Climate Change Isn’t Coming Tomorrow – It’s Here Today

Thom Hartmann Program– Jul 6, 2022

Climate Change Isn’t Coming Tomorrow, next week, next month or even next year, the climate change emergency is Here Today. The Climate Emergency We Worried About is Here – Our “Normal” Climate is Dead. For much of the past four decades, climate activists have been warning us that we’re approaching tipping points that will alter how Americans live – now we’re there

Climate Change is already happening. Climate Change is already here.

BBC World Service – Politics of Food

Politics of Food

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BBC World Service – The Food Chain

Podcasts:

Food-matters,

No diplomatic immunity in modern slavery cases, Supreme Court rules – BBC News

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that diplomats cannot hide behind immunity to exploit workers, in a victory for campaigners against modern slavery.

Diplomats are normally protected from both criminal charges and civil cases in the countries where they are posted.

But the court found a Saudi diplomat accused of exploiting a Filipina domestic worker in London did not have immunity in relation to the allegation.

The decision paves the way for the woman to seek compensation.

Lawyers said it was the first ruling of its kind in the world.

The case was brought by Josephine Wong, 30, who alleges she was forced to work for Khalid Basfar and his family in conditions of modern slavery.

Her lawyers say she was confined to the house at all times except to take out the rubbish, subjected to verbal abuse, and given only left-over food to eat when her employers were at home.

She alleges that she was made to work from 07:00 until around 23:30 every day of the week, with no days off or rest breaks, and that she was forced to wear a door-bell so her employers could summon her at any moment.

She alleges that after being brought to the UK from Saudi Arabia in 2016, she was not paid anything for seven months. She says she was then paid about £1,800 for six months’ work in one lump sum – a fraction of her contractual entitlement – and after that not paid again.

Ms Wong managed to escape in 2018 and brought a claim against Mr Basfar in an employment tribunal.

…(read more).

Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500: Alida C. Metcalf

How did intricately detailed sixteenth-century maps reveal the start of the Atlantic World?

Beginning around 1500, in the decades following Columbus’s voyages, the Atlantic Ocean moved from the periphery to the center on European world maps. This brief but highly significant moment in early modern European history marks not only a paradigm shift in how the world was mapped but also the opening of what historians call the Atlantic World. But how did sixteenth-century chartmakers and mapmakers begin to conceptualize―and present to the public―an interconnected Atlantic World that was open and navigable, in comparison to the mysterious ocean that had blocked off the Western hemisphere before Columbus’s exploration?

In Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500, Alida C. Metcalf argues that the earliest surviving maps from this era, which depict trade, colonization, evangelism, and the movement of peoples, reveal powerful and persuasive arguments about the possibility of an interconnected Atlantic World. Blending scholarship from two fields, historical cartography and Atlantic history, Metcalf explains why Renaissance cosmographers first incorporated sailing charts into their maps and began to reject classical models for mapping the world. Combined with the new placement of the Atlantic, the visual imagery on Atlantic maps―which featured decorative compass roses, animals, landscapes, and native peoples―communicated the accessibility of distant places with valuable commodities. Even though individual maps became outdated quickly, Metcalf reveals, new mapmakers copied their imagery, which then repeated on map after map. Individual maps might fall out of date, be lost, discarded, or forgotten, but their geographic and visual design promoted a new way of seeing the world, with an interconnected Atlantic World at its center.

Describing the negotiation that took place between a small cadre of explorers and a wider class of cartographers, chartmakers, cosmographers, and artists, Metcalf shows how exploration informed mapmaking and vice versa. Recognizing early modern cartographers as significant agents in the intellectual history of the Atlantic, Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500 includes around 50 beautiful and illuminating historical maps.

Review

In this wonderful book, richly detailed yet concise and clear, Dr. Alida Metcalf examines the rapid accumulation of European knowledge about the Atlantic World during roughly the decade on either side of the year 1500.

— Neil Kennedy ― Global Maritime History

An excellently written and painstakingly researched account of a handful of the earliest large-scale maps of the Americas, beginning with Juan de la Cosa and ending with Waldseemüller. Metcalf also pays a great deal of attention to the mechanical process of making these maps.

— Patricia Seed, University of California, Irvine, author of The Oxford Map Companion: One Hundred Sources in World History

Metcalf references a remarkable array of manuscript and printed maps and charts to advance a provocative argument: by depicting the Atlantic Ocean as a place of opportunity and exploitation, these artifacts both explained Europeans’ rapid interest in the western Atlantic and created the Atlantic World. An original approach and interpretation, sure to interest readers in diverse fields.

— Alison Games, Georgetown University, author of Inventing the English Massacre: Amboyna in History and Memory

Carefully following the craft of manuscript chart-makers and print-makers of maps, Metcalf brilliantly demonstrates that when European world maps were radically and suddenly decentered circa 1500, it was artisans, not emperors, missionaries, or conquistadors, who established the conventions of how to represent continents and new peoples for centuries to come.

— Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas at Austin, author of Nature, Empire, And Nation: Explorations of the History of Science in the Iberian World

In this erudite and deeply researched volume, Alida Metcalf probes how the Atlantic Ocean became central to the production of maps, forerunners of the integrated Atlantic world brought about by European expansion. By meticulously reconstructing circuits of knowledge and networks of individuals, this book makes a major contribution to multiple fields of historical inquiry.

— Roquinaldo Ferreira, University of Pennsylvania, author of Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade

In this wonderful book, richly detailed yet concise and clear, Dr. Alida Metcalf examines the rapid accumulation of European knowledge about the Atlantic World during roughly the decade on either side of the year 1500.

The extensive notes and bibliography of maps and images, historical events, and modern sources reflect the depth of the author’s study and are rich resources for further investigation.

— Gregory McIntosh, University of Lisbon ― IMCOS Journal

Mapping an Atlantic World, Circa 1500 is a light and entertaining read, especially for those who are not familiar with the cartographic history of the Renaissance.

— Jörn Seemann, Ball State University ― Cartographic Perspectives

The book is well written, and it is clear that the author has a strong grasp of the material.

— Richard Pflederer, author of Finding their Way at Sea and the Commentary ― The Portolan

In this erudite and deeply researched volume, Alida Metcalf probes how the Atlantic Ocean became central to the production of maps, forerunners of the integrated Atlantic world brought about by European expansion. By meticulously reconstructing circuits of knowledge and networks of individuals, this book makes a major contribution to multiple fields of historical inquiry.

— Roquinaldo Ferreira

Book Description

How did intricately detailed sixteenth-century maps reveal the start of the Atlantic World?

About the Author

Alida C. Metcalf is the Harris Masterson, Jr. Professor of History at Rice University. A codeveloper of imagineRio, the digital atlas of Rio de Janeiro, she is the author of Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1580–1822 and Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil: 1500–1600.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Johns Hopkins University Press; Illustrated edition (October 13, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 248 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1421438526
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1421438528
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.9 x 9.25 inches

See related:

• Mapping an Atlantic World | Alida C. Metcalf [supporting website]
• The Africa Map Circle – Introduction & Digital Resource Directory
• From Portolan Charts to Printed Maps: Trade, Slavery & the Imaging of the Atlantic World – [a map-chat of the Africa Map Circle]

Mapping an Atlantic World | Alida C. Metcalf [supporting website]

Beginning in 1500, the Atlantic Ocean moved from the periphery to the center on European world maps. This moment marks not only a paradigm shift in how the world was mapped but also the opening of what historians call the Atlantic World.

How charts and maps revealed the start of the Atlantic World is the subject of this book.

This companion website invites readers to focus on the charts, maps, and figures that underlie the book’s arguments.

Navigate through the website by using the column on the left.

