Oh now there's an AU for someone to work on: Harvey comes to know (possibly through Oboro?) that Hikari is also a descendant of the Lineage of Light (and the cursed stuff, too). Another backup in case Elena didn't work out, plus he's Osvald's companion, so there's another thing to take from him!

Gimme all the book recs Please :D

yaaaaaaaaaaaas okay great. i love sharing books i love.  

1. The Thief of Always - Clive BarkerGenre: Dark FantasyBig personal favorite of mine. My father read this to me when I was a kid, and it literally has stuck with me since then. Every now and then I go back and reread it just for fun. It’s a wonderfully spooky little story, accompanied by some really lovely and somewhat off-kilter illustrations. Much like Coraline, it’s a novel that is a fable for children, and a tale of terror for adults.

After a mysterious stranger promises to end his boredom with a trip to the magical Holiday House, ten-year-old Harvey learns that his fun has a high price.

2. House of Leaves - Mark Z. DanielewskiGenre: Postmodernism, horrorHands down an absolute favorite. This is a book I literally recommend to everyone. This is a book that made me viscerally uncomfortable, at times I didn’t even sleep in the same room as it. I made it sleep in the living room. There is nothing overtly terrifying about the book, but its format and its unsettlingly immersive nature will lead you down a road unlike any other. 

In 1997, Johnny Truant has stumbled upon a chest full of scrap papers that had once belonged to a man named Zampono. The papers aren’t just scraps though, they’re a chaotic but detailed transcription of a series called the Navidson Record. The Navidson Record is a series of videos made by a family who has discovered that their new house appears to change dimensions almost daily, it has hallways that shouldn’t exist, doors that should lead outside but instead lead into nothingness. Johnny attempts to re-order and reconstruct Zampono’s papers, and along the way begins to lose himself as well. 

3. The Postmortal - Drew MagaryGenre: Science Fiction, Postmodern DystopiaReally funny, really dark, and full of a surprising amount of morality and humanity in a pre-apocalyptic world. 

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors.    

4. Horrorstor - Grady HendrixGenre: Comedy, HorrorHonestly this book is just balls to the wall fun. It’s a horror novel that’s laid out like the world’s most messed up IKEA catalog. Spooky at times, ridiculous and funny, at times moving, while also offering great social commentary on consumerism and the the current status of retail workers. 

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking. To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination. 

5. Rant - Chuck PalahniukGenre: Science Fiction, Horror, SatireThis is a book I read several years ago and that I still think about from time to time. I haven’t had time to sit down and reread it, but parts of it still resonate with me today. This is a very peculiar story and it is told in a rather peculiar fashion (it is an oral history, and as such is told in a very conversational way by a number of different characters with a wide variety of thoughts and opinions on the titular Rant. It’s hard to properly describe this book, but let’s just say it’s been in my reread list for a while now. 

Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. 

6. John Dies at the End - David WongGenre: Comedy, Horror, Dark FantasyHoly god what do I even say about this book? It is just hilariously and marvelously insane. A perfect mix of cosmic fantasy, horror, comedy, and lunacy, and I loved every minute of reading it. I still have the rest of the series lined up to read, too!

The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I’m sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. 

7. Sphere - Michael CrichtonGenre: Science Fiction, Deep Sea HorrorThis is one I actually JUST finished, and I absolutely adored it. I had a couple small complaints about it, but overall, it was a wonderful read and very engrossing. Plus, I’m always a sucker for deep sea horror. 

A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old…. 

8. I, Lucifer - Glen DuncanGenre: Religious Fantasy, Occult FictionThis book is incredibly well researched, thought out, and characterized, as well as funny and extremely thought-provoking. I’d never expected to see a story that would give me a realistic and modern look into the Devil’s side of the story. I especially never expected to see a story that would make the Devil learn what it is to be human, either. All in all just an A+, fantastical read. 

The Prince of Darkness has been given one last shot at redemption, provided he can live out a reasonably blameless life on earth. Highly sceptical, naturally, the Old Dealmaker negotiates a trial period - a summer holiday in a human body, with all the delights of the flesh. The body, however, turns out to be that of Declan Gunn, a depressed writer living in Clerkenwell, interrupted in his bath mid-suicide. Ever the opportunist, and with his main scheme bubbling in the background, Luce takes the chance to tap out a few thoughts - to straighten the biblical record, to celebrate his favourite achievements, to let us know just what it’s like being him. Neither living nor explaining turns out to be as easy as it looks. Beset by distractions, miscalculations and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to, the Father of Lies slowly begins to learn what it’s like being us. 

9. The Wasp Factory - Iain BanksGenre: Psychological HorrorLook, I want to say this right off the bat. This book is… not for everyone. Trust me when I say this is an extremely dark book with a lot of dark content. I would say that if you have any potential triggers, you may want to message me first and I will give you a better rundown of what all this book entails. This is a true piece of horror fiction. But it’s also incredible. I ate this book up in about two days and it is one of my favorite pieces of dark fiction to date. So yeah, chat with me if you have any concerns, but if you enjoy truly dark fiction, then this is up your alley. 

Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through. 

10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (the whole series, trust me)Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction, Cosmic FantasyJust trust me when I say this is a series that literally everyone should read at least once in their life. They are unflabbably hilarious in a way that only Douglas Adams could be, and they are just truly unique. This series is (rightfully) a classic and shouldn’t be missed. 

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide (“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”).

11. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks Genre: Zombie horror, Faux HistoryI beg you - do not judge this book by the very terrible movie that was made about it. It is an entirely different animal than that mess of a movie, I promise. World War Z is a masterfully crafted book that details the zombie apocalypse in ways never before done in fiction. The Battle of Yonkers scenes and the testimony of Tomonaga Ijiro still stick in my head to this day. This book is a triumph of horror, ‘history’, and humanity, all balled into a distinctly unique experience. 

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. 

12. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven HallGenre: Fantasy/Realism, Meta-fiction, MysteryThis is a tough one to put into words. I read this many years ago, and I remember it more as a series of emotional experiences rather than just as a singular plot. Which I think really speaks to its character as a book. This is a book that deals with dissociation, memory loss, our sense of self, how easily we can lose that sense, and our struggle to hold onto or to rediscover the world we know and the people we believe ourselves to be. This book is just… an experience, much like House of Leaves. It’s immersive, and at times quite unsettling. 

Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house he doesn’t recognize, unable to remember anything of his life. All he has left are his diary entries recalling Clio, a perfect love who died under mysterious circumstances, and a house that may contain the secrets to Eric’s prior life. But there may be more to this story, or it may be a different story altogether. With the help of allies found on the fringes of society, Eric embarks on an edge-of-your-seat journey to uncover the truth about himself and to escape the predatory forces that threaten to consume him. 

I think 12 should be good for now! I certainly have more though, if you want them!! 

Bonus, Currently Reading: The Library at Mount Char - Scott HawkinsGenre: Contemporary Fantasy, Horror, Dark FantasyI don’t have a whole lot to say about this yet since I’m not very far into it, but so far it’s been extremely intriguing, and Hawkins’ writing is truly beautiful. 

A missing God. A library with the secrets to the universe. A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away. Carolyn’s not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once. That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. 

Bonus 2, Up Next to Read: Dark Matter: A Ghost Story - Michelle PaverGenre: Horror

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark… 

(also if any of y’all have read these, i’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on them too)

No place is safe from failing US infrastructure

In the face of rising homelessness, increasing crime and inadequate public transit in San Francisco, many tech influencers are pulling up stakes to geographies that offer a seemingly more welcome climate to conduct business and make investments. But the ongoing disaster in Texas makes one cold truth very clear: No place is safe from America’s failure to invest in infrastructure or take climate change seriously.

The shock of seeing the cradle of America’s energy industry crippled by its inability to prepare its own power grid for the “once in a century storms” that increasingly look to be coming every 10 years (a phenomenon that Texas Tech climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe calls “global weirding”) underscores a point that should have been plain years ago: By refusing to invest in adequate public infrastructure, the country’s leadership has failed to perform the basic duty of protecting the health and safety of its citizens.

And the shocks that result from these investment failures will affect anyone without the means or desire to leave the country entirely.

Decline

This failure reaches from the woefully inept response to the COVID-19 pandemic which is on track to kill half a million people in the U.S., to the millions across the country who faced a week without adequate heat, water and sometimes even food or shelter from the bitter cold bearing down on the nation.

The catastrophe also crystallizes the inanity of many of the issues currently consuming the technology community that holds itself in such high esteem as a pillar of rational discourse and as the architects of America’s future.

The investors, who decried California’s broken, over-regulated dystopia, are now trying to change their ZIP codes for broken, under-regulated dystopias.

The problem is that they’re moving without confronting the substantive issues that make these regions unlivable for large portions of the population. And that’s caused by a historic failure to engage in any politics that isn’t directly tied to the bottom line of the corporations these entrepreneurs have created or their investors have financed.

As Michael Solana, a vice president at Founders Fund, noted in a great piece on his Pirate Wires Substack:

The truth is, had tech workers actually assumed a significant measure of political influence, and led in local politics, San Francisco would today be one of the greatest cities in the world. But not only was such political influence not achieved, it was never attempted. Throughout the most recent technology boom of the last fifteen years, there has been almost no meaningful engagement in local politics from the industry.

Not that the deregulatory streak prized by many in the tech community would have solved Texas’s problem or Florida’s (California is a different kind of disaster).

In Texas, lack of regulations around construction and the state’s independent energy grid have made it more vulnerable to catastrophic climactic events — whether that’s 2017’s Hurricane Harvey or this year’s deadly winter storms, which killed Texans in their homes, vehicles and backyards.

After Harvey, ignore the climate debate and focus on building better, more efficient cities

California can claim that its grid failed by fewer megawatts than Texas’s — but the overall result from the natural disasters, blackouts, billions of dollars lost and scores of deaths are much the same.

Surveying this broken world, many in the tech community have decided that the best result is to try the same thing somewhere else. But they’re going to face many of the same problems in Florida or Texas.

Homeowners concerned about construction lowering the value of their properties? Check. Rampant income inequality? Check. Reluctance to put in effective oversight that could ensure failures don’t occur? Check.

The difference those states offer is lower taxes for the wealthy, which means more of an ability to pay privately for the services to ensure that the burdens of climate change don’t fall on these billionaires in their new waterfront homes.

The through-line in all of this is a cynicism and abdication of responsibility papered over by the thinnest lips paying the smallest amount of service to solving climate problems.

One step forward, eleventy-seven back

Don’t think that I’m merely being cynical about what some tech companies are doing when confronted with the rising catastrophe of climate change and decrepit American infrastructure.

Why else would Elon Musk commit $100 million to a carbon capture prize while his publicly traded energy company invests $1.5 billion in Bitcoin? Some analysts estimate that the deal and the resulting skyrocketing price of the cryptocurrency will erase all of the gains in emissions offsets from the use of every Tesla ever made.

“The immediate impact of Tesla’s buy is that the Bitcoin price went up by more than $5,000. We can estimate this will lead to the network consuming an additional 34 TWh of electrical energy per year. That’s about the size of a country like Denmark’s total annual electrical energy requirement. We can also estimate this will result in an additional 17 million metric tons of CO2 being put out by the network every year,” wrote Alex de Vries, the founder of the cryptocurrency analysis site, Digiconomist. “According to Tesla, the amount of CO2 saved by Tesla vehicles adds up to 3.7 million tons. The amount of additional CO2 produced by the Bitcoin network, as a result of Tesla’s buy, would thus amount to more than four times the amount of CO2 saved by all their vehicles to date.”

Some argue that Bitcoin mining uses a disproportional amount of renewable energy to produce the cryptocurrency, but that argument is complicated by the seasonal sources of some renewables that miners (especially Chinese miners who produce the bulk of Bitcoin) rely on for power.

Tesla could potentially make more money from that investment than it has from the sale of cars and  has definitely boosted the emissions spewing mining processes that make Bitcoin’s digital printers go brrrrr.  All of which makes the company’s commitment to combating climate change look a bit specious.

Some hope?

The most frustrating thing about all of this is that entrepreneurs and investors are working on solutions to the climate crisis. Technologies exist that can help address some of the issues that confront these cities. And there’s billions to be made solving something that is very much an existential problem.

Unfortunately unlocking those billions in a timeframe that’s viable for society’s survival is going to require policy movement and the type of engagement that many tech investors would rather hand off to someone else as they move to more temperate, and tax advantaged, climates.

With the waters rising and the temperatures dropping, maybe those tax savings can buy a nice microgrid for power or a bigger boat. Given the projections that put the cost of climate change at nearly half a trillion dollars annually by the end of the century, it’d have to be a pretty big boat.

New US report says that climate change could cost nearly $500B per year by 2090

A researcher reflects on progress fighting hepatitis C – and a path forward

The hepatitis C virus was found in 1989 – analysis that's now earned a Nobel Prize. BSIP/Common Pictures Group through Getty Pictures

Once I started my medical profession in Hong Kong within the early 1980s, I selected to deal with hepatitis B, partly as a result of it was quite common and since the hepatitis C virus had not but been found. I witnessed the devastation that this virus induced – cirrhosis, liver failure and liver most cancers – and the shortage of remedies we may supply to sufferers.

Again then, scientists knew there was one other kind of hepatitis, however nobody may determine it, so we referred to as it non-A, non-B hepatitis. I’d by no means have imagined that in the course of the course of my profession I’d witness the invention of what got here to be referred to as hep C and the event of a treatment for practically all sufferers with continual hepatitis C in 2014.

