Environmental News FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Shhhhhhhh. What can we say Nothing The question of the day is whats new Answer nothing. The next question of the day is what are you going to do today Answer nothing. Last question of the day is what did you do today Answer not

Exaggeration is the official language of the internet. Only the most strident statements have any impact. Oversteer and oversell, all the time

The other day I was talking to a music fan who’d recently gone to see one of Kate Bush’s widely praised live appearances. Naturally I was keen to hear a first-hand account of this era-defining event, so I asked what it was like.

“The first half was great,” she said. “But the second half got a bit boring.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the destruction of South Korean-made hotels and other tourist facilities at the North’s Diamond Mountain resort, apparently because Seoul won’t defy international sanctions and resume South Korean tours at the site.

The Grove Resort and Water Park fishes three-year journey to complete three-building complex's construction.

Former principal Minerva Zanca of Pan American High School in Queens allegedly targeted black staffers from 2012-13, calling one a “gorilla” and “nappy-haired," according to a lawsuit filed in 2016 by the federal Justice Department.

The “community schools” program, which infuses schools with mental health counselors, free vision and dental care, and classes for parents, boosted attendance and on-time graduation rates in participating schools from 2015-2018, according to the report from the research group RAND Corporation.

Education officials, in a Friday morning webinar, instructed all city principals to prepare for an extended shutdown by assembling materials to send home with students, reviewing how to use online teaching platforms and deciding how to communicate with families, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The News.

But the centers, slated to open Monday, are currently limited to children of healthcare and transit workers and first-responders - and advocates worry homeless students will be left behind.

Quantum physics impacts the technology students use every day. Use these resources from NOVA broadcasts, NOVA Digital, and What the Physics!? to introduce quantum concepts to your classroom.

The Clippers will soon feature a new lineup with Marcus Morris, but on Saturday it was new-look Minnesota that dominated from the start to win 142-115.

The plan to reopen the San Bernardino County ski destination in a limited capacity marks the latest effort to allow limited recreation amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Alby Kass, a victim of a coronavirus-related infection, was lead singer of a Yiddish folk group, Jubilee Klezmer Ensemble, and a theater performer.

At the mercy of Mother Nature, Mt. Waterman has reopened. Snow is good at the landmark resort in the Angeles National Forest. It will be running on Saturdays and Sundays.

Millions of people around the world might be working from home for a while. Try to enjoy it.

L.A. Unified officials have killed a plan to open 40 family resource centers. The district still will distribute food.

Having kids at home during the coronavirus pandemic is a challenge for parents. Here are some resources to help get you through the day.

Many schools are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Check out The Times' list of news, resources and more to help parents and children at home.

Senate confidentiality requirements leave us with a 'he said, she said' standoff between Joe Biden and Tara Reade.

Glenn Gould's "Solitude Trilogy" uses dialogue as though it were musical counterpoint and explores a kind of isolation familiar in our coronavirus era.

Exclusive: Resident of second-placed Tenby mourns: 'We were last in "It's A Knockout" in 1977. It's been 43 years of hurt since then'

The fight over emissions between California and the White House could last years.

Los Angeles area artists are taking advantage of Bandcamp's COVID-19 initiative, which gives musicians 100% of sales. Here are a few recommendations.

MALDIVES holidays are on the bucket list of so many Britons thanks to the picture postcard-worthy scenery and year-round sun. Kandima Maldives is one of many hotels in the Indian Ocean nation, so what makes it stand out? This writer headed to the resort to find out.

A MYSTERIOUS NASA experiment has finally been resolved following a decade of conspiracy theories and wild speculation, after the US Space Force revealed the top-secret mission of its unmanned X-37B spacecraft.

Right now there is an epidemic of suicides and opioid overdoses, on top of the unacceptably high murder rate in the city, a letter to the editor says.

In 2019, we connected young people to shelter, food, counseling, a non-judgmental listening ear and more, a letter to the editor says.

The Indiana congressional delegation introduced a House resolution expressing support for the goals and ideas of ''Stomach Cancer Awareness Month."

The controversial concept of B teams may be back on the agenda as football tries to navigate a way through Covid-19, Brighton technical director Dan Ashworth says.

A chronology of key events

Key facts, figures and dates

Hours before she was shot dead on the outskirts of the capital, Lesotho's former first lady, Lipolelo Thabane, made a surprising decision.

Lesotho's Prime Minister Thomas Thabane has reiterated his intention to retire by the end of July "or earlier", despite risk of prosecution for his alleged involvement in the 2017 murder of his estranged wife.

The CBS Studios show will be based on the former FBI director's best-selling memoir.

I hope others in my industry will adopt them — and call me out if I don’t.

oscon: RT @andreabledsoe: So proud our #womenintech resource center is live, w/ great articles +enter to win a #OSCON scholarship...

velocityconf: What Is the Risk That Amazon Will Go Down (Again)? http://t.co/DgnfQynjcM Thank you @bergstrom_johan for the awesome #velocityconf post.

The Amateur Traveler talks to Kirk Horsted in a two part episode on the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. This first episode focuses on Minneapolis with day trips west of the Mississippi river.

The Amateur Traveler talks to Kirk Horsted in a two part episode on the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. In this second half Kirk looks at the state capital of Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Hear about visiting Universal Orlando Resort as the Amateur Traveler talks to Eric Stoen from travelbabbo.com about he and his kids favorite theme parks.

Technology is continuously leaving an indelible mark on many conceivable fields and industries, and education hasn’t been left behind either. Today, you no longer need to take admission classes and physically attend all your classes to earn a degree. All that is required of you is a working web connection and an incontestable thirst for […]

The post 9 Online Resources for Effective Learning appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

In a classic bit from an early Seinfeld, Jerry and Elaine are at the airport, trying to pick up the rental car that Jerry had reserved. As usual, things go poorly and get awkward fast:

Seinfeld - "Reservations"

JERRY: I don't understand...I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?
AGENT: Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars.
JERRY: But, the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
AGENT: I know why we have reservations.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation--you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And, that's really the most important part of the reservation...the holding. Anybody can just TAKE them. [grabs chaotically at air]

And, how weirdly similar is that to our conflicted relationship with New Year's resolutions?

In Seinfeldspeak?

See, you know how to make the resolution, you just don't know how to keep the resolution. And, that's really the most important part of the resolution...the keeping. Anybody can just MAKE them!

Oversimplified? Probably.

But, ask yourself. Why this? And, why now? Or, why again?

Welcome to Resolvers Anonymous: I'm 'Merlin M.'

A few years ago, I shared a handful of stories on the failures that have led to my own cynicism about the usefulness of life-inverting resolutions. Because, yeah, I've historically been a big resolver.

Here's what I said when I first suggested favoring "Fresh Starts and Modest Changes" over reinventions:

Download MP3 of "Fresh Starts & Modest Changes"

Five years on, I think I probably feel even more strongly about this.

Partly because I've watched and read and heard the cyclical lamentations of folks who decided to use superficial totems (like new calendars) as an ad hoc coach and prime mover. And, partly because, in my capacity as a makebelieve productivity expert, I continue to see how self-defeating it is to pretend that past can ever be less than prologue--that we can each ignore yesterday's weather if we really wish hard enough for a sun-drenched day at the beach.

It simply doesn't work.

Companies that think they'll be Google for buying bagels. Writers who think they'll get published if they order a new pen. Obese people who think they'll become marathon runners if they pick up some new running shoes. And, regular old people with good hearts who continue to confuse new lives with new clothes.

Has this worked before? Can you look back on a proud legacy of successful New Year's resolutions that would suggest you're making serious progress by repeatedly making a list about fundamental life changes while slamming prosecco and wearing a pointy paper hat?

My bet is that most people who are seeing the kind of change and growth and improvement that sticks tend to avoid these sorts of dramatic, geometric attempts to leap blindly toward the mountain of perfection.

I'll go further and say that the repeated compulsion to resolve and resolve and resolve is actually a terrific marker that you're not really ready to change anything in a grownup and sustainable way. You probably just want another magic wand.

Otherwise you'd already be doing the things you've resolved to do. You'd already be living those changes. And, you'd already be seeing actual improvements rather than repeatedly making lists of all the ways you hope your annual hajj to the self-improvement genie will fix you.

Then, of course, we make things way worse by blaming everything on our pancakes.

Regarding "The First Pancake Problem"

Anyone who's ever made America's favorite round and flat breakfast food is familiar with the phenomenon of The First Pancake.

No matter how good a cook you are, and no matter how hard you try, the first pancake of the batch always sucks.

It comes out burnt or undercooked or weirdly shaped or just oddly inedible and aesthetically displeasing. Just ask your kids.

At least compared to your normal pancake--and definitely compared to the far superior second and subsequent pancakes that make the cut and get promoted to the pile destined for the breakfast table--the first one's always a disaster.

I'll leave it to the physicists and foodies in the gallery to develop a unified field theory on exactly why our pancake problem crops up with such unerring dependability. But I will share an orthogonal theory: you will be a way happier and more successful cook if you just accept that your first pancake is and always will be a universally flukey mess.

