NYtimes: Refugees Join List of Climate-Change Issues

NYTimes:

With their boundless vistas of turquoise water framed by swaying coconut palms, the Carteret Islands northeast of the Papua New Guinea mainland might seem the idyllic spot to be a castaway.

But sea levels have risen so much that during the annual king tide season, November to March, the roiling ocean blocks the view from one island to the next, and residents stash their possessions in fishing nets strung between the palm trees.

“It gives you the scary feeling that you don’t know what is going to happen to you, that any minute you will be floating,” Ursula Rakova, the head of a program to relocate residents, said by telephone. The chain could well be uninhabitable by 2015, locals believe, but two previous attempts to abandon it ended badly, when residents were chased back after clashing with their new neighbors on larger islands.

This dark situation underlies the thorny debate over the world’s responsibilities to the millions of people likely to be displaced by climate change.

There could be 200 million of these climate refugees by 2050, according to a new policy paper by the International Organization for Migration, depending on the degree of climate disturbances. Aside from the South Pacific, low-lying areas likely to be battered first include Bangladesh and nations in the Indian Ocean, where the leader of the Maldives has begun seeking a safe haven for his 300,000 people. Landlocked areas may also be affected; some experts call the Darfur region of Sudan, where nomads battle villagers in a war over shrinking natural resources, the first significant conflict linked to climate change.

In the coming days, the United Nations General Assembly is expected to adopt the first resolution linking climate change to international peace and security. The hard-fought resolution, brought by 12 Pacific island states, says that climate change warrants greater attention from the United Nations as a possible source of upheaval worldwide and calls for more intense efforts to combat it. While all Pacific island states are expected to lose land, some made up entirely of atolls, like Tuvalu and Kiribati, face possible extinction.

“For the first time in history, you could actually lose countries off the face of the globe,” said Stuart Beck, the permanent representative for Palau at the United Nations. “It is a security threat to them and their populations, which will have to be relocated, which is the security threat to the places where they go, among other consequences.”

The issue has inspired intense wrangling, with some nations accusing the islanders of both exaggerating the still murky consequences of climate change and trying to expand the mandate of the Security Council by asking it to take action.

“We don’t consider climate change is an issue of security that properly belongs in the Security Council; rather, it is a development issue that has some security aspects,” said Maged A. Abdelaziz, the Egyptian ambassador. “It is an issue of how to prevent certain lands, or certain countries, from being flooded.”

The island states are seeking a response akin to the effort against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. “The whole system bent itself to the task, and that is what we want,” Mr. Beck said, adding that the Council should even impose sanctions on countries that fail to act. “If you really buy into the notion that the Suburban you are driving is causing these islands to go under, there ought to be a cop.”

As it is, the compromise resolution does not mention such specific steps, one of the reasons it is expected to pass. Britain, which introduced climate change as a Security Council discussion topic two years ago, supports it along with most of Europe, while other permanent Council members — namely, the United States, China and Russia — generally backed the measure once it no longer explicitly demanded Council action.

Scientific studies distributed by the United Nations or affiliated agencies generally paint rising seas as a threat. A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, detailing shifts expected in the South Pacific, said rising seas would worsen flooding and erosion and threaten towns as well as infrastructure. Some fresh water will turn salty, and fishing and agriculture will wither, it said.

The small island states are not alone in considering the looming threat already on the doorstep. A policy paper released this month by Australia’s Defense Ministry suggests possible violent outcomes in the Pacific. While Australia should try to mitigate the humanitarian suffering caused by global warming, if that failed and conflict erupted, the country should use its military “as an instrument to deal with any threats,” said the paper.

Australia’s previous prime minister, John Howard, was generally dismissive of the problem, saying his country was plagued with “doomsayers.” But a policy paper called “Our Drowning Neighbors,” by the now governing Labor Party, said Australia should help meld an international coalition to address it. Political debates have erupted there and in New Zealand over the idea of immigration quotas for climate refugees. New Zealand established a “Pacific Access Category” with guidelines that mirror the rules for any émigré, opening its borders to a limited annual quota of some 400 able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 45 who have no criminal records.

But its position has attracted criticism for leaving out the young and the old, who have the least ability to relocate. Australia’s policy, by contrast, is to try to mitigate the circumstances for the victims where they are, rather than serving as their lifeboat.

The sentiment among Pacific Islanders suggests that they do not want to abandon their homelands or be absorbed into cultures where indigenous people already struggle for acceptance.

“It is about much more than just finding food and shelter,” said Tarita Holm, an analyst with the Palauan Ministry of Resources and Development. “It is about your identity.”

Ms. Rakova, on the Carteret Islands, echoes that sentiment. A year ago, her proposed relocation effort attracted just three families out of a population of around 2,000 people. But after last season’s king tides — the highest of the year — she is scrounging for about $1.5 million to help some 750 people relocate before the tides come again.

Jennifer Redfearn, a documentary maker, has been filming the gradual disappearance of the Carterets for a work called “Sun Come Up.” One clan chief told her he would rather sink with the islands than leave. It now takes only about 15 minutes to walk the length of the largest island, with food and water supplies shrinking all the time.

“It destroys our food gardens, it uproots coconut trees, it even washes over the sea walls that we have built,” Ms. Rakova says on the film. “Most of our culture will have to live in memory.”

Tyga - My Glory

Video for Tyga "My Glory" off of the new mixtape, The Potential Presented By DJ Green Lantern, coming soon.

Directed by Colin Tilley.

Economist: Climate Change - Seat-of-the-pants estimates won’t be enough to cool the world

This is one of the major reasons why climate negotiations are difficult: because even the basis for arguments are unclear.

Economist:

THE human impact of climate change “is difficult to assess reliably”, say the authors of a new report from the Global Humanitarian Forum, a think-tank run by Kofi Annan, a former United Nations secretary-general, aided by a raft of eminent folk. But they make a stab, reaching the conclusion that 325m people around the world are seriously affected by climate change every year and that this number could more than double, to around 660m, by 2030.

As in so many reports of this kind, the trend looks plausible, but there seems little basis for the exact numbers. For example, the authors attribute two-fifths of an expected increase in weather-related disasters to climate change and use this as a basis for all their other sums. But they offer no convincing rationale for this approach, and admit with refreshing candour that “the real numbers may be significantly lower or higher.”

On slightly firmer ground, the authors elaborate on the familiar point that most of the damage from a changing climate will be felt in poor countries. Warmer temperatures are actually leading to increased crop yields in some parts of North America and Russia. But areas where yields are falling because of climate change include sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where the victims are small farmers eking out an already meagre living. And the countries seen as most vulnerable to climate change are all poor: they include Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Chad.

Nor are people in those countries well placed to adapt to change. As their livelihood vanishes, they are more likely to fuel the ranks of the temporarily or permanently displaced. The eminent writers duly propose a huge (nay, hundredfold) boost in funding to help the poor cope with a shifting climate—through drought-resistant crops, for example.

In another haphazard estimate, the authors of “Human Impact Report: Climate Change—Anatomy of a Silent Crisis” say 26m people have already been displaced by climate change. But here again, accuracy is impossible. Should Cyclone Aila, which hit Bangladesh and India on May 25th and affected hundreds of thousands of people, be classified as a climate-change event? Even if scientists could agree on the contribution of global warming to the rising frequency of such disasters, it would still be hard to classify the causes of any given catastrophe. Nor is it easy to disentangle the effects of climate change from those of avoidable failures in policy.

In South Asia, for example, climate change is likely to bring more water to a perennially thirsty region. A blessing in disguise, then? No, because so little progress has been made on ways to trap and use this water when it cascades down in a short space of time. Given that governments have missed so many obvious tricks, is there any reason to assume that more money thrown at the problem will be spent wisely? Coping with climate change will certainly cost money—it is anyone’s guess how much—but plenty of wisdom will be needed too.

