– People say that the US’s Social Security System is going to be fine and others say that its days are numbered and that those in future generations will never get out of it what they’ve paid into it.
– Well, I don’t know the truth of it one way or the other but I did find this disquieting when I visited the US Social Security website this evening:
Social Security Website 31May2011
– Click it to make it bigger.
– Here in New Zealand, this May was the warmest ever. I talked to a friend in central Washington State in the USA today, and she said that they’d just had the coldest May ever there.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Balmy temperatures and sub-tropical conditions saw New Zealand experience its warmest May on record, in a month that included floods, storms and a tornado.
Data from climate agency Niwa shows the month was almost 2.5 degrees Celcius warmer than usual, with rainfall double normal levels.
The figures won’t be official until tomorrow morning, but principal climate scientists James Renwick said the provisional numbers were extraordinary.
“Two-point-five degrees doesn’t sound like much, but for the average over the whole month that’s huge,” Renwick said.
“Normally 0.5 of a degree is a record-breaker.”
The average monthly temperature had been 13.1C, a temperature normally expected for April, Renwick said.
The previous hottest May, recorded in 2007, had a mean temperature of 12.4C.
Rainfall totals were also extreme, especially in the eastern Bay of Plenty and Nelson regions.
The rain gauge at Whakatane airport showed the region had experienced 2.5 times its normal rainfall, while at Nelson airport, 3.5 times the normal levels were recorded.
Both regions had suffered heavy flooding during May, with residents evacuated from their homes in coastal areas of the Bay of Plenty mid-month due to slips closing roads.
A number of Nelson homes were evacuated last week when rivers burst their banks and threatened to inundate homes.
– More… ➡
By 2030, the average cost of key crops will increase by between 120% and 180%, the charity forecasts.
Half of that increase will be caused by climate change, Oxfam predicts, in its report Growing a Better Future.
It calls on world leaders to improve regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund.
“The food system must be overhauled if we are to overcome the increasingly pressing challenges of climate change, spiralling food prices and the scarcity of land, water and energy,” said Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive.
– More… ➡
The watchdog says emissions rose again after a dip caused by the financial crisis in 2009, and ended 5% up from the previous record in 2008.
China and India account for most of the rise, though emissions have also grown in developed countries.
The increase raises doubts over whether planned curbs on greenhouse emissions will be achieved, the group says.
At a meeting last year in Cancun, Mexico, world leaders agreed that deep cuts were needed to limit the rise in global temperature to 2C above pre-industrial levels.
But according to the IEA’s estimate, worldwide CO2 emissions from the energy sector reached a record 30.6 gigatonnes in 2010.
The IEA’s Fatih Birol said the finding was “another wake-up call”.
“The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2C target is to be attained,” he added.
“Unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global goal agreed in Cancun.
– To the original: ➡
The Earth Policy Institute reported on figures today showing that cancer is now the leading cause of death in China, accounting for a quarter of all deaths in the country. The most common type? Lung cancer – caused in large part by increasingly foul air due to a heavy reliance on coal:
Deaths from this typically fatal disease have shot up nearly fivefold since the 1970s. In China’s rapidly growing cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, where particulates in the air are often four times higher than in New York City, nearly 30 percent of cancer deaths are from lung cancer.
The figures, which were compiled from the Chinese Ministry of Health, show the other side of China’s rush to develop new sources of energy. In the case of lung cancer, the bad air is compounded by soaring tobacco use.
The Chinese are, rightfully, seen as aggressively pursuing leadership in clean energy, while America falls behind. (I’ve used it to frame the debate too – and given how fast China is building projects and growing its manufacturing base, Americans better pay attention.)
But that comparison often ignores the broader picture in the country. Sure, China is beating us in wind installations and has a leg up in solar manufacturing; but in a country building a new coal plant every other week, any environmental and health impact of developing renewable energy is being negated by such a heavy reliance on dirty energy. Or, as the Earth Policy Institute so bluntly puts it: “China is sacrificing the health of its people, ultimately risking future prosperity” (and that’s on top of the devastation that awaits China from unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases).
