Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene. X/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-06-UTILIT-EASERS1.pdf?utm_content=buffercc0ef&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer. Sorry Bill Nye, This Is The Science Vs. Religion Debate We Need. World Is Ill-Prepared for Global Warming Impacts, UN Says. Global warming is depleting fresh water and crops, destroying coral reefs and melting the Arctic, the United Nations said today in a report that concludes the world is ill-prepared to face many new threats.
Climate change has brought “key risks” that endanger lives and health worldwide, including storm surges and coastal flooding worsened by rising sea levels; infrastructure destruction and the disruption of power networks, communications and health services by extreme weather, and the depletion of crop production due to droughts and floods, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. “If you look around the world today, people, cities, businesses and nations aren’t prepared for the climate-related risk we face now,” Chris Field, the U.S. professor who co-chaired the 309 scientists drafting today’s report, said in a phone interview from Yokohama, Japan. “The climate changes that have already occurred have been widespread and have really had consequences.
Global Impact. The destructive myth about religion that Americans disproportionately believe. This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
This week, Pew Research Center published the results of a survey conducted among 40,080 people in 40 countries between 2011 and 2013. The survey asked a simple question: Is belief in God essential to morality? Interactive. The World of Seven Billion The map shows population density; the brightest points are the highest densities.
Each country is colored according to its average annual gross national income per capita, using categories established by the World Bank (see key below). Some nations— like economic powerhouses China and India—have an especially wide range of incomes. But as the two most populous countries, both are lower middle class when income is averaged per capita. Climate change: how a warming world is a threat to our food supplies. When the Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, it was in protest at heavy-handed treatment and harassment in the province where he lived.
But a host of new studies suggest that a major factor in the subsequent uprisings, which became known as the Arab spring, was food insecurity. Drought, rocketing bread prices, food and water shortages have all blighted parts of the Middle East. Analysts at the Centre for American Progress in Washington say a combination of food shortages and other environmental factors exacerbated the already tense politics of the region. Utah is Ending Homelessness by Giving People Homes. Earlier this month, Hawaii State representative Tom Bower (D) began walking the streets of his Waikiki district with a sledgehammer, and smashing shopping carts used by homeless people.
“Disgusted” by the city’s chronic homelessness problem, Bower decided to take matters into his own hands — literally. He also took to rousing homeless people if he saw them sleeping at bus stops during the day. Bower’s tactics were over the top, and so unpopular that he quickly declared “Mission accomplished,” and retired his sledgehammer. But Bower’s frustration with his city’s homelessness problem is just an extreme example of the frustration that has led cities to pass measures that effective deal with the homeless by criminalizing homelessness.City council members in Columbia, South Carolina, concerned that the city was becoming a “magnet for homeless people,” passed an ordinance giving the homeless the option to either relocate or get arrested. Image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2013/06/13/World_Populations_WEB. Nigeria expected to have larger population than US by 2050. Nigeria's population is expected to surpass that of the US by 2050, according to new UN projections that predict the west African country could be the world's third most populous by the end of this century.
The UN report World population prospects: the 2012 revision, published on Thursday, predicts the world's population, now at 7.2 billion, will reach 8.1 billion in 2025. By mid-century, the world's population is expected to top 9.5 billion, reaching nearly 11 billion by 2100. More than half of the growth predicted between now and 2050 is expected in Africa, where the number of people is set to more than double, from 1.1 billion to 2.4 billion. Africa's population will continue to rise even if there is a future drop in the average number of children each woman has, says the report, which predicts the number of people living on the continent could reach 4.2 billion (or more than 35% of total global population) by 2100. Shrinking population Today, the average person is 29 years old.
Www.risingtidescompetition.com/risingtides/Winners_files/122.220864_KuthRanieri_lr.pdf. Tiny, cheap water-sensing chip outperforms larger, pricier sensors. Doctoral student Vinay Pagay holds one of the chips Image Gallery (2 images) Whether you're growing wine grapes or mixing cement, there are some situations in which it's vitally important to monitor moisture content.
Normally water sensors are used, although these can be both large and expensive. Now, however, a team from Cornell University has created a water-sensing silicon chip that's not only tiny, but is also reportedly "a hundred times more sensitive than current devices. " World population not likely to stabilize at 10 billion people. March 19, 2013 2:24 p.m.
World poverty is shrinking rapidly, new index reveals. Some of the poorest people in the world are becoming significantly less poor, according to a groundbreaking academic study which has taken a new approach to measuring deprivation.
The report, by Oxford University's poverty and human development initiative, predicts that countries among the most impoverished in the world could see acute poverty eradicated within 20 years if they continue at present rates. Internet Marriages on Rise in Some Immigrant Communities. Just then, the Internet connection cut out, and the wedding was abruptly over.
Normally one of the most intimate moments two people can share, the marriage had taken place from opposite ends of the globe over the video chat program , with Ms. Chowdhury, an American citizen, in a mosque in Jackson Heights, Queens, and her new husband, Tanvir Ahmmed, in his living room with a judge in his native Bangladesh. Nilometer: Egypt was ruled from here. The level of Nile water has been measured for 5000 years to predict farming production. This current Nilometer, or Miqias in Arabic, on the southern tip of Roda Island dates back to 715 AD making it one of Cairo’s oldest sites in relatively good shape but also it is the second oldest building by the Ummayyads (Arab/Muslim) dynasty.
The Nilometer is essentially a measuring device, one big enough to be entered to occupy its interior space. Three UK launches wholesale M2M platform for MVNOs. The wholesale arm of UK mobile operator Three has announced plans to launch a cloud-based machine-to-machine (M2M) platform, which it claims will reduce setup time and costs for MVNOs looking to capitalise on the embedded connectivity market. M2M is the technology behind the Internet of Things that could enable smart cities of the future. It allows electronic devices to communicate with one another via SIM cards that can connect to wireless sensors and the mobile internet for management and monitoring, and to provide services. The Ericsson-based platform allows MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) to activate and deactivate their own connections, track data usage, set alerts and apply data caps through their own branded portal.
The company expects the M2M platform to be used for markets ranging from remote CCTV cameras to automatic number plate recognition systems. In Hawaii, 40-square-miles and many tough choices. STANFORD (US) — After a two-year effort, researchers and Hawaii’s largest landholder have mapped the ecological future of a large chunk of Oahu. In the end, the environmental value of the land—not just the commercial value—was considered. A former sugar plantation, the abandoned farmland is owned by the Kamehameha Schools trust. The land needed to be repurposed after a century in sugar cultivation. In 2006 the trust partnered with Stanford University environmental researchers at the Natural Capital Project and embarked on a two-year process to determine the effects of various land use alternatives. Catalysts For Change - Paths out of Poverty.
World Economic Forum lists top 10 emerging technologies for 2012. The World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies has drawn up a list of the top 10 emerging technologies for 2012 (Image: Shutterstock) Our goal here at Gizmag is to cover innovation and emerging technologies in all fields of human endeavor, and while almost all of the ideas that grace our pages have the potential to enhance some of our lives in one way or another, at the core are those technologies that will have profound implications for everyone on the planet.