Suicides among soldiers in 2008 rose for the fourth year in a row, reaching the highest level in nearly three decades, Army officials said Thursday. At least 128 soldiers killed themselves last year, and the Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War, according to Army statistics. The suicide count, which includes soldiers in the Army Reserve and the National Guard, is expected to grow; 15 deaths are still being investigated, and the vast majority of them are expected to be ruled suicides, Army officials said. Including the deaths being investigated, roughly 20.2 of every 100,000 soldiers killed themselves. The civilian rate for 2006, the most recent figure available, was 19.2 when adjusted to match the demographics. ‘This is not business as usual, said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, who is leading suicide-prevention efforts. ‘We need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse the very disturbing number of suicides we have in the U.S. Army. The Army did not identify a specific reason for the increase, but officials said 15-month deployments to war zones played a role. These deployments, […]
The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement. In recent years, there has been growing evidence for the hypothesis that the effect of the pandemics in the Americas wasn’t confined to killing indigenous peoples. Global climate appears to have been altered as well. Stanford University researchers have conducted a comprehensive analysis of data detailing the amount of charcoal contained in soils and lake sediments at the sites of both pre-Columbian population centers in the Americas and in sparsely populated surrounding regions. They concluded that reforestation of agricultural lands-abandoned as the population collapsed-pulled so much carbon out of the atmosphere that it helped trigger a period of global cooling, at its most intense from approximately 1500 to 1750, known as the Little Ice Age. ‘We estimate that the amount of carbon sequestered in the growing forests was about 10 to 50 percent of the total carbon that would have needed to come out of the atmosphere and oceans at that time to account for the […]
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Knowledge gaps continue to hobble scientists’ assessments of the environment, a Michigan State University researcher and colleagues warn. Their warning follows sobering conclusions drawn from what they do know and could help set the global agenda for research funding in the years to come. A worldwide 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment enlisted hundreds of scientists to develop a view of ecosystems through the lens of services those ecosystems provide humanity, said Thomas Dietz, director of the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program and professor in sociology and crop and soil sciences. The MEA found about 60 percent of ecosystem services supporting life - including fresh water, fisheries, clean air, pests and climate - are being degraded or used unsustainably. The MEA projected continued deterioration at current rates. But drawing conclusions is still limited by what researchers call discipline-bound approaches that don’t fully describe the range of the Earth’s dynamic and complex biophysical and social systems. ‘In only a few cases are the abilities of ecosystems to provide human well-being holding steady, and in almost every case we’re seeing declines in ecosystems underpinning human well-being, said Dietz, who was involved in the original MEA. […]
Last year the U.S. wind energy industry installed a record 8,358 megawatts of new generating capacity that can serve more than 2 million homes, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The Washington, D.C.-based trade association of America’s wind industry has more than 1,800 member companies. At the end of 2008, however, financing for new wind projects and orders for turbine components slowed and the wind turbine manufacturing sector started to get slammed with layoffs. According to Denise Bode, chief executive of the association, there needs to be quick action on the stimulus bill to restore the industry’s momentum and create jobs. The new wind projects completed last year account for about 42 percent of the entire new power-producing capacity added across the U.S. last year, according to initial estimates, Wind energy generating capacity in the U.S. now totals 25,170 megawatts, which can power the equivalent of close to 7 million homes. The top five states, in terms of wind power generating capacity, are Texas, Iowa, California, Minnesota and Washington. The wind industry has about 85,000 workers, or 35,000 more than a year ago. Many of the 8,000 construction jobs within the industry […]
Outposts has been sharply critical of Japan for its insistence on hunting whales regardless of international opposition and a moratorium on commercial whaling. And readers have pointed out that Iceland and Norway are also whaling nations. Sad, but true. In fact, a story that moved today on the Environment News Service cited Iceland’s plan to slaughter hundreds of endangered fin whales over the next five years. The outgoing fisheries minister — the coalition government resigned Monday — said the new and substantially larger quotas are according to scientific recommendations of the Icelandic Marine Research Institute. Huh? Killing whales for science? That sounds familiarly bogus. Iceland, presumably, has increased quotas — it hopes to kill 150 fin whales and 100 non-endangered minke whales annually through 2013 — to sell meat abroad, mostly to Japan, where there’s still considerable demand. As the head of a European marine mammal conservation group noted, ‘It is a sad day for whales that they now become the latest potential victims of the world economic crisis and we have not seen a hunt of this scale in the North Atlantic since the 1980s.’
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
