Well, here we are.
2019.
But where are we headed?
Perhaps the answer to the question is in the opening sentence and a coming to understand where ‘here’ is.
We are at a strange time in the world indeed where much seems to be at the stake of our collective futures, tethered there as they are by our collective hopes for a better day and our unwillingness to question and let go of those same hopes. Our hopes for better seem to continue to produce the worse. Every solution brings with it, in Hydra like fashion, ten new problems. Each innovation seems to generate a need for greater innovation. We gaze upon the troubles of our times with the same unchanged eyes that first saw the troubles and the same unaltered language that conjured them. Our attempts to solve the troubles of our day seems to be a central source of the troubles that those to come will have to contend with.
In his book Come of Age, Stephen Jenkinson describes divination as “acute attention to the details of the present.” Divination is not about reading the then but about reading the now and, from that, the likely futures unfurl themselves before the well honed intuition.
So, here we are… but where is here?
The first thing to be said is that there is no global ‘here’ and yet many of the troubles that assail us will be, are and have been, global in their consequence.
And those consequences seem to be full of endings of many kinds and we seem to be in an ‘end times’ of a sort. The end of many species. The end of a stable climate. The end of many social orders (for better or worse). The end of hopes. Many things are ending now.
But end doesn’t mean ‘bad’. It just means ‘limit’. And we are certainly well past many limits in the world.
In his book Why The World Doesn’t End, Michael Meade explores the etymological roots of this word ‘end’ and gives us many loose threads on which to pull,
“The meaning of the word “end” might seem obvious and conclusive; yet root meanings reveal “tailings” and “remnants” and “that which is left over”… [it] carries the sense that the current state cannot continue and that it is too late for things to simply be repaired.
In order for things to change in a meaningful way, many things must come to and end. As archetype of radical change, [it] presents a pattern in which a shattering of forms occurs before the world as we know it can be reconstituted.
In the cosmic turn around if enough endings can be found, things can begin again… When the end seems near, ancient and lasting things are also close and waiting to be discovered… What we find at the end are both last things and things that last… Chaos not only describes the way that things fall apart at the end, but also the original state from which all creation continually arises…
In the end, all we can offer the world is the life we came here to live and the gifts our soul would have us give. When the end seems near, genuine security can only be found in taking the kind of risks that lead to a greater sense of life and a more encompassing way of being in the world…
Great crises and impossible demands often provoke hidden resources and reveal hints of the hidden wholeness and unity of life. The threat of collapse and utter loss can provoke a deeper sense of wholeness where nothing but total involvement and whole-heartedness will work… this capacity for great vision and imagination tends to awaken only after other approaches have failed.”
And so, January 1st is the beginning of the New Year.
And so, I have gathered together for you, the signs of these end times and time of endings in which you and I find ourselves in.
Now, of course, there is much good news and this is what I tend to share on my Facebook page. The wins. The small victories and the big ones.
But the good news isn’t the whole story.
Perhaps there are inaccuracies and exaggerations in some (no doubt it is so) and very likely many of them have been underestimated but if even ten of them are true and things are as they say well… then we are in it very deeply now and there is no turning back.
What might we imagine now and what future might we conjure? Fine questions but it might be best to start with a sober, sustained and sustaining gaze on how things have come to be.
I invite you to read through the list below, skimming as you go, and to open up any ten of them that seize you and read the articles or watch the videos in their entirety.
Don’t look away.
And then ask yourself, “what does knowing this ask of me?”
Might it be that we don’t become complacent in these times.
But, I also urge you not to read too many of these at once. It’s too much. The dose is too concentrated. A little adrenalin is good. Too much will kill you.
So I create this list for you in that way but also in this way: surely you have friends who remain unconvinced that things are as dire as they are and convinced that technology will, inevitably, solve everything for us. This list might be sent to them too. Use it as you will.
Might we all plant the seeds of something beautiful in the soil of what is now dying.
Might this signs be, above all, a sign of how deeply needed you are.
“Do you think it’s an accident that you were born at a time when the culture that gave you life is failing? I don’t think it is. I think you were born of necessity with your particular abilities, with our particular fears, with your particular heartaches and concerns… I think if we wait to be really compelled by something… something big, well… we’re going to wait an awful long time and I don’t know if the state of our world can tolerate our holding out until we feel utterly compelled by something. I think it’s more like this, that we have to proceed now as if we’re utterly needed given the circumstances. That takes almost something bordering on bravado, it could be mistaken for megalomania easily, though I don’t think it is. It had a certain amount of nerviness in it or boldness for sure, something that’s not highly thought of in the culture I was born into unless you’re a star or something… regular people aren’t supposed to have those qualities. I say they are of course. That’s what we’ve got to bring to the challenges at hand, not waiting to be convinced that we’re needed but proceeding as if we are. Your insignificance has been horribly overstated.” – Stephen Jenkinson
Authoritarianism:
The fascist movement that has brought Mussolini back to the mainstream – Italy’s CasaPound has been central to normalising fascism again in the country of its birth. Now they’re trying to enter parliament. https://www.theguardian.com/ne
How ZTE helps Venezuela create China-style social control https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-zte/
Unfixable? Several nations have tried to restore democracy after populist strongmen. It was never the same. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/11/16/feature/unfixable-several-nations-have-tried-to-restore-democracy-after-populist-strongmen-it-was-never-the-same/
Double standard emerges as activists see special airline boarding pass designation https://mic.com/articles/192122/double-standard-emerges-as-activists-see-special-airline-boarding-pass-designation#.1s63KOVnQ
Since Standing Rock, 56 Bills Have Been Introduced in 30 States to Restrict Protests – In the year since the last activists were evicted, the crackdown on journalists and activists has only intensified. https://www.thenation.com/arti
Trump is creating his American caliphate, and democracy has no defence – Officials quoting a holy text to justify repressive policies is something we who grew up in the Arab world have seen beforehttps://www.theguardian.com/
Foe Of Endangered Species Act Lands Gig Overseeing — You Guessed It — Wildlife – It’s like “appointing an arsonist as the town fire marshal,” said one conservationist. https://www.huffingtonpost.