Wale "Chillin" featuring Lady GaGa Teaser

DC chillin'
PG chillin'


I'm WALE!

Video looks hot. When is the album coming out Wale Ovechkin?

Seeing him at 930 on Wednesday, June 3rd.

I can't decide whether or not Lady GaGa is hot. Thoughts?

Greenwire: Enviro groups like what they see in Obama's justice pick

Sonia Sotomayor keeps getting better.

Greenwire:

Even though environmental issues have not been a major cog in Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's legal career, environmentalists have joined the chorus of left-leaning advocacy groups that have thrown their support behind President Obama's pick for the high court.

"Judge Sotomayor is well-qualified in light of her personal, academic, legal and judicial experience," said Glenn Sugameli, senior legislative counsel and head of Earthjustice's judicial nominations project. "Her knowledge, understanding and service as a federal trial and appellate court judge provide invaluable perspectives for deciding environmental protection and related issues."

Environmentalists primarily are pointing to a single 2007 decision by Sotomayor -- on U.S. EPA's use of cost-benefit analysis in the regulation of pollutants -- as a signal that the potential future justice may side with them on a number of issues.

In that case, Riverkeeper v. EPA, an environmental group challenged an EPA rule relating to cooling-water intake structures in power plants. The agency was set to require hundreds of power plants to modify their water cooling systems, which cumulatively caused the deaths of millions of fish every year.

But the agency sought to choose the "best technology" for the upgrade, using a cost-benefit analysis that was based on both the price of the newer equipment and the potential marine life that would be killed. The top-of-the-line technology could reduce fish kills by as much as 98 percent, though it cost roughly 10 times as much as a different type of equipment that would reduce deaths by a smaller amount.

Sotomayor issued an opinion in which she declared that the Clean Water Act did not give EPA the leeway to do such a cost-benefit analysis.

In early 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision in a 6-3 ruling, with Justice Antonin Scalia stating in an opinion that EPA could use such an analysis in crafting its regulations.

"This was considered a defeat for environmentalists and a victory for advocates of cost-benefit analysis," Dan Farber, an environmental law expert at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote yesterday on his blog, "Legal Planet." "Although Scalia claims to believe in following statutory language to the letter, Sotomayor's interpretation clearly was more faithful to the statute's demand that EPA's standards 'reflect the best technology available for minimizing adverse environmental impact.'"

Environmentalists say that ruling may offer a glimpse of her positions on any number of issues relating to environmental regulation that may come before the court -- including on matters relating to climate change.

"Filling the current Supreme Court vacancy with a jurist who is fair-minded and experienced is critical," Sugameli said. "Polluters have attempted to rewrite the Constitution and laws to repeal clean air, clean water and other essential safeguards. Four of the remaining justices unjustifiably attempted to block the Clean Air Act's application to global warming pollution, and to reinterpret the Constitution to selectively prohibit citizen and state access to court in the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA case."

It appears unlikely that those environmental issues will play much of a role in Satamoyor's confirmation process. Interest groups on the right that have attacked the nomination have largely pointed to her decisions on a number of social policy issues and her comments about the role of the judiciary. And though she has spent more than a decade on the U.S. Court of Appeals, the New York City-based 2nd Circuit typically deals with a relatively narrow range of environmental-based cases.

However, Sotomayor has been involved in one closely watched climate change case, though her court has not issued a ruling on the issue.

As part of a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor heard a 2006 case, Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company Inc., in which eight state attorneys general sued a number of major electric utilities, alleging that greenhouse gas emissions amounted to a public nuisance.

After a federal district court ruled in favor of the utilities, the states appealed the case to the 2nd Circuit.

Sotomayor -- who was the lone Democratic nominee on the three-judge panel -- did much of the questioning of both sides and indicated in her comments that she believes there may be a need for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

"I have absolutely no idea about the science of global warming," she said at one point during the hearing. "But if the science is right, we have relegated ourselves to killing the world in the foreseeable future. Not in centuries to come but in the very near future."

Sotomayor was also was critical of an industry defense that a ruling could pave the way for a slew of other climate change-related nuisance claims. "That's the nature of every tort action," she told the utility attorney.

At the same time, Sotomayor did question whether using public nuisance statues was the proper way to address greenhouse gas emissions when "there are many other remedies available" (Greenwire, June 8, 2006).

The panel has yet to rule on the issue. Environmentalists, however, see the lack of a ruling as little concern.

"It's not much of a concern, it's a curiosity," said Frank O'Donnell of the group Clean Air Watch. "She seems to have an outstanding record."

Last post of the night: Talib Kweli ft. Faith Evans "We Know"

Came on my ipod during the walk home from the metro. Love this song. Made sense to post it. Said it at least once before tonight, and I'll repeat: Talib is a genius. What happened to Faith Evans? Is she still around?

Talib Kweli "We Know" Feat. Faith Evans by treylord

Great Cause: Aidchild

If you need a great cause to make a donation to, or want to volunteer and spend some time working in rural Uganda, check out Aidchild. It is an orphanage for children who are HIV positive and are dying of AIDS. Most come to Aidchild after their parents have died of AIDS, are too sick for their extended family to care for them, and by most estimates would only live a few more weeks or months. At Aidchild, they are given healthcare, a proper diet, a bed to sleep in, and a full education, extending their lives for SEVERAL MORE YEARS. I spent a month there helping out, taking care of the kids, teaching, etc. It was an amazing experience. Though many of the kids have passed on since I was there, I still remember many of them by name. I think my favorite was Balikudembe, who used to steal my J. Crew hat (picture below) every morning when I'd give him a piggy-back ride out of his top bunk. In high school I also organized a clothing drive for the kids. Nathaniel Dunigan is an amazing human being, and has done more than any one man for this cause. He is a really good family friend, and is currently getting his MBA at Harvard.

You can donate here. I guarantee that anything you give would go a long way to saving the lives of these kids.

Aidchild’s mission statement is: “To provide kids’ centres, including: homes, innovative medical care, psychosocial support, and education to orphans living with AIDS who do not have the support of extended families.” Below is a narrative of Aidchild’s story and heart (an excerpt from a congressional testimony by Founder and Director, Nathaniel Dunigan—given on April 17, 2002 before the United States Congress).

I invite you to imagine that you are standing with me in a banana field in Africa. It is October of 1998, my first visit to the continent, and I have come with hope; the precious product of HIV prevention education. I have been deposited here with a talented interpreter, and left to find my way through the drapes of leafy trees and across the carpets of fallen foliage. Soon enough, I find my destination: a tiny mud hut. The space is crowded beyond capacity. I suddenly realize that everyone here is familiar with death. They know that their families are dying.

And in so many cases, they sense that they themselves are dying.


I step to the front and begin my hopeful presentation. Once finished, I answer questions. Finally, the space clears. Through the rear opening of the hut steps a woman who looks to be quite aged. With her, a very young boy. He is covered with sores. Wounds. His body is weak. I reach down and pick him up. I feel that he is burning with fever.

And I look into his eyes. There, I see something I have seen many times since: the early maturity of a suffering soul. This is a dear person. Like your children. Your grandchildren.

Like you.

Like me.

The elder speaks. She says, “This is my grandson. His name is Simon. His father, my son, died when Simon was two months old. With AIDS. His mother died three months ago. With AIDS. It seems apparent to me that he also has AIDS.”

She pauses. She swallows. Then, “Today, you talked to us about AIDS, and you talked about hope. So I was just wondering, what can you do for my grandson?”

