graduates have had to take jobs as delivery drivers because no professional jobs are available, and social media is awash with images of hard-earned but seemingly useless degree certificates.

In fact, there are plenty of jobs for those who want them. China has a severe shortage of teachers in the countryside, meaning that rural children tend to have a patchy education. But few urban graduates want to live in a village where running water is still a luxury, and China's strict "residence permit" (hukou) system means young people who move to the countryside may never be allowed back to the big city.

In a few years, China will face the opposite problem. Thanks to three decades of the one-child policy, China's working age population will shrink from the 2030s. Technology will need to adapt to create new jobs for a smaller workforce, while providing enough growth to pay for pensions and healthcare for the rapidly growing elderly population.

For years, if not decades, there have been predictions that China will become the world's largest economy. But the current crisis might make it seem as if decline is now unavoidable. In fact, there are plenty of factors that could improve China's situation. It spends 2.5% of GDP on research and development, an investment that pays off in areas such as its highly innovative technology sector. It also has the world's second-largest single market after India, which this year became the world's most populous country, and its population has a per capita average GDP of $12,000, more than twice that of India.

But China is laying traps for itself. "Security" has become the key political term: the word anquan has the double meaning of "safety" in Chinese, giving it a reassuring ring. Yet the term covers a wide range of issues, not just traditional military or national security, but economic and even cultural security. Press reports about the huge debts of local governments have been censored and journalists threatened with prosecution for endangering financial stability.

In China there is a danger that economists and entrepreneurs alike will find it unwise to state inconvenient truths

Free flow of information is crucial to the modern economy; in China, however, there is a danger that economists and entrepreneurs alike will find it unwise to state inconvenient truths. The fear of taking risks in case of state retribution will exacerbate a tendency summed up in a rhyme: Bu zuo, bu cuo ("If I do nothing, I won't do anything wrong").

The wider political atmosphere is adding to a sense of uncertainty. Another major story is the unexplained disappearance of China's foreign minister, Qin Gang, who has not been seen in public since late June. Other high-profile figures such as entrepreneur Jack Ma have also disappeared in the past, only to reappear after being publicly chastened for their political indiscretions, but it's unclear whether Qin is out of favour or just indisposed. These vanishing acts add to the sense that China's political sphere is unpredictable and opaque, sapping economic confidence at home and abroad. Few if any businesses have agitated for democracy in China, but plenty have begged for more transparency. It's no surprise that the 31-point plan includes assurances (but not guarantees) that the rights and interests of private entrepreneurs will be given due care and attention.

There is one factor that would almost certainly bring the economy to a halt: confrontation over Taiwan. Any military confrontation in the region would crash supply chains, lead investors to flee, and result in huge mutual sanctions between China and its western business partners. Economic realities don't rule out conflict. But a middle-class Chinese professional waking up in the morning wants financial security, a cheaper mortgage, a secure pension and subsidised healthcare, including cheaper healthcare for their parents. A nationalistic war that impacts their lifestyle would be deeply unpopular.

In some ways, China's inward turn is typical of the wider world as a whole. Brexit Britain is unusual in seeking new markets abroad as the US, China and the EU are all embracing protectionism. China's assets are real, including high levels of urban education and an innovative private sector. But to thrive, it needs to prioritise openness and transparency at home and a peaceful and cooperative relationship with its overseas trading partners. Without those factors, a 31-, 56- or 93-point plan won't be enough.

Rana Mitter is ST Lee chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School

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China's race for growth is fading. So too is its dream of middle-class security | Rana Mitter

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Xi Jinping's 31-point strategy may not be enough to halt the economy's decline

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/18/barbie-oppenheimer-movies-same-release-date-edited--oppenheimer-movies-released-same-day-box-office-greta-gerwig-christopher-nolanbarbie-oppenheimer-movies-same-release-date-edited-

Barbie VS Oppenheimer Clash of the Titans

The battle between these two incredible movies is a reminder of the human need to create competition and have a winner and a loser. It is really present in sports, war but also in art. Social networks have increased the number of competitions and made them a horse race that allows fans to speculate and claim bragging rights.

We have already seen battle between series like with Game of Thrones and Succession. But also with music with the fans of Taylor Swift and the fans of BTS. And finally in movies like in 1988 with Die Hard and A fish called Wanda and in 1995 Casino VS Toy Story. The last one is not for the same audience, with one being for adults and the other for families. Movies that compete against each other often do not have the same audience.

The Oppenheimer VS Barbie battle is not the same as the Ghostbusters vs Gremlins (8 June 1984) battle, as audiences are not determined by age or genre. It demonstrates that moviegoers can find it within themselves to enjoy more than one thing at a time. The film industry makes a lot of money as the music industry, and the competition in this fight is only to stimulate excitement in the consumer base.

So to what extend movie industry can impact population?

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/17/wildfire-smoke-canada-us-air-quality

Millions on alert as wildfire smoke from Canada to spread to US

On July 17th, almost 900 different wildfires were registered in Canada, increasing the air pollution there but also the US northern states. In fact, this month, huge wildfires have been detected and flighted by the firemen but most of them are still out of control, and it is worrying the US governors and citizens since the smoke has been crossing the US border because of the huge wind’s gusts. This situation has been leaving 70 millions of people under air quality alert. In fact, the air quality is considered “very unhealthy” when it comes above the 150-AQI’s threshold. And cities have been registering values up 169 AQI, which is way too high! The US concern is that this terrible issue is no more punctual because since the last month Canada’s forests have been burning up, leading the air quality to its worse rate ever registered for that long. For example, in NYC the air pollution rate is about five times higher than the normal rate leading to some deaths! Can you seize the urgency now?!

What I think about it:

We may start to act to rescue our planet because global-warming’s effects only started showing up right now, but thing will get worse in the future, so we need to get ready for when things will actually get worse, and it will be sooner that we think!

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As they did last month, wildfires in Canada are again expected to spread increased air pollution to the US this week, as millions in the country are under air quality advisories.

About 70 million people could be under air quality alerts as wildfire smoke from western Canada spreads to parts of the northern US and as far south as Alabama, CNN reported.

Nearly 900 forest fires are burning in Canada this week, the New York Times reported. The majority of fires have been categorized as "out of control" by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

On Monday, several cities reported elevated levels on the Air Quality Index (AQI), which provides daily air quality readings: 159 AQI in Cleveland; 166 AQI in Louisville; and 151 AQI in Pittsburgh.

Any air quality reading above 150 AQI is considered unhealthy and could have negative consequences for people's health.

Local governments have issued air quality warnings given the smoke. The Illinois environmental protection agency (EPA) extended an air quality alert for much of the state through Monday, ABC 7 Chicago reported.