A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well. https://www.theatlantic.com/ma
China:
Climate Change:
NASA Discovers Bubbling Lakes In The Remote Arctic – A Sign Of Global Warming https://www.forbes.com/sites/t
This glacier was featured on a postcard in 1900. A camera captured where it is today.
https://www.upworthy.com/this-
A warming Earth might eventually copy the greenhouse effect of Venus Modelling finds the precious equilibrium between temperature and
radiation breaks down beyond a certain point, spelling big trouble. https://cosmosmagazine.com/cli
‘Revved up’: Land being cleared at the rate of 14 football fields a day in northern NSW – https://www.smh.com.au/environ
Massive Moth ‘Cloud’ Takes Over French Town https://www.unilad.co.uk/anima
Arctic temperatures soar 25 C above normal with sites above freezing despite midday darkness – This Arctic’s latest temperature spike is a striking indicator of the Earth’s rapidly transforming climate. These kinds of temperature anomalies in the Arctic have become commonplace in winter in the past few years. https://www.thestar.com/news/w
There is a huge amount of mercury trapped in the Arctic. Which, by the way, is melting. https://grist.org/briefly/ther
Polar ice is lost at sea https://grist.org/article/pola
Some of Alberta’s ecosystems shrinking faster than Amazon rain forest: report https://globalnews.ca/news/401
Nasa map of Earth over 20 years highlights astonishing impact of climate change – Animation captures planet’s seasonal fluctuations as seen from space http://www.independent.co.uk/n
Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme – New research suggests human-caused emissions will lead to bigger impacts on heat and extreme weather, and sooner than the IPCC warned just three years ago. https://insideclimatenews.org/
Humidity will make some parts of the world unlivable in 50 years https://news.vice.com/en_us/ar
STUNNER: It’s Raining In Antarctica!!! Scientists Extremely WORRIED!!! http://sciencevibe.com/2017/06
Earth heading for ‘mini ice age’ within 15 years – Research has predicted a new solar ‘Maunder minimum’ in the 2030s http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new
The first wintertime megafire in California history is here http://grist.org/article/the-f
Climate scientist Paul Beckwith on the jetstream crossing and our global climate emergency https://inhabitat.com/intervie
15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’ http://www.independent.co.uk/e
Penguin disaster as only two chicks survive from colony of 40,000 – ‘Catastrophic breeding event’ leads to demands for a marine protected area to be set up in East Antarctica https://www.theguardian.com/en
A giant hole has opened up in Antarctica as scientists look to find out what is to blame – ‘It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice’ http://www.independent.co.uk/n
The math on staying below 2°C of global warming looks increasingly brutal https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19
BP and Shell planning for catastrophic 5°C global warming despite publicly backing Paris climate agreement – Companies are trying to ‘have their oil and drink it’ by committing to 2°C in public while planning for much higher temperature rises, says shareholder campaign group, Share Action http://www.independent.co.uk/n
Scientists Sound the Alarm: CO2 Levels Race Past Point of No Return http://www.ecowatch.com/noaa-c
Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns http://www.truth-out.org/news/
India is suffering the ‘worst water crisis in its history’ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/as-groundwater-runs-short-water-battles-grow-in-parched-chennai
I’m a woman who fought wildfires for 7 years. Climate change is absolutely making them worse. Warmer climate is creating the perfect conditions for long wildfire seasons in the West. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/9/14/16301876/camp-fire-woolsey-fire-california-wildfires-2018
The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us – Climate breakdown could be rapid and unpredictable. We can no longer tinker around the edges and hope minor changes will avert collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/earth-death-spiral-radical-action-climate-breakdown
How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet With wildfires, heat waves, and rising sea levels, large tracts of the earth are at risk of becoming uninhabitable. But the fossil-fuel industry continues its assault on the facts. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-extreme-weather-is-shrinking-the-planet
U.S. impacts of climate change are intensifying, federal report says https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/23/climate-change-intensifying-economy-impacted-federal-report-finds/2093291002/
UN report: Greenhouse gasses at highest level in 5 million years Alarming study comes as ‘desperate’ low-lying Vanuatu plans to sue climate change culprits in energy industry. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/report-greenhouse-gasses-highest-level-5-million-years-181123063503929.html
Carbon dioxide levels soared to new global record in 2017, UN warns https://globalnews.ca/news/4689879/carbon-dioxide-global-levels-un-warning/
World must triple efforts or face catastrophic climate change, says UN Rapid emissions turnaround needed to keep global warming at less than 2C, report suggests https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/world-triple-efforts-climate-change-un-global-warming
Las Vegas water planners hedge bets, prepare for worst case scenario: the day the Colorado River stops at the Hoover Dam https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-day-the-colorado-river-stops-at-hoover-dam-is-improbable-but-it-is-scary-enough-that-las-vegas-is-hedging-against-it
U of A students find record levels of mercury released into Canadian Arctic waterways from thawing permafrost https://edmontonjournal.com/technology/science/u-of-a-students-find-record-levels-of-mercury-released-into-waterways
Global Carbon Emissions Reached New High In 2018, Scientists Say China, India and the U.S. rank among the biggest contributors to the problem. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/global-carbon-emissions-record-high_us_5c081770e4b0bf813ef38742
Climate change could wake up Canada’s dormant volcanoes https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/climate-change-could-wake-up-canada-s-dormant-volcanoes-1.4934504
Satellite Spies Methane Bubbling up from Arctic Permafrost Radar instrument aboard a Japanese probe can spot signs of gas seeping from lakes that form as the ground thaws https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/satellite-spies-methane-bubbling-up-from-arctic-permafrost/
As climate change bites in America’s midwest, farmers are desperate to ring the alarm https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/12/as-climate-change-bites-in-americas-midwest-farmers-are-desperate-to-ring-the-alarm
THE PESSIMIST’S GUIDE TO 2019 FIRE, FLOODS AND FAMINE – https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/pessimists-guide-to-2019/
The EPA’s Climate Change Page Is Just Gone Now https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjwpz/the-epa-page-that-provided-climate-change-information-is-just-gone-now
Western Canada glaciers retreating at an unprecedented pace because of climate change: experts https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-glaciers-in-western-canada-retreating-at-unprecedented-pace-because-of
We broke down what climate change will do, region by region Yeah, we read each chapter of the report so you don’t have to. https://grist.org/article/we-broke-down-what-climate-change-will-do-region-by-region
Climate change: Concerns over report on ocean heating https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46046067
Ecological collapse of Toronto’s ravine system has begun, researcher says https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-ravine-system-ecological-collapse-1.4891207
THE TERRIFYING SCIENCE BEHIND CALIFORNIA’S MASSIVE CAMP FIRE https://www.wired.com/story/the-terrifying-science-behind-californias-massive-camp-fire/
Let it go: The Arctic will never be frozen again http://grist.org/article/let-i
Climate Change Could Trigger More Volcanic Eruptions, Study Finds – Expect to see “a lot more volcanic activity in areas of the world where glaciers and volcanoes interact,” the lead author says. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/e
There’s so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us – Most scientists agree emissions must be reduced http://www.independent.co.uk/n
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice https://academic.oup.com/biosc
Scientists warn of ‘global climate emergency’ over shifting jet stream – Other scientists have since dismissed the claims as ‘total nonsense’
https://www.independent.co.uk/
Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’ https://www.theguardian.com/
A Warming World Creates Desperate People https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
Dangerous climate tipping point is ‘about a century ahead of schedule’ warns scientist – A slowing Gulf Stream system means catastrophic East Coast flooding will get much worse. https://thinkprogress.org/
A major climate boundary in the central U.S. has shifted 140 miles due to global warming https://www.usatoday.com/
From Africa’s Baobabs To America’s Pines: Our Ancient Trees Are Dying. Welcome to climate change. https://www.huffingtonpost.