• Mapping an Atlantic World
• Chapter 1 The Atlantic on the Periphery
  • Fig. 1.1. The Atlantic on T-O Mappaemundi
  • Fig. 1.2. Pillars of Hercules at the Entrance to the Atlantic
  • Fig. 1.3. The Atlantic on a Medieval World Chart
  • Fig. 1.4. The Atlantic on Transitional Mappaemundi
  • Fig. 1.5 Atlantic Details on a Catalan World Chart
  • Fig. 1.6. The Atlantic on a Ptolemaic Mappamundi
  • Fig. 1.7. The Atlantic on the World Map by Henricus Martellus
  • Fig. 1.8. The Atlantic on Behaim’s Globe
• Chapter 2 The Year 1500
  • Fig. 2.1. St. Christopher
  • Fig. 2.2. Martin Waldseemüller, Universalis Cosmographia, 1507
  • Fig. 2.3 Waldseemüller’s Globe, 1507
  • Fig. 2.4. Johannes Ruysch, Universalior cogniti orbis tabula ex recentibus confecta observationibus
• Chapter 3 Chartmakers
  • Fig. 3.1. Atlantic Compass Rose
  • Fig. 3.2. Invisible Circles, Carta del Cantino, 1502
  • Fig. 3.3. Main Compass Rose, Carta del Cantino, 1502
  • Fig. 3.4. Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean, ca. 1320-50
  • Fig. 3.5. Grazioso Benincasa, A Portolan Chart of Europe, 1470
  • Fig. 3.6. An Illustrated Chart
  • Fig. 3.7. The West African Coastline on Two Charts
  • Fig. 3.8. Compass Roses on Carta nautica, 1471-82
  • Fig. 3.9. A Cityscape and a Landscape on Aguiar’s Portolan Chart, 1492
• Chapter 4 From Manuscript to Print
  • Fig. 4.1. Eastern and Western Hemispheres, 1507
  • Fig. 4.2. Waldseemüller’s Fourth Part of the World on Three Maps, 1507
  • Figure 4.3. Mountains on Waldseemüller’s Universalis Cosmographia
  • Fig. 4.4. Woodcutters’ Techniques for Bodies of Water
  • Fig. 4.5. Three Windheads at the Top of Waldseemüller’s Universalis Cosmographia
• Chapter 5 Parrots and Trees
  • Figure 5.1. Parrots Signify Brazil on Three Maps
  • Figure 5.2. The Portuguese Padrões on Three Maps
  • Figure 5.3. Engraved and Woodcut Parrots
  • Figure 5.4. The Abstraction of Trees
  • Figure 5.5. Parrots Signify Africa on Carta del Cantino
  • Figure 5.6. Elephants
• Chapter 6 The Cannibal Scene
  • Figure 6.1. Cannibalism in Brazil
  • Figure 6.2. Johann Froschauer, Woodcut of South American Indians
  • Figure 6.3. Two Monsters among Men in South Africa
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
  • Figure 7.1. Waldseemüller’s Carta Marina
• Plates
  • 1. Mappamondo Catalano estense
  • 2. Il Mappamondo di Fra Mauro, 1450
  • 3. Nicolò Germano, Planisfero, 1466
  • 4. Juan de la Cosa, Carta Universal, 1500
  • 5. Portolan Chart (King-Hamy), ca. 1502
  • 6. Carta del Cantino, 1502
  • 7. Nicolay de Caverio, Planisphère nautique, 1506
  • 8. Carta nautica, ca. 1471-82
  • 9. Jorge de Aguiar, Portolan Chart of the Mediterranean Sea, 1492
  • 10. Pedro Reinel, Portulan, ca. 1485
  • 11. Pedro Reinel, Portulan (Atlantik), ca. 1504
  • 12. Portolan (Weltkarte), 1502-6
• Additional Content
  • Ptolemy’s Geographia
  • Martellus’ Atlantic Chart/Map
  • Waldseemüller’s Globe, Spinning Digital Model
  • Waldseemüller’s Globe, 3D Model
  • Vespucci’s Fly
  • Rosselli’s World Map, 1508
  • Mercator’s World Map
  • The Image on the Book’s Cover
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Contact

See related:

• Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500: Alida C. Metcalf
• The Africa Map Circle – Introduction & Digital Resource Directory

The World in Maps, 1400-1600 | Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Friday, July 22, 2022 to Sunday, January 8, 2023
This exhibition presents many of the most historically significant manuscript maps from the late medieval and early modern period from the Beinecke Library’s vast collection of maps. It is focused on portolan charts – large, colorful charts that showed the shoreline of the Mediterranean, and were used by sailors to navigate from port to port. These maps were crucial to the expansion of European trade in the fiftieth and sixteenth century. Yale University Library has one of the most significant map collections of this period and owns some unique items not found in any other collection. When the holdings previously in the Map Room in Sterling Memorial Library were consolidated with Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library collections in 2018, it formed the largest single repository of portolan maps in North America.

This exhibition presents maps from several different historical groups and demonstrates how maps functioned to place people within a larger world context. While primarily focusing on European maps, it also includes Middle Eastern and Asian world maps to illustrate common elements and also highlight significant differences. In addition, the exhibition presents some map forgeries and how they were determined to be fakes using scientific and historic analysis.

The flat display cases on the ground floor of the historic Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library enable us to show twelve large maps alongside one another to allow the viewer to make comparisons between maps made at various periods and times in the crucial years surrounding the discovery, from the European perspective, of the new world.

Selected Exhibition Highlights

The Aguiar Map from 1492

The 1492 Aguiar map, the oldest dated Portuguese portolan chart in existence, dramatically demonstrates the world as Christopher Columbus and his crew would have seen it on their first voyage in 1492. Along with the world map of Henricus Martellus (below), these maps indicate the real dangers Columbus faced and answer fundamental questions about his first voyage. This map is featured in the 2022 book by Alida C. Metcalf, Mapping an Atlantic World, c. 1500.

The World Map of Henricus Martellus

The Martellus world map, composed around 1490, is a stunning rare survival of the pre-exploration world. One of the largest maps (too large to be displayed along with the portolans), it hangs in the reading room, which visitors will be welcome to visit. The map shows a very different perspective than the portolans–it is based on the ancient maps composed by Ptolemy, transmitted to Europe by Arab scientists and geographers.

The Beccari Map

The Beccari portolan chart (1403) is far older than the Aguiar map but contains a crucial cartouche that describes how map makers such as Beccari composed these maps, particularly their reliance on oral knowledge from sailors used to accurately measure the distances between ports. For this reason, Beccari’s map is one of the most studied by cartographers.

