Conventional wisdom is often a poor guide. For one thing it suggests that human damage to the world’s species, habitats and ecosystems is terminal: that when things are lost, they are lost for ever. But oil spills of the sort that now threaten the Timor Sea, forest fires like those that recently afflicted Greece, and other man-made and man-assisted threats to wildlife are transient. Except in those cases in which a species is driven to extinction, the Earth’s ability to shrug such things off is often underestimated. Alan Weisman shows this in his book, ‘The World Without Us, which illustrates nature’s great capacity to recover. Have mankind abducted by aliens or wiped out by some Homo sapiens-specific virus, and nature, Mr Weisman reckons, would reclaim its territory with surprising speed, as weeds colonised pavements, rivers flooded subway tunnels and buildings burst as they were played like concertinas by a cycle of freezing and thawing. By Mr Weisman’s reckoning, residential neighbourhoods would return to forest in 500 years and only the most stubborn of human inventions, such as certain plastics, would prove permanent. AFP Mr Weisman’s conclusion was backed up earlier this year by a study published in the […]
A ‘pandemic response bill’ currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency, compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance. If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continues. Massachusetts’ pandemic response bill ‘Pandemic Response Bill’ 2028 was passed by the Massachusetts state Senate on April 28 and is now awaiting approval in the House. As stated in the bill, upon declaration by the governor that an emergency exists that is considered detrimental to public health or upon declaration of a state of emergency, a local public health authority, with approval of the commissioner, may exercise the following authorities (emphasis added): * to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises; * to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, […]
SALT LAKE CITY — A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling ‘radical, leftist propaganda.’ Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called ‘I pledge’ on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, ‘Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.’ The video then features celebrities making pledges about how they will help the president and the world — and that’s where some say the problem lies. Many pledges, such as supporting local food banks, smiling more, and caring for the elderly are noncontroversial. But other pledges, such as ‘to never give anyone the finger when I’m driving again,’ ‘to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid’ and to advance stem cell research cross the line, some say. ‘Showing the video in a public school is completely inappropriate,’ said Jennifer Cieslewicz, whose daughter is a first-grader at the school. ‘I don’t believe […]
Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO. Obama will address a joint session of Congress on health care reform in prime time on Wednesday, Sept. 9, a senior official tells POLITICO, and the president plans to give lawmakers a more specific prescription for health care legislation than he has in the past, aides said. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said. ‘We’re entering a new season, senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. ‘It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active. Top officials privately concede the past six weeks have taken their toll on Obama’s popularity. […]
Tipping points are found in ecosystems, economies and even bodies. But they’re usually recognized in retrospect, when it’s too late for anything but regret. Now a growing body of research suggests there are telltale mathematical signals. If scientists can figure out how to detect them, they may be able to forecast tipping points ahead of time. ‘We are repeatedly blindsided by disasters that come out of the blue. If we had better tools for anticipating those events, we could avoid some of them, said Steve Carpenter, a University of Washington ecologist and co-author of a review Wednesday in Nature. In 1972, physicist Kenneth Wilson won a Nobel Prize for developing equations to describe transitions that don’t happen in a linear, easily predictable way, but are sudden and massive, such as fluids becoming turbulent and metals becoming magnetized. Since then, scientists have noticed similar shifts elsewhere. The theory provides the only models that make sense of the Sahara’s sudden flip from fertile grassland to sandy wastes some 5,500 years ago. Exploited fish populations fluctuate wildly. Futures prices on the S&P 500 displayed telltale skewing in the year preceding the 1987 stock market crash. The proposition is […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