Cultural Madness:
Desks Turn Into Bulletproof Shields In Case of School or Office Shootings https://www.facebook.com/NowTh
Sephora Will Start Selling Entry Level Witch Kits in October: https://qz.com/quartzy/1372344
Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound – When the reading brain skims texts, we don’t have time to grasp complexity, to understand another’s feelings or to perceive beauty. We need a new literacy for the digital age https://www.theguardian.com/
You can now save your loved one’s tattoos after they’ve died https://www.facebook.com/
The Glitter Coffin Company® – Beautiful bespoke glitter and crystal coffins and caskets https://
Gaming disorder set to be recognized by World Health Organization – Persistent or recurrent playing despite negative consequences is a disease, policy draft says http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/
Bulletproof rucksacks: the ultimate solution against shootings. https://www.facebook.com/playg
Government votes that “animals can’t feel pain or emotions” https://www.thelondoneconomic.
EPA chief: ‘True environmentalism is using natural resources that God has blessed us with’. Another day, another attempt by Trump officials to silence scientists. https://thinkprogress.org/epa-
This Woman Reads 100 Books In A Month (And How You Can Too) https://www.blinkist.com/magaz
Look on my works, ye mighty … Ozymandias statue found in mud https://www.theguardian.com/wo
New Video Game Walks in Footsteps of Thoreau at Walden Pond
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org
Controversial Campaign Calls People With Down Syndrome ‘Endangered Species’ As prenatal testing reduces their numbers at birth, an advocacy group argues they belong on the endangered list. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/down-syndrome-endangered-species-canada_us_5be5c35ee4b0769d24ccd03a
LANS TO MICROCHIP UK WORKERS SPARK PRIVACY CONCERNS ‘Microchipping would give bosses even more power and control over their workers,’ a TUC spokesperson said https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/microchip-uk-workers-employees-privacy-bioteq-biohax-cbi-tuc-trade-union-a8629656.html
Being single in your 30s isn’t bad luck, it’s a global phenomenon https://qz.com/1443640/being-single-in-your-30s-isnt-bad-luck-its-a-global-phenomenon/
Pathological Consumption Has Become So Normalised That We Scarcely Notice It https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/pathological-consumption-has-become-so-normalised-that-we-scarcely-notice-it/
You Can Now Get Christmas Fairy Lights For Beards https://www.unilad.co.uk/festive/you-can-now-get-christmas-fairy-lights-for-beards/
Now the PC police have come for ‘The Vagina Monologues’ https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/now-the-pc-police-have-come-for-the-vagina-monologues/amp/
South Koreans lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life For most people, prison is a place to escape from. For South Koreans in need of a break from the demands of everyday life, a day or two in a faux jail is the escape https://apple.news/AkZfcRlJ8TnKu1Vrb_q8FyQ
Anthropologie is selling a bundle of twigs for $42 and people are seriously confused https://www.thisisinsider.com/anthropologie-selling-bundle-of-twigs-twitter-reactions-2018-11
How Restaurants Got So Loud Fashionable minimalism replaced plush opulence. That’s a recipe for commotion. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/how-restaurants-got-so-loud/576715/
In Sweden, cash is almost extinct and people implant microchips in their hands to pay for things More than 4,000 Swedes have gone the microchip route as cash use fades and the government scrambles to figure out the effects on society and the economy A cafe in Stockhlom that is completely cash-free. Few places are tilting toward a cashless future as quickly as Sweden, which has become hooked on the convenience of paying by app and plastic.Linus Sundahi-Djerf/The New York Times https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/swedens-push-to-get-rid-of-cash-has-some-saying-not-so-fast
Does the ‘foreskin facial’ mark the end of the world? Kate Beckinsale is the latest celebrity to try the treatment, which uses a serum derived from babies’ circumcised penises. Has anti-ageing finally gone too far? https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2018/nov/26/foreskin-facial-kate-beckinsale-serum-anti-ageing
You can now go to prison in Canada for providing raw milk. Seriously Karen Selick: It’s time for the federal and provincial legislatures to pay attention, just as they finally did with marijuana, and remove this thorn from everyone’s side https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/you-can-now-go-to-prison-in-canada-for-providing-raw-milk-seriously
A New Drug Could Let Us Eat Anything Without Gaining Weight Researchers might have finally cracked the code to gorging without consequence. https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/439qkd/a-new-drug-could-let-us-eat-anything-without-gaining-weight
‘BRINGING HOME THE BACON’: IDIOMS REFERENCING MEAT MAY BECOME OBSOLETE AS VEGANISM RISES ‘Given that fiction often reflects on real world events and societal issues, it may very well be that down the line powerful meat metaphors are eschewed’ – https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bringing-home-bacon-vegan-offensive-idom-shareena-hamzah-phrases-animals-a8664796.html
The winner of Statistic of the Year: 90.5 percent of plastic is not recycled https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/18/plastic-90-5-percent-not-recycled/2346873002/
KFC is now selling a log that smells like fried chicken https://www.businessinsider.com/kfc-log-smells-like-fried-chicken-2018-12
Anthropologie Is Literally Selling A Bundle Of Twigs For $42, And It Sold Out Nothing says “happy holidays!” like overpriced sticks. https://www.revelist.com/weird/anthropologie-twigs/14109
THE HEART OF WHITENESS ON SPIRITUAL TOURISM AND THE COLONIZATION OF AYAHUASCA https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/heart-of-whiteness-spiritual-tourism-colonization-ayahuasca
From Social Experiment To Reality: Bottled ‘Fresh Air’ Now Being Sold Online In India https://thelogicalindian.com/awareness/bottled-fresh-air/
“Our heritage jars contain pure, clean and fresh AETHAER, collected from a range of pristine locations from around the UK. Each jar is part of a limited edition set of enviro-political artworks, and while the contents can be inhaled, our jars of AETHAER are often sought as a luxurious gift for others, or are bought to be admired and function as a thought provoking display in your own office or home.” http://www.aethaer.com/aethaer
Incels hail Toronto van driver who killed 10 as a new Elliot Rodger, talk of future acid attacks and mass rapes [UPDATED] http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.