New York state is under an air quality warning through Monday.

"New Yorkers should once again prepare for smoke from the wildfires in western Canada to [affect] our state's air quality this week," Governor Kathy Hochul said in a news release.

Hochul also said that the state's emergency notification systems would be activated and protective masks would be distributed.

The most recent bout of wildfire smoke comes after Americans were already exposed to increased air pollution in June as smoke traveled from forrest fires in Canada. On 7 June, New York City experienced the worst air quality in the world as the city's skies turned orange amid the smoke.

The US experienced the most toxic air pollution levels in recent history, as people in New York experienced air pollution more than five times the national air quality standard.

Pollution from wildfires can release tiny particles of soot and debris known as PM2.5. PM2.5 can enter the body when inhaled and bury deep into the lungs. The particles have been linked to several health conditions and death.

Exposure to smoke and other air pollutants can have greater health effects. Exposure can also be harmful to people with underlying health conditions and other risk factors.

Air pollution from smoke is expected to worsen as climate change increases global temperatures, according to a 2022 United Nations report.

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Millions on alert as wildfire smoke from Canada to spread to US

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Officials issue air quality advisories across US and with nearly 900 forest fires - many of them 'out of control' - burning to the north

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The article is extract from The Guardian, written by Kim Willsher on Friday15July. The title is <<‘Just pathetic’: France’s ‘make do and mend’ green strategy proves divisive

>>. This document will deals with French environmental measures taken by the government which spray controversy.

The main are the three following, refunds offered for repairing clothes/ household appliance, restriction on single-use plastic in fast food, higher parking fees for SUV owners.

It is a part of a political project lead by Emmanuel Macron. According to the first french minister this is a ‘complete strategy’ to fight the climate change, by asking efforts to each economic sector industries, government and citizens.

On an other side, Arash Derambarsh a deputy who is behind a law which prevent market to destroy unsold food, reject the measure of refunds for mended clothes and find it ‘just pathetic’ and insufficient. Indeed he criticizes the fact that this policy is trying to blame the consumer instead of the companies which could propose to get back damaged clothes as a guarantee. The opposition underline a major issue in the structure of the government that have to be changed in order to take efficient decisions against this crisis, “But we don’t seem to be even going forward under this administration.” said Greenpeace.

There is an actual cynicism from this government when in May this year Macron called for a “pause” in EU environment regulations whereas environmental concerns was in his political campaign. A cynicism which is already condemned by the Council of State considering the government does not make enough effort to respect their environment objectives.

To conclude, this article make me wonder, why politics and environmental concerns seem so incompatible, why is it so difficult to take major decisions for our environment ?

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rance is saving the planet one shirt, one plastic fork and one washing machine at a time. With refunds to be offered on repairs to clothing and household appliances, limits on single-use plastics in fast food and other restaurants and punitive parking fees for SUV owners, the recent green focus has targeted the consumer.

It is the latest phase in the government's environment roadmap, pledged by Emmanuel Macron in his presidential re-election campaign last year and announced by the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, in May.

Borne described it as a "complete strategy" to reduce waste and emissions in each economic sector, from large companies to individual households. "In total, half of the effort will be made by businesses, particularly large companies, a quarter by the state and local authorities, and the final quarter by households," she said.

Environmental campaigners and critics, however, question whether putting the responsibility on individual consumers is the right approach as the country faces another scorching summer of record temperatures, wildfires and water shortages.

Arash Derambarsh, the centre-right deputy mayor of the town of Courbevoie, north-west of Paris, who instigated a 2016 law forcing supermarkets to stop dumping and destroying unsold food, was dismissive of the government's latest measure: a €6-€25 "repair bonus" to have clothes and shoes mended.

Traffic in Paris at sunset. Among the new environmental measures are punitive parking fees for SUV owners. Photograph: Sylvain Sonnet/Getty Images

"It's just pathetic, a pittance," Derambarsh said. "The government is talking about zips and buttons when far more ambitious measures are needed. And why should the French taxpayer be subsidising this? If the government was really serious about this it should make clothes manufacturers and sellers offer to repair clothes for a period of time, say five years. It would also encourage them to produce better quality goods."

Sophie Bussière, a spokesperson for the Europe Écologie Les Verts party (EELV), agreed. "What we need is for companies to be encouraged to act with constraints and fiscal advantages. Personal actions make up 25% of the effort necessary but what is really needed is action by businesses and local authorities. Of course we should encourage individual people to evolve their behaviour, but there needs to be structural change in the politics and less cynicism."

The government argues its environment and climate policy is ambitious, coordinated and far-reaching. As a follow-up to the 2009-10 Grenelle laws, in 2020 France passed an anti-waste and circular economy law (AGEC), which outlines five main areas of attack in five-year chunks until 2040, and the following year a climate bill addressing France's pledges under the 2015 Paris agreement.

Legislation now includes a more ambitious target of a 55% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2030 (the EU's new target) compared with 1990, up from 40%, with the slogan Fit for 55. There are also small, soundbite policies, including vegetarian meals in schools, a watered-down policy on short-haul flights, rent caps for landlords with badly insulated property, and an obligation for public buildings to have water fountains - policies critics call "pragmatic ecology" they say has little impact.

The 2021 legislation emerged from Macron's climate convention, a panel of 150 randomly selected people brainstorming ideas, which the president was accused of then mostly ignoring or allowing business leaders to dilute them.

Climate protesters in Paris last month. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images

Greenpeace said the law did not address "the emergency of the situation" and described it as a missed opportunity. "This isn't a question of left or right it's about going forward and doing so more quickly," Derambarsh said. "But we don't seem to be even going forward under this administration."

The criticism has come not only from political opponents. In 2021, France's top administrative court, the Council of State declared the government's efforts "insufficient" and threatened sanctions and fines. It concluded France was not on track to meet its emissions goals. The country's independent High Council on Climate has repeatedly warned the government was falling short of its commitments and the rapporteur public, an independent commissioner, has also judged the government's actions inadequate. In a historic judgment in February 2021, the Paris administrative tribunal convicted the government for "non-respect of its engagements" on combatting global heating.

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Environmental groups who brought the case were further outraged when in May this year Macron called for a "pause" on EU environment regulations, a suggestion Bussière said was "scandalous and goes against all the scientific evidence".

"When he was elected, people naively believed Emmanuel Macon was an environmentalist. He said France would be an example in Europe and would lead the way on the environment. But while he speaks the right words and makes engagements and promises - and in different languages - we see that in reality there is little of substance in what he says."

She added: "There's a tendency to lay this on the French people to make them feel guilty when what we need is major political change. And it's not just EELV saying this but the courts."

Barbara Pompili, a former minister for ecological transition, has defended the consumer-targeted politics, saying a "cultural shift" was needed. This was brought home last year in what Le Monde described as "the summer that ended French indifference to climate change", with record temperatures, rampant wildfires, drought, thunderstorms, flooding and hailstones the size of marbles. When a Beluga whale, normally found in the Arctic, was stranded in the Seine, it seemed a potent symbol of impending climate apocalypse.

A few months later, France introduced rules requiring new items of clothing in shops to carry "eco-labels" detailing where they were made, with what and how they could be recycled.

In one supermarket this week, shoppers were surprised to be shown the labels. "I hadn't noticed them to be honest, and I can't see how adding another label is good for the environment," said Marie, 62, a retired teacher. Jeanne, 20, a law student, had not noticed the labels either, but was more impressed. "Anything that encourages people to recycle is good, but perhaps it could have been better publicised."

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'Just pathetic': France's 'make do and mend' green strategy proves divisive

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Policies such as refunds for repairing old clothes put too much responsibility on consumers, say critics

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/18/eu-sends-water-bombers-to-help-fight-wildfires-around-athens
EU sends water bombers to help fight wildfires around Athens.

The EU has been important for the fight against wildfires in Greece by sending 4 water bombers to help the firefighters there. The high force winds enhanced the propagation of the fire which force thousands of people to flee their home and killed a lot of animals in the forest. It also spread faster because of the high temperatures in Greece which are above 40 °C which dried the forests, so it is really inflammable.

In the region of Loutraki between 20 to 25 houses have been destroyed, and the city of Mandra has been trapped in the fire while an oil refinery was very close to the fire. At the moment, the wind has decreased so the fires can be contained but a second heat wave is expected during the next days with also powerful winds so the issue can start again.

This makes me wonder: To what extent is global warming endangering wildlife and human lives?

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The EU has weighed in with help to combat wildfires in Greece, dispatching four Canadair water bombers as the battle to douse blazes that have raged around Athens intensified.

Conflagrations whipped by gale-force winds left a trail of devastation, decimating pine forests, destroying homes and forcing thousands to flee as flames tore through terrain turned tinder dry by extreme heat.

On Tuesday, about 250 firefighters, soldiers and volunteers - backed by water-dumping planes, trucks and helicopters - battled to contain what was described as a fast-moving and uncontrollable blaze about 18 miles north of Athens.The fire started the previous day in the area of Dervenochoria, and intensified overnight, forcing the evacuation of people in nearby settlements. Highly flammable pine forests turned to ash as flames swept through land parched by temperatures that have exceeded 40C.

A firefighter facing a wildfire in Loutraki, Greece. Photograph: Vasilis Psomas/EPA

By late Tuesday fires had engulfed the municipality of Mandra and were barrelling towards the complex of refineries owned by Motor Oil Hellas in Corinth where planes and helicopters had rushed to put out flames. A state of emergency was called in Loutraki, a resort town in the Corinthian Gulf, about 80km west of Athens.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakiscut short a visit to Brussels to return to Greece and oversee the firefighting operation.

Acrid smoke blanketed the sky. "Until 4am there was no problem with fires in the wider region of Mandra," said local mayor Christos Stathis earlier in the day, noting how fast the blaze was spreading. "Unfortunately, the lack of firefighting planes has brought these negative results."

Other fires that had ripped through seaside towns south-east of Athens on Monday had been contained. But authorities said some properties were gutted as flames fanned by shifting winds tore through hillside scrub into the coastal resorts of Anavyssos, Lagonissi and Saronida where Athenians have holiday homes.

Devastation and despair was written on the faces of those who awoke to the news they had lost everything they had owned.

"[I only have] my bathing suit which I swim in, nothing else, and this shirt, I have nothing else, I don't even have other shoes," an 89-year-old man identified as Giorgos Nikolaou told Reuters after seeing his severely damaged house in Lagonissi. "Nothing. I am finished."

Local media reported late on Monday that huge numbers of animals had also died.

Fazoo Farm, a stray dog shelter near Lagonissi, had been burned to the ground, with very few animals surviving the onslaught of flames.

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Corinth's vice-prefect, Haris Vitiniotis, told Skai TV the situation was desperate in Loutraki. "For sure, there are many properties that have been destroyed. Mainly houses. About 20 to 25 houses have been completely burned."

The vast majority, he said, were summer homes owned by Greeks.

After last week's heatwave, the appearance of Etesian winds had at first been met with relief.

But the Greek meteorological service had also warned of the risk of forest fires, predicting the winds would become more intense on Wednesday before abating on Thursday when a second much more ferocious heatwave is expected to hit Greece.

This article was amended on 19 July 2023 to clarify that the fire that prompted the state of emergency in Loutraki is separate from that in the area of Dervenochoria.

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EU sends water bombers to help fight wildfires around Athens

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Flying boats dispatched as state of emergency called in Loutraki, with firefighters battling fast-moving blaze

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Up to 3m UK people behind on bills have had mental health problems, study says

According to research , up to 3 million people in the UK experienced mental health in the last two years due to unpaid bill. According to a straw poll from YouGov for the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity around 12% participant were behind in at least one bill of whom half had a mental health problem.

In them, only a minor part(9%) received advices to manage their money , and 60% of them said that they couldn't cope due to rising costs. To answer to this problem the charity calculated that the government could save more than £140M a year and double recovery rates for this kind of people. It will represent something like 27000 people each year.

The authors calculated that these changes could save £39M by reducing demands for health and around £105M benefits by increasing productivity resulting in more people recovering from that.

Martin Lewis the founder of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute thinks that the distribution to manage a people struggling of mental health problem isn't right and we need to put more pressure on NHS.

The people interviewed says that at no point a professional ask them how they were managing there money.

Dr Subodh Dave , dean of the royal College of Psychiatrist said : " Debt may have disastrous consequences for individuals and their families".

So it makes me wonder :to what extent people should have training in finance, Or should people have a mandatory follow-up of their finances in order to avoid any problem of this type?

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Up to 3 million people in the UK who are behind with at least one bill have experienced a mental health problem in the last two years, according to research.

YouGov polling for the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute charity found that 12% of all people were behind on at least one payment such as energy, rent or credit cards, of whom half - 3 million - had a mental health problem.

In all, people who have had mental health problems in the past two years are three times more likely to be behind on at least one significant bill, the report found, with 60% saying they felt unable to cope due to rising costs. Yet only 9% have received money or debt advice since the start of the cost of living crisis.

The charity calculates that the government could save more than £140m a year and double recovery rates for people with depression and debt by joining up mental health and money support. It calls on the government and NHS England to provide practical financial advice alongside NHS talking therapies.

This would double recovery rates for people struggling with debt and depression, help an extra 27,000 people recover from mental health problems each year and reduce waiting times for mental health services. The authors calculate that these changes would save £39m by reducing demand for health and social care services and generate £105m in wider economic benefits and boosts to workplace productivity, resulting in more people recovering from mental health problems.

Martin Lewis, chair and founder of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, said: "The cost of living crisis shows no sign of abating, and even if it does, the fallout will last years. Financial problems and mental health issues are locked together, it's about time treatments were linked too.

"For many years, therapists, mental health nurses and social workers have told us they often spend substantial, valuable clinical time helping people with their finances. It makes more sense to leave debt help professionals to do that and take some pressure off the NHS, letting clinicians focus on helping people get better."

Rachel, 46, from Cardiff, has had depression most of her life. But when she tried to come off her medication, she went into a downward spiral of spending and gambling and ran up debts of about £15,000. "It's mad, because the more debt you get in, the more the credit card companies will give you," she said. "At one point I had about 10 different credit cards."

She says at no point did any health professional ask her how she was coping financially and she felt unable to raise it herself.

Suzanne Hoddy, a 37-year-old nurse from Leicester, says no one considered whether she could handle her finances on discharge from a mental health setting in 2017. "Never at any point did someone ask: who's actually managing her house, all the bills, is that going to be a potential issue when she gets home?" she said. "There was no thought of that."

Had they done so earlier, Hoddy might have avoided a court summons for failing to pay her council tax while an inpatient. Linking mental health and money services "might mean an extra five minutes that you've had to spend with that person, but for that person's recovery, it's made a massive difference," she said.

Dr Subodh Dave, dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said psychiatrists were "intensely aware" of the significant impact of the cost of living crisis on patients' mental health. He said: "Debt may have disastrous consequences for individuals and their families.

"Clinicians can play their part by enquiring about their patients' financial situations and how this might be affecting their mental health. Collaboration is needed from a range of other bodies including financial advice services and social care organisations."

A government spokesperson said: "We're investing £2.3bn of extra funding a year by March 2024 to expand and transform mental health services in England, to treat an additional 2 million patients. We've also helped nearly 2 million people out of absolute poverty since 2010, and provided a £94bn support packages - worth about £3,300 per household - to help those most in need."

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Up to 3m UK people behind on bills have had mental health problems, study says

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People with recent mental health issues three times more likely to be behind on at least one key bill, research finds

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FLAVEN Lucile
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/14/more-than-quarter-of-adults-have-used-generative-ai-artifical-intelligence-survey-suggests

More than a quarter of UK adults have used generative AI, survey suggests

According to a survey, more than a quarter of UK adults (around 13 million people) have used generative AI (as ChatGPT, but also producing pictures, sounds, etc…), and a tenth of them use it daily, 4 million people even used it for work.

The group Deloitte, which published the survey, explains that the adoption of those AI tools is much quicker than the one of voice-assisted speakers (as Alexa for amazon), as it took them five years to come to the same levels. It is even said that it is rare to reach those levels that fast for a new technology, generative AI being used only since past November, with the launch of ChatGPT that has been followed by Microsoft, google…

ChatGPT, is producing convincing and human-seeming responses, but others can produce pictures, voices, all false but credible, which led to warnings about their ability to produce disinformation campaigns at a larger scale and massively. For example, we have the picture of the pope in a white jacket, produced by US startup Midjourney, which became viral.

It raises even more concerns as the survey also shows that more than four out of ten users of generative AI thought that all the answers were correct, meanwhile those tools face the flaw of producing factual errors. However, according to Deloitte partners, as a new technology, many aspects can and will be fixed.

This article can lead us to think about the use of this generative AI, and: To what extend should we limit the use of generative AI?

On the one hand we can mention the threat it represents:

-Risks of false but real-seeming information

- Pushes us (mostly towards the youngest) to do and think less by ourselves

- What if an ill-intentioned person has access to its control?

But on the other, how we benefit from it:

-Really time saving in our daily life

-But also in science, justice, politics…

-Can help people who cannot benefit this help from their families

And conclude that, to improve its use, we have to keep using it, but maybe monitor this use to prevent its mistakes and reduce the use for the younger, waiting for this technology to develop itself and become safer.

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More than a quarter of UK adults have used generative artificial intelligence such as chatbots, according to survey showing that 4 million people have also used it for work.

Generative AI, which refers to AI tools that produce convincing text or images in response to human prompts, has gripped the public imagination since the launch of ChatGPT in November.

The rate of adoption of the latest generation of AI systems exceeds that of voice-assisted speakers such as Amazon's Alexa, according to accounting group Deloitte, which published the survey.

Deloitte said 26% of 16- to 75-year-olds have used a generative AI tool, representing about 13 million people, with one in 10 of those respondents using it at least once a day.

"It took five years for voice-assisted speakers to achieve the same adoption levels. It is incredibly rare for any emerging technology to achieve these levels of adoption and frequency of usage so rapidly," said Paul Lee, a Deloitte partner.

The Deloitte survey of 4,150 UK adults found that just over half of the population had heard of generative AI, with around one in 10 respondents - the equivalent of approximately four million people - using it for work.

ChatGPT became a sensation due to its ability to generate human-seeming responses to a range of queries in different styles, producing articles, essays, jokes, poetry and job applications in response to text prompts.

It has been followed by Microsoft's Bing chatbot, which is based on the same system as ChatGPT, Google's Bard chatbot and, this week, Claude 2 from US firm Anthropic.

Image generators have also taken off, exemplified by a realistic-looking picture of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket, produced by US startup Midjourney.

However the ability of such systems to mass produce convincing text, image and even voice at scale has led to warnings that they could become tools for creating large-scale disinformation campaigns.

The Deloitte survey found that of those who had used generative AI, more than four out of 10 believe it always produces factually correct answers. One of the biggest flaws in generative AI systems so far is that they are prone to producing glaring factual errors.

"Generative AI technology is, however, still relatively nascent, with user interfaces, regulatory environment, legal status and accuracy still a work in progress," said Lee.

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More than a quarter of UK adults have used generative AI, survey suggests

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Adoption rate of latest AI systems exceeds that of voice-assisted smart speakers, with one in 10 using them at least once a day

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Nowadays, we are encircled by plastics that we can find in packaging, textiles, and utensils for example. However, these plastics deteriorate with the time which created minuscule fragments of plastic, also known as microplastics. Unfortunately, due to the huge quantity of them in our environment, we ingest a lot of them without exactly knowing consequences or potential harmful effects for our health.

