Thursday, September 10, 2020


'Autocrats Deliver?' US Joins Brazil and Hungary as Only Countries Where Quality of Life Is Getting Worse, Social Progress Index Finds

The annual report offers a "reality check against the drumbeat of U.S. triumphalism," one observer said. 

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Published on Thursday, September 10, 2020 
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Juana Gomez wears a face mask while using a trash bag to protect against the rain, as she waits in line to receive food at a Food Bank distribution for those in need as the coronavirus pandemic continues on April 9, 2020 in Van Nuys, California. Organizers said they had distributed food for 1,500 families amid the spread of Covid-19. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The United States found itself in the company of Brazil and Hungary—two countries run by leaders who, like President Donald Trump, have alarmed international observers with their autocratic tendencies—on the 2020 Social Progress Index, an annual ranking of quality of life in nations around the world. 

The three countries are the only ones, according to the Social Progress Imperative, which has compiled the index since 2011, where quality of life has declined over the last decade.

"Autocrats deliver?" tweeted Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.  

At number 28 on the list, the U.S. is also alone among other wealthy countries in the G7 where people's personal safety, access to basic healthcare, personal rights and freedoms, and other measures of quality of life are on the decline. 

"The data paint an alarming picture of the state of our nation, and we hope it will be a call to action," Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor and the chair of the advisory panel for the Social Progress Index, told Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times. "It's like we're a developing country."

The index ranks countries according to their performance in three key areas: basic human needs, foundation of wellbeing, and opprtunity—breaking those categories down into sub-categories including:

  • nutrition and basic medical care,
  • personal safety,
  • health and wellness,
  • environmental quality,
  • personal rights, and
  • inclusiveness.

Tier One on the index is populated by countries whose wealth is comparable to that of the United States. Norway was ranked as number one, followed by Denmark and Finland. New Zealand, which this year has won international praise for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, also ranked high, as well as Japan, Iceland, Canada, and Sweden.

A number of countries with GDPs lower than that of the U.S.—including Greece, Estonia, and Cyprus—rank ahead of the country in the bottom half of Tier Two. 

"GDP is not destiny," emphasizes the report, displaying a chart that shows the U.S. has lagged in "turning its economic growth into social progress."

With a lower GDP per capita than the U.S., the chart shows, New Zealand's government funds a universal healthcare program, spends a greater percentage of its GDP on education than any other country in the world, and was able to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus by allowing residents to stay at home with a major relief package, offering subsidies to businesses to continue paying employees and covering the wages of employees that had to self-isolate.    

The U.S. government has so far offered a one-time, means-tested direct payment of $1,200 to some American households—as the crisis stretches into its sixth month—and allowed its enhanced unemployment benefit to expire in July even as more than 10% of workers were jobless.

Well before the pandemic, the index shows, quality of life was rapidly declining in a number of areas in the U.S. In 2011, when the country was in 19th place on the list, the U.S. earned 93.25 points for meeting basic human needs such as healthcare and personal safety.

The uninsured rate is lower than it was in 2011, but has steadily climbed since 2016 and skyrocketed in a matter of weeks when the coronavirus pandemic hit, forcing an estimated 12 million Americans off their employer-based health coverage. 

Gun violence has also increased in the U.S. over the past six years, according to Giffords Law Center.

The United States' starkest decline since 2011 has been in the area of opportunity; in terms of inclusiveness, access to education, and personal rights, the U.S. was given 81.89 points this year, contrasting with its score of 85.17 in 2011. 

Kristof noted that while the U.S. is fully capable of delivering high-quality healthcare and education to everyone in the country, the federal government keeps many Americans from accessing necessities—operating as a nation with far fewer resources in terms of its approach to the wellbeing of the public, while lavishing the wealthiest Americans and corporations with tax breaks. 

"The United States ranks No. 1 in the world in quality of universities, but No. 91 in access to quality basic education," Kristof wrote. "The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet we are No. 97 in access to quality healthcare. The Social Progress Index finds that Americans have health statistics similar to those of people in Chile, Jordan, and Albania, while kids in the United States get an education roughly on par with what children get in Uzbekistan and Mongolia. "

The index, tweeted John Kostyack of the National Whistleblower Center, offered a "reality check against the drumbeat of U.S. triumphalism."