That day, in the middle of that banana field, my life changed as my thinking underwent a revolution. You see, I knew that there are more orphans in Uganda than in any other country of the world today: 2.1 to 2.3 million according to most observers.

But the revolution in my thinking took place only once I was able to individualize the daunting and disturbing statistics. As I held Simon in my arms, and as I looked into his eyes, I came face to face with the reality that our fight with HIV/AIDS is not about numbers and dollars, but about real people—with names and faces.

Further investigation, and now nineteen months of on-the-job experience in Uganda, have shown me that when more than ten percent of a population is orphaned, there is a need which transcends culture, society, government, church, and home. When the world loses massive numbers of people, there are survivors left to neglect and abandonment.

And disease.

Yes, in Uganda, the HIV infection rate has drastically reduced. You realize, of course, that this means that many of those who were infected have died. And that not as many new infections have occurred.

I have just told you that more than two million children are orphaned in Uganda. Just one country. A country we rightly tout as currently edging towards victory in our desperate war. Many of these children are already HIV positive. Many of them, thankfully, are not. I have a desperate worry; a plaguing concern about what happens as this group of children ages. Some of these little hearts and personalities are often left alone. Regularly ignored. Rarely cared for. What happens as their yearnings for intimacy and acceptance develop into a sexual activity and adulthood not reared with the benefits of kisses-on-the-forehead nor an elder’s wisdom?

My greater worry, though, is for the children who are already infected with HIV, an HIV that has rapidly destroyed their immune systems, and has given them AIDS. They are suffering—and are most often suffering unnecessarily. There is much that can be done for them. Like at Aidchild, the hospice and palliative care center I founded and currently direct in Masaka. When nutrition, proper hygiene and loving care replace abuse, neglect and desperately overtaxed extended families, this unnecessary suffering is transformed into a preciously simple condition of comfort, strength and hope. Surely this is a basic human right worthy of provision for children who have no one.

I walk around my home in Uganda everyday saying three words: “It’s so easy. The every-day-activities required to help these children are more ordinary than heroic.

Please allow me to close with the story of one of my children, Ivan. He was nine years old when he came to live with me. Little is known about his past. Before Ivan was referred to Aidchild, he was surviving in the ramshackled police barracks of my town. More than one policeman has told me that Ivan would awake early every morning to pray. In a loud voice he would say, “Oh God, please send someone to help me. I am hurting. I’m sad, and I’m alone.”

Once with us, Ivan became perfect joy. He became stronger. His blind eyes were treated. His malaria, TB, shingles, aches and pains were carefully tended. He was quicker to rejoice than to weep.

Months had gone by when he started to sleep a lot. In his own bed. A clean, comfortable space, free of mosquitoes and daunting heat. One day, he awoke from his slumber and looked at my staff members. He said, “I have seen that you love me so much.” And then, he did something I find quite extraordinary and special. He said, “Thank you.” He returned his head to his pillow, and listened to the soft music we play as a part of our hospice care. Again he spoke, “That music is so nice,” he said. And then went back to sleep.

My little Ivan died early the next morning.

But most of my children are still living with me—strong, happy and hopeful. With AIDS. Even months later.

And some have died. Others will also die.

But perhaps Ivan’s is the greatest hope. May we all one day be able to say, “I have seen that I am loved. I am grateful. I’m comfortable. And I’m going to go to sleep now.”

Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote, “So long as we are loved by others, we are indispensable, and no (one) is useless (when they) have a friend.”

From the frontlines, I report to you that this must become the reality for millions of children around the world. And it can be done. I know firsthand. Extended family networks are exhausted, even destroyed. Foster homes are often perfect and wonderful—but will always be too few. If we are to offer this basic right to as many children as we possibly can, we simply cannot afford to rule out any one type of care for this terrific number of dear hearts, sweet faces, and precious individuals.

Working together, we must make a difference.

We can make a difference.

And, moreover, I absolutely maintain: it really is so easy.

Thank you.

Testimony by Nathaniel Dunigan
United States House of Representatives Committee on International Relations
Hearing—April 17, 2002
“Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Africa:
Identifying the Best Practice for Prevention, Treatment and Care”

Annapolis to Newport

The 62nd bi-annual Annapolis to Newport race starts a week from today, June 5th. With only a few more things to fix on the boat this weekend, we'll be ready to go (and win).


We will be live-blogging offshore at Heron Racing, and I may try to throw up a few posts on here as well.

I'll be on J/120 Heron for the race.

Daily Throwback: Gil Scott Heron "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

You had to have seen this coming....

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
by mallox

"The revolution will not get rid of the nub."

Eugene Robinson: A Smile to Set the GOP on Edge

My man Eugene Robinson (recent Pulitzer winner) drops another fantastic editorial in todays Washington Post. Here, he writes about Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's nominee to fill Justice Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. Regardless of who Obama had picked, the GOP and their sycophantic flock of infants would have no doubt bashed them, having "liberal activist judge" talking points ready. Sotomayor is by most educated accounts, a relatively moderate judge, with a highly distinguished career in both private and public law, and as Robinson points out, a longer career in the federal justice system than anyone else on the current Supreme Court. Of course, like the pathetic weasels that they are, Limbaugh, Coulter, and New Gingrich (amongst other squabbling old leaders of the "new" GOP) have jumped on the easiest thing they could: an out-of-context remark about being proud of her heritage and race.

What they don't understand, and what I haven't seen media explain, is that her saying that her life as a Latin-American woman WOULD make her a better judge in modern America. Granted, this is assuming that she has the educational and professional background to hold the position, but her unique perspective of being an underrepresented sex in an underrepresented minority DOES in fact provide her with a better understanding of the law. The only thing that I think would make her a more suitable candidate is if she were in fact also a lesbian. Who better to make weigh the constitutional relevance to modern legal precedence on abortion issues than a woman, who would be most directly affected by the decision? Who better to make decisions on affirmative action than someone who has lived through the subtle racism of modern professional America? Who better to decide on issues of immigration than a member of the Latin-American community (yes, I do know she was born in the Bronx, and that her parents are from Puerto Rico which is an American territory and the Latin-American community is not homogeneous)? I think it would be better if she was a lesbian, because who better to decide about whether same-sex marriage should be legal than someone who would be directly affected? All of the white-man decisions have been made, will continue to be made by the rest of the court (looking at you Clarence Thomas).

What Newt Gingrich fails to understand, is that racial pride for minorities in American is very different from racism. For white America, people can be proud of their Irish or Italian heritage, or celebrate being a southern gentleman or a California surfer, or enjoy the Jewish community which shares a common past and culture, but what has defined "white power" is hatred for everyone else. What Sonia Sotomayor was celebrating in her comment (which I think she should stand behind) was pride for her experience and her race and her culture. This invokes fear in white America, just as "Black is Beautiful" did in the 60s and 70s. Because white America only understands racial pride as hatred for everyone else, most cannot understand that ethnic pride for minorities is a celebration.

One final note, which may risk sounding like a conspiracy, but I believe that a fundamental reason why Limbaugh, Gingrich, Coulter, and others were so quick to jump on the racial comments, is that they are attempting to rally the subliminal or even overt racism which still unites the remaining steadfast GOP constituency against Obama. By brining up race, they can remind people that Barack Obama is in fact black, and that is something to be feared. This is the same old GOP bullsh!t, the same old tactics, the same old people. I look forward to the day when the GOP is a (not so) fond memory like the Whigs; something kids read about in history books. The Democratic party is fractured enough. Let moderate Democrats become the most right wing element in politics in America and start their own party once the black hole that once was the GOP settles.

Eugene Robinson in the WP:

President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is a proud and accomplished Latina. This fact apparently drives some prominent Republicans to a state resembling incoherent, sputtering rage.

"White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw," former House speaker Newt Gingrich ranted Wednesday on Twitter. My first reaction was that politicians above a certain age should never be left alone in the danger-strewn landscape of social networking. My second thought was: Whoa, Newt, what's that about?

Rush Limbaugh also -- predictably -- bellowed endlessly about how Sotomayor was a "reverse racist," and how Obama was one, too. But unlike Gingrich, Limbaugh doesn't ask to be taken seriously. He just asks to be paid.

Gingrich's outburst was in reaction to a widely publicized, out-of-context quote from a 2001 speech in which Sotomayor mused about how her identity might or might not affect her decisions as a federal judge. Far from being some kind of "racist" screed, the speech was actually a meditation on Sotomayor's personal experience of a universal truth: Who we are inevitably influences what we do.

Each of us carries through life a unique set of experiences. Sotomayor's happen to be the experiences of a brilliant, high-powered Latina -- a Nuyorican who was raised in the projects of the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, edited the Yale Law Journal, worked as a Manhattan prosecutor and a corporate lawyer, and served for 17 years as a federal trial and appellate judge.

Given that kind of sterling résumé -- and given that she has, according to presidential adviser David Axelrod, more experience on the federal bench than any Supreme Court nominee in at least 100 years -- it's understandable that Republican critics would have to grasp at straws.

The charge that she's a "judicial activist" finds no basis in her voluminous record. Critics have seized on a ruling she joined in a case called Ricci v. DeStefano, involving a reverse-discrimination claim by a group of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. But Sotomayor's action in that case is more properly seen as an example of judicial restraint.

What happened was that the city gave an advancement exam to firefighters, and no African Americans were deemed eligible for promotion. Fearing that it would lose ground in its effort to diversify the leadership of the fire department, and fearing a civil rights lawsuit, the city canceled the exam. The firefighters who passed did not get the promotions they had expected. A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the city government had acted within the law, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- including Sotomayor -- agreed.

What Sotomayor's attackers either don't understand or won't acknowledge is that the issue before the court wasn't whether the city of New Haven had acted fairly in canceling the exam but whether it had acted legally. There was ample precedent indicating that the action was, in fact, legal. I thought the whole theory of judicial restraint was that we didn't want unelected judges telling our elected officials what to do. I thought the conservative idea was that judges were just supposed to "call balls and strikes" -- which is just what Sotomayor and her colleagues did.

Ah, but there's always a subtext. Like Sotomayor's 2001 speech, the New Haven case was really about identity -- and about power. In both instances, as Sotomayor's critics saw it, minorities were either claiming or obtaining some kind of advantage over white males. Never mind whether this perception has any basis in fact. The very concept seemed to be enough to light a thermonuclear fuse.

Despite the best efforts of Gingrich, Limbaugh and others, Sotomayor's confirmation process probably won't be about race. Her qualifications are impeccable, her record is moderate and her personality, according to colleagues, is winning. At her confirmation hearings, she'll have the opportunity to supply the missing context for any quote they throw at her. Absent some 11th-hour surprise, I can't imagine that her opponents in the Senate will be able to lay a glove on her.

I also can't imagine that she'll pretend to be anyone other than who she is. Sonia Sotomayor has made clear that she is proud of her identity, and she offers that pride not as an affront but as an example -- not white, not male, not Anglo, not inclined to apologize. She is the new face of America, and she has a dazzling smile.

Deism

So my quick rant on religion in the Erykah Badu post got me thinking that I should post quickly on my own "religious" beliefs. I was born, and half-ass-raised (not complaining) Catholic. I've been baptized, and confirmed in the Catholic church. I went to brief stints in Sunday schools when I lived in places with active churches. I went to a Jesuit university (Georgetown). There I was a philosophy major, which brought me a clearer vision of "God" than I have ever gotten which sitting through a sermon. While I whole-heartedly respect the faith and beliefs of everyone, and understand the great values of a community centered around the church, mosque, synagogue, temple, etc., my own ontological view can most closely be categorized as Deism. I discovered the specific name for this philosophical understanding of "God" after I had already shaped my own ideas, which are loosely based on the writings of Thomas Paine amongst other philosophers. I'll write more on it later, but here is a quick definition from Deism.com:

Deism is belief in God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a "revealed" religion. The natural religion/philosophy of Deism frees those who embrace it from the inconsistencies of superstition and the negativity of fear that are so strongly represented in all of the "revealed" religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (These religions are called revealed religions because they all make claim to having received a special revelation from God which they pretend, and many of their sincere followers actually believe, their various and conflicting holy books are based on.) When enough people become Deists, reason will be elevated over fear and myth and its positive qualities will become a part of society as a whole. Then, instead of having billions of people chasing after the nonsensical violence promoting myths of the "revealed" religions, people will be centered on their God-given reason which will lead to limitless personal and societal progress!

This is not a utopian pipedream. Deism has the potential to connect with every human being because every human being possesses God-given reason. Because of this fact, Deism clicks with the vast majority of people who are made aware of it. This God-given reason, which is so dear and key to Deism, is the natural state of humanity. The superstitions of the man-made "revealed" religions are NOT the natural state of humanity. The cause of our God-given reason being overrun with these man-made myths and superstitions is very simple. ACTIVE people promoted these falsehoods. Some of these active people were motivated by self gain while others were acting on ignorance. Since the problem was brought about by ACTIVE people, it can be corrected by ACTIVE people. As the number of ACTIVE Deists grows, our actions and energies will cause Deism to eclipse the "revealed" religions of the world and Deism will eventually, through lots of hard teamwork and altruism, replace the "revealed" religions. Humanity and the individuals who make up humanity will then be able to reach their full progressive potential!

Not sure if that caught the gist of it. Basically, I think that there has to have been a Designer or Prime-mover to begin everything from nothingness (lite ontologic existentialism), but in order for that to have happened, the entity or force or whatever would have to be by definition perfect and omnipotent. Based on this omnipotence, it is completely illogical for it to give a shit what we do, so religion is just a man-made societal effort to provide easier explanations for existence, and a system of controls and authority which reach beyond corporeal authority. This is not an argument for lawlessness, however, as I think we as intelligent creatures have natural ethics based on logic and societal evolution. While it may not be morally wrong to drive without a seatbelt on, we have as a society come to understand the merits of such laws, and I therefore associate that understanding with guilt each time I jump in the car.

More nonsensical rambling later.....

Wale Attention Deficit Tour Video Podcast 1

Erykah Badu & Pharoahe Monch "The Healer" Remix

The Healer is my favorite song off her newest album, and this is a slightly remixed version, simply adding a verse by Pharoahe Monch. The refrain is amazing, listing the names of God in various languages (note I didn't say religions intentionally, just languages because whatever God or god or the prime-mover is, he or she or it is universal).

Humdililah, Allah, Jehovah,
Yahweh, Dios, Ma'at, Jah,
Rastafari, Fire, Dance, Sex, Music, Hip Hop.
It's bigger than religion, Hip Hop.
It's bigger than my n!ggas, Hip Hop.
It's bigger than the government.

Here she is explaining the inspiration for the song, produced by Madlib. Damn, she is beautiful.

Russell Simmons: It Is Not A Matter of If, But Only A Matter of When

Here is a really poignant editorial written by Russell Simmons on same sex marriage in the Huffington Post:

It is remarkable that it took only one day for our beautiful country to show its greatest potential and its greatest challenge. And that day was Tuesday. In the morning, I was inspired by the President's nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court. Yet, in the afternoon I was deeply saddened by the decision made by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8.

