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Category: Humanity

The human domination of the face of the Earth

The human domination of the face of the Earth

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By Rhett A. Butler Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world’s tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers — an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined — over the past 35 years, finds a paper published in the journal Nature. But the research also confirms large-scale loss of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems, especially tropical forests. The study, led by Xiao-Peng Song and Matthew Hansen of the University of Maryland, is based…

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More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

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Science News reports: Freshwater is crucial for drinking, washing, growing food, producing energy and just about every other aspect of modern life. Yet more than 2 billion of Earth’s 7.6 billion inhabitants lack clean drinking water at home, available on demand. A major United Nations report, released in June, shows that the world is not on track to meet a U.N. goal: to bring safe water and sanitation to everyone by 2030. And by 2050, half the world’s population may…

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Heat — the next big inequality issue

Heat — the next big inequality issue

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The Guardian reports: When July’s heatwave swept through the Canadian province of Quebec, killing more than 90 people in little over a week, the unrelenting sunshine threw the disparities between rich and poor into sharp relief. While the well-heeled residents of Montreal hunkered down in blissfully air conditioned offices and houses, the city’s homeless population – not usually welcome in public areas such as shopping malls and restaurants – struggled to escape the blanket of heat. Benedict Labre House, a…

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Humanity consumes Earth’s resources in ever greater destructive volumes

Humanity consumes Earth’s resources in ever greater destructive volumes

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The Guardian reports: Humanity is devouring our planet’s resources in increasingly destructive volumes, according to a new study that reveals we have consumed a year’s worth of carbon, food, water, fibre, land and timber in a record 212 days. As a result, the Earth Overshoot Day – which marks the point at which consumption exceeds the capacity of nature to regenerate – has moved forward two days to 1 August, the earliest date ever recorded. To maintain our current appetite…

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After being held by the U.S. govt, children returned to their parents covered in dirt and lice

After being held by the U.S. govt, children returned to their parents covered in dirt and lice

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PBS reports: Last week, Democratic attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that its family separation policy violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fifth Amendment. Now, in a new filing, they’re asking the federal government to provide more immediate information and access to those detained under the policy on an “expedited schedule.” The motion filed Monday came with more than 900 pages of declarations that…

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Americans make up 4% of global population while owning 40% of the world’s firearms

Americans make up 4% of global population while owning 40% of the world’s firearms

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AFP reports: Americans make up only four percent of the global population but they own 40 percent of the world’s firearms, a new study said Monday. There are more than one billion firearms in the world but 85 percent of those are in the hands of civilians, with the remainder held by law enforcement and the military, according to the Small Arms Survey. The survey, produced by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, says it bases…

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What’s happening in Trump’s America is as evil and criminal as what happened to me and my siblings in Nazi Europe

What’s happening in Trump’s America is as evil and criminal as what happened to me and my siblings in Nazi Europe

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Yoka Verdoner writes: The events occurring now on our border with Mexico, where children are being removed from the arms of their mothers and fathers and sent to foster families or “shelters”, make me weep and gnash my teeth with sadness and rage. I know what they are going through. When we were children, my two siblings and I were also taken from our parents. And the problems we’ve experienced since then portend the terrible things that many of these…

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Thousands of children are imprisoned across Africa. They need justice

Thousands of children are imprisoned across Africa. They need justice

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Graça Machel writes: The legendary editor of the Guardian newspaper CP Scott famously declared in 1921 that “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”. Unfortunately, when it comes to hard evidence on how many children are locked up in prisons, detention centres, migrant and refugee camps, rehabilitation units or other institutions across the world, the facts are more scarce than sacred. There is no single source of accurate data for these figures and estimates vary widely between 15,000 and 28,000…

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What matters

What matters

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Owen Flanagan writes: In “The Strange Order of Things” Antonio Damasio promises to explore “one interest and one idea … why and how we emote, feel, use feelings to construct our selves; how feelings assist or undermine our best intentions; why and how our brains interact with the body to support such functions.” Damasio thinks that the cognitive revolution of the last 40 years, which has yielded cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience and artificial intelligence, has been, in fact, too cognitive,…

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David Miliband: World must step up support for Rohingya refugees

David Miliband: World must step up support for Rohingya refugees

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The Guardian reports: David Miliband has called on the international community to step up its support of Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh before the monsoon. During a visit to the refugee camps, the former UK foreign secretary said the issue must be discussed at the G7 meeting in Quebec, Canada this week, saying there was “real fear” among the refugees about the rainy season. Miliband, the chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, said the positioning of the refugee camp…

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Five myths about the refugee crisis

Five myths about the refugee crisis

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Daniel Trilling writes: The refugee crisis that dominated the news in 2015 and 2016 consisted primarily of a sharp rise in the number of people coming to Europe to claim asylum. Arrivals have now dropped, and governments have cracked down on the movement of undocumented migrants within the EU; many thousands are stuck in reception centres or camps in southern Europe, while others try to make new lives in the places they have settled. But to see the crisis as…

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How music can fight prejudice

How music can fight prejudice

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Tom Jacobs writes: The outpouring of hostility toward immigrants and refugees has reminded us that ethnocentrism remains a fact of life in both Europe and the United States. Combating it will require teaching a new generation to view members of different cultures as potential friends rather than threatening outsiders. But what mode of communication has the power to stimulate such a shift? New research from Portugal suggests the answer may be music. It reports schoolchildren around age 11 who learned…

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Humanity is a tiny fraction of life on Earth but has destroyed over 80% of wild mammals and half of plants

Humanity is a tiny fraction of life on Earth but has destroyed over 80% of wild mammals and half of plants

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The Guardian reports: Humankind is revealed as simultaneously insignificant and utterly dominant in the grand scheme of life on Earth by a groundbreaking new assessment of all life on the planet. The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living things, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilisation, humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds. The new work is the first…

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More than 95% of world’s population breathe dangerous air, major study finds

More than 95% of world’s population breathe dangerous air, major study finds

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The Guardian reports: More than 95% of the world’s population breathe unsafe air and the burden is falling hardest on the poorest communities, with the gap between the most polluted and least polluted countries rising rapidly, a comprehensive study of global air pollution has found. Cities are home to an increasing majority of the world’s people, exposing billions to unsafe air, particularly in developing countries, but in rural areas the risk of indoor air pollution is often caused by burning…

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