‘Beta Males’ Want To Kill Women Because They Can’t Get Laid https://bust.com/feminism/
The Millennial Who Wouldn’t Move Out of His Parents’ House Is Tragic, Actually – His story is an embarrassing cry for help. unemployed 30-year-old man named Michael Rotondo, was sued by his parents after they made many unsuccessful attempts to kick him out of their home in upstate New York. https://www.vice.com/en_ca/
Deforestation:
China is Turning the Rainforest into Cheap Furniture for the U.S. https://returntonow.net/2018/10/29/china-is-turning-the-rainforest-into-cheap-furniture-for-the-u-s/
Brazil records worst annual deforestation for a decade Nearly 8,000sq kms lost in the year to July amid alarm new president Jair Bolsonaro will make situation worse https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/24/brazil-records-worst-annual-deforestation-for-a-decade
Rivers in the Sky: How Deforestation Is Affecting Global Water Cycles A growing body of evidence indicates that the continuing destruction of tropical forests is disrupting the movement of water in the atmosphere, causing major shifts in precipitation that could lead to drought in key agricultural areas in China, India, and the U.S. Midwest. https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-deforestation-affecting-global-water-cycles-climate-change
The Amazon is approaching a point of no return – but it’s not too late https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/the-amazon-might-be-past-the-point-of-being-saved
Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies Indigenous groups claim they have not consented to oil projects, as politicians visit Beijing to publicise bidding process www.whitewolfpack.com/2013/04/ecuador-to-sell-third-of-its-amazon.html
Death & Dying:
Why Death Does Not Exist – Never Mourn Again | Neale Donald Walsch – https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Kent and Canterbury Hospital introduces ‘compassion signs’ for dying patients http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ca
High-Tech Suicide Machine Makes Death a Painless, Peaceful, Optimal Way to Go – The Sarco is a state-of-the-art death machine. https://www.alternet.org/news-
The App That Reminds You You’re Going to Die – It helped me find inner peace. https://www.theatlantic.com/ma
How to Outsmart Your Gross Body and Live Forever https://lifehacker.com/how-to-
Could we soon REVERSE death? US company to start trials ‘reawakening the dead’ in Latin America ‘in a few months’ – and this is how they’ll do it http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea
A Doctor Built a Machine That Helps People Die “After a minute and a half, you feel disoriented. In five minutes, you’re gone.” https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/434yaj/a-doctor-built-a-machine-that-helps-people-die
Scientists get the green light to resurrect the dead with stem cells http://themindunleashed.com/20
Kurzweil Accelerates Immortality Pledge From 2045 To 2029 https://www.technocracy.news/i
‘Your animal life is over. Machine life has begun.’ The road to immortality https://www.theguardian.com/sc
600 Miles in a Coffin-Shaped Bus, Campaigning Against Death Itself https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0
Dimming the Sun:
Scientists weigh up stratospheric sunlight barrier to curb warming https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-geoengineering-idUSKCN1NS005
Harvard Scientists to Release Sun-Dimming Sky Chemical in 2019 But just a tiny bit, to see what happens. https://futurism.com/sun-dimming-sky-chemical-geoengineering/
First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth Researchers plan to spray sunlight-reflecting particles into the stratosphere, an approach that could ultimately be used to quickly lower the planet’s temperature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4
Bill Gates, Harvard, To Begin Blocking Sun In Spring Of 2019 https://prepforthat.com/harvard-scientists-block-suns-rays/
First ever sun-dimming experiment will mimic volcanic eruption in attempt to reverse global warming ‘If solar geoengineering is as good as what is shown in these models, it would be crazy not to take it seriously’ – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/sun-dimming-solar-geoengineering-volcano-eruption-global-warming-climate-change-harvard-a8667141.html
Developing nations to study ways to dim sunshine, slow warming – https://mobile.reuters.com/
Disease:
One of the world’s largest banks has issued an alarming warning about antibiotic resistance https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/one-of-the-worlds-largest-banks-has-issued-an-alarming-warning-about-antibiotic-resistance-with-big-consequences-for-humanity
An all new drug-resistant pneumonia has been discovered in China and it’s deadly. https://www.facebook.com/namel
DEATH IS COMING Plague warning in NINE countries – including Brit holiday hotspots – as fears grow that BLACK DEATH could spread on flights from Madagascar. The deadly plague outbreak has struck Madagascar’s major cities sparking fears it has yet to ‘peak’ and could spread into the surrounding region https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/
Elders:
Dutch man, 69, starts legal fight to identify as 20 years younger Motivational speaker Emile Ratelband compares bid to alter age to gender change https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/08/dutch-man-69-starts-legal-fight-to-identify-as-20-years-younger
Extinction & The Road to It:
Heartache in the San Juan Islands: Locals grieve as resident orcas face extinction https://www.oregonlive.com/exp
Mass die-off of clams fouls Revere Beach https://www.bostonglobe.com/me
Extinction Looms For Northern White Rhino As Last Male Nears Death – Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino, may not survive much longer, and there’s talk of euthanasia. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/
Animals in radiation zones are not doing well https://beyondnuclearinternati
The Eastern Puma Has Officially Been Pronounced Extinct! https://www.journalpost.com/ne
Northern white rhino: Last male Sudan dies in Kenya https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/w
‘Catastrophe’ as France’s bird population collapses due to pesticides – Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by
two-thirds, because insects they feed on have disappeared https://www.theguardian.com/wo
Britain has lost half its wildlife. Now’s the time to shout about it https://www.theguardian.com/co
Dire News For Endangered Right Whales: Not A Single Newborn Spotted This Year – “Right now, the sky is falling,” warns a National Marine Fisheries Service scientist. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/
A giant insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It’s a catastrophe https://www.theguardian.com/en
Cougars Officially Declared Extinct in Eastern U.S., Removed from Endangered Species List
http://e360.yale.edu/digest/co
Earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF – Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food
in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats https://www.theguardian.com/en
Toward Extinction – The UNDP recently announced that it would no longer fund a critical Asiatic cheetah conservation program, prompting fears for the subspecies’ future. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/e
A third of birds in North America threatened with extinction – State of North America’s Birds report finds ocean, tropical birds most threatened http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/te