It pains me that we have come to a point in this country where we use the ballot box to address the civil rights of our people. If President Johnson had to take a vote, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed. If Congress took a vote in 1920, women may still not have the right to vote today. And if President Lincoln went to the polls, blacks would definitely have endured many more years of slavery. We trusted our government to make the right decision and protect the minority, and yesterday we, as a nation, failed.

Unfortunately, most of the arguments against these monumental advancements of our country's history have been deeply rooted in religion; and in my opinion the misuse of religion. Let's remove religion from this discussion, and focus on the greatest gift religion has given all of us, the ability to love. And as an African-American, I urge my own people to take a deep look at our own struggles and not wish them upon anyone else. Simply, civil rights for all is about being connected as humans, united, tolerant, loving and brave.

We have come such a long way in this country. Let's us not stop now. Vermont and Maine have done the right thing by legalizing same sex marriage, and I am extremely supportive of my own Governor, David Paterson, to follow suit in New York.

In my heart, I know that marriage equality for every human being isn't a question of if, but only a matter of when. I ask those who feel that giving freedom to others somehow binds you, to please take a good look at what you are standing behind. It is only through opening your hearts will you be able to see that by promoting freedom for all, you are unchaining yourself. I guess I'm an optimist. I have faith in people and our government ultimately to do the right thing. And to my brothers and sisters in California, I'm there with you every step of the way until that day comes...

Plastiki Boat Made of Plastic Bottles Prepares to Set Sail

I love when I find a cross-section of my interest. How is it that there are so few between sailing and the environment.

Check out the Plastiki, a boat made of 12,500 plastic bottles. David de Rothschild, the founder of Adventure Ecology, was making preparations to steer his plastic sailboat towards the floating landfill in the Pacific Ocean. Plastiki is nearly ready to set sail upon the open sea!

After overcoming significant design hurdles - after all, constructing a boat made out of plastic bottles can’t be easy - the team has settled on a final design. The Plastiki will be made out of 12,500 2 liter plastic bottles tied to a structure made out of Self Reinforcing Polyethylene Terephthalate (SRPET). The final weight of the 60 foot boat will be around 9 tons plus the weight of the crew of six people. Thinking ahead, the boat will be upcycled, though they still don’t know into what. That decision they say, will be left to the Plastiki community.

The boat is now under construction, and expected to sail from San Francisco to Sydney in August. I'll keep you posted about any updates as they happen.


Borrowed from Inhabitat

Daily Throwback: Sexual Chocolate "I believe the children are our future"

Wafeek - The Aristocrats Mixtape (Mixtape)

This is a few months old, but since people still haven't heard of Wafeek, "I'mma learn ya". He's grimmy, and a damn good lyricist. Wafeek, aka "the best rapper alive since hip hop's dead," with the help of The Smoking Section and DJ Trackstar drops The Aristocrats Mixtape. He's from St. Louis but has the smooth flow to bring him out of the south. He's a conscious MC with some foul but comical punchlines. He drops a crazy thought provoking verse followed by a foul mouth. It's like sugary comic relief between the lines of the bitter salty truth. Every time I listen to his songs again, I re-realize the genius of Wafeek.

Download Wafeek - The Aristocrats Mixtape

Eve Ensler Calls for Rape-Free Cell Phones

This kind of story makes me want to move to the woods and make my own clothes. It is extremely difficult to track down the source of raw materials for all of your consumer goods, and it is seemingly impossible to avoid using conflict materials.

We need more consumer groups to track down the source of materials and the mining processes used by these companies. It sickens me that my blackberry might be no better than a conflict diamond. I applaud Nokia for making this pledge.

Treehugger.com:

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a source, albeit a small one, for conflict minerals that end up in our electronics. While some companies, such as Nokia, have shown their resolve in never using conflict minerals in their products, other companies have yet to be so transparent. Eve Ensler isn't sitting back about it. Not only are the minerals gathered through abusive means and slave labor, they're also gathered where rape is used as a weapon of war over the mines.

The minerals, such as columbite tantalite or coltan are essential to the function of our gadgets. It's bad enough we have major issues with recycling these devices without harming people. It's even worse when we really examine the harm that can go into making them. Ensler's talk is a wake up call that we have to be equally diligent about the sources of our gadgets as we are about their disposal.

Reuters: Climate health costs - bug-borne ills, killer heat

Reuters:

Tree-munching beetles, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and deer ticks that spread Lyme disease are three living signs that climate change is likely to exact a heavy toll on human health.

These pests and others are expanding their ranges in a warming world, which means people who never had to worry about them will have to start. And they are hardly the only health threats from global warming.

The Lancet medical journal declared in a May 16 commentary: "Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century."

Individual threats range from the simple to the very complex, the Lancet said, reporting on a year-long study conducted with University College London.

As the global mean temperature rises, expect more heat waves. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects 25 percent more heat waves in Chicago by the year 2100; Los Angeles will likely have a four-to-eightfold increase in the number of heat-wave days by century's end.

These "direct temperature effects" will hit the most vulnerable people hardest, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, especially those with heart problems and asthma, the elderly, the very young and the homeless.

The EPA has declared that carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. is a danger to human health and welfare, clearing the way for possible regulation of emissions.

At the same time, the U.S. Congress is working on a bill that would cap emissions and issue permits that could be traded between companies that spew more than the limit and those that emit less.

RISING SEAS, SULTRY AIR

People who live within 60 miles of a shoreline, or about one-third of the world's population, could be affected if sea levels rise as expected over the coming decades, possibly more than 3 feet (1 meter) by 2100. Flooded homes and crops could make environmental refugees of a billion people.

As it becomes hotter, the air can hold more moisture, helping certain disease-carriers, such as the ticks that spread Lyme disease, thrive, the EPA said.

A changing climate could increase the risk of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and various viral causes of encephalitis. Algae blooms in water could be more frequent, increasing the risk of diseases like cholera. Respiratory problems may be aggravated by warming-induced increases in smog.

Other less obvious dangers are also potentially devastating.

Pine bark beetles, which devour trees in western North America will be able to produce more generations each year, instead of subsiding during winter months.

They leave standing dead timber, ideal fuel for wildfires from Arizona to Alaska, said Paul Epstein of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University.

Other insects are spreading in the United States, and while immediate protection is possible, the only real solution is to curb climate change, Epstein said in a telephone interview.

"You can tuck your pants into your socks and be very vigilant, but ultimately, if we don't stabilize the climate, it's going to continue to increase ... infectious diseases," Epstein said.

Carbon dioxide emissions, from coal-fired power plants, steel mills and petroleum-fueled cars, trucks and boats, among other sources, do more than modify climate, Epstein said. They also stimulate ragweed, some pollen-bearing trees and fungi, extending the spring and fall allergy and asthma seasons.

It is hard to quantify the potential financial cost of U.S. climate-change-related health problems, said Dr. Chris Portier of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Some costs might actually decline if programs are put in place to cut greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels, which would also reduce some types of toxic air and water pollution.

Without cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, that pollution will remain, and the other unhealthy effects of climate change will continue, including more severe floods, droughts, heat waves and storms.

"You'll get more extreme weather events that will occur more frequently ... and so it just piles on in terms of the human health effects," Portier said. "And the cost will be tremendous, there's little doubt of that."

Georgetown Sailing at National Championships in San Fran: Keys to the location

The women's team took 5th in the ICSA national championships out in San Fran. Scores.

Here are the "scientific" thoughts of the guy skippers watching the action and preparing for the Team Racing Championships and Fleet Racing Championships.



Get after it Hoyas.

Kanye West "Paranoid" feat. Mr. Hudson

Here is Kanye West's new video for "Paranoid" featuring Mr. Hudson on the hook, and starring Rihanna as the leading lady.