That why we have to reduce our exposure to this type of substance.

Today, the most of foods and drinks that we can buy are packaged in plastic for sanitary reason. That why these customs were seen as a safe custom. Unfortunately, study have shown that exposing plastic to heat increased the shedding of plastics that we can swallow after.

For example, according to experts, some bottled waters contain “thousands of microplastic particles per liter”. That why we have to adopt new habits like filtering water, stop heating and eating foods in plastics and refusing buying vegetables and fruits packaged in plastic.

There is also plastic in our textiles such as polyester that is why experts encourage people to acquire clothes which are made of natural materials like wool.

Lots of products that we can use in our everyday life are plastic products and many of them are composed of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which are known as an endocrine disruptor.

Nevertheless, our exposure to micro-plastics is also really important in our house due to dust and fluff which are able to settle on open water vessels, people’s hands, or kitchen utensils for example.

More unexpected, micro-particles also come from road markings or brakes’ wear.

However, according to a professor in environmental science, our exposure to microplastics can be considered as lesser than the impact of our plastic consumption on our planet. (We can also think about the sixth continent !)

Nevertheless, he raises the alarm on the fact that lots of factories contribute to contaminate our earth (such as textile factories in Bangladesh).

Another reason that makes the hazardous nature of micro-particles is the fact that “the older the particles are, the more toxic they can become”. Unfortunately, these particles could impact our hormone or caused cancers.

We understand that we are surrounded by microparticles in our everyday life nonetheless we have not lots of information about their consequences on our health.

That’s why we have to adopt “precautionary principles” to limit our exposure to these micro and nanoparticles.

In this context, to what extent can we consider human behaviors as a danger for human future ?

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‘They’re in the air, drinking water, dust, food …’ How to reduce your exposure to microplastics

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No corner of the planet is free from minuscule fragments of plastic packaging, textiles or utensils. We ask scientists what this means for our health – and what we should do to protect it

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Peter Dutton is the oppposition leader in Australia. He wants to install more nuclear center in Australia. For him, this is a way to avoid the dependence on wind and solar technology from China because the fabrication of equipment is in China. He shows that fact with the exemple of the russian gas used by many european countries which are very dependent. However the Australia could source from US, UK or France. So he wants to stop  reniewable energies and increase nuclear energy. Peter Dutton will makes a speech on Friday : he will call for a debate about removing the legislation ban on nuclear power in Australia. He explains that nuclear energy is a way to decarbonise, deliver cheaper, more reliable and lower emission electricity. But for others, nuclear is the most expensive form of energy.

To what extent is nuclear energy a solution to the future of Australia ?

1) Solution because : no dependance to China, better performance, less polluting than coal and gas, not deplete natural resources....

2) Not a solution : dependance to others contries, not an eco-friendly policy, nuclear waste....

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The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has ramped up calls for nuclear power in Australia, casting the move as a way to avoid dependence on wind and solar technology from China and a natural next step from the Aukus pact.

Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.

He will use the speech in Sydney to call for a debate about removing the legislative ban on nuclear power in Australia, a step that was not taken during the nine years of Coalition government, in which he was a senior member.

Dutton's pitch comes just days before the Liberal National party in Queensland holds its state conference, where delegates are expected to propose several pro-nuclear resolutions.

He is likely to find a receptive audience for the message at the IPA, given that the thinktank's executive director, Scott Hargreaves, has publicly called for the scrapping of all subsidies for renewable energy and also urged political leaders to "hit the pause button on our headlong rush towards reliance on greater renewable energy".

In the speech, Dutton will argue that most of the leading solar panel manufacturers and wind turbine companies are based in China.

"So in the Albanese government's massive rollout of renewables, it is inevitable we will become heavily reliant on the Chinese market," he will say.

Dutton will say "there is no better example of the risk of over reliance on one market than what we saw with many European countries' dependence on Russian gas". After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he says, "things turned sour overnight".

By contrast, Dutton will say that Australia could source Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) or Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) from the US, UK, France "and other trusted partners".

Dutton will point to the bipartisan commitment to building nuclear-powered submarines in Australia under the Aukus deal.

"The submarines are essentially floating SMRs," he will say.

"The sheer amount of money being invested in research and development in the next generation nuclear-powered submarines will surely see military advancements complement the development of civil nuclear power industries around the world."

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Dutton will say he sees nuclear "not as a competitor to renewables, but as a companion" and he wants "an Australia where we can decarbonise and, at the same time, deliver cheaper, more reliable and lower emission electricity".

"At the very least, I think the government should consider working swiftly to alter the legislative prohibitions to SMRs and MMRs so we do not position Australia as a nuclear energy pariah," he will say.

Dutton will accuse the climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, of burrowing "so deeply down the renewable rabbit hole that he refuses to consider these new nuclear technologies".

"The new nuclear technology train is pulling out of the station. It's a train Australia needs to jump aboard."

A report by the Australian Conservation Foundation in October said the next generation of nuclear reactors being advocated by the Coalition would raise electricity prices, slow the uptake of renewables and introduce new risks from nuclear waste.

Last year Bowen ruled out consideration of nuclear power because he said "it is by far the most expensive form of energy".

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has also mocked the push, saying that after "22 failed plans" the Coalition now wants "to go towards nuclear energy". He has said in question time that Liberals must nominate "where the plants are going to be".

But the idea appears popular within parts of the Coalition's base. Three pro-nuclear resolutions are set to be debated at the Queensland LNP conference this weekend, including one urging a Dutton-led government to provide "baseload energy, such as nuclear as an adjunct to coal".

Another proposed resolution wants the next LNP state government to "review the education curriculum to ensure that energy supply, including nuclear energy, and impacts of renewable energy are taught factually".

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Peter Dutton ramps up nuclear power push and claims Labor down 'renewable rabbit hole'

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Opposition leader to tell Institute of Public Affairs that domestic reactors are natural next step from Aukus pact

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Japan will release Fukushima waters into ocean

To begin, let's go back to the initial facts. In 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake occurred a few dozen kilometers off the east coast of Japan. It is one of the strongest of the last two centuries. The earthquake created a tsunami that devastated hundreds of kilometers along the Japanese coast, the waves being up to more than 30 meters high. Japan being prepared for earthquakes, it was the tsunami that caused the most damage with tens of thousands of deaths. It was because of this tsunami that three reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, located on the east coast of Japan, went into meltdown, causing the worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl in 1986.

More than a million tons of water were then used to cool the reactors of the power plant, these radioactive waters were partly released into the ocean but the majority was until now stored in huge tanks. Since 2021, a reactor at the fukushima power plant has been in service so the limit of these tanks was reached. Japan then requested permission to release this water into the ocean.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has authorized Japan to release the diluted water gradually (over a period of 30 to 40 years) after a two-year review concluded that it would have a "negligible radiological impact to people and the environment".

But this decision is disputed:

- First by the Japanese fishing unions who are afraid of no longer selling their products because people would  may be refuse to buy live fish in the area where the water is released. Indeed, an import ban is already in force in South Korea.

- South Korea and China express reservations about the release of water into the ocean. China expressed regret over the "hasty" release of the nuclear watchdog's report.

Obviously, the main key question is whether the release of the radioactive water will have an impact or not. We can also wonder about the consequences of Japan's plan on relations with neighboring countries. We can see in the news that there are demonstrations by South Koreans about.

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The UN's nuclear watchdog on Tuesday gave Japan the green signal to dump treated radioactive water from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima power plant into the ocean.

Japan is set to release more than 1 million metric tons of water into the Pacific that was used to cool damaged reactors at the power plant hit by an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011.

The move has been criticised by neighbours China and South Korea despite Tokyo's assurance that the water is safe and has been filtered to remove most isotopes though it does contain traces of tritium.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after a two-year review, found Japan's plans were consistent with global safety standards and that they would have a "negligible radiological impact to people and the environment".

"This is a very special night," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told prime minister Fumio Kishida before handing him a thick blue folder containing the final report. Mr Grossi later told reporters that he would seek to allay lingering concerns and would station IAEA staff at the Fukushima plant to monitor the release.

"We have to recognise that such a thing has not happened before," he said, adding that Japan would have the final say on the release, which is due to span 30 to 40 years.

Tokyo has not specified a date to begin the water release pending official approval from the national nuclear regulatory body for Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), whose final word on the plan unveiled in 2021 could come as early as this week.

The treated water, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, will be diluted to well below internationally approved levels of tritium (an isotope of hydrogen hard to separate from water) before being released into the Pacific.

Japanese fishing unions have opposed the wastewater dumping plan, saying it would undo work to repair reputations after several countries banned some Japanese food products after the 2011 disaster.

A petition from the regions around the plant has garnered more than 250,000 signatures since the proposal was first made.

"Japan will continue to provide explanations to the Japanese people and to the international community in a sincere manner based on scientific evidence and with high level of transparency," Mr Kishida said after meeting the nuclear watchdog chief.

Mr Grossi is scheduled to visit the Fukushima power plant on Wednesday and later head to South Korea, where consumers have been stockpiling sea salt due to fear of contamination.

South Korea's fisheries authorities have vowed to ramp up efforts to monitor natural salt farms for any rise in radioactive substances and maintain a ban on seafood from the waters near the power plant.

Chung Hwang-keun, the South Korean agricultural minister, said the country will not lift a ban on Japanese food products from the area around the nuclear plant until public concern over contamination is eased.

Because that ban will keep any affected items out, "there is no need to worry about agricultural products," he told Reuters.

China, which previously accused Japan of a lack of transparency, expressed regret over the "hasty" release of the nuclear watchdog's report.

"If the Japanese side is bent on going its own way, it must bear all the consequences," China's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Japan can finally release Fukushima waters into ocean, UN review says

Japan can finally release Fukushima waters into ocean, UN review says

South Koreans stock up on sea salt and other sea products ahead of Fukushima wastewater release

Reuters

Japan can finally release Fukushima waters into ocean, UN review says

Protesters attend a rally against the Japanese government's decision to release treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, in Seoul

AP

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Japan can finally release Fukushima waters into ocean, two-year UN review concludes

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The treated water, enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools, will be diluted to well below internationally approved levels of tritium

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In South Korea pediatricians leaves hospitals which creates concern for the future of children.

Since 2017 the number of  health facilities for children decrease by 12,5 percent on the contrary to the number of psychiatry clinics. In 2022 the birthrate was 0,78, this is a very low rate.

Moreover doctors don’t want to became pediatrician because the insurance system did not adapt to changing circumstances and because for doctors thinks that this field don’t have future. They also don’t want to make this job because in South Korea they earn 10 dollars for 80 patients in a day while in other country doctors earn more money for less patients. The other countries help the hospital even if doctors do not have lots of patients to allowed doctors to have a normal wage. Some pediatricians are really worried to see that no more doctors want to join them when the situation is becoming more and more dramatic.

To try to solve this problem the minister of Health have choose to take economic measures  to help pediatrician.

This lack of pediatrician have a very negative impact on the health of the youngest. Somme children cannot have access to care even if they are infected by a serious illness.

It has already indirectly caused the death of a child in a hospital.

The situation is so alarming that some couples say it is adding to their doubts about having babies. Which is in opposition to the will of the government to raise the birth rate in the country. If the situation does not change, the case of South Korea could get even worse with a further decrease in the birth rate, which could potentially cause a strong reduction in the population and create strong economic stakes.

So we can wonder should doctors first choose a profession that provides them with a comfortable life and a simple job, or should they rather dedicate themselves to the sector in need to save society and cure it of its problems? Would the choice of caregivers by refusing to intervene on the youngest not be contrary to their duty to treat the population because they do not deal with mild illnesses but which very quickly become serious for the youngest?

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A shortage of paediatricians in South Korea is leaving hospitals unable to fill posts while raising risks for children's health, doctors have said, claiming that the shortage is both a result of the world's lowest birthrate and increasingly a factor behind it.

The number of paediatric clinics and hospitals in the capital, Seoul, has fallen by 12.5% over the five years to 2022, to just 456. Over the same period, the number of psychiatry clinics increased by 76.8%, while anaesthesiology centres saw a 41.2% rise, according to the Seoul Institute, a public administration thinktank.

At the root of the problem is a birthrate that fell to 0.78 in 2022 combined with the failure of the insurance system to adapt to it, leaving paediatrics starved of resources and doctors shunning a field they think has no future, seven paediatricians told the Reuters news agency.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare acknowledged "limitations" in the system and said measures were being implemented to address them.

According to ministry data, hospitals were only able to secure the services of 16.3% of the paediatricians they sought in the first half of this year, down from 97.4% in 2013.

For parents, the shortage can mean long waits for treatment for sick children.

"We had to wait two weeks," said Lee Bo-mi, a 35-year-old mother with a sick 3-year-old boy, at the Healthy Children's hospital in Seoul. "I was really scared. It felt like the sky was falling."

A mother waits with her son to see a doctor at a paediatric clinic in Seoul, South Korea Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Dr Song Dae-jin at Korea University Guro hospital said he worried that staff shortages could soon cripple his team's ability to provide emergency care.