Announcement that the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs will go to 3 researchers who recognized the hepatitis C virus. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP through Getty Pictures

Underscoring the significance of those discoveries for world human well being, this 12 months’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs was awarded collectively to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the invention of the hepatitis C virus.

The event of remedies over the previous 30 years displays the superb progress the sector has made in tackling hepatitis C in a comparatively brief time frame. Initially, within the late 1980s, earlier than a diagnostic take a look at turned accessible, some physicians began treating well-characterized instances of non-A, non-B hepatitis (hep C) with interferon, a pure protein that the physique makes to combat viruses, and ribavirin, an antiviral drug. These medicines weren’t particularly developed for hepatitis C, needed to be given as injections for 6-12 months, had many negative effects and resulted in a treatment in solely half of the sufferers who obtained therapy. It took greater than 20 years for the primary direct-acting antiviral medication to be authorised by the FDA.

I bear in mind the joy after I and my colleagues examined one of many new drug combos in sufferers and noticed the virus rely drop from greater than 1 million to lower than 20 inside two weeks. We revealed the outcomes of our pilot research within the New England Journal of Drugs in 2012. Though the research concerned solely 21 sufferers, it was thought of a watershed second as a result of it was the primary research to show {that a} mixture of oral capsules with out interferon can treatment hepatitis C.

Efficient therapy for hepatitis C has grow to be much more related right now in gentle of the current surge in new instances of hepatitis C on account of rising opioid use.

A dear drug and new generics

The primary combo tablet with two medication that inhibits completely different steps in hepatitis C replication was authorised by the FDA in 2014. This tablet is taken as soon as a day for 8-12 weeks, has little to no negative effects and improved the treatment price to 90-95%. It was hailed as a magical treatment, nevertheless it got here with a price ticket of US$94,500 for a 12-week course of therapy. That led many insurers in america and nationwide well being departments in different international locations to restrict entry to therapy.

Since then, a number of different combo capsules with comparable treatment charges which might be equally well-tolerated have grow to be accessible, and the price has markedly decreased. As well as, low-cost generics and particular pricing preparations can be found in lots of resource-limited international locations.

Whereas the present value of hepatitis C virus medication continues to be very excessive, one must keep in mind that for 95 p.c of sufferers, this can be a treatment. It’s not like medicines for a lot of diseases that should be taken for a very long time, generally for the remainder of the sufferers’ lives. Certainly, a treatment for hepatitis C virus has allowed some sufferers who have been on the liver transplant ready listing to reverse their liver failure, making transplantation pointless. That is excellent news not just for these sufferers but in addition for others on the ready listing.

The exceptional success of hepatitis C therapy has reenergized efforts to discover a treatment for hepatitis B. Present remedies can suppress hepatitis B virus replication however don’t get rid of it. Most sufferers should be on long-term therapy to forestall flare-ups of hepatitis when the virus reemerges after therapy is stopped.

Deaths from hepatitis B and C infections rising worldwide

Studying from the hepatitis C expertise and with higher understanding of the biology of hepatitis B virus and improved animal fashions, pharmaceutical firms are creating medication that focus on completely different steps of the hepatitis B virus life cycle. Whereas a treatment for hepatitis B shall be tougher as a result of it might probably combine into the affected person’s DNA, enabling it to evade the affected person’s immune response, I’m optimistic that we are going to witness the supply of latest combos of medicine that can transfer us nearer the purpose of a hepatitis B treatment.

Members of Delhi Community of Constructive Individuals, a assist group for HIV-positive folks, in 2014 urged the Indian authorities to permit manufacturing of generic variations of direct-acting antivirals that might assist 1000’s get inexpensive oral doses of drugs to regulate hepatitis C. An infection progresses extra quickly to wreck the liver in HIV-positive sufferers. Saurabh Das/AP Picture

However the information is just not all optimistic. Whereas we’ve seen mortality charges from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria decline lately, deaths from hepatitis B and C have risen. Globally, an estimated 257 million folks have continual hepatitis B virus an infection, and 71 million have continual hepatitis C virus. Collectively hepatitis B and C induced greater than 1.34 million deaths in 2015. This led the World Well being Group to problem international locations world wide to develop nationwide plans to get rid of these two viruses by 2030.

Hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus are often unfold by means of contact with blood or physique secretions resembling semen from contaminated individuals by sharing needles or sexual publicity. However they may also be unfold by means of contaminated needles used for medical therapy, which continues to occur in lots of elements of the world. As well as, hepatitis B virus might be unfold from contaminated moms to new child infants except vaccination is given instantly after beginning.

For folks with hepatitis C virus, roughly two-third undergo continual an infection. For hepatitis B virus, the prospect of continual liver an infection decreases the later the affected person encounters the virus: the chances are 90% if contaminated throughout infancy; 20-30% if contaminated throughout childhood; and 2-5% if contaminated in grownup life. Some folks contaminated with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus can recuperate on their very own, however many develop continual infections lasting greater than six months and infrequently years or lifelong. These with continual an infection are susceptible to cirrhosis (extreme liver harm), liver failure and liver most cancers.

In 2017, a San Diego household was amongst a number of hundred folks residing in a campground for the homeless, set as much as curb the worst hepatitis A outbreak in america in many years. Gregory Bull/AP Picture

Opioid epidemic, homeless result in rise in hepatitis B and C infections

In america, the variety of new hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus infections has been reducing for a few years, however this pattern has been reversed throughout current years because of the opioid epidemic as extra folks use injection medication, share needles or different paraphernalia and follow high-risk sexual conduct. That is notably true for hepatitis C, the place the variety of new instances up to now 10 years has greater than doubled, highlighting the necessity for a preventive vaccine, which is a crucial device to get rid of hepatitis C. The rise in variety of new instances of hepatitis B is smaller and primarily seen in adults of their 30s as a result of most youthful individuals have benefited from hepatitis B virus vaccination.

After we discuss viral hepatitis, the main focus is on hepatitis B and C as a result of they’ll trigger continual an infection, whereas hepatitis A causes solely acute an infection and won’t result in cirrhosis or liver most cancers. Nevertheless, since 2016, many states within the U.S. have witnessed outbreaks of hepatitis A. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention obtained greater than 2,500 experiences of hepatitis A between January 2017 and April 2018 related to person-to-person transmission, with danger components in two-thirds of those instances being drug use or homelessness or each. In Michigan, the place I reside, 859 instances of hepatitis A, together with 27 deaths, have been reported between July 2016 and June 2018. We are able to forestall hepatitis A by means of vaccination and improved hygienic situations.

World Hepatitis Day is well known on July 28, the birthday of Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg, a Philadelphia researcher who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or drugs for his discovery of the hepatitis B virus. Eddie Adams/AP Picture

World Hepatitis Day happens yearly on July 28, a day chosen in honor of the late Baruch Blumberg, who obtained a Nobel Prize for locating the hepatitis B virus. Immediately is one other trigger for celebration as a second Nobel is awarded for hepatitis analysis, this time for the invention of hepatitis C virus. I marvel at how a lot progress we now have made within the final three many years and am delighted to be not simply an observer but in addition a contributor to the progress. Our work is just not completed. Rather more must be achieved to utterly get rid of new instances of viral hepatitis and deaths from continual hepatitis B and C.

That is an up to date model of an article initially revealed in July 2018. It has been up to date to incorporate information of the 2020 Nobel Prize.

Anna Suk-Fong Lok has served on advisory panels of Roche, Viravaxx, and Spring Financial institution. She receives analysis funding from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, and the Affected person Middle for Final result Analysis Institute offered to the College of Michigan.

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/a-researcher-reflects-on-progress-fighting-hepatitis-c-and-a-path-forward/ via https://growthnews.in

Washing synthetic clothes spreads microplastics even further than we thought

https://sciencespies.com/environment/washing-synthetic-clothes-spreads-microplastics-even-further-than-we-thought/

Washing synthetic clothes spreads microplastics even further than we thought

Human-made plastic isn’t just flooding the world’s oceans, it’s also piling up on the land and in the soil.

For years now, the synthetic microfibres woven into our clothing have been leaching into the environment. Even when we don’t throw away our clothes or when we buy them secondhand, wastewater from our washing machines can break up these tiny pollutants.

New estimates reveal nearly as many synthetic microfibres are now amassing on land as those leaking into waterways. 

Since the mass production of synthetic microfibres – like polyester and nylon – began in the 1950s, scientists predict at least 5.6 million metric tons of synthetic microfibres have been released from clothes washing.

Even more gobsmacking, half of those pollutants were produced in the last decade alone.

“The numbers in the research are staggering,” says public health scientist Paul Harvey, who was not involved in the study, “but most likely an underestimate.”

Scientists have known about these tiny terrestrial microfibres for a while now, but we’ve never actually known the extent of the problem.

Analysing the global extent of synthetic microfibre release is near impossible, especially since many regions do not have detailed data on wastewater treatment. 

Still, if we want to understand the true scope of this issue, we need some sort of ballpark figure, and these results are some of the best estimates to date. 

Using income as a proxy for the level of a nation’s water and sewage treatment where data were unavailable, researchers compared the effects of hand washing and machine washing on microfibre pollution in wastewater.

Many people don’t realise that when they put their clothes in the washing machine, tiny synthetic fibres of plastic can leach out into the water, especially if you set your machine to wash delicates.

When these tiny plastics are caught in a city’s wastewater treatment facility, they are usually turned into biosolids, used as soil or fertiliser. The rest either goes to landfill, is incinerated, or otherwise ends up dumped in the ocean.

While plastic pollution in oceans has received a lot of attention in recent years, and for good reason (it poses a serious threat to marine mammals and ocean ecosystem), waterways are not the only place plastic accumulates.

The new global analysis reveals just under half of all synthetic microfibres end up on land, either on the surface (1.9 million metric tons) or in landfills (0.6 million metric tons). Meanwhile, bodies of water receive nearly 2.9 million metric tons.

The authors acknowledge the limitations of their figures. They admit their models are based on multiple assumptions and simplifications, such as global washing frequency, the percentage of clothing in use on an annual basis, and washing machine ownership worldwide.

That said, they examined several alternative scenarios and still found a range of total microfibre emissions somewhere between 4.3 million metric tons and 7.0 million metric tons.

Each year, that’s at least 176,500 metric tonnes of microfibre plastics going to cropland or landfill. Donated and recycled clothing was also not taken into account, which means this is probably an underestimation.

As clothing stock grows worldwide and more people acquire washing machines, these numbers are only set to increase. With wastewater treatment sites becoming ever more popular, the authors think microfibres once destined for the sea could soon be redirected to land.

It’s not clear what this will do to the soil, to our crops or our health, let alone the many terrestrial animals that live here with us. Studies have shown synthetic microfibres can retain their fibrous forms in the terrestrial environment for more than 15 years, so the choices we make now will have consequences for the future, whether we know the risks now or not.

“Large-scale removal of microfibers from the environment is unlikely to be technically feasible or economically viable, so the focus needs to be on emission prevention,” says study lead Jenna Gavigan from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

“Since wastewater treatment plants don’t necessarily reduce emissions to the environment, our focus needs to be reducing emissions before they enter the wastewater stream.”

In other words, removing these microplastics from the sludge of treatment facilities is probably not going to happen. Instead, the authors suggest we focus on switching to more environmental fabrics and redesigning our washing machines to filter microfibres better.

Ian Rae, an environmental chemicals expert not involved in the study, thinks those solutions are wishful thinking.

“Good luck with that!” Rae wrote in a comment.

“Another way is by ensuring more efficient filtering of the water as it leaves the machine, about which [the authors] observe that collected material would need to be disposed of by incineration or landfill. And here’s a puzzle: if landfill is acceptable as a disposal method, you’d have to ask why there is such a fuss, in the abstract of their paper and the publicity surrounding the publication of their work, about microfibres going to ‘terrestrial environments’.”

He’s got a point, too. The truth is, we don’t really know what to do with the ubiquitous use of microfibres already in our clothing. How do we stop them from leaching into the environment? If we do catch them in a filter, where should we put them next? Once they leach into the land and the water, can we ever hope to recover them?

“There are huge unknowns,” ecologist Sangwon Suh told the USCB publication, The Current. “The amount of microplastics and microfibres that are generated is quite massive and continuing to rise, and if it continues there will be big changes, the consequences of which we are not yet sure. That’s what makes it concerning.”

The study was published in PLOS One.

#Environment

300+ TOP PSM Objective Questions and Answers

PSM Multiple Choice Questions :-

1.The concept of Social Medicine was first introduced by a) Neuman and Virchow b) Robert Grotjahrr c) John Ryle d)Rene sand Ans:a 2.Following are true about Kerala except a) BR- 29/1000 b) per capita annual income - Rs. 2594 C) Life Expectancy - 66.6 years t d) Female literacy rate-65%. Ans:b 3.Rules of Sanitation in UK is proposed by a) John Snow b) Chadwick c) Winslow d) John Howard Ans:b 4.Human Development Index (UNDP) includes a)Life Expectancy , gross national product and per capita income b)Education ,social status and life expectancy c)Per capita income, education and life expectancy d) Education, life expectancy and purchasing power Ans:c 5.Best method for collecting vital statistics in India a) Active surveillance b) Passive surveillance c) Sentinel surveillance d) Contact tracing Ans:c 6.Surveillance by WHO is not done for a) Polio b) Malaria c) Viral encephalitis d) Relapsing fever Ans:c 7.Which one of the following branches of Sociology studies the relationship between organism and environment? a) Ergonomics b) Social physiology c) Ecology d) Social pathology Ans:c 8.Primordial prevention is the a)Prevention of diseases among-the hill - dwelling and tribal people b)Prolongation of human life span to the maximum extent c)Promotion of health, well-being and efficiency d)Prevention of diseases through modification of their risk factors. Ans:d 9.What is the definition of society a) System of social relationship between individuals b) Social relationship between families c) intervention of individuals and people d) relationship of individual, family and the country Ans:a 10.Which of the following is tertiary level of prevention a) Health promotion b) Specific protection c) early diagnosis and treatment d) disability limitation. Ans:d

PSM Objective Questions and Answers 11.All of the following require surveillance according to WHO except a) Chicken Pox b) yellow fever c) malaria d) Rabies Ans:a 12.PQLI includes all except a) Literacy rate b) per capita GNP c) IMR d) life expectancy at 1 yr. Ans:b 13.In a country, socio economic progress is best indicated by a) Gross net production b) IMR C) Annual per capital income of the family d) Death rate Ans:c 14.VftA Prophylaxis in 3-6 yrs children is an example of a) Health promotion b) Specific protection c) Early diagnosis and treatment d) Disability limitation. Ans:b 15.Prophylactic administration of Vitamin A in a child is a) Health promotion b) Treatment c) Specific protection d) Rehabilitation. Ans:c 16.The period of pathogenesis is the period a) Of incubatory processes only b) Which begins with the entry of disease causing agent c) Of subclinical manifestation d) Preliminary to the onset of disease in man Ans:b 17.The current concept of health promotion and the related activities lead to a) Better treatment of a problem b) Critical awareness and life style changes c) Adoption of prophylactic services d) Better health services usage Ans:b 18.Disease rate is a) Risk of susceptibility b) Usually expressed as percentage c) Time period in a calendar year d) disease occurrence in a specified time period Ans:b 19.The measure used to express the global burden of diseasg, i. e. how a healthy life is affected by disease is a) Disability - Adjusted life year b) Case fatality rate c) Life Expectancy d) Age- Specific incidence rate. Ans:a 20.Leprosy and tuberculosis are best prevented by a) Chemoprophylaxis b) Early diagnosis and treatment c) Influenza d) Immunoprophylaxis Ans:b 21.All show iceberg phenomenon except a) Influenza b) Polio c) Hepatitis d) Chicken pox Ans:d 22.Provision of carotene - rich diet in order to prevent xerophthalmia is a measure under a) Health promotion b) Specific protection c) Early diagnosis and treatment d) Rehabilitation Ans:b 23.The concept of Levels of Prevention" aims at a) Ascertaining the prognosis of a disease b) Eradication of a disease c) Preventing epidemics d) Intervening in the natural history of a disease Ans:d 24.The disease which is known as "Father of public health" is a) Small pox b) Rabies ' c) Plague d) Cholera Ans:d 25.A list of comments against the World Health Organization' definition of health given. Which of them is not a critics a) Health is considered a state responsibility b) No satisfactory definition of well being c) It sets standards of 'positive' health to be attained by all people d) Utopic rather than realistic goal Ans:c 26.What is the actual intention of doing sentinel surveillance ? a) To know the total number of cases b) Eor health planning c) To know the natural history of the disease d) To prevent the disease. Ans:a 27.Virulence of a disease is indicated by a) proportional mortality rate b) specific mortality rate c) case fatality ratio d) amount of GDP spent on the disease Ans:c 28.All are true of Crude death rate except a) It is a proportion b) Includes death in all age groups c)Can be used to compare mortality between 2 countries d)No. of deaths in a year/Mid year pop x 1000. Ans:c 29.Provision of free medical care to the people at government expense is known as a) State medicine b) Social therapy c) Social medicine d) Social insurance programme. Ans:c 30.The first country to socialize medicine completely was a) Germany b) Great Britain c) Russia d)U. S. A. Ans:a 31.Man is a secondary host for a) malaria b) Tuberculosis c) filariasis d) relapsing fever Ans:a 32.Living standard of a people is best assessed by a) Infant mortality rate b) Material mortality rate c) Physical quality of life index d) death rate Ans:c 33.Pap smear is an example of a) Primary level of prevention b) Secondary level of prevention c) Tertiary level of prevention d) None of the above. Ans:b 34.The first scientist to observe bacteria and other microscopic organisms was a) Sydenham b) Virchow c) Harvey d) Van Leeuwenhoek Ans:d 35.The following parameter is not included while computing PQLI Index a) Life expectance at 1 year b) Infant mortality rate c) Life expectancy at birth d) Literacy rate Ans:c 36.Prevention of emergence of risk factor is a) Primordial prevention b) primary prevention c) Secondary prevention d) Tertiaiy prevention . Ans:a 37.Notifiable disease is a) Varicella b) cholera c) malaria d) influenza Ans:b 38.Checking for sputum AFB comes under a) primary prevention b) secondary prevention c) tertiary prevention d) quartemary prevention. Ans:b 39. Which of the following is not in WHO surveillance a) Rabies b) Influenza c)TMalaria d) Varicella Ans:d 40.One of the following is not true of International Classification of Disease a) It is revised once in 10 years b) It was devised by UNICEF c)The 10lb revision consists of 21 major chapters. d)It is accepted for National and International use e)It provides the basis for use in other health fields. Ans:b 41.Surveillance is necessary for' alLrecommended bx WHO except a) Relapsing fever b) Malaria c) Plague d) Tuberculosis. Ans:d 42.The method of detecting missing contacts in a disease is a) Screening b) Monitoring c) Active surveillance d) Continuous surveillance Ans:c 43.Which is not under WHO surveillance a) Malaria b) Polio c) Varicella d) Influenza Ans:c 44.The level of prevention practiced by wearing of spectacles is a) Specific protection b) Early diagnosis and prompt treatment c) Disability limitation d) Rehabilitation. Ans:d 45.For searching missing cases used is a) Active surveillance b) Sentinel surveillance c) Passive surveillance d) Monitoring. Ans:b 46. Keeping the frequency of illness within acceptable limits is best described as disease a) Control b) Prevention c) Eradication d) Surveillance Ans:a 47.Object the health services include each of the following except a) Delivery of curative care only b) Health promotion c) Prevention, control or eradication of disease d) Treatment and rehabilitation Ans:b 48.The best method of promoting healthy life style in children a) primordial prevention b) specific protection c) secondary prevention d) high risk strategy Ans:a 49.Kuppuswamy's Socio Economic scale does not include a) Housing b) Education c) Income d) Occupation. Ans:a 50. Following are both Notifiable disease as well as disease under surveillance a) Epidemic typhus b) Relapsing fever c) Plague d) Cholera Ans:d SOCIAL and PREVENTIVE Objective type Questions with Answers 51.The concept of Multifactorial causation of disease was first mooted by a) Pettenkofer b) John Snow c) Lemuel Shattuk d) Edwin Chadwick Ans:a 52.Sullivan's index indicates a) Life free of disability b) Pregnancy rate per HWY c) Hook worm eggs/gm of stool d) Standard of living Ans:a 53."Father of Immunization" was i 4 a) Louis Pasteur b) Edward Jenner c)Salk d) Sabin Ans:a 54. Rheumatic fever prophylaxis is an example of a) Primary prevention b) Primordial prevention c) Secondary prevention d) Tertiary prevention Ans:c 55. Toxoid is prepared from a) Exotoxin b) Endotoxin c) Both d) None. Ans:a 56.accine which must be stored in the freezer compartment of a fridge is/are a)BCG b)OPV c) smallpox d) all of the above Ans: 57.The sterilization temperature of hot air oven is a) 100 C for 1 hour b) 160 C for 30 min c)120C d) 160 C fori hour Ans:d 58.While analyzing data, allocation into similar groups is done to ensure a) comparability b) accuracy c) validity d) sensitivity Ans:a 59.Odd's ratio can be calculated from . a) Relative risk b) Odd's ratio c) Attributable risk d) Incidence rates Ans:a 60.Not included in Expanded programme of Immunization a) Influenza b) Tetanus c) Tuberculosis d) Polio Ans:a 61.Which study method yields relative risk ? a) Case series b) Case control c) Cohort d) Double blind Ans:c 62.The criteria for validity of a screening test are a) accuracy b) predictability c) sensitivity & specificity d) cost effectiveness Ans:c 63. All are true of standardized mortality ratio except a) Expressed as rate per year b) can be adjusted for age c) can be used for events other than death d) ratio of observed deaths to expected deaths. Ans:a 64. All are true of Randomized controlled trial except a)Groups are representative of the population b)Bias may arise during evaluation c)both study and control groups should be comparable. d)in a Single blind trial the doctor does not know of group allocation. Ans:d 65. DPT vaccine is ' a) Toxoid b) Killed vaccine c) Both d) None Ans:a 66. All are morbidity indicators except a) Period of stay in hospital b) Doctor : Population ratio c) attendance of out patient department d) Notification rates. Ans:b 67. Diseases which are imported into a country in which thev do not otherwise ocrirr is a) Exotic b) Epizootic c) Endemic d) None of the above. Ans:a 68.Which is false about cohort study a) incidence can be measured b) used to study chronic diseases, c) expensive d) always prospective Ans:d 69. All of the following can be considered afc Epidemiological variables except b) Incubation period c) Diagnostic tests d) Environmental factors. Ans:c 70.Descriptive Epidemiology is study in relation to a) Time b) Place c) Person d)All Ans:d 71.Live attenuated vaccines are a)OPV b) Hepatitis c) Japanese B encephalitis d) Chicken pox Ans:a 72.The true statement about secular trend is a)Occurs due to naturally occurring variation in herd immunity b)Road side accident is a good example c)Mainly due to environmental factors d)consistent change in a particular direction over a period of time. Ans:d 73.Numerator is not a part of denominator in a) Rate b) Ratio c) Proportion d) All of the above Ans:b 74.Denominator in crude death rate is a)Mid year population b) Mid year females 15-44 years c) Mid year married females 15-44 years d) Mid year males 15-44 years Ans:a 75.Vaccine which is given at earliest a)BCG b)OPV c)MMR d)DPT e)DT Ans:a 76.Longitudinal studies a) Are easy to conduct b) can detect only one risk factor c) can find out incidence of disease. d) Have increased bias. Ans:a 77. Which vaccine is most effective a) Cholera b) Typhoid c) yellow fever d) Chicken pox Ans:c 78. Incidence rate is calculated using a) No. of new cases b) No. of old cases c) Both d) Neither Ans:a 79.Predictability value is a)TP/TP + FPxlOO b)TP/TP + TNxlO0 c)TP/TP + FNxl00 d)FP/TP + FPxl00 Ans:a 80.Transovarian transmission of infection occurs in a) Fleas b) Ticks c) Mosquitoes d) Sandfly Ans:b 81.If the incidence of the disease in females is 3 times as in males, but the prevalence is equal in males and females, what is the inference a) Less duration of the disease in males b) Mortality more in females c) Mortality is less in males d) None of the above. Ans:b 82.In a community of 3000 people, 80% are Hindus, 10% Muslims, 5% Sikh, 4% Christians and y 1% Jains. To select a sample of 300 people to analyze food habits, ideal sample would be a) Sample random b) Stratified random c) Systematic random d)Inverse sampling Ans:b 83. In a population of 10,000 beta carotene was given to 6000; not given to the remainder, 3 out of the first group got lung cancer, 2 out of the other 4000 also got lung cancer conclusion: a)beta carotene and lung cancer have no relation to one another b)the p value is not significant c)the study is not designed properly d)beta carotene is associated with lung cancer Ans:a 84.Active and passive immunity is given simultaneously for all except a) Hepatitis b) Tetanus c) Measles d) Rabies Ans:c 85. Quarantine is for a) Infective period c) Shortest incubation period b) Generation time d) Longest incubation period. Ans:d 86.In the overhead tank of a hostel, cysts of entameba were found. The best method of disinfection is a) Ultraviolet radiation b) Boiling c) Iodination d) Chlorination Ans:d 87.Disease imported to a country not otherwise present a) Exotic b) Enzootic c) Epizootic d) Endemic Ans:a 88. Retrospective study of case sheets (hospital data) and evaluation of medical data is called a) Medical audit b) Medical evaluation c) Performance evaluation d) Progressive screening Ans:a 89. AH are live vaccines except a) 17-D b) Rubella c) Salk d) Measles Ans:c 90.All are true about cohort studies except a) Prospective b) Useful for rare diseases c) necessary for incidence d) costly Ans:b 91.Odds Ratio is derived from a) Case control study b) Cohort study c) Cross sectional study d) Randomized trial Ans:a 92.Scientific-proof of an etiological factor is given by a) Case control study b) Cohort study c) Randomized clinical trial d) Non randomized trial Ans:c 93.Matching is done to minimize which of the following errors a) Sampling bias b) Selection bias c) Confounding bias d)Interviewer bias Ans:c 94.Communicability of a disease is determined by a) Secondary attack rate b) Primary attack rate c) Attributable risk d) Relative risk Ans:a 95.In a cohort study non smokers are found having Calung it indicates a) Smoking does not cause lung cancer b) Multifactorial cause of Ca lung c) Smoking is the only cause of lung cancer d) All of the above Ans:b 96. Diagnostic accuracy of a test is determined by a) Sensitivity b) Specificity c) Predictive value d) None Ans:c 97.t&'h Screening test is not useful when a)Incidence of the disease is high in the community b)Incidence is low in the community c)Early detection leads to favorable outcome d)The disease has a lead time Ans:b 98. Which is most economical and best screening a) Mass Screening b) High risk screening c) Multiphasic screening d) Any of the above Ans:b 99.Vertical transmission is by a) Mosquitoes b) Direct contact c) Droplet d) Placenta Ans:d 100.B. C. G. vaccine is administered to children a) Intradermally b) Subcutaneously c) Intramuscularly d) Orally Ans:a 101. Which of the following is most powerful chemical disinfectant a) Phenol b) Lysol c) Dettol d) Pot. Permanganate Ans:b 102. Sharp instruments may be sterilized with a) Radiation b) Lysol c) Hot air d) Any of the above Ans:d Preventive and Social Medicine Questions and Answers pdf Download Read the full article

Sunlight Makes You Skinny & Blue Light Makes You Fat: 11 Ways To Biohack Light To Optimize Your Body & Brain.

Many people consider light to be, well, light!

After all, light is just a wave of energy that signifies the absence of darkness, right? Fact is, light has a profound impact on human biology, for better or worse. In my last article on sleep, you learned plenty about the effects of artificial light and blue light on circadian rhythm and sleep, and in other articles, I’ve filled you in on biohacks such as photobiomodulation, near infrared, far infrared, UVA and UVB, including: How Modern Lighting Can Destroy Your Sleep, Your Eyes & Your Health, The Ultimate Guide To Biohacking Your Testosterone, How To Use Low Level Light Therapy and Intranasal Light Therapy For Athletic Performance, Cognitive Enhancement & More. & What’s The Healthiest Way To Tan

But the effects of light go far beyond its potential for positively hacking sleep or enhancing recovery, especially when it comes to the potential for artificial light to damage your overall wellness. The negative health impact of artificial light sources on endocrine and cellular levels in humans includes the risk of cataracts, blindness, age-related macular degeneration, mitochondrial dysfunction, metabolic disorders, disrupted circadian biology and sleep, cancer, heart disease and more.

For example, multiple recent studies have reported that exposure to artificial light can cause negative health effects, such as breast cancer, circadian phase disruption and sleep disorders. One 2015 study reviewed 85 scientific articles and showed that outdoor artificial lights (e.g. street lamps, outdoor porch lights, etc.) are a risk factor for breast cancer and that indoor artificial light intensity elevated this risk. This same study also showed that exposure to artificial bright light during nighttime suppresses melatonin secretion and increases sleep onset latency and increases alertness and that the circadian misalignment caused by artificial light exposure can have significant negative effects on psychological, cardiovascular and metabolic functions.

One perfect example of the effects of modern light on human biology is that of LED (light-emitting diode), which is rapidly replacing compact fluorescent (CFL) bulb, primarily because LEDs do not contain mercury like CFLs and they’re far more energy efficient. LED lighting is used in aviation lighting, automotive headlamps, emergency vehicle lighting, advertising, traffic signals, camera flashes, and general lighting. Large-area LED displays are also used in stadiums, dynamic decorative displays, and dynamic message signs on freeways. But LED’s pose significant environmental risks and toxicity hazards due to their high amount of arsenic, copper, nickel, lead, iron, and silver.

But LED’s can also cause severe retinal damage to the photoreceptors in your eye and have even been shown to induce necrosis (cell death!) in eye tissue. The American Medical Association even put out an official statement warning of the health and safety issues associated with white LED street lamps. Things get even worse once dimming and color changing features are introduced into LED lighting, which is a common lighting feature in modern “smart homes”.

The reason for this is that LED lamps are a form of digital lighting (in contrast, the incandescent light bulbs and halogens light bulbs you’ll learn about momentarily are analog thermal light sources). In a color changing system that allows you to adjust the dim or color of the lights, there are typically three different LED sources: red, green and blue. The intensity of these three sources has to be changed to achieve different colors, and this feature must be controlled digitally via a mechanism called pulse-width modulation. This means the LEDs rapidly alternate between switching to full intensity and then switching off over and over again, resulting in a lighting phenomenon called “flicker”, something I recently discovered during my Building Biology analysis occurs quite a bit even in my own biologically friendly home (influencing me to make some of the lighting changes you’ll read about later in this article) and something that I’ve also learned quite a bit about from my friend Dr. Joe Mercola.

Get The Low Carb Athlete - 100% Free!Eliminate fatigue and unlock the secrets of low-carb success. 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Even though it appears to your naked eye that the LEDs really aren’t changing color or intensity that much, your retina perceives this flicker, and you can often observe this phenomenon if you use an older camera, or a device called a “flicker detector” to record an LED light in your house or an LED backlit computer monitor. Unfortunately, this trick doesn’t work with newer cameras and smartphones, which have a built-in algorithm that detect the flicker frequency and automatically change the shutter speed to improve the recording quality. However, I’ve found that by switching my iPhone to slow-motion video recording, I can often detect flicker in a monitor or light. Ultimately, the problem is this: research has shown that this flicker can irreparably damage the photoreceptor cells in the eye’s retina, resulting in issues such as headaches, poor eyesight, brain fog, lack of focus, increased risk of cataracts and sleep disruptions.

Unfortunately, energy saving lamps such as compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) can also cause similar issues and can induce oxidative stress damage that affects not only the eyes but also sensitive photoreceptors on many other areas of the skin, along with endocrine and hormonal damage.

But light can be good too and in fact, the therapeutic use of full spectrum light – also known as “photobiology” – offers many surprising health benefits. For example, in the 1700’s, scientist-inventor Andreas Gärtner, built the first phototherapeutical device, which was a foldable hollow mirror he could use to concentrate sunlight onto the aching joints of patients. A gold leaf on the mirror absorbed UV radiation from sunlight, then transformed this light into near-infrared and red wavelengths very similar to those used in modern times by people who use infrared saunas to manage joint pain. , which is beneficial because it can penetrate deeply into the tissue. In the 1800’s, a General Augustus Pleasonton published the book “Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight“, in which he describes “Influence Of The Blue Ray of Sunlight and Blue Colour Of The Sky In Developing Animal And Vegetable Life And In Restoring Health From Acute And Chronic Disorders To Humans And Domestic Animals”. In the late 1870’s, Dr. Edwin Dwight Babbitt published his book, “Principles of Light and Color“, reporting on research in which he used colored light on different parts of the human body to elicit therapeutic results. In 1897, Indian physician Dinshah Ghadiali used chromotherapy in the form of indigo-colored light as a treatment for gastric inflammation and colitis, and  late 19th century Niels Ryberg Finsen of Denmark, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1903, used red light to treat smallpox, and other light spectrums to address chronic disease such as tuberculosis. In the decades following, Finsen phototherapy became more developed as a cutting-edge therapeutic intervention in modern medicine, including the groundbreaking book “Light Therapeutics” by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and work by Dr. Oscar Bernhard, a Swiss surgeon who used heliotherapy (sun therapy) during surgeries.

Light can drastically affect our metabolism too. For example, the master fuel sensor in our cells called mTOR (“mammalian target of rapamycin”) facilitates protein synthesis and growth while inhibiting internal recycling of used or damaged cells. Plants and humans grow more in the summertime because there is not only more food abundance but usually more natural light too, which can activate mTOR. But your body needs a darkness –  a winter, so to speak. The master fuel sensor in the winter, and in darkness, is AMP-0activated protein kinase (AMPK) which optimizes energy efficiency and stimulates recycling of cellular materials. This cycle happens during the night. Now, consider what happens if you are in a constant stage of light: your hormones and metabolism shift towards constant mTOR activation growth and anabolism – which is generally associated, when in excess, with issues such as cancer and shortened lifespan. On the flipside, by introducing periods of darkness (along with, ideally, fasting), you strike a balance between constant anabolism with zero cellular cleanup and smart catabolism with adequate time for natural cell turnover.

So how can you mitigate the damage of the wrong kind of light and maximize the benefits of the right kind of light? You’re about to find out, along with how sunlight makes you skinny, blue light makes you fat and 11 ways to optimize light in your home and office environment. 

11 Ways To Biohack Light To Optimize Your Body & Brain.

#1: Choose Your Lighting Carefully.

One way to ensure you are purchasing a healthier lightbulb is to look at at a value on the light label or box called the Color Rendering Index (CRI). CRI is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colors of various objects accurately in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. For example, sunlight, incandescent light bulbs and candles all have a CRI of 100. When purchasing LED, look for an R9 (full red spectrum) CRI of close to 97, which is the highest CRI you are likely going to be able to find and can get you as close as possible to natural light. You also need to look at the color temperature of the light, which is the temperature of the light expressed in Kelvin (K) degrees. For example, the sun has a physical color temperature of 5,500 K, and a correlated color temperature (how the light source appears to the human eye, of about 2,700K. So although many LED’s have a color temperature of up to 6,500K, an ideal LED choice would be an LED with a color temperature as close as possible to 2,700K (in comparison, most incandescent lamps have a maximum color temperature of 3,000 K, since the light filament would melt if the temperature were any higher).

You can also consider the use of “biological LED”. For example, the company “Lighting Science” produces a line of biological bulbs that give off light meant to complement the circadian rhythm, not disrupt it. The light that emanates from Lighting Science’s Sleepy Baby bulb, for example, does not interfere with melatonin production, the hormone that helps you and your baby sleep, and is designed to be as close to candlelight as possible. In contrast, their GoodDay spectrum of light is engineered to provide light energy largely missing from conventional LED, fluorescent and incandescent sources, specifically providing a rich white illumination with high color rendering inspired by morning sunlight that supports alertness, mood and performance. Unfortunately, while these light bulbs are a decent option for “customizing” certain areas of your home to have high or low amounts of blue light depending on whether that area of the home is a “waking” area (e.g. office, gym, garage) vs. a “sleeping” area (e.g. bedroom, master bathroom, etc.), they still do produce a significant amount of flicker based on both my own testing and the testing of the building biologist I hired to audit my home.

For the ultimate solution, although it can be more expensive and far less energy efficient, I recommend switching as many lightbulbs in your home and office as possible to A) the old-school style of clear incandescent bulbs, preferably without any coating (which changes the beneficial wavelengths) B) a candlelight-style organic light emitting diode (OLED), which is a human-friendly type of lighting because it is blue-hazard-free and has a low correlated color temperature (CCT) illumination, which means the candlelight style is deprived of high-energy blue radiation, and it can be used for a much longer duration than normal LED’s without causing retinal damage.

If you decide to go with incandescent, many incandescents are not clear, but instead coated with white to make them more aesthetically pleasing. Steer clear of these, and instead choose a 2,700 K incandescent light bulb or a low-voltage halogen lamp. The one benefit of the latter is that low-voltage halogen lights are very energy efficient compared to a standard incandescent lamp. However, most halogens operate on an alternating current (AC), which generates a large amount of dirty electricity, so you must use a direct current (DC) transformer with them. The problem is that to do this, you need an inverter switching power supply to convert AC to DC, and this can cause high voltage transients (dirty electricity) and relatively high electrical fields, both of which were measured by my friend Dr. Mercola when he tried to pull this off. So the only way to make a halogen lighting solution work is to go off-grid and switch your entire house to all DC power, or to use solar panels with no AC inverter installed, and used the solar power battery to run the halogens. I suspect this is too much trouble for most folks, and because of that, a limited use of biological LED along with either low-temperature incandescent bulbs or blue-hazard-free candlelight OLED lighting appears to be the best option.

#2: Get Morning Sun

Unless you’re trying to send your body a message that it “isn’t morning yet” to shift your circadian rhythm forward (see my last big article on sleep), you should actually expose yourself to as much natural sunlight as possible first thing in the morning. In fact, the more sun you get in the morning, the more melatonin you make at night. A morning, fasted walk in the sunshine is one of the best ways to optimize your overall health, and the full spectrum of UVA, UVB and near and far infrared from sunlight can also mitigate some of the damage of artificial light the rest of the day.

Interestingly, based on research by my friend Dr. Chris Masterjohn, it turns out that if you are deficient in the fat-soluble vitamins A and D, your photoreceptors become less sensitive and the strategy of getting adequate sunlight becomes less effective – so be sure to implement everything that makes sunlight able to charge your internal battery, including not only a diet rich in healthy fats, but also high in minerals, clean, pure water and frequent skin contact with the planet Earth. This is also yet another reason I am a fan of daily use the SuperEssentials brand of fish oil: not only does it have high amounts of Vitamin A and D added to it from purified fish liver oil, but it also contains a full milligram of astaxanthin, which can protect photoreceptors from oxidative damage generated by artificial light! 

#3: Use Blue Light Blockers.

Seven years ago, in an attempt to minimize the slight headache and eye discomfort I often experienced after spending long periods of daytime work on my computer, I purchased my first pair of “biohacked” glasses from a company called Gunnar. While these glasses significantly reduced my exposure to monitor flicker and even allowed me to wander through malls and grocery stores without being bothered as much by the harsh artificial lighting, blue light blocking technology has come a long way since then. For example, many companies, such as Amber (code: GREENFIELD), Felix and Swannies (code: BEN10), now produce untinted, anti-glare glasses that can block the higher range of the blue light spectrum, and other brands, such as Spektrum, produce slightly tinted glasses that reduce even more of the blue light spectrum. Gunnar and Swannies now make yellow-tinted glasses that block most blue light, and Ra (code: BEN 10), Uvex and True Dark make orange and red-tinted glasses that block all blue light. I personally wear clear or yellow lenses for daytime computer work, nighttime dinners out or driving at night, then switch to the more effective but far less attractive orange or red lenses for the evening at home. If you want to get very specific with blocking the most harmful wavelengths of light, you should check that the glasses block the spectrum of 400-485nm (The Ra glasses are an example of a lens that blocks that specific spectrum).

#4: Avoid Artificial Light Not Only At Night, But In The Morning Too.

You’ll often hear that you should be careful with isolated and concentrated sources of blue light at night, but this rule applies to the morning too. Especially until you’ve gotten out into the sunlight, you should avoid artificial light as much as possible in the morning, particularly by limiting harsh, concentrated sources of blue light such as artificial home and office lighting or bright screens, and by instead opening curtains to allow as much natural light into the home and office as possible. In addition, you’ll often find me wearing blue light blocking glasses for the first couple hours of the morning, and avoid turning on the kitchen lights, bedroom lights, etc. unless absolutely necessary (trust me: making a big cup of hot coffee in the dark isn’t a good idea).

#5: Use Red Light In The Evening.

For the bedroom, consider red incandescent bulbs, particularly in the light fixtures near the bed. Candles are also an excellent option for both the bedroom and the dinner table, although you must choose fragrance-free, natural palm or beeswax candles, since many modern candles are riddled with paraffin, soy, toxic dyes and fragrances. If your phone or e-reader has the option, always switch it to night mode or, better yet, red light mode in the evening. Here’s exactly how to do”The Hidden Smartphone Red Screen Trick”.

#6: Install IrisTech On All Monitors.

I first became aware of IrisTech software when I interviewed a 20-year-old, brilliant Bulgarian computer programmer named Daniel Georgiev on my podcast. Daniel invented a special piece of software that goes far beyond the blue-light blocking computer software called “F.lux” that many people are already familiar with. IrisTech controls the brightness of the monitor with the help of your computer’s video card, allows you to have adequate brightness without monitor flicker, reduces the color temperature of your monitor, optimizes screen pulsations to reduce eye strain, adjusts the brightness of your screen to the light around you, and even automatically adjusts your computer monitor’s settings based on the sun’s position wherever you happen to be in the world. It has settings for pre-sleep, reading, programming, movies and many others, and even allows you to receive pop-up reminders for activities such as eye exercises and stretching. Click here to get IrisTech.

#7: Use An Anti-Glare Computer Monitor.

Fancy, modern LCD monitors are not flicker-free, even though many people think they are because they don’t seem to appear as harsh as older computer monitors. These LCD monitors originally started out by using something called CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lamps) as a backlight source for the monitor, but in recent years manufacturers have shifted to using LEDs (light emitting diodes). If you have one of those thin monitors, then you probably have an LCD monitor with LED, and if you are unsure, you can check the model number on the backside of the monitor and Google it. Due to the way brightness is controlled on LED backlights, it produces the same LED light flicker you’ve already learned about. The monitor I use is an Eizo FlexScan EV series, which regulates brightness and makes flicker unperceivable, without any drawbacks such as compromised color stability.
 It allows you to lower the typical factory preset color temperature setting of 6,500 K down to the more natural 2,700K and also has a “Paper Mode” feature, which produces long reddish wavelengths and reduces the amount of blue light from the monitor. The Eizo monitors also have a non-glare screen, which reduces eye fatigue by dissipating reflective light that otherwise makes the screen difficult to view. 

#8: Use Light-blocking Tape Or Stickers.

Even if you are blocking light from reaching your eyes at night by using blue light blocking glasses, a sleep mask, black-out curtains, etc., you still need to be cognizant of items in your bedroom that produce LED lights, such as televisions, clocks, power strips or computer chargers. This is because even if your eyes are covered, your skin has photoreceptors that can detect all these sources of light. Even if you have mitigated all light sources in your own bedroom, walking into any hotel room at night presents you with a veritable Christmas tree-like lighting experience. at hotels. Fortunately, you can easily purchase simple and affordable light blocking pieces of tape, such as “LightDims” that are specially designed, removable tiny covers which act like sunglasses for irritating LEDs on electronics. They can dim or completely cover unwanted LED glare or flare in any room. You simply peel off a sticker and apply it to your electronics, keeping them functional while dimming annoying LEDs to a comfortable or completely unnoticeable level. If you ever feel like you are being bombarded with LED’s or external sources of light in any room – even when you feel like you’ve already shut everything off, these stickers work perfectly.

OK, I’m going to stop for a second and go down a rabbit hole here: why on earth would you want to limit the amount of light that your skin is exposed to? Frankly, because your skin is an eye.

See, in the animal kingdom, light-sensing photoreceptors that go far beyond the eyes are actually quite prevalent. Most of the photoreceptors scientists have found outside the eyes are usually located in the brain or the nerves (or in insects, on the antennae).

But a number of different photoreceptors have been found on animal skin too, particularly in active color-changing cells or skin organs called chromatophores. You likely know these better as the black, brown or brightly colored spots on fish, crabs, frogs, octopus and squid. In many cases, animals can control these chromatophores for camouflage (to match the color and pattern of a background) or to produce colorful signals for either aggression or attracting a mate.

But aside those photoreceptors utilized for camouflage or mate attraction,  what in the world is the purpose of all the other photoreceptors? It appears that they help to maintain a normal circadian rhythm, even without precise knowledge of a light source’s location in space or time. These circadian rhythms include the timing of daily cycles of alertness, sleep and wake, mood, appetite, hormone regulation and body temperature. In some animals, they have a quite different task: magnetoreception, which is the ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field for the purposes of finding direction – an underlying mechanism for orientation in, for example, birds, bees and cockroaches.

But it turns out that people have nonvisual photoreceptors too. With the discovery of light-sensitive retinal cells in addition to rods and cones in mammalian retinas, it has become obvious that humans must use some sort of nonvisual pathway for at least some of the control of behavior and function. For example, pupil size and circadian rhythms vary with changing light, even in functionally blind humans who have lost all rods and cones due to genetic disorders. Recent research with rodents at Johns Hopkins University suggests that these nonvisual pathways can even regulate mood and learning ability.

It turns out that these photoreceptors in humans go far beyond the eyes and that, just like animals, they are found in our skin, subcutaneous fat, central nervous system and host of other areas in our body. Because the human skin is exposed to a wide range of light wavelengths, one recent study investigated whether opsins, the light-activated photoreceptors that mediate photoreception in the eye, are expressed in the skin to potentially serve as “photosensors”. They showed that four major opsins are indeed expressed in two major human skin cell types: melanocytes and keratinocytes and that these opsins are capable of initiating light-induced signaling pathways to the rest of the body.

Another recent study at Johns Hopkins University discovered melanopsin inside blood vessels. Melanopsin is another one of the photoreceptors used in retinal nonvisual photoreception. The researchers found that this light-sensitive protein can regulate blood vessel contraction and relaxation, and can also be damaged by exposure to blue light. Interestingly, melanopsin tends to be much weaker and more susceptible to this damage when fat-soluble Vitamins A and D are deficient.

Another recent finding backs up the fact that it is not only light falling on our eyes which determine our “circadian rhythms” – the body’s internal clock. In this study, it was shown that shining a bright light on the skin (in this case, behind the knees) has the same effect as shining light on the retina when it comes to regulating our 24-hour circadian clock. Scientists suggest that one reason that humans have circadian rhythm photoreceptor on their skin is that when light falls on blood vessels near the skin, it increases the concentration of nitric oxide in the blood, which can significantly shift the circadian clock. This should be especially important to you when you learn this: blue light can penetrate skin as deep as blood vessels, which means that artificial light on your skin can directly affect your circadian rhythm.

Then there’s a photoreceptor protein called “neuropsin”, which is primarily found in the retina but is also located in the skin and is another of the light-sensitive pigments that have been found to help run the body’s master clock. Neuropsin responds to UV-A and violet light, while melanopsin seems more sensitive to blue and red light. This may partially explain why going out into the sun during the day (which activates neuropsin) may work so well for regulating your circadian rhythm.

Finally, it seems that these photoreceptors strongly interact with hormone production and fat burning too. In one study, researchers put some fat cells under lamps giving off visible light that simulated the sun for four hours and kept other samples in the dark. After two weeks, the fat cell groups showed remarkable differences, including fewer lipid droplets (these are the organelles that store fat), compared the cells that didn’t get any light. This means that exposure to adequate sunlight (on both the skin and the eyes) could actually cause your cells to store less fat – and based on a number of compelling studies, artificial light (especially blue light) may have the complete opposite effect!

If you want to take a deep dive into how profoundly light can interact with the skin, you should check out work of my former podcast guest Dr. Jack Kruse, who even talks about how light exposure to the eyes and the skin affects your carbohydrate sensitivity, thyroid activity, hormone production and much more.

Fascinating, eh? Alright, back to the light-hacking tips…

#9: Use Driftbox For Your TV.

The Driftbox is a small box that you plug into your TV. It removes a percentage of blue light from the content you watch, and allows you to view the TV screen at night with far less artificial light exposure. You can set how much blue you want to take out. For example, you can set it to remove 50% (or any percentage in increments of 10%) of all blue light over a period of one hour (that way, the transition is seamless and virtually unnoticeable if you’re watching a movie at night).

#10: Don’t Overuse Sunglasses.

Unless I’m trying to avoid snow blindness from a day of snowboarding on a glaring bright white slope or I’m at a windy beach getting sand blown in my face, you’ll rarely find me sporting sunglasses. Why? Our bodies are designed to be able to perfectly cope with sunlight. The retina in your eyes actually registers how bright it is, then secretes specific hormones to keep you safe from the sun. Specifically, sunlight stimulates your pituitary glands, via the optic nerve, to produce a hormone that triggers the melanocytes in your skin to produce more melanin, which allows you to tan and offers some protection from excess UV radiation. When you wear sunglasses, less sunlight reaches the optic nerve, and thus less protective melanin is made and the higher the risk of a carcinogenic and uncomfortable sunburn. However: if you don’t happen to have a set of blue light blocking glasses handy, there can be an advantage to “wearing sunglasses at night”, especially while driving: car headlamps are notorious sources of concentrated blue light from LED!

#11: Use Photobiomodulation Daily.

Photobiomodulation therapy involves using light of all wavelengths, including visible light, ultraviolet and red near-, mid- and far-infrared wavelengths to combat the effects of artificial light and to also elicit some surprising research-proven health benefits for the entire body. For example, blue light therapy has been shown to be good at relieving joint pain, although it can be harsh on the eyes and the circadian rhythm if you overdo it. Red light has a host of research proving it’s efficacy for relieving inflammation, balancing blood sugar, lowering fat deposition, improving macular degeneration, assisting with melatonin production, increasing blood flow to the brain, building stem cells in bone marrow, and even enhancing kidney and thyroid function. Perhaps most surprisingly, Olympic athletes are now using red light therapy devices as a performance-enhancing aid to increase time to exhaustion. One of the most commonly used wavelengths of light in photobiomodulation is near-infrared, which begins at about 750 nanometers (nm) and goes all the way into 1,200 nm. In the lower range, near-infrared penetrates beneath the skin, and at the high range, deep into the body, resulting in a significant release of nitric oxide and stimulation of mitochondrial pathways that assist with ATP production. Far-infrared is another spectrum frequently used in photobiomodulation, especially in the form of heat lamps or infrared saunas. It is absorbed by the water in your body, which is why it cannot penetrate as deeply as near infrared, but also has significant healing effects on the body, especially if you are well hydrated on some form of “structured water” while using it (read Gerald Pollack’s book “The Fourth Phase of Water” for more on this).

A word of warning: there appears to be a “Goldilocks effect” when it comes to photobiomodulation: most photobiomodulation devices use a power density that is between 10 and 20 milliwatts per square centimeter. That is the equivalent light dose of 1 joule per 100 seconds, and since approximately 10 joules is considered to be a therapeutic dose of light, you really don’t need to use photobiomodulation for much more than 20 minutes per day (depending on the power of the device you use and your distance from the device). In addition, all light emits a frequency, and it appears that the ideal frequency is 10-40 hertz – with higher frequencies potentially causing a negative biological effect. I personally use a photobiomodulation panel of clinical-grade red and near-infrared light called a JOOVV (placed near the standup desk in my office) for 20 minutes per day, along with a head-worn device called a “Vielight” (code: GREENFIELD) for 25 minutes every other day, and finally, a far infrared sauna for 30 minutes three times per week.

Summary

Ultimately, you should now realize how profound an impact light has on your biology, why sunlight can regulate hormones and metabolism to allow you to stay lean and healthy, while artificial light can do the opposite, and the best way to “use light” to your metabolic advantage. I hope this has been helpful to you. Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for me on any of these light hacking tips you’ve discovered? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

Source: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/biohacking-articles/best-lighting-home-office/

Climate change is here and we need to do a whole more or we’re all screwed

Photo from the World Meteorological Association on Flickr.

Over the last month, three record-breaking hurricanes (Harvey, Irma, Maria) plowed through the Atlantic, turning Houston into a poison lake, wiping out entire Caribbean islands, and sending thousands of Floridians on a reverse Snowbird flight north in emergency evacuations.  South Asia was battered by a devastating monsoon which killed at least 1200 and forced millions from their homes. Massive wildfires, attributable in part to record high temperatures, have burned through unprecedented acreage from BC to Texas, sending smoke wafting across the entire North American continent.

By now it’s obvious to anyone with the wit of a golden retriever that anthropogenic climate change is here, and it’s pissed.

Everyone, that is, who isn’t running the US government or an oil company.

The GOP and the Trump administration in the US set the gold standard for climate ignorance, of course. President Trump famously tweeted in 2012 that climate change was a Chinese hoax, and doesn’t seem to have changed his views since.

The Republican base, against all science and simple observation, follow their leaders and Fox news, with only 15% believing that climate change contributed to the increased ferocity of recent storms.

We’ve been ignoring warnings about the catastrophic effects of our greenhouse gas emissions on the planet’s climate since1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen testified before the US House of Representatives of the strong correlation between rising temperatures and human emissions.

Since then the evidence has gotten stronger, with only the timing and scale of our self-immolation under dispute.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say there is a greater than 95 per cent certainty that the eccentric behaviour of our climate is tied largely to human activity.

97 per cent of climate scientists agree that it’s real and caused by greenhouse gases, not sunspots or cosmic rays or Satan or whatever the right-wing crazynet is pitching these days.

The World Bank, which has cheerfully funded a host of environmentally disastrous mega-projects over the decades, has identified a warming planet as one of the greatest threats facing humanity today, and called for immediate action.

Even the Pentagon, which spends hundreds of billions annually figuring out more efficient ways to kill people, thinks that climate change is probably a bad idea.

While such reports are often swaddled in the soothing language of bureaucracy, the between-the-lines message is clear: we have very little time to act before we are unavoidably and irreversibly fucked.

Consider that global average temperature has risen less a degree and a half Celsius since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and  we’re already seeing the predicted heatwaves, superstorms, dustbowls and deluges all around the world.

Scientists say that an increase of less than two degrees Celsius is necessary if we’re to avoid a civilization-threatening disaster (although some believe even that modest increase is too high). In spite of this, our international climate change conferences and even the heralded Paris treaty, have devolved into expensive vacations for bureaucrats, where non-binding commitments are made and ignored and action deferred.

As it stands, our business-as usual-approach will see temperatures rise at least 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Start building your Thunderdome now.

And floods and fires are just the tip of the melting, flaming, ice berg. Recent research suggests that reduced oxygen levels from overheated phytoplankton could wipe out humanity within a century or so,  and an unrelated study from MIT finds that we’ve set ourselves up for a mass extinction in the same time frame.

To avoid disaster,  we’ll have to dramatically  reduce our carbon-spewing habits. A study published in the journal Science found that most known fossil fuel reserves would have to remain unburned if we’re to stave off catastrophe, and that new sources like the Arctic cannot even be contemplated.

All of this is bad news for those of us who plan to continue living on earth, but since we’re aware of the problem, and technologies exist that could pull us back from the brink, we’ll just fix it right? 

You’d think.

But at odds with what Bill McKibben called “global warming’s terrifying new math”, and the host of increasingly panicked Cassandras shrieking from the wings,  is the unbridled enthusiasm of governments around the world, including Canada’s own grinning hypocrite Justin Trudeau, for more and more extreme efforts to find and burn carbon, from fracking to deep sea drilling to the Alberta tar sands.

In support of this multi-billion dollar suicide machine, governments, fossil fuel companies and their PR minions engage in upbeat, green-tinged marketing campaigns to assure the public that these efforts are “ethical” and that the continued use of fossil fuels is benign and necessary for “energy security.”

Since there are few things in the human experience less ethical  or secure than the reduction of civilization to bands of scavengers roaming the fetid swamps north of the Arctic Circle,  it’s bewildering that so many of our captains of industry and political leaders apparently want to take us in that direction. Because whatever their flaws, these people did not get where they are by being stupid.

How then, have so many jumped on board on the most massively self-destructive enterprise in human history?

The least charitable explanation would be that our leaders are simply sociopaths, who understand the risks but reason that the short-term personal benefits are enormous, and that  they and their progeny will insulated from it by wealth, geography, or luck.  This idea is delusional. Even if you’re going full prepper and dropping a couple million on a converted missile silo, our collective future of  massive storms, collapsing infrastructure, food and water shortages, and migration of environmental refugees is not going to be good to you, a realization that will probably hit home as you’re wheezing your way up a hundred flights of darkened stairs to your penthouse before the neighbourhood kids catch you and turn your perfumed 1 per cent ass into Soylent Green.

It’s also possible that the Republicans and their fellow travellers genuinely believe, in spite of the in-your-face evidence, that anthropogenic climate change isn’t really happening,or at least that the risks have been wildly exaggerated by the Big Green Conspiracy.

There are a plethora of online echo chambers, comforting virtual Disneylands for the ignorant and the delusional, where non-scientists can spout non-science “proving” such things.  Such an explanation would also account for the Canada’s last Conservative government’s zeal for closing labs and destroying research libraries (policies now being emulated by the Trumpists) -  it’s much easier to believe something when you’re not being constantly confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

And self-interest can be very convincing. The fossil fuel industry has trillions locked up in infrastructure and reserves, which must make it easier to convince yourself that the planet isn’t actually warming, or that if it is the outcome will be less Dune meets Waterworld and more sunbathing in Nunavut.

But now is the time to face facts.

Whatever your reason for ignoring the reality of climate change, whether you’re a captain of industry running a colossal fossil fuel company, or a politician whose next term in office depends on contributions from said company, or a comment troll who thinks climate change is too annoyingly liberal to be true - it’s time to end the fight and join the rest of the human race.

Because no amount of  money or self-righteous blather or value to shareholders is going to shelter you or anyone else from what’s coming if we don’t act now.

So rich folks, while you’re sacrificing interns to Cthulu at Bohemian Grove or pantsing your fellow plutocrats at Davos, remember that you and your kids and grandkids have to live here too. Noone is going to Rapture you. Elon Musk is not taking you to Mars. And we haven’t got much time.

IDEATION AND CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

During my time in Ideation I studied the ways in which you can stimulate your mind into thinking more creatively. The ability to think creatively is “not a talent. It is a way of operating” according to John Cleese. I found that we can do different activities and we can go through different processes in order to train your mind into thinking more creatively.

Collaboration  

 In the Collaboration session we examined the way in which working together in groups and pairs can influence our mind into thinking more creatively. In class we worked together to construct towers made from toothpicks and marshmallows. We were challenged to see how high we could make the construction. Before we created it, we discussed our opinions and as a collective we formed an approach we wished to take when we started to make it. We had to take into consideration the weight aspect of the marshmallows as well as the time we had to complete the task. A quote from Twyla Tharp states that “people who are practiced in collaboration will do better than those who insist on their individuality”, this quote supports the idea of collaboration and suggests that those who are keen to work alone and are autocratic miss out on the heights you can reach working together.

   One way we can inspire creativity is by working in collaboration with other people as it allows us to open our mind up to other ideas, ideas that we may not be able to think of if we worked independently. When working collaboratively it is integral to the steps of ideation to listen to other opinions and to take them on board rather than neglect them. It is from this we are able to take ideas and improve on them. The ways in which we are able to improve on these ideas in a group is by brainstorming thoughts. We then draw the positives from all of the suggestions and can devise a way of which we can tackle the problem.

I believe collaboration is a very effective method of ideation as it allows you to optimise efficiency as well as creativity. The underlying theory of collaboration suggests that everything you do alone can be done better as a collective. Helen Keller says, "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." Working with peers allows you to also be more time efficient, the spare time gained from teamwork means you have more time to plan ideas. For example, when we attempted to make a toothpick and marshmallow phenomenon in class, we were able to compartmentalize jobs between the group. This meant that we were each able to focus on our own individual tasks allowing us to put more thought and care into what we were doing, resulting in better results.

Everyone has different life experiences. Working in a group is a hugely beneficial method of ideation as you are able to gain knowledge or ideas from peers. This can be reciprocated as collaboration involves giving ideas as well. We may have an idea which needs a lot of adjustment or maybe just a little refining, idea’s may also be incomplete. Those who collaborate effectively will be able to use the cumulative knowledge to their advantage. By working with others, you are able to get a better idea of what you are doing. Moreover, by working collaboratively you immediately have a larger skillset at your disposal and from working together weaknesses may become strengths.

A study shows that working with others benefits our motivation and we may get greater enjoyment from the task. This leads to higher levels of performance within the group. Getting feedback on idea’s may motivate an individual further as they can feel more confident and thus more creative with their work. Scientist, Gregory Walton said that “Simply feeling like you’re part of a team of people working on a task makes people more motivated as they take on challenges”. Problems can be solved.

The skills I have learnt from this class can be easily transferred to any type of collaborative work. For example, working in a group to construct a story will ask for the same skills such as communication, teamwork and decision making. I thoroughly enjoy collaborating with friends and peers on projects as I believe creativity flows at its best when you are able to give and receive feedback. It is from the constructive criticism we receive from peers that we are able to improve on ideas. I could possibly collaborate with someone in the future if I am unable to use a certain software. So, by finding someone to collaborate with who can use a particular software I would be extending the lengths that imagination and creativity could go.

                                                                                              Improvisation

 Another effective way of inspiring creativity is by improvising. In this class we went through a number of different exercises one of them being, “Fake it ‘till you make it”. The basis of this game is that you have to stand in front of the group and attempt to talk like an expert in whatever topic you are given. We also played a game called Statements and Questions. The game involves two teams and every round one player is selected to go face to face with a member of the opposing team. They are then given one of two possibilities, statements or questions. For example, if questions are selected for that round the players take it in turns to say a question each without hesitation or repeating anything said. We continued to improvise in the Wednesday lesson, one task we were given was to design an experience of connection for the group using the materials in the room. My group decided to make a vehicle using the chairs and we led the group around the classroom in the makeshift car. Another exercise we took part in involved describing your life story with a partner using facts, shapes, colours and personal preferences. The exercise started off with us standing up telling our partner facts about our life, then sitting back to back discussing our interests and hobbies and lastly, the task involved lying down describing our life story with our partner using only shapes and colours.

Being put in a situation where you may not feel entirely comfortable forces creativity out of you, from adapting and working spontaneously we obtain irrational thoughts and ideas. This method of ideation allows you to generate random ideas that may be quite small at first, but you are then able to build on them. I found that improvising helps you to warm up your mind and gives you a creative flow. Ideas are generated faster and are of better quality when ideating using improvisation.

Improvisation teaches us to say yes to doing things, no matter how bizarre it may be. It puts us in the habit of accepting challenges and giving things a go. From this we are able to face bigger challenges without hesitation. It teaches us to fully participate in the activities we take part in without the fear of being wrong. This allows our mind to think outside the box and acting purely on impulse we create a scenario etc. “Fake it ‘till you make it” was one exercise we used improvisation in, and it required us to fake being an expert at something. This sort of activity could be replicated with different criteria to inspire creative thoughts. For example, using this exercise for a comedic purpose could work.

Being out of your comfort zone means you have to adapt to the situation, using only instinct. Improvisation requires intuition. You are able to train your improvisation skills and they can be used to help creatively imagine ways of which you can overcome a particular problem. Improvisation teaches us to act on impulse and as we better our improvisational skills we may find it easier to tackle new issues at hand as our intuition does the work for us.

A study that supports the effectiveness of ideating using improvisation was conducted by Dr. Charles Limb, he used an fMRI scan to check the brain activity of a Jazz musician while they played a memorised piece and also an improvised one. The studies show that when the musician’s played the improvised piece, self-expression rose. Limb found that an area of the brain associated with the fear of failure was shut down, meaning the musicians were more creative.

I enjoy writing fictional stories, so I believe improvisation is important when trying to start the story or maybe getting the initial idea. A quote by Harvey Keitel states that, “To create characters, one must build background and one of the tools we use is improvisation.” Thinking of characters and plots are not straightforward and those ideas do not come instantly. Through improvisation we can create situations we’d find our characters in and I believe that from this you are able to identify important factors such as personality traits and motives. It is from improvisation you are able to truly understand who it is your writing about. Life is not black and white and often in everyday life you come up against a problem that you aren’t used to, the skill of being able to adapt is a prime aspect in improvisation and can easily be applied to a project or just life in general.

Creativity and the Unconscious

 The relationship between the unconscious mind and creativity is another theory we looked into and is another method of ideating. In this class we did an exercise that started off with us each choosing our own letter from the alphabet and writing it down, we then wrote down a word beginning with that letter. From this we listed words associated with the word we wrote down, followed by writing a paragraph connected to a story in our lives using two words from the list. We then continued the story using elements of what we had learnt about life from other subjects and different fields. This was added to with another paragraph of our own wisdom and thoughts. After this exercise we were tasked with writing a poem using standard poetic techniques such as similes and rhyme etc. The last activity we did involved us listening to a partner’s dream and writing down a few of the most prominent features and then designing a game that could incorporate the features.

The theory is all about allowing our subconscious and unconscious mind to find the solution to what we are looking for. It involves using intuition, which hides behind our consciousness, Robert Moore said “You cannot control creativity, you can only dance with it.” This supports the idea that the ability to be creative cannot actually be controlled by the subconscious, but it is in fact more spontaneous and random. The initial exercise which involved us writing random words associating with a certain letter and later developing on it with other specific criteria. We then used the ideas generated in the previous task to create a poem and I believe this initial exercise allowed me to write a poem with ease. The initial idea for the poem was thought of quite fast and from then on, the vocabulary I was looking for in each line just came to me. This form of ideating is effective as it essentially warms up your brain before you move onto the actual task.

The unconscious mind is also a place where we are able to think creatively with a lot of freedom. Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” of which he credits the song to the creative process we have when we sleep. When we are in the unconscious, we may experience something we know as REM sleep. During REM sleep our brains are more active and this can result in intense dreams. In these dreams our unconscious mind pieces together bits of information and events that have occurred in our life. The university of Berkeley conducted a study of REM sleep and found that the brains problem solving capacity was 15-35% more effective than its ability to solve the same issues while awake. Another task we completed in task involved us using ideas and thoughts from our dreams and incorporating them into a video game poster. So instead of trying to consciously think of a new game idea we allowed our unconscious mind to do the work for us.

In a video for Big Think Dr Barry Kaufman states that “Great creativity doesn’t come when we’re just solely rationally consciously focused on solving a creative problem.” Kaufman says that we rarely find the answer we are looking for when we try and consciously attempt to figure it out, but when we distract our minds with something else, we often find solutions. When you remove yourself from the situation your subconscious tries to solve the problem at hand. All of the ideas formed by the subconscious mind stay in the subconscious until they are close to the point of finding an answer. The idea then springs into the conscious mind when the idea is finally solved.

I believe I would apply this theory to future tasks and problems as it teaches you to not just rely on conscious thoughts but to also appreciate the idea’s we generate from our unconscious mind. A study shows that 95% of our brain’s activities are performed in a non-conscious manner. We are often not able to recall dreams, but you are able to train your mind into remembering them. One way of doing this is by having a dream diary. If we are able to train our minds into remembering dreams, we can maximise creativity and fully utilise the creativeness that exists within our unconscious mind.

                                                                                    LEGO Serious Play

In this class we recalled the games we used to play as children, and we looked at the features these games included. We were instructed to build a duck using seven LEGO pieces, followed by removing three pieces and explaining how it could still be perceived as a duck. We then had to build a creature of any kind and then later would change the creature to show how it could represent yourself on a Monday morning. After this we were told to create anything we wanted to, followed by making something which was a metaphor for your relationship with coding and then we worked in pairs to create a metaphor for a successful student at university.

The theory of Serious Play is that from playing with toys such as LEGO we can improve on our creativity. Lego Serious Play challenges you to think more imaginatively as you have to use limited resources to try and convey different messages and meanings. The guidelines of LEGO serious play can be similar to the ones we have when starting a project. You are confined to work with what you have in front of you, so you are forced into thinking imaginatively.

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.” This quote by John Cleese supports the idea of LEGO Serious Play. It suggests that without actually being able to play around with things it is hard to be creative. It requires a physical, hands on approach. Being able to have the creative space to work will allow for better productivity and more

By starting off by building a basic idea such as the duck then moving onto creating a creature it aids the brain into generating more creative ideas. This could be linked with the study of the unconscious mind and ideation. The tasks then move onto more complex proposals such as creating something which may be a metaphor for success. Gradually increasing the difficulty of what you are trying to portray whether it be a scenario, or an object it will allow your mind to think more creatively for the harder tasks.

The steps for LEGO Serious Play involve having a question and building on it, then presenting it and telling the story behind it. This is then followed by questions and reflections. The steps found in this theory can be compared to the thought process of any idea a problem or when trying to solve a problem. Seymour Papert believed that when people are assigned to create something, they would in learn more effectively.

LEGO Serious Play teaches us to have fun and to work with what we have. What I learnt from this theory I could apply to different situations I may be faced with. For example, if I was trying to complete a project where I’m using software I am unfamiliar with. Instead of going straight into it I would play around with a smaller idea. From this I could learn more about the software and it might have inspired an idea for the bigger project. I believe LEGO Serious play could also be applied very effectively when story building, as you can visualise scenery and characters. The ideas aligned with LEGO Serious Play could be applied when working on product design as it goes through stages of prototyping designs and then explaining what you have made.

                                                                                                                                            References

Cleese, J. (2019) TOP 25 QUOTES BY JOHN CLEESE (of 191) | A-Z Quotes, A-Z Quotes. Available at: https://www.azquotes.com/author/2973-John_Cleese (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

Tharp, T. (2019) Collaborations, ROBERT DIAZ DIAZ. Available at: https://robertdiazdiaz.com/collaborations-2/ (Accessed: 16 May 2019).

M. Walton, D. (2019) Just Feeling Like Part of a Team Increases Motivation on Challenging Tasks, Association for Psychological Science. Available at: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/just-feeling-like-part-of-a-team-increases-motivation-on-challenging-tasks.html (Accessed: 17 May 2019).

Mumaw, S. (2019) Comedy Improv Training: Ideation Central, HOW Design. Available at: https://www.howdesign.com/design-creativity/comedy-improv-training/ (Accessed: 17 May 2019).

Keitel, H. (2019) Improvisation Quotes - BrainyQuote, BrainyQuote. Available at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/improvisation (Accessed: 17 May 2019).

Barry Kaufman, D. (2019) Creativity is the subconscious mind combined with intuition and rationality, Big Think. Available at: https://bigthink.com/videos/scott-barry-kaufman-on-intuition-and-rationality (Accessed: 17 May 2019).

Kearney, D. (2019) Dreams, Creativity and how they are Connected, Fluid UI - Unlocking the world's creativity. Available at: https://blog.fluidui.com/dreams-creativity-and-how-they-are-connected/ (Accessed: 18 May 2019).

Rymenant, M. (2019) 95 percent of brain activity is beyond our conscious awareness, Neurosciences UX. Available at: http://www.simplifyinginterfaces.com/2008/08/01/95-percent-of-brain-activity-is-beyond-our-conscious-awareness/ (Accessed: 18 May 2019).

Cleese, J. (2019) John Cleese Quotes, BrainyQuote. Available at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_cleese_133998 (Accessed: 18 May 2019).

Is Laziness A Disease

Is Laziness A Disease

By Mel Feller, MPA, MHR

Mel Feller Seminars, Coaching For Success 360 Inc. /Mel Feller Coaching    

 "There is no limit to the extent a person will go to avoid hard thinking." - Harvey Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.

Now, I want to introduce you to another disease of the mind – The Laziness Disease. This affliction is a disease – as if a disease of the body that affects us physically this disease of the mind affects our motivation, our creativity, and our power to achieve and do well for ourselves.

 The laziness disease is something you will probably agree to having had from time to time, but you may not realize the scope at which it affects you. You will appreciate how much you inadvertently succumb to this affliction if you log your every move throughout a day. For 100% success you need to be active 100% of the time you are awake, and at as high intensity as possible. If you are not, then you are under the influence of laziness.

 There will be times when you are concentrating hard on something, and then your brain loses concentration. This is part of our nature, we cannot concentrate on anything for too long because we are not used to it. Most people’s minds are more attracted to daydreaming than hard thinking. However, this one thing holds most people back, even productive people. This delays completion of tasks needed for your success, and at worst, stops them from ever being completed.

  Like most people, you will probably have many excuses. You are tired. You get bored easily. Forget this. You can beat this daydreaming syndrome. Learn to recognize when you are doing it, and then refocus. It is like exercise, the more you do it, the easier and more enjoyable it will become. As you master it, you will rise above most people who are not even aware of it.

 We live in a competitive world. If you do not act with the constant effort that I am talking about, someone could come along and overtake you at any moment in your job, your business, or even your love life. There is no room for excuses. If you want success – you need to work for it. I will tell you how, but it is up to you to see it happen. You are the one that wants success that is why you are reading this article. If you do not like it, give up being successful now.

 Ok, we are only human. How do we deal with long-term laziness?

 It all comes down to motivation. Millions of books have been written about motivation so I would be a bit clever if I were to solve your motivation problems right now. However, I can give you a small piece of information that will probably be the most important thing you ever read about motivation.

 To achieve 100% motivation, you need to be HAPPY. That is it. That is all you need. You need to be happy in what you do. Many scientists have come up with formulae to the same effect, but that is the general idea. For success in business, you need to find what you want to do with your life. I know it might be difficult to decide, but you need to go with what you love. Otherwise, you will be fighting an uphill struggle. Put the life you want to live downstream of you, and you will follow it all the way.

 There are other resources available so do what you can to find out what you want to do with your life, because before you do that, you will never be able to find the motivation you need to be successful. Do not waste time on money-making schemes that are of no interest to you apart from the money aspect.

 Find ANY venture that involves doing what you love and you will stand a much bigger chance of making it a success.

 There is one other major factor involving motivation. Urgency. You must have urgency. Whether it is the uncertainty of how much longer you have to live, or just a short-term deadline, everything you do must have an impending urgency. This will help with your motivation and efficiency. I also recommend some kind of time management system to make the most out of your time.

 So, you have the motivation. Why is it then, that every now and then you find yourself being less than 100% productive? Why do you occasionally have a “can’t be bothered” attitude, and just want to relax?

 You do need to relax from time to time, that is essential. However, that relaxation period should be part of a planned schedule. Otherwise, you can easily get too used to it and continue it longer than you should. It happens to the best of us. Even if we love what we do, we occasionally slip into a “can’t be bothered” mode.

 This is our brain’s natural urge to take the path of least resistance. This is an extreme case of the “Laziness Disease”. This is fully blown brain-flu.

 That is what you need to look out for. Be aware that every now and then you will feel like this. When you do, you need to snap out of it. Before now you may not have even realized you felt like this, but now you’re aware of the possibility of a 100% productivity rate, you’ll spot it and be able to combat it. Bear in mind one of the best ways to keep your intensity and consistency up is daily exercise. Do not forget your health on your journey to success, look after yourself and you will reap the rewards.

Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, is a well-known real estate business consultant and speaker, specializing in performance, productivity, and profits. Mel is the president of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching For Success, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching, a real estate and business specific coaching company. His three books for real estate professionals are systems on how to become an exceptional sales performer.  His four books in Business and Government Grants are ways to leverage and increase your business Success in both time and money!

There will be little privacy in the workplace of the future

WALK UP A set of steep stairs next to a vegan Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley, and you will see the future of work, or at least one version of it. This is the local office of Humanyze, a firm that provides “people analytics”. It counts several Fortune 500 companies among its clients (though it will not say who they are). Its employees mill around an office full of sunlight and computers, as well as beacons that track their location and interactions. Everyone is wearing an ID badge the size of a credit card and the depth of a book of matches. It contains a microphone that picks up whether they are talking to one another; Bluetooth and infrared sensors to monitor where they are; and an accelerometer to record when they move.

“Every aspect of business is becoming more data-driven. There’s no reason the people side of business shouldn’t be the same,” says Ben Waber, Humanyze’s boss. The company’s staff are treated much the same way as its clients. Data from their employees’ badges are integrated with information from their e-mail and calendars to form a full picture of how they spend their time at work. Clients get to see only team-level statistics, but Humanyze’s employees can look at their own data, which include metrics such as time spent with people of the same sex, activity levels and the ratio of time spent speaking versus listening.

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We can see through you

Such insights can inform corporate strategy. For example, according to Mr Waber, firms might see that a management team is communicating only with a couple of departments and neglecting others; that certain parts of a building are underused, so the space should be redesigned; that teams are given the wrong incentives; or that diversity initiatives are not working.

Hitachi, a Japanese conglomerate, sells a similar product, which it has cheerily branded a “happiness meter”. Employee welfare is a particular challenge in Japan, which has a special word, karoshi, for death by overwork. Hitachi’s algorithms infer mood levels from physical movement and pinpoint business problems that might not have been noticed before, says Kazuo Yano, Hitachi’s chief scientist. For example, one manufacturing client found that when young employees spent more than an hour in a meeting, whole teams developed lower morale.

Employers already have vast quantities of data about their workers. “This company knows much more about me than my family does,” says Leighanne Levensaler of Workday, a software firm that predicts which employees are likely to leave, among other things. Thanks to the internet, smartphones and the cloud, employers can already check who is looking at a document, when employees are working and whether they might be stealing company files and contacts. AI will go further, raising concerns about Orwellian snooping by employers on their workers. In January Amazon was granted a pair of patents for wristbands that monitor warehouse workers’ exact location and track their hand movements in real time. The technology will allow the company to gauge their employees’ productivity and accuracy. JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce firm, is starting to experiment with tracking which teams and managers are the most efficient, and using algorithms to predict attrition among workers.

The integration of AI into the workplace will offer some benefits to workers and might even save lives. Companies with a high-risk work environment are starting to use computer vision to check whether employees are wearing appropriate safety gear, such as goggles and gloves, before giving them access to a danger area. Computer vision can also help analyse live video from cameras monitoring factory floors and work environments to detect when something is amiss. Systems like this will become as “commonplace as CCTV cameras are in shops”, says Alastair Harvey of Cortexica, a firm that specialises in building them.

Employees will also be able to track their own movements. Microsoft, the software giant, already offers a programme called MyAnalytics which puts together data from e-mails, calendars and so on to show employees how they spend their time, how often they are in touch with key contacts and whether they multitask too much. It also aggregates the data and offers them to managers of departments so they can see how their teams are doing. “It doesn’t have that ‘big brother’ element. It’s designed to be more productive,” insists Steve Clayton of Microsoft. The idea is that individuals’ data are not given out to managers, though it is not clear whether workers believe that. As part of a broader investment in AI, Microsoft is also starting to use the technology to translate the monthly question-and-answer session held by the company’s boss, Satya Nadella, for its workers worldwide, and analyse employees’ reactions.

It does not take much imagination to see that some companies, let alone governments, could take this information-gathering too far. Veriato, an American firm, makes software that registers everything that happens on an employee’s computer. It can search for signals that may indicate poor productivity and malicious activity (like stealing company records), and scans e-mails to understand how sentiment changes over time. As voiceenabled speakers become more commonplace at work, they can be used to gather ever more data.