I wasn't too into this song on 808s and Heartbreaks, but the video makes it catchy. I by catchy, I mean Rihanna is in it. Who could heart that woman? I wouldn't want to tell her she had something in her teeth.

Yale Environment360: Adaptation Emerges As Key Part Of Any Climate Change Plan

After years of reluctance, scientists and governments are now looking to adaptation measures as critical for confronting the consequences of climate change. And increasingly, plans are being developed to deal with rising seas, water shortages, spreading diseases, and other realities of a warming world.
by Bruce Stutz

Adaptation. For many in the climate change community, the word has had a traitorous ring, implying that its proponents were giving up on the notion that the world might mitigate the threat of global warming by significantly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Adaptation was for quitters.

Not anymore.

With nations in the industrialized and developing worlds continuing to pump record levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, hopes are fading that over the next half-century atmospheric CO2 levels can be kept below 450 parts per million (ppm) and global warming held to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit). Now, a new sense of urgency has arisen as to how the world will adapt to a warming planet, where carbon dioxide levels could hit 600 parts per million and global temperatures could rise by 3 to 4 degrees C (5.4 to 7.2 degrees F).

“My view is that we’ll be lucky if we can stop CO2 at 600 ppm,” says Wallace Broecker, a geoscientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “There’s no way we’re going to stop at 450. Impossible. If we’re going to double CO2, we’d better prepare what we’re going to do about it.”

If Broecker and many of his fellow climate scientists are right, the planet will experience myriad far-reaching changes to which humans, plants and animals will need to adapt: higher sea levels, the melting of glaciers that have long supplied hundreds of millions of people with water, drought-stressed agriculture, more severe storms, spreading disease, and reduced biodiversity.

“We’re talking about altering the world’s biogeography,” says Neil Adger, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the U.K.’s University of East Anglia and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment of adaptation. “In extreme weather events, coastal flooding, wildfires, and droughts, the world is recognizing that predicted impacts are already happening.”

Major international organizations and governing bodies — including the European Union, the World Bank, and the IPCC — have called for the development of adaptation strategies. Prominent nonprofit groups also have announced major adaptation initiatives. Two years ago, the Rockefeller Foundation said it was creating a $70 million program to promote “climate resilience” (note the avoidance of the word “adaptation”) in the developing world. The Rockefeller program is designed to confront one of the major issues of adaptation: that the world’s poorer nations, which — with their low greenhouse gas emissions — have had little to do with creating the problem, may well be hit the hardest by global warming.

Last year, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced that it was committing $50 million to conservation groups to help them preserve biodiversity in eight ecologically rich “hotspots” as the world warms.

Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider points out that adaptation strategies are only beginning to be developed, mainly because there’s precious little science on adaptation and few working models.

“Everyone is now talking about adaptation, but for all the talk there’s little actually being done,” says Schneider.

Developing strategies to cope with the impacts of a warmer world will be complex and expensive. Oxfam estimates it could cost some $40 billion a year; the World Bank estimates it might cost more than three times that. While strategies and technologies designed to mitigate climate change can be applied globally — one less coal-powered plant in China has the same effect as one less plant in the U.S. — adaptation strategies must deal with regional and local geography.

In April, for example, a European Union report on adaptation said Europe’s most vulnerable regions to climate change will be southern Europe, the Mediterranean basin, the Alps, and the far north. Europe will have to adapt to the diminishing Alpine glaciers that now provide 40 percent of its fresh water. Africa, the western U.S., and Australia will have to adapt to intense droughts. Communities in the Arctic will have to adapt to melting ice and permafrost. If the Himalayan region loses its glaciers and monsoon patterns change, 40 percent of the world’s population will likely face severe shortages of water for drinking and agriculture.

To preserve ecosystems and endangered species, conservationists will have to adapt their strategies. And epidemiologists will have to adapt to changing disease vectors. Climate change will test not only the resiliency of ecosystems but also the adaptability of individual cities, villages, and societies.

CONFRONTING WATER SCARCITY
In the world’s sub-tropics, most models predict that wet regions will become wetter and dry regions drier, but there’s little agreement on how these trends will affect regional annual rainfall patterns and growing seasons. And it’s these that determine crop productivity. Farmers have always had to adapt to changing weather patterns. Climate change will exacerbate the uncertainties, both in the short and longterm. The key to coping will be to make farming as resilient as possible.

Researchers in Ethiopia, for example, found that many farmers had already recognized that temperature and precipitation changes were affecting their crops and altering the growing season. Once they were given access to technical support, credit, and information about future climate change, these farmers adjusted their agricultural practices. They changed crop varieties, adopted soil and water conservation measures, and changed planting and harvesting periods.

For researchers at the Rockefeller Foundation, future “simultaneous changes in temperature, precipitation, CO2 fertilization, and pest/pathogen dynamics” will require breeding new crop varieties, especially for those crops that feed most of the world’s poor. The reserve of genetic material now in seed banks may not be enough from which to develop new drought-, temperature-, or flood-resistant crops, and the foundation is urging new efforts to increase the world’s genetic reserves of seed crops.

Adaptation strategies are already underway to cope with changes in the world’s fresh water resources. In April, the European Union issued a dire warning about declining water resources. Temperatures in the Alps — “the water tower of Europe” — have increased 1.5°C (2.7°F) over the last 100 years, twice the global average. The glaciers are vanishing. At the same time, warming temperatures and drought have left southern Europe dry, with creeping desertification in Spain and Portugal. The EU is focusing on adaptation strategies aimed mainly at reducing demand through water conservation, introducing new methods of efficient irrigation, and reforming water pricing.

RISING SEA LEVELS
While scientists still debate predictions of sea level rise over the century due to climate change — with many studies predicting an increase of one to two meters — there is no doubt that rising seas have already begun affecting low-lying coastal regions. How humans adapt will depend not only upon regional geography, but regional development. The world’s large river deltas — the Mississippi, Nile, Rhine and Ganges — have been altered by development and agriculture, their tidal wetlands diminished and, with that, their resistance to flooding and erosion weakened, especially during storm surges.

That is why in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh, efforts are underway to restore lost mangroves to keep storm surges from flooding agricultural land and human settlements, and to keep delta land from washing away. At the same time, Bangladesh is trying to restore its upland forests to prevent downstream erosion. Islands, too, will hope to adapt to rising seas by creating or restoring natural buffer zones.

Things will be different, however, where coastal nature has already been lost to population growth and development.

By 2030, some 60 percent of the world’s population will live in coastal cities that may be increasingly subject to flooding from storm surges. Complex and expensive solutions will be needed to protect not only homes and people, but sanitation, communication, and transportation infrastructures. New York City, where the land is only 5 to 16 feet above sea level, has engaged a consortium of city agencies and researchers from Columbia University’s Earth Institute to develop adaptation plans to deal with sea level rises that could easily reach 1 ½ feet by 2080, as well as with increased tidal and storm surges.

City planners are modeling the risks and working with New York citizens' groups and city agencies to develop a coordinated approach to protecting vulnerable roads, tunnels, water supplies, transit, sewers, and water treatment plants. One firm has proposed a concrete tidal barrier that would stretch across the neck of lower New York Bay, similar to one that the Russian government has already commissioned to protect St. Petersburg from rising levels of the Baltic Sea.

THE SPREAD OF DISEASE
The greatest impediment to developing adaptation strategies to deal with the expected increase in disease due to climate change, is that “the regions with the greatest burden of climate-sensitive diseases are also the regions with the lowest capacity to adapt to the new risks,” writes Jonathan A. Patz of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

In these places, disease is most often the result of poverty, overpopulation, lack of access to fresh water, malnutrition, and lack of sanitary facilities, all of which will be exacerbated by global warming. One concern of scientists is the spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes and other insects as temperatures rise, a phenomenon already evident in parts of the world. Climate change may also cause clean water supplies to dry up in small villages, forcing residents to collect water from streams and ponds contaminated by insects and pathogens whose fecundity and range may well increase in a warmer world.

River flooding can also contaminate water supplies. Gambia, for example, has undertaken a program along the Gambia River coastal floodplain to increase the number of improved pit latrines in school, health and community centers; to purchase fogging machines and sprayers for insect control; and to stockpile drugs and vaccines to deal with disease outbreaks. In Samoa, authorities are developing a program in which doctors and meteorologists work together to predict outbreaks of disease — such as mosquito-transmitted dengue fever — that may worsen as temperatures rise.

PRESERVING BIODIVERSITY
The most localized adaptation strategies may be best suited to deal with the effects of climate change on the world’s biodiversity. As habitats and even seasons are altered, species will be forced to adapt or migrate in what — by normal evolutionary standards — are very short time spans. They may follow expected adaptive pathways: Lowland species may move to higher elevations or migrate north, as some bird and plant species already are doing. In many places, however, migration routes are blocked by development or deforestation. Current nature reserve boundaries may no longer protect species forced by climate change to migrate. And while older trees that find themselves in an altered climate may survive, their seedlings may have a far narrower range of conditions under which they can thrive and thus be unable to grow in a warmer environment.

Enlarging the borders of established reserves will provide some species with protection while they seek out new ranges. Where reserves are hemmed in by developed land, efforts are underway to create wildlife corridors or preserve even small natural refuges — forests or wetlands — in the midst of cultivated fields. Such fragments of habitat may prove useful to birds or insects as their migration routes change.


As experts contemplate the challenges of climate change adaptation, they are stressing the need to proceed on sound scientific grounds. Without understanding the science, Schneider says, there’s every possibility of developing “maladaptations,” such as reacting to changes that appear to be caused by climate change, but that may be due to normal weather variables such, as El Nino, or to natural cyclical changes in species abundance.

For example, to implement irrigation after a few years of drought only to find that the longer-term forecast will be for a wetter — not drier — environment, is to waste a great deal of time, money, and good will. So would construction of a sea wall to protect against a mistaken prediction of sea level rise. Drought-resistant crops may be susceptible to new pests or diseases. That is why early adaptation studies have been aimed at understanding vulnerabilities, evaluating adaptive potential, and attempting to make people and places resilient to a possible range of changes.

Adaptation must also be finely tuned not only to the vagaries of local geography and ecology, but to local economies and cultures. Kate Barnes, climate program associate for the MacArthur Foundation, has found that cultural, economic, and political differences affect adaptation efforts to preserve the world’s montane biodiversity from the effects of climate change. In Bhutan, for instance, researchers found people’s “intrinsic appreciation for nature” made them more open to adaptation strategies than in Peru, where an interest in producing biofuels and gas exploration superseded an interest in conservation.

“The reality,” Adger says, “is that people don’t want to move and will resist adaptation when it affects things they care about — their jobs and their homes — even if they’re no longer sustainable.”

MTV Global Warming Video

3650 from Ubik on Vimeo.

Not a huge fan of MTV (I think it is the nexus of evil, is dumbing a generation, and has ruined good music) but I'll give them props for attempting to make global warming relevant to their near brain-dead audience.

Mikkey Halsted "My Life"

Here is a story telling joint by Mikkey Halsted about growing up in Chi-town. Interesting video, because it never breaks from him telling the story. That takes concentration. "My Life" appears on Mikkey's Uncrowned King Mixtape.

FSD x Timbuck2 x The Cool Kids - The Fake Shore Drive Mixtape

Here is Fake Shore Drive working with Timbuck2 and The Cool Kids to present: The Fake Shore Drive Mixtape. The project features new and unreleased music from Bump J, The Cool Kids, Lupe Fiasco, Mikkey Halsted, GLC, Naledge, Twista, Rhymefest, Really Doe, Sly Polaroid, Pugs Atomz, J. Ivy, Que Billah, Big Wiz, Skooda and more. This project has been a long time in the making, so give it a good listen. Chi-town reps well here.

Download The Fake Shore Drive Mixtape.

Economist: An awkward absence

Economist:
YOU do not see many milestones on the floor of the ocean, but one was passed this week. May 13th was the deadline for the submission of new claims to the seabed, and from pole to pole coastal states have been asserting ownership of vast chunks of continental shelf in a rush for territory unrivalled since the scramble for Africa at the end of the 19th century. The treasure this time is not ivory or cocoa beans but petroleum, or at least the promise of it, and perhaps amazing fuels and wonder drugs, as well as gold, silver and other minerals. The claims will now be accepted or rejected by a United Nations commission, but one big maritime power will, by choice, be absent: the United States. It should not be.

Unlike 156 other countries, America has never ratified the 27-year-old UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which this carve-up is taking place. That is no worse than unfortunate: the deadline applies only to states that acceded to the treaty more than ten years ago and America still has time to make its claims. But first it will have to ratify the treaty. This the Obama administration, like its two most recent predecessors, wants to do, as probably does most of the Senate, which must provide its advice and consent. A determined minority, however, wants to block it, and finding the time for the necessary procedure may prove difficult.

America’s original objections to the treaty related to the requirement that its companies should share technical information with poor countries. The treaty was changed to meet those complaints. Now the objectors say it would lead to a loss of sovereignty. In fact it would do the opposite, since it would allow America to claim sovereign rights over both the exclusive economic zone that extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from its shores and also its share of the continental shelf beyond that, so long as certain geophysical criteria were satisfied.

The treaty does other useful things. It provides the right of passage by sea for all countries’ armed forces, and for almost all shipping through other states’ territorial waters if the passage is innocent. An absolute right of passage is given in international straits and certain archipelagoes, such as Indonesia. Such provisions can only benefit American national security.

And just as America needs the treaty, so the treaty needs America. The sea is badly in need of better management. It is overfished, chiefly, it is true, in coastal waters, but also in the great expanses that belong to no state. The sea is increasingly used as a rubbish bin, filled with poisons, plastics and other pollutants. Parts of it are infested with pirates. All of it is growing alarmingly acidic, as the carbon dioxide spewed out by modern activities finds its way into the briny. And much of the CO2 that causes this problem derives from oil and gas made less scarce by the reserves now recoverable from below it.

Scope for slip-ups in the Arctic

Nowhere is this last paradox more apparent than in the Arctic, where global warming means melting ice, which in turn means easier access to huge quantities of petroleum, most of it offshore. At the same time the once-icy Arctic may be opening up to shipping through the North West Passage, bringing the possibility of collisions, oil spills and other environmental horrors in a particularly vulnerable part of the world. For the people—and animals—who live in the polar region, even the law-of-the-sea treaty, fashioned in an era unconcerned about global warming, may provide inadequate safeguards.

The treaty is certainly not going to solve all the troubles afflicting the oceans, nor settle all the world’s maritime disputes. But it can help. To be effective, though, it needs America. Ratification has waited too long. The Senate should press ahead.

NYtimes: Leading Africans to Responsible Recycling

NYtimes Special Report:

Backyard recyclers of electronics waste in developing countries use open fires and chemicals to extract precious metals, then dump the hazardous byproducts. Using no safety precautions, they expose themselves, their neighbors and their local environment to lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame retardants that can damage almost every organ and system in the human body.

That may be about to change. In February, the electronic products manufacturer Hewlett-Packard announced preliminary findings of a study on responsible electronic waste processing in African countries, based in part on a pilot facility it helped build in Cape Town.