While official rhetoric recognizes the importance of preserving the environment and the health of its people, the Chinese government still has a long way to go in bolstering transparency and enforcement of even the existing environmental regulations, not to mention strengthening protection. If it does not do so, the country’s toxic burden threatens to stall or even reverse the dramatic health gains of the last 60 years, which raised average life expectancy from 45 to 74 years and slashed infant mortality from 122 deaths per 1,000 births down to 20. Economic gains could be lost as productivity wanes and massive health bills come due. Ultimately, a sick country can prosper only so long.
– More… ➡
– Wrote about this a few months ago. Very strange.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A jury found Pakistan-born Muzzammil Hassan guilty of second-degree murder in the 2009 death of Aasiya Hassan six days after she filed for divorce.
Hassan never denied killing her but said she had abused him and that he had acted in self-defence. He served as his own lawyer during the three-week trial.
Hassan, who founded a Muslim-oriented TV network, could face life in prison.
Prosecutors argued Hassan abused his wife and planned the attack in a hallway at Bridges TV, a satellite channel he set up in 2004 in an effort to counter negative portrayals of Muslims following the 9/11 terror attacks.
– More… ➡
– A friend sent me this link and I found it interesting. It’s saying what people have been saying now for years; that Peak Oil is real and it’s coming. Except, that this is showing good reasons to believe that we are fully into the peak now and that by 2013 or 2014, we’ll be to the point where demand is outstripping supply and prices will begin a strong and inexorable rise.
– If you watch this and think to yourself that it’s just a one-off alarmist piece, then remember that this is just one of a long chain of such pieces and, as time has gone on, the predictions of the previous pieces have each been borne out – even though people were laughing at them as well at the time.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Click here to see the video: ➡
– research thanks to Johnathan S.
The teenager was accused of having an affair with a married man, police say, and the punishment was given under Islamic Sharia law.
Hena Begum’s family members said a village court consisting of elders and clerics passed the sentence.
She was alleged to have had the affair with her cousin and received 80 lashes.
The family members of the married man also allegedly beat the girl up a day before the village court passed the sentence in the district of Shariatpur.
“Her family members said she was admitted to a hospital after the incident and she died six days later. The village elders also asked the girl’s father to pay a fine of about 50,000 Taka (£430; $700),” district superintendent of police, AKM Shahidur Rahman, told the BBC.
He said it had not been established yet whether she died because of the punishment she received or another reason.
“We are still waiting for the post-mortem report. In the meantime, we are also looking for another 14 people including a teacher from a local madrassa in connection with this case,” Mr Rahman said.
Activists say dozens of fatwas – or religious rulings – are issued under Sharia law each year by village clergy in Bangladesh.
“What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice. If it had been a proper court then my daughter would not have died,” Dorbesh Khan, the father of Hena Begum, told the BBC.
– More… ➡
– And then later this:
Doctors in Dhaka found multiple injuries on the body of Hena Begum, the deputy attorney general told the BBC.
The High Court ordered her body to be exhumed and taken to the capital after a local autopsy recorded no injuries.
Miss Begum died in hospital six days after last month’s beating, which has caused shock in Bangladesh and abroad.
Police have opened a murder investigation.
– More… ➡
ScienceDaily (May 13, 2011) — It’s something we just accept: the fact that the older we get, the more difficulty we seem to have remembering things. We can leave our cars in the same parking lot each morning, but unless we park in the same space each and every day, it’s a challenge eight hours later to recall whether we left the SUV in the second or fifth row. Or, we can be introduced to new colleagues at a meeting and will have forgotten their names before the handshake is over. We shrug and nervously reassure ourselves that our brains’ “hard drives” are just too full to handle the barrage of new information that comes in daily.
According to a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist, however, the real trouble is that our aging brains are unable to process this information as “new” because the brain pathways leading to the hippocampus — the area of the brain that stores memories — become degraded over time. As a result, our brains cannot accurately “file” new information (like where we left the car that particular morning), and confusion results.
“Our research uses brain imaging techniques that investigate both the brain’s functional and structural integrity to demonstrate that age is associated with a reduction in the hippocampus’s ability to do its job, and this is related to the reduced input it is getting from the rest of the brain,” said Michael Yassa, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. “As we get older, we are much more susceptible to ‘interference’ from older memories than we are when we are younger.”
– More… ➡
– Research thanks to Alan T.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has
not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
I am making such material available in my effort to advance
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this
site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for
purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner.