Climate Change Cost Tax Payers $100+ Billion, Warns Katie Porter

The HillOct 23, 2021
So far this year, weather and climate disasters have cost U.S. taxpayers $100+ billion. We simply can’t afford to keep stalling on climate action. The price will keep going up if we don’t act boldly and swiftly.

David Attenborough Breaking Boundaries-of Earth (excerpts)

Peter CarterOct 23, 2021
David Attenborough’s latest film is Breaking Boundaries (Netflix). This is a very short sampler of edits on how crucial this time is to humanity.

The Overview Effect & Humanity’s Future

Cosmic Perspective

Streamed live 17 hours ago

Join us for a live event, featuring engaging discussions between astronauts, philosophers, and artists on the new era of space exploration, Frank White’s theory of The Overview Effect phenomenon, and what it could mean for the future of our species.

Friday, October 22 2:30pm – 4pm ET (6:30pm – 8pm UTC)
You can watch live here via YouTube or join our Zoom Webinar.

Register for the webinar: https://cosmicperspective.com/overvie…
Co-hosts: MaryLiz Bender, @Cosmic Perspective
Robin Seemangal, @Supercluster
Frank White, Human Space Program & author of The Overview Effect

Speakers: @Dr. Sian Proctor, Inspiration4/SpaceX Astronaut
Tim Dodd, @Everyday Astronaut
@Jason Silva: Shots of Awe
Nicole Stott, Astronaut & Space For Art Foundation
Michael López-Alegría, Astronaut & Axiom
Beth Moses, Astronaut/Instructor at Virgin Galactic
Glen De Vries, Blue Origin Astronaut
Loretta Whitesides, SpaceKind & @Yuri’s Night
Hillary Coe, Lead Designer for human-based technology & spaceflight
John Kraus, Inspiration4 photographer/launch photographer
Kyle Schember, @Subtractive Inc.
Jamie Carreiro, Supercluster
Dylan Taylor, Voyager Space Holdings & Multiverse

Media Event Sponsored by: Supercluster: https://supercluster.com/
Multiverse Media: https://multiversemedia.com/
Cosmic Perspective: https://cosmicperspective.com/

* * *
See related:

• Spanning Oceans – Bridging Traditions: The Global Humanities & “The Overview Effect” on a Small Planet

Spanning Oceans – Bridging Traditions: The Global Humanities & “The Overview Effect” on a Small Planet

In particular, view:

• Some Notes from Life on the Edge: The Geophysical Fate of the Post-Columbian City (Big “Transitions” in Human History)
  and
• The Overview Effect & Humanity’s Future

and see:

• Climate & Sea-Level Update: Digital Dispatches from a World on the Edge

and

Chuck Williams, “Capitol Beach: Coping after the Polar Ice Melt”

[Displayed in exhibit: “Art Optimism: The 2021 Athanaeum Open” – Focus on Climate Change and Sustainability
September 23 — October 31, 2021 – Online and in the gallery]

Chuck Williams

Capitol Beach: Coping after the Polar Ice Melt

Oil on canvas 24″ x 40″

2021

The citizens of our planet are bombarded every day with dire warnings about our rapidly increasing global temperatures and the consequences of inaction. Many of us don’t believe, and others are happy to leave the issue to future generations. As a result, we probably will not take serious action until we see the consequences where we live. We are a very resilient and creative species, and will undoubtedly find solutions when we decide we’re ready, but we will have to find ways to live with the new confrontation of nature and civilization when it happens. Coastal regions of the world will change quickly with rising waters and higher temperatures, but could this be the dream of many of us? Waterfront property and tropical winters are coming to many of us where we live, and no doubt we’ll adapt happily to the new normal!

[Chuck Williams]

The CIA and Returning to Vietnam After the War: John Stockwell (1985)

The Film ArchivesPremieres Oct 27, 2021
Secrets from the CIA’s Last Days in Vietnam: https://thememoryhole.substack.com/p/…

John R. Stockwell (born 1937) is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving seven tours of duty over thirteen years. Having managed American involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies. Listen to the book for free: https://amzn.to/3B83TZt

On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam. The war left Vietnam devastated, with the total death toll between 966,000 and 3.8 million. A 1974 US Senate subcommittee estimated nearly 1.4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed or wounded between 1965 and 1974—including 415,000 killed. In its aftermath, under Lê Duẩn’s administration, there were no mass executions of South Vietnamese who had collaborated with the US or the defunct South Vietnamese government, confounding Western fears, but up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labour. The government embarked on a mass campaign of collectivisation of farms and factories. In 1978, in response to the Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia ordering massacres of Vietnamese residents in the border villages in the districts of An Giang and Kiên Giang, the Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia and removed them from power after occupying Phnom Penh.The intervention was a success, resulting in the establishment of a new, pro-Vietnam socialist government, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, which ruled until 1989. This, however, worsened relations with China, which had supported the Khmer Rouge. China later launched a brief incursion into northern Vietnam in 1979, causing Vietnam to rely even more heavily on Soviet economic and military aid, while mistrust of the Chinese government began to escalate.