"At this rate, we won't be able to last the year," Song said. "It's not a big deal if mild diseases are not seen for a day or two but the consequences of not seeing serious diseases or emergency patients in a timely manner can be devastating."

In May, a five-year-old boy with a respiratory infection died after failing to find a hospital bed, provoking a public outcry.

"Patients dying while bouncing around multiple emergency rooms, dying when it's not a serious disease, it's a travesty," said Dr Choi Yong-jae, vice-president of the Korea Children's hospital Association.

Doctors say the low fee problem is particular to paediatrics as the insurance system hasn't been revised to reflect fewer child patients. When more babies were growing up, paediatricians could sustain a low price, high volume model but that doesn't apply now.

"In foreign countries, the government pays enough to maintain the hospital even if you see 20 patients a day," said Dr Lim Hyun-taek, president of Korean Pediatric Association, who said fees had not been raised significantly for 30 years.

"But it's about $10 per treatment in Korea so clinics have to see about 80 patients a day."

By comparison, it costs about US$225 for an initial standard consultation with an Australian paediatrician, while observation at Nationwide Children's hospital in the US costs $208 an hour, according to its website.

The health ministry said measures had been introduced this year on fees and insurance compensation to supplement "limitations". It said it had proposed more state-backed centres and requirements for major hospitals to maintain emergency paediatric treatment.

"We understand that there are opinions from doctors saying it is not enough to cope with difficulties in the field. The government plans to steadily implement and continue to supplement the announced measures," it said.

Data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service shows paediatricians are South Korea's lowest paid doctors, making 57% less than the average doctors salary.

Some Hospitals have responded to the shortage by cutting services.

Sowha hospital, South Korea's oldest children's hospital, recently suspended Saturday afternoon and Sunday treatment for the first time in 77 years due to a lack of staff.

Other hospitals have reduced night-time treatment and shut children's emergency rooms.

The situation is so alarming that some couples say it is adding to their doubts about having babies despite government efforts to reverse the sliding birthrate with billions of dollars a year on childcare subsidies.

"I'm worried," said Kim Eun-ji, the 34-year-old mother of a baby boy, referring to the prospect of a second child.

"If the number of children's hospitals decreases and the number of doctors falls, it's going to be difficult to get children treated.

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South Korea: doctors desert paediatrics as low birth rate sparks fears for future

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Shortage of children's doctors has led to long waiting lists, clinic closures and even prompted prospective parents to think again

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First of all, it is necessary to present the Starlink constellation: it is a low orbiting satellite constellation with currently more than 4 000 little satellites, 12 000 of which are expected over the next few years. This constellation aims to deliver Internet to isolated areas.

That looks good but we already know that low-orbiting satellites, such as Elon Musk's Starlinks or the British mega-constellation One-Web cause light pollution which has an impact on astronomers' optical observations.

This article shines the light on another problem caused by the Starlink constellation discovered by scientists who use the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope. Indeed, an important part of Starlink satellites are emitting unintended electromagnetic radiations on a protected frequency band allocated to radio astronomy by the International Telecommunications Union.

Moreover, simulations show that the more important the constellation is, the more important the electromagnetic pollution is. In response SpaceX has communicated about some changes that could prevent these unintentional emissions for the futures Starlinks.

This new problem with the Starlink constellation asks us about the risks caused by a massive commercialisation of space. In other words: To what extent the innovation excuse can justify space pollution and destruction of our scientific capability?

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SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation is emitting radiation that is harmful to deep space astronomy, according to a new study.

The space-based internet network is made up of more than 4,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit - the latest of which were launched on Sunday night - with SpaceX boss Elon Musk planning to extend the constellation to nearly 12,000 satellites over the next few years.

Astronomers have previously complained about the light pollution from Starlink satellite clusters, which is known to impact optical observations, however the latest research uncovered a different source of disturbance that also impacts radio astronomy.

Scientists using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope, made up of connected antennas spread across Europe, measured a low-frequency radio hum from 47 of 68 Starlink satellites observed.

"This frequency range includes a protected band between 150.05 and 153 MHz specifically allocated to radio astronomy by the International Telecommunications Union," said Cees Bassa, an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy and co-author of the research.

The study, titled 'Unintended electromagnetic radiation from Starlink satellites detected with LOFAR between 110 and 188 MHz', was published in the peer-reviewed journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

There are more than 1.5 million Starlink subscribers across 56 countries, with SpaceX primarily targeting people in remote areas without access to telecommunications infrastructure.

The number of Starlink satellites already in operation far exceeds any of its rivals, which include the UK's OneWeb constellation of around 650 satellites.

"Our simulations show that the larger the constellation, the more important this effect becomes as the radiation from all the satellites adds up," said Benjamin Winkel, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany.

"This makes us worried not only about the existing constellations but even more about the planned ones - and also about the absence of clear regulation that protects the radio astronomy bands from unintended radiation."

SpaceX has previously worked with astronomers and observatories to help mitigate against the unintentional impacts of its satellites, and the company is already in contact with the authors of the study.

According to the astronomers, SpaceX has already introduced design changes that could prevent the unintended emission from its next-generation Starlink satellites. The Independent has reached out to SpaceX for further information about these changes.

"We believe that the early recognition of this situation gives astronomy and large constellation operators an opportunity to work together on technical mitigations pro-actively, in parallel to the necessary discussions to develop suitable regulations," said Gyula Jozsa, a co-author of the study.

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are leaking radiation, study says

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are leaking radiation, study says

An artist's impression of a large satellite constellation like Starlink in low Earth orbit circling above the LOFAR telescope

Daniëlle Futselaar/ International Astronomical Union

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Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are leaking radiation, study warns

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SpaceX's space internet network already has more than 4,000 satellites

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https://www.geraldtonguardian.com.au/news/world/ariane-5-launches-last-mission-as-europe-eyes-space-gap-c-11194637

Ariane 5: the ESA's heavy carrier left the launchpad for the last time, wendesday the fifth of July.
Ariane 5 was the most reliable cruiser in the space industry. Trustworthy enough to carry the 10 billion dollars James Webb space telescope or the comet-chasing Rosetta mission.
But after these 27 years of good services, Ariane 5 is becoming old and more importantly: expensive. This is due to the new type of reusable engine like the falcon 9 from spaceX that drastically lowered the cost of space flight. In reponse the ESA started the development of Ariane 6, supposed to be cheaper, but not yet able to fly.
With the tension in the war over Ukraine refraining the use of the soyuz spaceship and the unusable Italian spaceship, the Europe finds itself in a dangerous empty gap, hoping that Ariane 6 will operational when planned: in December.

This situation shows the vulnerability of europe in the space industry.

Does the EU has the capacities to catch up the speed imposed by the americans and to hold it?

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Norris warns protesters not to be ‘stupid and selfish’ at British Grand Prix

During the second weekend of july, people can watch the famous British Grand Prix at Silverstone. It’s a famous race in the world. But the event could be targeted by protesters. They will generally go to sit on the track to protest. One week ago, the formula One driver Lando Norris has warned that demonstrators of “stupid and selfish” and the organisers of the meeting and the race track director agreed with the pilot. They are afraid by the race of this week.

The demonstrators could put their lives at risk, the situation could have terrible results for the F1 drivers if they hurt protesters and for the demonstrator’s live. A company called Just Stop Oil could protest this week. They have done other demonstrations targeting sport event such as rugby final, snooker Championship.

The British GP is a major event seen by lots of people. The organisers of the meeting attend less of 500.000 visitors during the weekend.

Lots of people are stressed by the race of this weekend because last year 5 demonstrators went to the track to protest against the new British pump line. The event is a good advertiser for the protester’s companies and bring their ideas to the public. We can observe a radicalization of demonstrators who are more and more engaged by using glues, chains and other demonstrator’s objects, that imply more security to prevent the demonstrations during other events of year.

Key question:

To what extend the sport events could be seen like a target for demonstrators?

To begin, today more and more people put their lives at risk to demonstrate their points of view. Their actions could be so dangerous for them and for the other people. Demonstrators are sometimes unconscious and are prepared for anything. Some actions may produce a crash with terrible result like the death of drivers or the demonstrators and impact on mental health and physical hearth.

On other hand, the article raises a serious issue, how to be heard. But for me, I love Fomule one race and I have the feeling that it is so unfair to disturb any international events. It is a disrespect for sport people and their job. The same situation has been seen during the 2022 tour de France. However one solution could be to demonstrate before or after the events.

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The British Formula One driver Lando Norris has warned that protesters would be "stupid and selfish" in endangering lives by targeting this weekend's British Grand Prix.

Norris's comments echoed those of the organisers of the meeting who have appealed for protesters not to disrupt the event as their actions may present a genuine danger of putting lives at risk.

"Of course, it is a concern, because it is a stupid thing to do to put your life in danger with cars driving around," Norris said. "It is also a very selfish thing to do because of the consequences it could have on the person that drives the car.

"Everyone has a right to protest and there are good ways of doing it and worse ways. I just hope people are smart enough not to do it. There are much safer ways to get just as much attention."

The managing director of Silverstone, Stuart Pringle, was equally blunt in his statement that protesters such as the Just Stop Oil group that have targeted sporting events, such as the Ashes Test at Lord's, the Premiership rugby final and the World Snooker Championship, would be taking a severe risk in attempting similar actions at the race this weekend.

"You are not putting your life in danger when you sit on a snooker table or protest at a flower show," Pringle said. "A motor racing track is not the place to go. It is extraordinarily dangerous and people will be putting lives at risk if they go there, and any sensible, right-thinking person can extrapolate what the ultimate risk here is. My strong, strong message is: 'Do not put your life in danger. This is not the place to go and sit on a floor'. It is absolute madness if someone climbs on to a live racing track."

The British GP is one of the biggest sporting events of the year and last year attracted Formula One's largest global attendance. This year 480,000 are expected to attend over the weekend, with 140,000 on race day. It garners enormous attention both in the UK and globally and has been targeted by protesters before.

Just Stop Oil climate change protesters during a track invasion at Silverstone in 2022. Photograph: Northants Police/PA

At the race last year the five protesters climbed on to the track on the Wellington Straight, one of the fastest parts of the circuit and were in close proximity to several cars before they were removed by marshals and arrested.

The meeting at Silverstone would offer major publicity for any protest group amid increasing concerns at a variety of events that they have become targeted. There were large queues on the opening day of Wimbledon as the tournament increased security in an attempt to deter Just Stop Oil protesters, including bag searches for cable ties, glue, chains and padlocks.

The problem Silverstone faces is that protesters do not have to attach themselves to anything to make a statement but rather just invade the track like last year. Pringle said they too had increased security and policing for the weekend.

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Norris warns protesters not to be 'stupid and selfish' at British Grand Prix

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The British Formula One driver Lando Norris has warned that protesters would risk lives if they enter the track at Silverstone this weekend

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MONGELLAZ Lénaïc

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Lili Varnier

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Quentin Thepaut

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Louisa was here

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REPORT: Post your report HERE

ESSAY QUESTION: Then, write your key question. You may as well think of an outline plan

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Exclusive: OpenAI Lobbied E.U. to Water Down AI Regulation

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OpenAI lobbied the E.U. to weaken forthcoming AI regulation, even as the company calls in public for stronger AI guardrails, documents show.

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The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman review – AI, synthetic biology and a new dawn for humanity | Computing and the net books | The Guardian[Soso1]

Mustafa Suleyman wrote a book entitled The Coming Wave which suggests us a future as bright as pessimist with the freshly and interesting combination of AI and synthetic biology. In other words, there is a blooming and prosperous future facing an insecure one. Technology evolution is a so vast thing that it frightens us.

Although the author is not a technological determinist, he does not think that history is led by technology, he exposes the usefulness of technology for human like successive waves. At the beginning, tools were dedicated to understand our physical environment. Then they were consecrated to treat information with bits and nowadays, cutting-edge technologies are applied to biology.

According to Suleyman, technology is intrinsic to human and this is what makes him human.

What is going to happen regarding the thorny issue of the coming-edge of AI used for biology ?

As an AI experienced worker and deeply acquainted about genetic, the author seems trustworthy in order to propose a thought.

The book’s content tackles topics knowingly avoid as they are answerless for the time being. The author point is : regarding our technological headway we cannot afford to have no idea of the future, to not anticipate very likely scenarios. Burying our head in the sand absolutely cannot longer works.

New challenges paired with new contexts need newfound appropriate answers. Thereby, regulation would be a disaster, this is why Suleyman proposes instead « containment ».

How can we contain our XXI century tools ?

Kind of lock-downing modern devices means to establish a new human-technology relationship, more equilibrated, thanks to a brand-new « governance, cutting-edge engineering [and] ethical values ».

However, this proposal in a « 10-step plan » remains « utopian » :

- it represents an unrealistic organization because of the requirement of a huge « team-work » impossible at this scale ;

- and on top of that « how to contain the seemingly uncontainable » ?

Just like the journalist has ended his review we will end our article with Gramsci’s quotes ,which resumes perfectly the Mustafa Suleyman’s book, « pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will ».