But, that shouldn't mean you never make another pancake.

So Loud. Then, So Quiet.

I offer all of this because today is January 7th, gang. And, for the past week, all over the web, legions of well-intentioned and seemingly strong-willed humans have been declaring their resolved intention to make this a year of more and better metaphorical pancakes.

And, like clockwork--usually around today or maybe tomorrow--a huge cohort of those cooks will begin to abandon their resolve and go back to thinking all their pancakes have to suck. Just because that first one failed.

And, as is the case every year, online and off, there won't be nearly as many breathless updates to properly bookend how poorly our annual ritual of aspirational change has fared. Which is instructive.

Not because new year's resolutions are a universally bad idea. And, not because Change is Bad. And, not because we should be embarrassed about occasionally falling short of our own (frequently unreasonable) aspirations.

I suspect we tout the resolution, but whisper the failure because we blame the cook. Or, worse, fingers point toward the pancake. Instead of just admitting that the resolution itself was simply unrealistic or fundamentally foreign.

And, that's a shame.

Remember, there's no "I" in "unreasonable"

Granted, I'm merely re-repeating a point I've struggled to make (to both others and myself) for years now. But, it will bear repeating every January in perpetuity.

Resist the urge to pin the fate of things you really care about to anything that's not truly yourself. The "yourself" who has a real life with complicated demands. The "yourself" who's going to face a hard slog trying to fold a new life out of a fresh calendar.

Calendars are just paper and staples. They can't make you care. And they can't help you spin around like Diana Prince, and instantly turn into Wonder Woman. Especially, if you're not already a hot and magical Amazon princess.

First, be reasonable. Don't set yourself up for failure by demanding things that you've never come close to achieving before. I realize this is antithetical to most self-improvement bullshit, but that's exactly the point. If you were already a viking, you wouldn't need to build a big boat. Start with where you are right now. Not with where you wish you'd been.

Also, accept that the first pancake will always suck. Hell, if you've never picked up a spatula before, be cool with the fact that your first hundred pancakes might suck. This is, as I've said, huge. Failure is the sound of beginning to suck a little less.

And, finally, also be clear about the sanity of the motivations underlying your expectations--step back to observe what's truly broken, derive a picture of incremental success that seems do-able, and really resolve to do whatever you can realistically do to actually get better. Rather than "something something I suddenly become all different."

At this point, you have logistical options for both execution and troubleshooting:

• Make a modest plan that you can envision actually doing without upending your real life;
• Build more sturdy scaffolding for sticking with whatever plan you've chosen;
• Make a practice of learning to not mind the duds--including those messed-up first pancakes;
• Or--seriously?--just accept that you never really cared that much about making breakfast in the first place. Care is not optional.

Otherwise, really, you'd never need to resolve to do anything. You'd already just be cooking a lot. Instead of being all mad and depressed about not cooking.

But, please. All I really ask of you. Don't blame the pancake. It's not really the pancake's fault.

Like me, the pancake just wants you to be happy. This and every other new year.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there.

And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

And that is as it should be. Because death is very likely the single best invention of life.

It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.

[…]

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

None of us should ever have to face death to accept the inflexible and, too-often, novel sense of scarcity that it introduces.

In fact, it'd be great if we could each skip needing outside permission to be awesome by not waiting until the universe starts tapping its watch.

A simple start would involve each of us learning to care just a little more about a handful of things that simply aren't allowed to leave with us--whether today, tomorrow, or whenever. Because, I really believe a lot of nice things would start to happen if we also stopped waiting to care. A whole lot of nice things.

If that sounds like fancy incense for hippies and children, perhaps in a way that seems frankly un-doable for someone as practical and important and immortal as yourself, then go face death.

Go get cancer. Or, go get crushed by a horse Or, go get hit by a van. Or, go get separated from everything you ever loved forever.

Then, wonder no longer whether caring about the modest bit of time you have here is only for fancy people and the terminally-ill.

Because, the sooner you care, the better you'll make. The better you'll do. And the better you'll live.

Please don't wait. The universe won't.

Research Event

Event participants

David Roberts, Assistant Professor and School of Security Studies Lead for Regional Security and Development, King's College London
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House
Chair: Sanam Vakil, Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House

Chatham House is pleased to announce that Professor Tim Benton has been appointed as research director of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department.

Amelia C. Peterson
Nov 1, 2012; 11:1475-1488
Technological Innovation and Resources

Ilka Wittig
Jul 1, 2007; 6:1215-1225
Research