‘All of our team was in tears’: Video shows polar bear starving in the North http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha
Here are the animals that went extinct in 2017 http://mashable.com/2017/12/27
Sixth mass extinction? Two-thirds of wildlife may be gone by 2020: WWF http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/26/
Warning of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after dramatic plunge in insect numbers – Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across
Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say https://www.theguardian.com/en
Experts: Florida Monarch Butterfly Population Drops by 80 Percent https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2018/11/08/experts–florida-monarch-butterfly-population-drops-by-80-percent
Ireland’s native woodlands are quietly disappearing Under 11% of country’s land is forested as State plants Sitka spruce at expense of indigenous trees https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/ireland-s-native-woodlands-are-quietly-disappearing-1.3529317
‘The level of urgency is high’: Ottawa still hasn’t acted on endangered southern mountain caribou https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-the-level-of-urgency-is-high-ottawa-still-hasnt-acted-on/
Jaguars killed for fangs to supply growing Chinese medicine trade Demand from Chinese workers raises demand for skin and body parts of endangered species https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/04/jaguars-killed-for–fangs-chinese-medicine-trade
Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-biodiversity-loss-or-we-could-face-our-own-extinction-warns-un
Across Canada, caribou are on course for extinction, a prominent expert warns. What happens after that? At a conference in Ottawa this week, Justina Ray will lay out grim predictions for animals First Nations have depended on for generations https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/science/article-across-canada-caribou-are-on-the-edge-of-extinction-a-prominent/
‘Test tube trees’: An insurance policy against extinction? https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46065156
The Pando aspen clone or ‘trembling giant’, the world’s largest organism, is collapsing https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-10-18/pando-aspen-clone-utah-collapse/10383562
Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study Groundbreaking assessment of all life on Earth reveals humanity’s surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
Steller’s sea cow: the first historical extinction of a marine mammal at human hands www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/stellers-sea-cow-first-historical-extinction-of-marine-mammal-at-human-hands.html
Another tipping point breached: Salmon have disappeared in Scotland: Not a single salmon caught during the entire season. https://www.thebigwobble.org/2018/11/another-tipping-point-breached-salmon.html
‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/
‘We have left it too late’: scientists say some B.C. endangered species can’t be saved B.C.’s scattershot approach to helping at-risk species isn’t working, say scientists who propose a new but controversial way of prioritizing conservation that comes face to face with the grim realities and ethical dilemmas of making a business case for extinction prevention https://thenarwhal.ca/we-have-left-it-too-late-scientists-say-some-b-c-endangered-species-cant-be-saved/
Butterfly sanctuary expected to be plowed over for Trump’s border wall https://www.cbsnews.com/news/butterfly-sanctuary-in-texas-expected-to-be-plowed-over-for-trumps-border-wall/
Swift parrot habitat vital for survival of species could be destroyed by dam Environment minister will rule if Tasmanian forest that is home to the critically endangered parrot can be bulldozed https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/10/swift-parrot-habitat-threat-dam-fish-farm-golf-course
The University Of Aberdeen has issued the latest depressing news of a catastrophic die-off: 70% decline of world population for seabirds since 1970 https://www.thebigwobble.org/2018/12/the-university-of-aberdeen-has-issued.html
Year Zero: The Year When Wild Animals Are Gone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OYE8_TsteA
Another giant has left us: the Sumatran rhino is extinct in the wild in Sabah https://www.lifegate.com/people/news/sumatran-rhino-is-extinct-in-the-wild-in-sabah
WILD BEES ARE DYING AND ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE WILL FOLLOW—BUT NOBODY’S TAKING NOTICE https://www.newsweek.com/wild-bees-are-dying-and-ecosystem-collapse-will-follow-nobodys-taking-notice-1232793
‘It’s a sad reality’: a troubling trend sees a 97% decline in monarch butterflies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/07/its-a-sad-reality-a-troubling-trend-sees-a-97-decline-in-monarch-butterflies
Fertility:
Heat waves from climate change may zap male fertility for many species – Male flour beetles exposed to heat waves in the lab had far fewer, less fertile offspring https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/heat-climate-fertility-1.4903481
Sperm count drop ‘could make humans extinct’ http://www.bbc.com/news/health
Sperm Count Zero – A strange thing has happened to men over the past few decades: We’ve become increasingly infertile, so much so that within a generation we may lose the ability to reproduce entirely. What’s causing this mysterious drop in sperm counts—and is there any way to reverse it before it’s too late? https://www.gq.com/story/sperm
Food, Farming & Soil:
Supreme Court settles food fight, leaves ban on front-yard veggie gardens intact http://amp.miamiherald.com/new
Why are America’s farmers killing themselves in record numbers? – The suicide rate for farmers is more than double that of veterans. Former farmer Debbie Weingarten gives an insider’s perspective on farm life –and how to help https://www.theguardian.com/us
‘Great American Desert’ threatens to swallow eight US states as massive aquifer dries up https://inhabitat.com/great-am
Lab-Grown Chicken Nuggets Made From Feathers to Hit Shelves By End of the Year https://althealthworks.com/17516/lab-grown-chicken-nuggets-made-from-feathers-to-go-on-sale-by-years-end/
World’s First Cell-Grown Steak Doesn’t Cause Harm to Animals https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/worlds-first-cell-grown-steak-doesnt-cause-harm-to-animals/
Aging farmers with no succession plans put future of Canadian family farms at risk – 92 per cent of Canadian farms have no transition plan ready, Stats Can says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/
A Team of Scientists Just Made Food From Electricity — and it Could be the Solution to World Hunger https://futurism.com/a-team-of
UK is 30-40 years away from ‘eradication of soil fertility’, warns Gove – Farmers must be incentivised to tackle decline in biodiversity, says environment secretary at launch of parliamentary soil body https://www.theguardian.com/en
The great nutrient collapse – The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. https://www.politico.com/agend
Med Tech:
Warning: The FDA’s Approval of Genome Therapy Is Just the Beginning http://theantimedia.org/genome
Scientists Grow Full-Sized, Beating Human Hearts From Stem Cells It’s the closest we’ve come to growing transplantable hearts in the lab https://www.popsci.com/scientists-grow-transplantable-hearts-with-stem-cells
Breaking: Scientists Create An Artificial Womb https://www.youtube.com/watch?
3-D printed ovaries produce healthy offspring https://news.northwestern.edu/
Oceans:
Sea creatures in deepest parts of ocean found to have plastic fibres in their stomachs for first time – Shocking results show there is nowhere untouched by scale of human waste
http://www.independent.co.uk/n
Shocking photo shows Caribbean Sea being ‘choked to death by human waste’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new
Ocean acidification is deadly threat to marine life, finds eight-year study – Plastic pollution, overfishing, global warming and increased acidification from burning fossil fuels means oceans are increasingly hostile to marine life https://www.theguardian.com/en
Japan plans to flush Fukushima water ‘containing radioactive material above permitted levels’ into the ocean https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/16/japan-plans-flush-fukushima-water-containing-radioactive-material/
Earth is Eating Its Oceans Way Faster Than Originally Thought, Study Finds https://weather.com/news/news/2018-11-19-earth-eating-oceans-mariana-trench
Ocean circulation in North Atlantic is at its weakest for 1,500 years – and at levels that previously triggered a mini Ice Age, study warns Study shows the levels are at their lowest for 1,500 years Currents have a ‘profound effect’ on both North American and European climate Researcher found a similar weak signal during a period called the Little Ice Age, a cold spell observed between about 1600 and 1850 AD https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6430691/Ocean-circulation-North-Atlantic-weakest-1-500-years-trigger-Ice-Age.html
Ocean oxygen levels are declining, and it could be devastating https://www.earth.com/news/ocean-oxygen-levels-declining/
Greenland Melting Is ‘Off the Charts’ https://www.ecowatch.com/greenland-melting-overdrive-2622570930.html
Caspian Seal on verge of extinction Gorgan, Dec 16, IRNA – The Caspian seal as the only Caspian aquatic mammal due to over-hunting, being trapped in fishermen’s net, increasing sea pollution and industrial waste is facing extinction, and there is little time to permanently wipe out. www.irna.ir/en/News/83136580
East Antarctica glacial stronghold melting as seas warm Nasa detects ice retreat probably linked to ocean changes in region once thought stable https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/11/east-antarctica-glacial-stronghold-melting-amid-climate-change
Why are blue whales changing the frequency of their songs? Researchers suspect it could be in reaction to melting sea ice. https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/why-are-blue-whales-suddenly-changing-frequency-their-songs
Almost all of the oldest, thickest ice in the Arctic Ocean is gone due to climate change https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/11/arctic-warming-soars-into-uncharted-territory/2276896002/
Melting Arctic ice is now pouring 14,000 tons of water per second into the ocean, scientists find A new survey finds that the region has contributed almost an inch to rising seas since 1971. https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/21/melting-arctic-ice-is-now-pouring-tons-water-per-second-into-ocean-scientists-find/
The Ocean Is Suffocating:Dead Zone Bigger Than Scotland Identified in Gulf of Oman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvIKG2FTPLA
Shocking timelapse of the shrinking Aral Sea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt4HbRqeve8
Building blocks of ocean food web in rapid decline as plankton productivity plunges – Senior DFO scientist says the cause of the collapse is unknown https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ocean-phytoplankton-zooplankton-food-web-1.4927884
Half of dead baby turtles found by Australian scientists have stomachs full of plastic https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/turtles-plastic-pollution-deaths-australia-microplastic-waste-a8536041.html
Dead sperm whale in Indonesia had 115 plastic cups, 2 flip-flops in its stomach https://globalnews.ca/news/4680168/dead-sperm-whale-indonesia-plastic-stomach/
Oceans suffocating as huge dead zones quadruple since 1950, scientists warn – Areas starved of oxygen in open ocean and by coasts have soared in recent decades, risking dire consequences for marine life and humanity https://www.theguardian.com/en
Coral Scientists Eye ‘Radical Intervention’ To Save The World’s Reefs – “The dire situation is here now,” said the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/e
NASA releases time-lapse of the disappearing Arctic polar ice cap http://fox2now.com/2018/02/26/
Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950 – Researchers find trouble among phytoplankton, the base of the food chain, which has implications for the marine food web and the world’s carbon cycle https://www.scientificamerican
Troubled waters: Nuclear radiation found in B.C. may pose health concerns http://www.vancouversun.com/ne
Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Now Twice the Size of Texas and It’s Rapidly Getting Worse https://weather.com/news/news/
Trump Moves to Open Nearly All Offshore Waters to Drilling https://mobile.nytimes.com/201
Pollution:
Salmon farming in crisis: ‘We are seeing a chemical arms race in the seas’ – Rare only 40 years ago, farmed salmon is now taken for granted in our kitchens. But the growth of the industry has come at great cost https://www.theguardian.com/
Mussels off the coast of Seattle test positive for opioids https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/
Humans Have Created Enough Plastic To Cover The Eight Largest Country In The World https://www.facebook.com/
Oilsands ponds full of 340 billion gallons of toxic sludge spur fears of environmental catastrophe – Alberta’s tailings ponds cover about 97 square miles and hold enough waste to fill more than half a million Olympic-size swimming pool http://business.financialpost.
Massive Oil Fields in Texas Are Heaving, Sinking, And Opening Up Like Mouths – 4,000 square miles of geohazard. It began with sinkholes. Two of them, gaping mouths to nowhere opening up as if to swallow the town of Wink, Texas. As they expanded, there were fears they might collide, morphing into one giant void. https://www.sciencealert.com/m
Air Pollution Is Killing Millions Around The Globe Each Year – It’snot listed on death certificates, but it’s still considered “one of the great killers of our age.” http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/e
Plastic Pollution Is ‘Low Priority’ for Shoppers, Soft Drink Execs Tell Policy Officials https://www.ecowatch.com/plast
What would it cost to clean up Alberta’s oilpatch? $260 billion, a top official warns https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2018/11/01/what-would-it-cost-to-clean-up-albertas-oilpatch-260-billion-a-top-official-warns.html
EPA Plans to Allow Unlimited Dumping of Fracking Wastewater in the Gulf of Mexico www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/epa-plans-allow-unlimited-dumping-fracking-wastewater-gulf-mexico
Plastic waste has reached the most remote parts of Antarctica https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/plastic-waste-in-antarctica-reveals-scale-of-global-pollution-greenpeace
Humans Are Pooping Plastic, And No One’s Certain How Bad That Is There’s a frightening lack of research about plastic’s effects on human health. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/plastics-and-human-health_us_5c097d7de4b0b6cdaf5d3263
Alberta Officials Are Signalling They Have No Idea How To Clean Up Toxic Oilsands Tailings Ponds https://unpublishedottawa.com/letter/215338/alberta-officials-are-signalling-they-have-no-idea-how-clean-toxic-oilsands-tailings
Scientists find hundreds of new toxins in blood of Canadian polar bears www.rcinet.ca/eye-on-the-arctic/2018/12/07/polar-bears-canada-science-toxins-environment-chemicals-study-university-stockholm-inuit/
100% of Sea Turtles in Global Study Found With Plastics in Their Bellies https://www.ecowatch.com/sea-turtles-plastics-oceans-study-2622572557.html
Radicalization & Extremism:
Children of Ted Two decades after his last deadly act of ecoterrorism, the Unabomber has become an unlikely prophet to a new generation of acolytes. nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/the-unabomber-ted-kaczynski-new-generation-of-acolytes.html
Polish president and PM set to join fascist march in Warsaw https://freedomnews.org.uk/polish-president-and-pm-set-to-join-fascist-march-in-warsaw/
White Supremacists Recruiting On College Campuses Has Hit ‘Unprecedented’ Levels https://www.good.is/articles/s
Pagan-based white supremacy sect buys property in Tennessee https://www.splcenter.org/hate
Robots & Artificial Intelligence:
AI reconstructs whatever you see just by reading a brain scan https://www.newscientist.com/a
Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens – The Chinese government plans to launch its Social Credit System in 2020. The aim? To judge the trustworthiness – or otherwise – of its 1.3 billion residents http://www.wired.co.uk/article
Goodyear unveils a living moss tire that cleans the air as you drive
https://inhabitat.com/goodyear
A Giant US Retail Corporation Just Filed a Patent For Autonomous Robot Bees https://www.sciencealert.com/w
Google’s Artificial Intelligence Built Its Own AI That Outperforms Any Made by Humans http://theantimedia.org/google
New Religion Forming in California to Worship Man-Made ‘AI Messiah’ https://www.westernjournal.org
The rise of the useless class – Historian Yuval Noah Harari offers a bracing prediction: just as mass industrialization created the working class, the AI revolution will create a new unworking class. https://ideas.ted.com/the-rise
Robot becomes first in the world to be given citizenship http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/27/
Do we want robots that comfort the dying? This designer is asking if there are limits to what should and shouldn’t be digitized. https://www.facebook.com/quart
When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence
http://www.theverge.com/a/luka
China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency debuts ‘AI anchor https://mashable.com/article/china-xinhua-news-ai-anchor/
This AI outperformed 20 corporate lawyers at legal work https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/this-ai-outperformed-20-corporate-lawyers-at-legal-work
Is China the next AI superpower? https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/is-china-the-next-ai-superpower
China blacklists millions of people from booking flights as ‘social credit’ system introduced Officials say aim is to make it ‘difficult to move’ for those deemed ‘untrustworthy’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-social-credit-system-flight-booking-blacklisted-beijing-points-a8646316.html
We All Hate Folding Clothes, But Is $1,000 Folding Robot Worth It? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUC59IuaeJ0
Watch Boston Dynamics’ Atlas Go for a Run in the Woods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb9gsIr5RAA
Can Bots Help Us Deal with Grief? How simulations can bring our loved ones back to life https://medium.com/s/when-robots-rule-the-world/can-bots-help-us-deal-with-grief-3de488cae96
A Robot that walks like a human https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHA_b20x8HQ
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are helping human-like robotics to interact with visitors like never before at Portugal’s Web Summit tech event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIlJaujzof0
Synthetic muscle could lead to lifelike robots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8Ur1VUoB1k
Pistol wielding robotic soldier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPIED6jUdU
THE DAY OF THE POST-MORTAL AVATAR HAS ARRIVED—ARE YOU PREPARED? https://www.funeralwise.com/digital-dying/the-day-of-the-post-mortal-avatar-has-arrived-are-you-prepared/
Using the most advanced wearable AI-driven computer vision, the OrCam MyMe device instantly recognizes faces and tells you who is in front of you – in real time – by sending a notification to your phone or smartwatch. You can then tag and organize people in circles such as Work, Friends, and Family. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1070992105/orcam-myme1st-of-its-kind-wearable-ai-2nd-brain-3r
Technology:
Forget your car, this is awesome via Jet Capsule Forget your car, this is awesome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjfixK61c8o
‘Human Uber’ Lets You Attend Events Remotely Using Someone Else’s Body https://www.unilad.co.uk/
Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°CBitcoin is a power-hungry cryptocurrency that is increasingly used as an investment and payment system. Here we show that projected Bitcoin usage, should it follow the rate of adoption of other broadly adopted technologies, could alone produce enough CO2 emissions to push warming above 2 °C within less than three decades https://www.nature.com/
Extreme biohacking: the tech guru who spent $250,000 trying to live for ever https://www.theguardian.com/sc
Cell regeneration: Nanochip can regrow organs, heal injuries with just one touch – TomoNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?
WE ARE THE GODS NOW – A Look At The Singularity https://www.youtube.com/watch?
MIT invents method to shrink objects to nanoscale using basic lab equipment https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/17/us/mit-nanosize-technology-trnd/index.html
Holy moly, Dubai’s police force is testing hoverbikes https://mashable.com/article/dubai-police-hoverbike-training/
Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected Researchers are sounding the alarm after an analysis showed that buying a new smartphone consumes as much energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade. https://www.fastcompany.com/90165365/smartphones-are-wrecking-the-planet-faster-than-anyone-expected
These commuters are implanting microchips in their hands to replace train tickets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Bitcoin energy use in Iceland set to overtake homes, says local firm http://www.bbc.com/news/techno
Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected – Researchers are sounding the alarm after an analysis showed that buying a new smartphone consumes as much energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade. https://www.fastcodesign.com/
Electronics-recycling innovator is going to prison for trying to extend computers’ lives http://www.latimes.com/
MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’ https://motherboard.vice.com/
MIT’s wearable device can ‘hear’ the words you say in your head – Subvocalization signals are detected by electrodes and turned into words using AI. https://www.engadget.com/2018/
Wearable Smart Rings https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Orlando Police Testing Amazon’s Real-Time Facial Recognition https://www.npr.org/2018/05/
Rise of the machines: has technology evolved beyond our control? – Technology is starting to behave in intelligent and unpredictable ways that even its creators don’t understand. As machines increasingly shape global events, how can we regain control? https://www.theguardian.com/
WHY ARE AMERICA’S WETLANDS BEING DESTROYED IN THE NAME OF RENEWABLE ENERGY? – Conservation groups report that wetland forests are being drained, logged, burned, shipped across the Atlantic, and converted to monoculture pine plantations to create biomass. https://psmag.com/environment/
Tourism:
War:
Putin Says ‘Invulnerable’ New Hypersonic Nuclear Missile Is Ready For Deployment The weapon is impossible to intercept, the Russian leader boasted Wednesday. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hypersonic-nuclear-missile-russia_us_5c248de8e4b08aaf7a8dbc40
Russia has conducted a test launch of its Satan 2 nuclear missile, the country’s defence ministry said. The rocket was fired from the Plestek Cosmodrome spaceport, roughly 500 miles north of Moscow, officials said. The missile, also known as RS-28 Sarmat, travelled 3,600 miles before hitting its target on the Kura test range, an intercontinental ballistic missile impact area in the Russian Far East. The weapon is said to be capable of carrying 12 nuclear warheads and could wipe out a whole country with a single strike. http://www.independent.co.uk/n
Wealth:
Elon Musk Building ‘Science Fiction’ Spaceship To Take People To Mars https://www.unilad.co.uk/techn
‘We’re moving to higher ground’: America’s era of climate mass migration is here – By the end of this century, sea level rises alone could displace 13m people. Many states will have to grapple with hordes of residents seeking dry ground. But, as one expert says, ‘No state is unaffected by this’ https://www.theguardian.com/en
Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030 – World leaders urged to act as anger over inequality reaches a ‘tipping point’ https://www.theguardian.com/
America’s Richest 2% Made More Money in 2017 than the Cost of the Entire Safety Net – Over the past year, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have together accumulated over $64 billion in new wealth. And the GOP want to cut food stamps? https://www.commondreams.org/v
Every Flat in a New South London Development Has Been Sold to Foreign Investors – When the Heygate Estate was demolished there were promises
of social housing and a “community feel”, but it’s all fallen through. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/art
Cartier boss with $7.5bn fortune says prospect of the poor rising up ‘keeps him awake at night’ – Says he is concerned about robots creating ‘structural unemployment’ https://www.independent.co.uk/
Billionaires Made So Much Money Last Year They Could End Extreme Poverty Seven Times http://time.com/money/5112462/
World’s first floating nation is being built by paypals founder to liberate humanity from politicians http://ewao.com/2017/12/07/wor
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand – How an extreme libertarian tract predicting the collapse of liberal democracies – written by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s father – inspired the likes of Peter Thiel to buy up property across the Pacific https://www.theguardian.com/ne
Inequality gap widens as 42 people hold same wealth as 3.7bn poorest – Oxfam calls for action on gap as wealthiest people gather at World Economic Forum in Davos https://www.theguardian.com/in
In the U.S. 49.7 Million Are Now Poor, and 80% of the Total Population Is Near Poverty http://politicalblindspot.com/
Oklahoma schools go on 4-day weeks so teachers can work at Walmart on Mondays to make rent https://boingboing.net/2018/02
People in rich countries are dying of loneliness https://qz.com/1048847/people-
World’s richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1tn this year – Ultra-rich warned of ‘strike-back’ as global inequality hits a 100-year high and billions of poorer people see their earnings stagnate https://www.theguardian.com/in
Survival of the Richest The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1
The Shocking Doomsday Maps Of The World And The Billionaire Escape Plans
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j
People are spending thousands on crazy Burning Man costumes
http://nypost.com/2017/08/28/p
Egg Shaped Folding Selfie Drone https://gadgetrocks.com/produc
World’s witnessing a new Gilded Age as billionaires’ wealth swells to $6tn – Not since the time of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts at the turn of the 20th century was so much owned by so few https://www.theguardian.com/bu
Saudi Arabia plans to build $500bn high tech mega city 33 times bigger than NY https://www.rt.com/news/407677
Well Being:
Ticking Meatmares – Lone star ticks hunt in packs and spread an allergy to beef and pork. Thanks to climate change, they’re spreading. https://grist.org/article/
The world has reached the lowest level of happiness in ten years https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/world-sinks-to-10-year-happiness-low
We’re ignoring Canada’s alcohol problem, chief public health officer warns – Recent numbers show alcohol abuse among women is on the rise https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/alcohol-drinking-women-1.4890268
The Poison We Pick – This nation pioneered modern life. Now epic numbers of Americans are killing themselves with opioids to escape it. http://nymag.com/daily/intelli
Vanishing Cultures and Ways of Life:
Yak Herders’ Vanishing Way of Life https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0
Indonesia’s Orang Rimba: Forced to renounce their faith http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
Youth:
6 teenagers are running for governor of Kansas http://abcnews.go.com/Politics
Over a million children under the age of six are currently on psychiatric drugs in America https://www.naturalnews.com/20
With Teen Mental Health Deteriorating Over Five Years, There’s A Likely Culprit – After scouring several large surveys of teens for clues, I found that all of the possibilities traced back to a major change in teens’ lives: the sudden ascendance of the smartphone. http://www.iflscience.com/heal
Botox Use Among Millennials Is Skyrocketing: Selfies, Social Media Could Be To Blame | TODAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Sixth-grader writes will ‘just in case’ there’s a shooting at his school http://www.nydailynews.com/new
General Signs:
Would flooding the deserts help stop global warming? The idea is “risky, unproven, even unlikely to work,” according to Y Combinator. But if it did work, it could slow climate change. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/would-flooding-deserts-help-stop-global-warming-n934551
Surgery students ‘losing dexterity to stitch patients’ https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/education-46019429
Plan to hang ‘world’s tallest’ skyscraper from asteroid orbiting Earth unveiled Analemma Tower would be suspended from comet 31,000 miles above planet’s surface https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/worlds-tallest-skyscraper-asteroid-orbiting-earth-plans-a7656811.html
A controversial startup that charges $8,000 to fill your veins with young blood is opening its first clinic https://www.businessinsider.com/young-blood-transfusions-launching-first-clinic-new-york-2018-9
Researchers just found termite mounds the size of the UK in Brazil https://qz.com/1470634/termite-mounds-the-size-of-britain-discovered-in-brazil/
Earth’s Oxygen Levels Are Declining And Scientists Don’t Know Why https://www.forbes.com/sites/t
Our Planet Is So Fucked That Some Women Are Choosing to Not Have Kids – “It sounds dramatic, but I’m just being realistic. The way we live currently simply cannot sustain more people.” https://broadly.vice.com/en_us
Steve Bannon warns: ‘Anti-patriarchy movement’ is going to be bigger than the tea party – Bannon says the wave of ‘anti-patriarchy’ sentiment will disrupt politics even more than the conservative tea party movement did in 2010. “Time’s up on 10,000 years of recorded history. This is coming. This is real,” Bannon tells Bloomberg. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/0
Mass exodus from ‘Mad Max violence’ in Venezuela: Thousands flee across bridge to Colombia amid desperate hunger and soaring crime following economic crisis http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new
Douglas Rushkoff: “we’ve disabled the cognitive and collaborative skills needed to address climate change” https://www.robhopkins.net/201
Richard Branson: Soon Killing Animals for Food Will Be a Thing of the Past https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The African Continent Is Splitting in Two and It’s Happening Faster Than We Thought http://www.geologyin.com/2018/
In response to racist violence, more African Americans look to bear arms https://www.pbs.org/newshour/s
President Who Bragged Of Groping Women Declares Sexual Assault Awareness Month – “Offenders too often evade accountability,” Trump said in his proclamation.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/
Putin Unveils New ‘Invincible’ Nuclear Weapons To Counter West – Putin has often used militaristic rhetoric to mobilize support and buttress his narrative that Russia is under siege from the West. https://www.huffingtonpost.com
‘We’re doomed’: Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention – The 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it https://amp.theguardian.com/
Ex-Nasa Scientist: 30 Years On, World Is Failing ‘Miserably’ To Address Climate Change – James Hansen, who gave a climate warning in 1988 Senate testimony, says real hoax is by leaders claiming to take action. https://www.huffingtonpost.
Mammals Go Nocturnal in Bid to Avoid Humans https://mobile.nytimes.com/
The Four Steps of American Collapse – A User’s Guide to Collapsonomics https://eand.co/collapsonomics