The Abenzara Map

The Abenzara map is unique for entirely different reasons. Judah Ben Zara (or Abenzara) was one of a handful of Jewish cartographers in Europe that we know of and his religion had a profound effect on his maps and his life. Only three maps of his survive. It is the only portolan made on goatskin in our collection and it seems likely an adaptation to a climate that did not produce the larger animals that provided the skins for other portolans.

The Vinland Map

The infamous Vinland map will be shown, along with the material acquired with it that purported to support its authenticity in 1965. We will also demonstrate the work done by the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage at Yale in 2019 to finally prove that the map was a fake. We will also show some recent forgeries acquired to allow historians and scientists to study the techniques forgers employ.

See related:

• The World in Maps: Exhibition Opening Lecture “From Dati to d’Anville: Early Modern Europe and the Birth of the Atlas” by Jim Akerman | Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
• Henricus Martellus’s World Map at Yale
• Waldseemuller’s Map of America – John Hessler | C-SPAN.org
• Seeing the World Anew: John W. Hessler, Chet Van Duzer
• Martin Waldseemuller’s Carta Marina: Its Originality and Diffusion | Chet Van Duzer
• 3 Chet Van Duzer – BAM Group February 5, 2022
• Frames That Speak: An Introduction to Cartographic Cartouches | Chet Van Duzer

as well as:

• Africa & World Historical Cartography: Old Maps, New Technologies, New Questions & New Research Communities
  and
• Early Days in African Historical Cartography ~ From the Portolan Charts to Printed Maps: Imagining and Imaging Africa in the Atlantic System

When organic is toxic: How a composting facility likely spread massive amounts of ‘forever chemicals’ across one town in Massachusetts – The Boston Globe

WESTMINSTER

— Nearly a decade ago, Sue and Tom Ryan moved into a custom-built, four-bedroom house with a pool, views of Mount Wachusett, and more than 3 acres to keep horses, raise chickens, and grow a well-tended garden.

With

hopes of living more sustainably and healthily, eating food they grew themselves, the couple cleared much of their land and spread loads of “top-shelf loam” from a company called Mass Natural, an organic composting business across the street in this rural town in Central Massachusetts.

But their health got worse and this spring, they learned of a potential reason why: The water they were drinking and cooking with contained massive amounts of toxic chemicals, known as PFAS — more than 50 times what state regulators consider safe to drink.

They won’t eat from their garden, swim in the pool, or drink their water, even though it now flowsthrough an expensive filtration system. “I’m severely traumatized by this,” said Ryan, who has been crushing the eggs from their chickens to ensure no one eats them. “I believe the PFAS has compromised my immune system.”

The per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds, known as “forever chemicals” because they never fully break down in the environment, most likely came from a place the Ryans and other residents never thought could be the source of such harmful pollution: a sustainability-minded, family-run composting operation.Its marketing materials describe its business as “partnering with the planet,”a “model site for state regulators” that’s working to combat climate change.

Related: Mayor Wu announces new citywide composting program

State

officials say the PFAS likely spread through ground water from the 240-acre composting facility — the first of its kind in Massachusetts, and now the state’s largest — which has been accepting tens of thousands of tons of organic waste every year and selling it as loam, potting soil, and mulch over more than three decades. It could also be from the loam they spread on their property.

…(read more).

Food-matters,

Global Failure: A Structural Reevaluation of the Collapse of WTC 7 | John Schuler | July 6, 2022

Jul 6, 2022

This presentation outlines the findings and conclusions of a four-year study of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and provides a comprehensive critique of the WTC 7 report issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2008.

WTC 7 was a 47-story high-rise that suffered a total collapse at 5:20 PM on September 11, 2001, although it was not struck by an airplane.

The objective of the UAF study was threefold: (1) Examine the structural response of WTC 7 to fire loads that may have occurred on September 11, 2001; (2) Rule out scenarios that could not have caused the observed collapse; and (3) Identify types of failures and their locations that may have caused the total collapse to occur as observed. The principal conclusion of the study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7, contrary to the conclusion of NIST.

The UAF study together with years of analysis by independent engineers since the NIST report was issued in 2008 demonstrates that NIST’s probable collapse sequence for WTC 7 is physically impossible.

For more information, visit https://AE911Truth.org.

News Wrap: Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone to testify before Jan. 6 panel

Jul 6, 2022

In our news wrap Wednesday, former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone agreed to testify Friday before the Jan. 6 committee, report details how a Uvalde police officer missed his chance to shoot the gunman, the FDA says U.S. pharmacists can now prescribe Paxlovid, 2.3 billion people faced difficulty getting enough to eat in 2021, and monsoon rains killed dozens in Pakistan.