At the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in December 1986, reformist politicians replaced the “old guard” government with new leadership. The reformers were led by 71-year-old Nguyễn Văn Linh, who became the party’s new general secretary. He and the reformers implemented a series of free-market reforms known as Đổi Mới (“Renovation”) that carefully managed the transition from a planned economy to a “socialist-oriented market economy”. Though the authority of the state remained unchallenged under Đổi Mới, the government encouraged private ownership of farms and factories, economic deregulation, and foreign investment, while maintaining control over strategic industries. The Vietnamese economy subsequently achieved strong growth in agricultural and industrial production, construction, exports, and foreign investment, although these reforms also caused a rise in income inequality and gender disparities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

Production Gap Report 2021

Stockholm Environment InstituteOct 19, 2021
Governments’ planned fossil fuel production remains dangerously out of sync with Paris Agreement limits

The report measures the gap between governments’ planned production of coal, oil, and gas and the global production levels consistent with meeting the Paris Agreement temperature limits. The 2021 Production Gap Report provides country profiles for 15 major producer countries.

The report is produced by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), ODI, E3G, and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). More than 40 researchers contributed to the analysis and review, spanning numerous universities, think tanks, and other research organizations.

The Tombs of Mount Vernon

HistoricAlexandriaVAJan 21, 2021
This video features a photographic tour of the Contrabands & Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, in Alexandria, Virginia, looking at the deeper meaning of the features of the memorial, built in 2014. The cemetery was originally established in 1864 on the southern end of what is now Old Town Alexandria.

More about the cemetery and memorial: https://www.alexandriava.gov/Freedmen…. The Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery: http://www.freedmenscemetery.org/.

Music in this video

Learn moreListen ad-free with YouTube PremiumSongMonumental JourneyArtistJesse GallagherAlbumMonumental JourneyLicensed to YouTube byYouTube Audio Library

Climate change and health: developing evidence for action

Stockholm Environment InstituteAug 27, 2021

2021 Production Gap Report launch event

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm Environment Institute and Stockholm University are proud to present the Gordon Goodman Memorial Lecture, to be held by Professor Sir Andy Haines on 15 September 2021.

The lecture will focus on a crucial topic: the direct and indirect ways in which climate change impacts human health, and solutions that can yield multiple co-benefits for people and our environment.

Visit the event page and register here: https://www.sei.org/events/climate-ch…

George Washington and the Age of Discovery

George Washington’s Mount VernonStreamed live on Oct 14, 2021
Join the @USC Price and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington for the annual George Washington Leadership Lecture. This year’s event will feature @NASA Chief Scientist, Dr. James Green, in a discussion that will parallel George Washington’s age of exploration and discovery with our own time.

The desire of 18th-century Americans like Washington to know the land to the west—the makeup of the soil, the sources of water, the topography and terrain—are surprisingly similar to the kinds of questions humanity is exploring today on the surface of Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. Join Dr. Green in a conversation about NASA’s latest discoveries, the future of space exploration, and how our efforts to understand our universe relate to our shared history.

Established through a generous gift by Maribeth Borthwick ’73, who also serves as the Vice Regent for California of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, this lecture series explores the Father of our Country’s lifelong accomplishments, providing a better understanding of him as a person, as well as his remarkable leadership, professional achievements, and lasting legacy.

Decarbonization in a new geopolitical landscape – the EU, US and China

Stockholm Environment InstituteJun 11, 2021
Recorded: 27 May 2021. This webinar gathered researchers from the Mistra Geopolitics research programme to examine how the new geopolitical landscape with the EU, the US and China will affect opportunities for sustainability transitions; how different countries position themselves in decarbonization competition and cooperation; and how global trends might hinder decarbonization. Read more: https://www.sei.org/events/webinar-de…

Photo: peterschreiber.media/Getty