Inspired by the work in India of Empa, the Swiss federal laboratory for materials testing and research, which is a partner of H.P. in the Cape Town project, the study looked at e-waste management in South Africa, Morocco and Kenya, including local legislation, awareness and behavior, infrastructure needs, and the amount of waste generated. Another partner in the project is the Global Digital Solidarity Fund, a Swiss philanthropy that works to bridge the digital divide.

From February to November 2008, the Cape Town facility processed approximately 60 tons of electronic equipment, generated about $14,000, and employed 19 people. The plant treats computers, monitors, printers, and mobile phones from any manufacturer, not just H.P. Other products considered e-waste by activists, like televisions and DVD and MP3 players, are not accepted.

Workers refurbished and resold some products and dismantled others to sell the raw materials to businesses that recycle metals and plastics. “They also make nice jewelry out of some of the processors and boards,” said Klaus Hieronymi, environment manager for H.P. in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

A similar plant has since been set up in Durban, without subsidies from either H.P. or the government. “We hope this idea will spread around South Africa,” Mr. Hieronymi said.

As much as 50 million tons of electronic waste is generated worldwide annually. People in developing countries are using — and discarding — more electronics every year, a waste management challenge that is complicated by the vast quantities of electronics trash that developed countries also dump on them in a bid to externalize costs.

Efforts by one environmentalist organization, the Basel Action Network, or BAN, to curtail that practice led to the 1995 BAN Amendment to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal — a treaty banning the export of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries. The European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, meanwhile, makes E.U. manufacturers responsible for products at the end of their life span. But the United States is not a signatory to the BAN Amendment, and both the United States and Europe allow the export of materials categorized as reusable.

In theory, reuse is desirable because it extends product life and allows access to information technology for people who can not afford new products.

But a BAN study found that up to 75 percent of “reusable” electronic goods are obsolete, do not work or are destroyed in transit: and even products that can be repaired generate waste because technicians usually replace broken parts rather than fixing them.

West African countries like Nigeria have a larger problem with dumping than countries in southern Africa, Mr. Hieronymi said.

But even in South Africa, projects like the Cape Town facility trouble some activists, who fear that they will attract even more shipments from exporters who think their electronic trash will be processed using best practices.

The reality is that you can not just “plop down” a high-tech facility in a developing country and expect it to operate safely, said Jim Puckett, executive director of BAN. Safe operation requires worker training; laws regulating waste management, worker safety and whistle-blower protections; law enforcement and monitoring; downstream residue management; and additional infrastructure, including smelters and hazardous waste facilities.

“You do not get that in a developing country,” Mr. Puckett said. “If you had that, it wouldn’t be a developing country.”

H.P.’s study has borne that out, particularly in Morocco and Kenya, which have “almost nonexistent” safety regulations and no enforcement, said Mr. Hieronymi. South Africa has some worker safety laws but little enforcement.

“Even if you had laws and enforcement, those people need the dollar today,” he said, referring to the individuals and small businesses typically involved in waste processing. “They don’t care about long-term health and environmental effects.”

Disposing of electronic waste involves a series of processes, including shredding, grinding, smelting and burning — the last two being toxic processes that call for special pollution-containing plants.

There are several hazardous waste incinerators in Africa, but they are designed primarily for chemical industry waste. Because the amount of electronic waste is relatively small, H.P. has no plans to build its own incinerators, Mr. Hieronymi said.

In any event, “even the most well-intended effort is still going to have hazardous byproducts, whether it’s in the form of emissions or some kind of a slag after you’ve incinerated it,” said Barbara B. Kyle, national coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, of which BAN is a member.

“These toxic residual wastes need to be managed,” she said, “and most developing countries don’t have safe facilities for where that can go.”

Infrastructure and social systems, moreover, vary greatly across Africa. “You cannot take a solution for South Africa and implant it in Morocco,” Mr. Hieronymi said. “The industrialization of that country is completely different, plus in Morocco you have a clan structure of families who are already treating waste.”

One aim of H.P.’s initiative is to provide safer jobs for people who are already working in the informal recycling business. But that can be challenging.

In many countries where informal recyclers are active, H.P.’s free take-back programs go unused. “If you put a perfect recycling facility in South Africa or Nigeria, it’s there, it’s not used, it’s rotting, because the people who are collecting the PCs on the road and can make a dollar on it by processing it in the backyard will not give that PC to the recycling industry,” Mr. Hieronymi said.

One answer is to pay informal collectors for waste — as Empa does in India. Still, it is unclear whether this model can provide as many jobs as the informal economy currently offers. With that in mind, H.P. is trying not to innovate too far. “In Cape Town, we didn’t put a fully automated recycling facility that needs just two engineers and a secretary to run it,” Mr. Hieronymi said. “We have instead 19 people.” Those 19 handle just the processing side at the facility, he added. Far more people can be engaged in waste collection.

Ms. Kyle lauded these efforts but said the number of jobs should not be the chief consideration; reducing pollution is paramount.

“You have to recognize that the people who are doing this work are poisoning themselves and others,” she said. “It’s not right to just put the economic filter of potential wages lost if there are fewer jobs available from a plant.”

Ultimately, the solution to the problem of electronic waste is to design better, cleaner products with fewer hazardous materials and less waste generally. H.P. has recognized that, Mr. Hieronymi said. “It’s quite easy for people like me to convince our design engineers that they should invest maybe a $1 or $2 into the manufacturing or design of the product because we can save $3 to $4 on the recycling side,” he said.

Designs are already cleaner than they once were. For example, cathode ray tubes in old computer monitors contained leaded glass, and even older laptops used fluorescent lighting, which contain mercury. New models are made with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, which are less hazardous to recycle.

E.U. regulations have restricted the amounts of hazardous material that can be incorporated in electronics for the European market — a development that has pushed manufacturers to clean up their products.

“We are also creating demand for recycled material,” Mr. Hieronymi said. “We have printers that contain up to 80 percent recycled plastics. Most of our ink cartridges have a recycling content of more than 75 percent.”

M.I.A. on Real Time with Bill Maher

M.I.A. commentary on Sri Lanka

Mike Jaggerr "Rainy Days"

This is somewhat appropriate for anyone on the east coast this week, where we'll be getting blanketed with rain all week.

This is the first joint I've heard by Mike Jaggerr (not of the Rolling Stones). Mike is an up and coming singer/songwriter/producer formerly of the Hip-Hop & R&B group, BASSLINE. He describes his music as: “Breaking up with your doubts, cheating on your fears and making love to your dreams.” This is the single "Rainy Days," from his forthcoming EP, THIRTEEN.


Download Mike Jaggerr "Rainy Days"

Puma Racing video

What is it like to sail on a Volvo 70? Waves crashing over you every few seconds and guys getting washed around the deck like rag dolls. I love this stuff.

Hoping for big wind for the Annapolis to Newport race June 5-finish.

The Roots Slow Jamming the News with Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon is a funny enough guy, but the only reason the the Late Night Show is worth watching if you are a frequent insomniac like me, is the genius infusion of the Legendary Roots Crew. It's basically variety show MCed by Black Thought and ?uestlove where Jimmy Fallon is the featured guest every night.

Check out their pure musical and comedic genius in a running sketch: Slow Jam the News.

Black Thought can belt a damn good tune, and I want his tailor.


Topic: Nancy Pelosi getting pissed at governors rejecting stimulus money.

Key line: "She added an amendment!"


Topic: The AIG bailout.

Key line: "I want my whistle blow-w-w-wn!"


Topic: North Korea expelling nuclear inspectors.


Topic: Obama's supreme court pick.