James Tierney, an economics professor at Penn State University, planned to use the index to teach his students about the limits of measuring a country's success by its GDP or economic growth. 

"The hope is to [help] students understand there are other measures outside of the value of production to determine the well-being of a country," Tierney tweeted. 

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STONEHENGE’S UNREAL, REAL LIFE ACOUSTICS WOULD HAVE IMPRESSED THE GUYS OF SPINAL TAP



Credit: MGM
Contributed by

Sep 9, 2020,

Maybe the model of Stonehenge that materialized in the haze of a fog machine onstage in This is Spinal Tap was just a piece of spray-painted Styrofoam that almost got crushed, but a similar model has revealed the Neolithic monument probably had much better acoustics than that theater the band was playing.

Stonehenge might have not actually been an arena to watch guys in hooded robes and glitter eyeshadow act all otherworldly, but it did have killer acoustics. At least the way it was recently found to have been configured to amplify sound but still keep it inside defies the notion that no one knew how to achieve special effects during the Stone Age. University of Salford professor Trevor Cox and his research team worked backwards — instead of building a scale model of a future concert hall, they used the prehistoric gathering place to create such a model. The Spinal Tap-size Stonehenge they created could literally speak (or sing) of its secrets.

“Getting the size, shape and location of the stones right is the most important aspect,” Cox, who led a study recently published in Journal of Arachaeological Science, told SYFY WIRE. “To do that we used a computer reconstruction from Historic England that follows the best current archaeological evidence. The stones themselves were made hard and impervious so sound readily reflected off them as happens with stones.”



Credit: Trevor Cox

There were no such things as mics and amps 5,000 years ago. People who had something to say to others, or to their gods, needed to be in a place that was made for their voices to be heard. The reverse building of Stonehenge needed sound frequencies to be 12 times what they were estimated to have been in the original monument. While the actual rituals that took place at Stonehenge can only be guessed at, the way it is constructed to let light in at a particular angle during the the winter and summer solstice suggests ancient Pagan ceremonies. This could be why it was constructed to keep intonations or music inside the scared circle.

To create what could pass as a much more accurate Spinal Tap prop, Cox and his team 3D-printed versions of the 27 types of megalithic stones found at Stonehenge. They then used these replicas to make molds and cast enough to create a scaled-down version of what was once a 157-stone monument. The replicas were filled various materials meant to come as close as possible to the texture and density of the actual stones. Only 63 complete and 12 fragmented stones exist today, and most have suffered from erosion and other ravages of time. However, Cox was careful to note that despite his findings on the acoustics at Stonehenge, sound was only a secondary consideration in how Stonehenge was built.



Credit: Trevor Cox
“I doubt that they built Stonehenge for the sound,” he said. “other considerations like astronomical alignments are much more likely to have determined the construction. More likely they built it, and then found it helped enhance speech and musical sounds, which then could have influenced how they used the site."

Since its construction, Stonehenge is obviously not as it used to be. Missing stones and the wear of thousands of years has affected how sound is heard within. Stone reflections create the reverberation that amplifies sound. An incomplete monument means that there are not as many stones to give an accurate representation of what that reflection must have once sounded like. Surprisingly, the recreation showed that the original was lacking in echoes that had been hypothesized before. Reflections were obscured and scattered by the inner sanctum of bluestones and trilithons, or structures consisting of two upright sarsen stones with a third lying horizontally across them. The stones were rearranged several times during the Neolithic age, but Cox argues the acoustic changes resulting from this were inaudible.


The scale model revealed that most sounds made within Stonehenge were probably not heard well by outsiders, and the same goes for sounds occurring outside the circle, which must have not been heard well by anyone on the inside. Whether it was the builders’ intention to keep sacred incantations from escaping hallowed ground, or to prevent outside noise from interfering with rituals — or both — remains unknown.

"When we get together for a ceremony we make sounds: speaking, singing or playing music," Cox said. "It is reasonable to assume similar sounds were being made in Stonehenge in prehistory. What our results show is that the amplification of sound via stone reflections happens only within the stone circles, and sound does not readily pass from inside to outside the circle. Consequently, if you're holding a ceremony there, it works best if everyone is inside the circle."

More may be demystified in the future, but some things that emerge from shadows of the past may forever keep their mystery.


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Return of Myanmar's smiling turtle is reason to be cheerful

The Burmese roofed turtle was once down to a few individuals in the wild but captive breeding has been a runaway success

Smiling close up of the Burmese roof turtle
Smiling close up of the Burmese roofed turtle. Photograph: Myo Min Win/WCS Myanmar
Poppy Noor
@PoppyNoor

If you want to turn your frown upside down this morning, a story about smiling turtles saved from extinction in Myanmar might just do the trick.

The Burmese roofed hatchling, whose upturned mouth makes it appear to have a constant smile on its face, was once the second-most critically endangered turtle in the world. Only five or six adult females and two adult males are known to exist in the wild. But last week, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Turtle Survival Alliance announced they had successfully raised 1,000 of the turtles in captivity, and say the smiling turtle will soon be ready for release into the wild.

As recently as 2017, officials at the WCS were still letting out a sigh of relief whenever the female turtles emerged to lay their eggs, but now it claims the turtle faces “little danger of biological extinction”.

The turtle was once abundant, but was pushed to the brink of extinction due to hunting, overexploitation of eggs, improper egg harvesting, electro-fishing and destruction of its natural habitat because of gold mining.

To recreate its natural habitat, conservationists use sandbanks as nesting sites. The sites are monitored and eggs are collected and incubated under natural conditions at a secure facility in Limpha village, Sagaing region, Myanmar.

Smiling Burmese roof turtle emerging from an egg.
Smiling Burmese roof turtle emerging from an egg. Photograph: Myo Min Win/WCS

The turtle originated in Myanmar, and was previously thought to be extinct – until researchers in a village along the Dokhtawady River in Myanmar found the shell of a recently killed turtle in 2002.

Between then and 2011, conservationists managed to grow its captive population to over 400 turtles housed at Yadanbon Zoological Gardens in Mandalay – which at the time was thought to represent “a remarkable conservation success story”.

To prevent crowding, about 50 of the turtles bred at Yadanbon Zoo were then taken to a new facility to divide the captive gene pool and prevent what the Turtle Survival Alliance called an “eggs all in one basket scenario”, risking a catastrophic loss if something happened to the turtle population at that one facility.

The turtles will eventually be returned to the Chindwin River for reintroduction to the wild.


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UN report: Increased warming closing in on agreed upon limit

by Seth Borenstein

In this Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020 file photo, an air tanker drops fire retardant on a hillside wildfire in Yucaipa, Calif. A hotter world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report.


In the next five years, the world has nearly a 1-in-4 chance of experiencing a year that's hot enough to put the global temperature at 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial times, according to a new science 130 degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius) and Siberia hit 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius).

The warming that has already occurred has "increased the odds of extreme events that are unprecedented in our historical experience," Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said.

For example, historical global warming has increased the odds of record-setting hot extremes at more than 80% of the globe, and has "doubled or even tripled the odds over the region of California and the western U.S. that has experienced record-setting heat in recent weeks," Diffenbaugh added.

The world already has warmed nearly 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 1800s, and the last five years are hotter than the previous five years, the report said. The speed-up could be temporary, or it might not be. There's both man-made warming and natural warming from a strong El Nino weather pattern in the past five years, said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
  
In this Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019 file photo, Marco Belfrond holds an old photo of the Plancipieux glacier, near Courmayeur, northern Italy, near the fast-moving melting glacier. A hotter world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

"The probability of 1.5 degrees (Celsius) is growing year by year," Taalas told The Associated Press. "It's very likely to happen in the next decade if we don't change our behavior."

That's potentially faster than what a 2018 U.N. report found: that the world was likely to hit 1.5 degrees sometime between 2030 and 2052.

Breakthrough Institute climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, who wasn't part of the new report, said the document was a good update of what scientists already know. It is "abundantly clear that rapid climate change is continuing and the world is far from on track" toward meeting the Paris climate goals, he said.

Some countries, including the U.S. and many in Europe, are reducing emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, but Taalas said the world is on a path that will be 5.4 degrees (3 degrees Celsius) warmer compared with the late 19th century. That would be above the Paris accord's less stringent 2-degree Celsius target.
  
In this Thursday, Aug. 27, 2020 file photo, people survey the damage left in the wake of Hurricane Laura in Holly Beach, La. A hotter world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The latest report was the U.N.'s annual update on "climate disruption" caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas. It highlighted more than just increasing temperatures and rising sea levels.


"Record heat, ice loss, wildfires, floods and droughts continue to worsen, affecting communities, nations and economies around the world," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in a foreword.

Guterres said big polluting countries, like China, the United States and India, need to become carbon neutral, adding no heat-trapping gas to the atmosphere, by 2050.

If they don't, "all the effort will not be enough," Guterres said at a press conference Wednesday.

The report spotlights unprecedented wildfires in the Amazon, the Arctic and Australia. California is fighting record wildfires as the report was issued.

This Monday, July 30, 2019 natural-color image made with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite shows meltwater collecting on the surface of the ice sheet in northwest Greenland near the sheet's edge. A hotter world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. (NASA via AP)

This satellite image provided by NASA on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 shows smoke from wildfires in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. A hotter world is getting closer to passing a temperature limit set by global leaders five years ago and may exceed it in the next decade or so, according to a new United Nations report released on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. (NASA via AP

"Drought and heat waves substantially increased the risk of wildfires," the report said. "The three largest economic losses on record from wildfires have all occurred in the last four years."

Taalas said the these type of climate disasters will continue at least through the 2060s because of the heat-trapping gases already in the air.

Carbon dioxide emissions will be down 4% to 7% this year because of reduced travel and industrial activities during the coronavirus pandemic, but the heat-trapping gas stays in the air for a century so the levels in the atmosphere continue to go up, Taalas said. And, he said, so will the warming.

So far, this year is the second hottest on record and has a 37% chance of surpassing the global record set in 2016, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Explore furtherUN report: Extreme weather hit 62 million people in 2018

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'Nature Is Unraveling': New WWF Report Reveals 'Alarming' 68% Plummet in Wildlife Populations Worldwide Since 1970

"In the midst of a global pandemic, it is now more important than ever to take unprecedented and coordinated global action to halt and start to reverse the loss of biodiversity."

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The World Wide Fund for Nature on Thursday released its Living Planet Report 2020, the thirteenth edition of its biennial flagship publication. (Photo: Jonathan Caramanus/Green Resistance/WWF-UK)

"The Living Planet Report 2020 is being published at a time of global upheaval, yet its key message is something that has not changed in decades: nature—our life-support system—is declining at a staggering rate."

"The Living Planet Report 2020 underlines how humanity's increasing destruction of nature is having catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives."
—Marco Lambertini, WWF

That's according to the 13th edition of a biennial report (pdf) from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), released Thursday in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has heightened warnings about the dire consequences of humanity's "absolute disrespect for animals and the environment," in the words of world renowned conservationist Jane Goodall earlier this year.

The Living Planet Index (LPI), managed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in partnership with WWF, tracks the abundance of 20,811 populations of 4,392 species across the globe. The latest version of WWF's flagship publication reveals that the LPI "shows an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016."

The LPI "is one of the most comprehensive measures of global biodiversity," or the variety of life on Earth, Andrew Terry, ZSL's director of conservation, explained in a statement Thursday. "An average decline of 68% in the past 50 years is catastrophic, and clear evidence of the damage human activity is doing to the natural world."

Biodiversity loss and its drivers vary around the world, with the greatest losses recently recorded in tropical areas. WWF reports that average population declines by region were 94% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 65% in Africa, 45% in Asia-Pacific, 33% in North America, and 24% in Europe and Central Asia.

In each of those regions, changes in land and sea use, including habitat loss and degradation, had the most significant impact on wildlife populations, followed by species overexploitation, invasive species and disease, pollution, and climate change. The report explains that "globally, climate change has not been the most important driver of the loss of biodiversity to date, yet in coming decades it is projected to become as, or more, important than the other drivers."

In Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, human-caused climate change already affects wildlife populations more than pollution—and the impact isn't one-way. "Loss of biodiversity can adversely affect climate—for example, deforestation increases the atmospheric abundance of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas," the report notes.

"The Living Planet Report 2020 underlines how humanity's increasing destruction of nature is having catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives," said WWF International director general Marco Lambertini, who argues for a "a deep cultural and systemic shift" in the report's foreword.

"We can't ignore the evidence—these serious declines in wildlife species populations are an indicator that nature is unraveling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of systems failure," he continued. "From the fish in our oceans and rivers to bees which play a crucial role in our agricultural production, the decline of wildlife affects directly nutrition, food security, and the livelihoods of billions of people."

"If nothing changes, populations will undoubtedly continue to fall, driving wildlife to extinction and threatening the integrity of the ecosystems on which we all depend."
—Andrew Terry, ZSL

"In the midst of a global pandemic, it is now more important than ever to take unprecedented and coordinated global action to halt and start to reverse the loss of biodiversity and wildlife populations across the globe by the end of the decade, and protect our future health and livelihoods," Lambertini added, echoing recent messages from Goodall and others. "Our own survival increasingly depends on it."

Terry of ZSL similarly warned that "if nothing changes, populations will undoubtedly continue to fall, driving wildlife to extinction and threatening the integrity of the ecosystems on which we all depend. But we also know that conservation works and species can be brought back from the brink. With commitment, investment, and expertise, these trends can be reversed."

WWF global chief scientist Rebecca Shaw agreed that "while the trends are alarming, there is reason to remain optimistic." She pointed out that "young generations are becoming acutely aware of the link between planetary health and their own futures, and they are demanding action from our leaders. We must support them in their fight for a just and sustainable planet."

In addition to the LPI—which, as WWF acknowledges, is just one of many indicators showing severe biodiversity declines in recent decades—the new report includes "pioneering biodiversity modeling" based on a paper from an initiative co-founded by WWF and over 40 partners that was published Thursday in the journal Nature.

"The Bending the Curve modeling provides invaluable evidence that if we are to have any hope of restoring nature to provide current and future generations of people with what they need, then world leaders must—in addition to conservation efforts—make our food system more sustainable and take deforestation—one of the main causes of wildlife population decline—out of supply chains," said Lambertini.

The report comes ahead of 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which is supposed to start next week; a Summit on Biodiversity scheduled for September 30; and negotiations on a new global biodiversity agreement set for next year. WWF is urging world leaders to pursue a "New Deal" that puts nature on the path to recovery by 2030.

"With leaders gathering virtually for the U.N. General Assembly in a few days' time, this research can help us secure a New Deal for Nature and People which will be key to the long-term survival of wildlife, plant, and insect populations and the whole of nature, including humankind," Lambertini added. "A New Deal has never been needed more."

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 Earthquake Strikes New Jersey, Shaking Reported Across State

USThe Associated Press Sep 9, 2020

NEW YORK—A small earthquake struck in East Freehold, New Jersey, early Wednesday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

According to the National Weather Service, the magnitude 3.1 quake was felt by people in much of central New Jersey.

Residents took to social media to express their shock at the rare occurrence. Hundreds of people as far away as Philadelphia and Long Island, New York, contributed to the USGS’ “Did You Feel It?” map, reporting only weak or light shaking and no damage.

“It would be very surprising for us to see anything more than you know, damaged shelves or picture frames falling off of windows,” said Robert Sanders, a geophysicist with the survey.

The USGS said the earthquake happened about 2 a.m. and was centered 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) south, southeast of the center of East Freehold, about 3 miles deep.

“That’s a fairly uncommon event magnitude for quakes in this area,” Sanders said. Since 1970, there have been two other quakes within 10 miles of this location, a 3.5 in 1979 and a 3.1 in 1992, he said.

No information on any preliminary damage has been released by authorities yet.


The map shows the location of a small 3.1 magnitude earthquake that shook parts of New Jersey early on Sept. 9, 2020. (USGS)
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