This is of particular concern in authoritarian states. In China increasing numbers of firms, and even some cities, use cameras to identify employees for the purpose of giving them access to buildings. More troubling, the government is planning to compile a “social credit” score for all its citizens, pooling online data about them to predict their future behaviour.

All this may require a new type of agreement between employers and employees. Most employment contracts in America give employers blanket rights to monitor employees and collect data about them, but few workers are aware of that. Mr Waber of Humanyze thinks these data should have better legal protection, especially in America (Europe has stronger privacy laws).

As more companies rely on outside firms to collect and crunch employee information, privacy concerns will increase, and employees may feel violated if they do not think they have given their consent to sharing their data. Laszlo Bock, who used to run Google’s human-resources department and now heads a startup focused on work, reckons that “it’s going to play out in a bad way before it plays out in a good way.”

This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "Smile, you’re on camera"

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In Harvey’s Wake, Houston Rethinks Real Estate Development

Shibani Mahtani/The Wall Street Journal

HOUSTON—For years there hadn’t been much debate over how to regulate land use here. Developers in the nation’s fourth-largest city mostly built what they wanted, where they wanted.

Now, after Hurricane Harvey killed at least 50 people and caused roughly $180 billion in damage, a battle is shaping up over how best to oversee real-estate development in Houston.

“If Houston does not change, it will not survive from an economic standpoint,” said Jim Blackburn, a professor of environmental law and the co-founder of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster (SPEED) Center. “This absolutelshould change our policies and our trajectory.”

Two men in particular will have a large say in Houston’s path forward.

Stephen Costello, whose official title is chief resilience officer, but who is known to many as Houston’s flood czar, says the go-go culture of growth is here to stay.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a dramatic change in the way we are developing,” he said.

Regulating development through, say, a stricter zoning code was a nonstarter, he said.

“Zoning is never going to happen here, not in my lifetime,” he said.

Instead, he believes the city needs to build its way out of its flooding problem by investing in a better system to more quickly and efficiently move rainwater out of town and into the bayous during heavy rains.

The second man with a large say in this argument is Russell Poppe, executive director of the Harris County Flood Control District. He hopes to leverage a FEMA program to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of homes in vulnerable areas.

For that to come to pass, it needs to happen soon, he said.

“We would prefer to buy these homes out now before they start making improvements,” he said. “We’re interested in homes we consider hopelessly deep in the floodplain.”

Many Houston residents would appear eager for such a plan. Mr. Costello says his phone has rung consistently in the wake of Harvey with dozens of people asking for the city to buy their homes.

Federal officials and scientists like Mr. Blackburn have long urged Houston, one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, to preserve more of its prairie and regulate development to mitigate the flooding that has plagued residents for decades. They haven’t had the ear of the area’s politicians who, by and large, have championed development to push economic growth.

Harris County, where Houston sits, added more people than any other U.S. county during the eight years before 2015, according to Census Bureau data. To make way for that growth, developers have paved over enormous tracts of prairie land that once soaked up the rains that sweep in from the Gulf of Mexico.

The tabletop flat city is now a sprawling metropolis stitched together by 10-lane elevated highways connecting far-flung subdivisions filled with single-family homes. The unmanaged growth has meant cheap housing relative to other parts of the country, which helps attract even more people.

“Almost all the flooding in Houston is the result of poor development decisions,” said John Jacob, a professor of watershed science at Texas A&M University.

To mitigate the loss of prairie land and the increase in homes near rivers, the city has built drainage systems that channel rainwater toward the city’s bayous. A half dozen major floods in recent years show that infrastructure hasn’t been equal to the task, and critics say the catastrophic damage caused by Harvey is the last straw.

But developers and city officials say the scale of Harvey was so massive it is neither fair nor smart to draw conclusions from the storm yet. They note that building code restrictions and other regulations have gradually become more strict since the 1990s.

Fred Caldwell, president and chief executive of Caldwell Companies, a commercial and residential real estate developer, believes the development community has done an “incredible job in protecting natural areas,” noting that his company has incorporated green space into its planned residential communities. He disputed the notion that unfettered development would have mitigated Harvey’s impact. The amount of rainfall—an record of 51.88 inches—would have devastated an area with stricter zoning, building regulations and more green space, he said.

“To try to plan for that kind of event would be challenging in any metropolitan area,” said Mr. Caldwell. “The goal, I don’t believe, should be to totally mitigate the impact of this kind of event forever. It was the largest event of its kind.”

Mr. Blackburn, who has litigated environmental cases and worked in this field in Houston for more than four decades, believes conversations on regulation and a moratorium on development in the floodplains, for example, will go nowhere. Instead, he hopes a market forces-driven solution to preserving prairie lands and wetlands, like incentivizing farmers and ranchers to keep their land, could be feasible and accepted.

Mr. Jacob called possible FEMA buyouts a step in the right direction, albeit an expensive one. He believes his concept to prevent developers from again building in the floodplain is simple and much cheaper.

“I’d like to see a sign in every subdivision that shows where the water came up to during each storm,” he said. “If you shine a light on things you can make a tremendous difference. Let people make their own choices, and you won’t need any regulation.”

The post In Harvey’s Wake, Houston Rethinks Real Estate Development appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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Hurricane Irma: A Practically Impossible Storm

Hurricane Harvey, which killed 60 people and may end up costing $150 billion, parked over Houston and dumped four feet of rain. The water overwhelmed the sprawling city’s flood control systems. Meteorologists and atmospheric scientists used up their superlatives describing the storm’s size and impact.

They should have saved some.

Hurricane Irma has become the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record, category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale—over 800 miles wide, roughly the size of Texas, sustained winds of over 185 miles per hour for more than 24 hours, gusts over 200 mph—and it has made landfall in the Caribbean. Irma’s storm track, the predicted line of its travel, projects its eye gliding north of the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba starting Thursday, zooming up Florida to Miami late Sunday, and then reaching Georgia and South Carolina the next day.

As Irma grew and developed, it brushed up against its theoretical maximum intensity.

All hurricanes have a theoretical maximum intensity, a thermodynamic limit on how fast their winds can blow given ocean temperature and atmospheric temperature. Few hurricanes ever actually reach that limit. But as Irma grew and developed, it came very, very close. If Harvey was a perfect storm, Irma is an almost impossible one. “Irma is anomalous,” says Jim Kossin, an atmospheric scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “This is a record-breaker. Unprecedented. Catastrophic.”

How did Irma get so powerful? Well.

“Irma had everything going for it,” says Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at MIT who developed the theory behind that theoretical maximum. “The water was warm, the layer of warm water was deep, and there was almost no wind shear, which tends to be very destructive to hurricanes. It can live up to its potential, if you will.”

The most efficient hurricanes stretch from the ocean up to to the bottom of the stratosphere, between 50,000 and 60,000 feet in the tropics. That vertical column lowers the air pressure and the storm gets more powerful. Wind shear knocks down the column, but so far Irma hasn’t run into much.

Will it? That’s tough to predict. Average conditions, as Kossin has written, would predict higher wind shear as Irma approached Florida. But right now the water is warm, and surface temperature doesn’t vary quickly; it’s safe to say Irma will keep that fuel at its feet for some time. “That thermodynamic speed limit in the straits of Florida right now is ridiculously high, a frightening prospect,” Kossin says—maybe more than 200 mph by some calculations. “If a storm spins through there, in the absence of shear it can get really strong.”

Other possibilities could rein Irma in. Direct hits on the variegated topography of Hispaniola and Cuba, for example, might be disastrous for the islands but could mellow the storm. Irma might even behave in a way that lessens its own impact. “If it moves slowly it could churn up the water, actually cooling the water beneath itself, so it has a self-regulating feature,” Kossin says. “We don’t necessarily expect that to happen.”

Irma's consequences could be enormous. Already the small island of Barbuda had at least one death and lost 90 percent of its built structures. Other islands have had at least eight more deaths. Puerto Rico’s electrical power authority is predicting total loss of power for up to six months.

And Florida? Miami has been trying to fight back rising sea level—no storm necessary—for years. Like Houston, it’s a sprawling coastal city with lots of development and lots of people up against the water. Here’s where all the superlatives describing Irma may fall short: The problem for Miami might well be the high winds that the Saffir-Simpson scale measures, because buildings there are meant to withstand 185-mph gusts but not the possible 200-mph blowouts meteorologists are worried about. (No, that wouldn’t make Irma a “category 6” hurricane, because there is no such thing.)

But even worse than that could be the storm surge, ocean water pushed inland on top of the already rising sea. That’s what made Tropical Storm Sandy so problematic for New York. The tide and shape of the coastline have a big effect on storm surge, so its severity with Irma will depend in part on where and when the storm makes landfall.

The worst-case scenario would make Irma a “grey swan,” an event history wouldn’t necessarily predict but science might, as Emanuel and Princeton engineer Ning Lin wrote in an article in Nature Climate Change in 2015. “These are extremes that far exceed previous records but that still are physically possible,” Lin says, “so people do not prepare.”

Sure, of course, people evacuate, or they stock up on provisions and take shelter. They try to adjust building codes. But in general, humans keep building sprawling, low-lying cities on coasts. And in the face of what scientists know about climate change, that’s a very bad idea. “The underlying probabilities of very intense storms are going up,” says Emanuel. "We’ve certainly seen category 5 hurricanes before, but they’re rare. There’s only been three hurricanes that struck the US as category 5, and this, I hope, won’t be the fourth. But it might be.”

More on Hurricanes

Eric Niiler

How Climate Change Fueled Hurricane Harvey

Alex Davies

Harvey Wrecks Up to a Million Cars in Car-Dependent Houston

Megan Molteni

Harvey Evacuees Leave Their Belongings—and Health Records—Behind

Don’t ask whether Irma is more powerful than it would have been without climate change. That’s something researchers will try to unpack after the storm dissipates, once the numbers are in. “At what point do we just say, ‘Yeah, part of this warm ocean and very, very high potential that we’re seeing must be due to the fact that we’re warming the planet?’ It’s always problematic,” Kossin says. “Once again, we’re left with just a probability, or a likelihood, which is always what we’re left with. A storm like this is more likely now than it was 50 years ago.”

In 1990, Harvey would have been a 100-year storm. In today’s climate conditions, Emanuel says, it’s a 15-year storm. Demographics, population increases, and land-use changes made its effects even worse.

Look at it this way: If Godzilla emerged from the ocean and laid waste to Houston, then a week later did the same in the Caribbean, and then attacked Miami with atomic breath, the US government would learn to build giant Godzilla-fighting mech suits lickety-split. “We’ve had two outlier, extreme hurricanes back to back. If that doesn’t raise red flags, I don’t know what would,” Kossin says.

One storm is a problem for FEMA, for Health and Human Services, for the Coast Guard. But multiple storms, one after the other, city after city? That's a policy question. And meanwhile, after Irma, there’s Hurricane Jose, right now a comparatively gentle category 1, spinning toward the Caribbean.

social experiment by Livio Acerbo #greengroundit from https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-irma-a-practically-impossible-storm

We Don’t Need Fossil Fuels!

Beesley’s Point Generating Station, New Jersey. Photo: Smallbones, Wikimedia Commons.

By George Harvey

In May of 2015, at team from Stanford University led by Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson published a paper, “100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States” (Roadmaps). (http://bit.ly/stanford-fossil-free) The Roadmaps provide formulas for each state to get to 100% freedom from use of polluting energy sources using resources available to that state.

Jacobson’s paper was especially notable for several reasons. While it provided a mix of WWS that would work for each state to get entirely off of fossil fuels, it went further, showing how to eliminate use of carbon-based combustion and nuclear fission altogether. Not only were coal and natural gas not to be used, regardless of carbon capture, but neither were bio-mass and bio-fuels.

The Roadmaps envision efficiency-driven reductions in energy demand among states by a mean of about 39.3% by 2050. All energy would be electric, with onshore wind providing about 30.9%, offshore wind about 19.1%, utility-scale photovoltaics (PV) about 30.7%, rooftop PVs about 7.3%, concentrating solar with storage about 1.25%, hydroelectric power about 3.01%, wave power about 0.37% and tidal power about 0.14%.

Batteries and hydrogen fuel cells are given as the preferred power technologies for most vehicles, with some powered by cryogenic hydrogen. Heating buildings and water, along with cooking, are to be from heat pumps, resistance heaters, and induction heaters. The paper says, “High-temperature industrial processes will be powered by electric arc furnaces, induction furnaces, dielectric heaters, and resistance heaters and some combusted electrolytic hydrogen.”

The goal of Jacobson’s paper is not merely to stop climate change caused by specific types of pollution. It is to reduce all pollution to a bare minimum, addressing not only climate problems, but those producing other issues for both our health and our environment. Dr. Jacobson told us, “Our goal is to solve the air pollution problem simultaneously with the climate problem and to minimize catastrophic risk at the same time.”

The paper gives reasons for avoiding bio-fuels; the most important, that they actually do not reduce pollution. Similarly, nuclear power has environmental effects and dangers that have never been addressed, long-term waste storage being one example.

Though this paper is two years old, we are revisiting it because of attacks that have been mounted on it in the past several weeks. The first of these is an evaluation by Christopher Clack and a score of other scientists, “Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar” (Evaluation). (http://bit.ly/fossil-free-evaluation) It took issue with much of what was found in Jacobson’s paper.

I found the “Evaluation” disturbing for what I see as sloppy unprofessionalism. For example, its abstract contains this sentence, supported by two references: “A number [sic] of studies, including a study by one of us, have concluded that an 80% decarbonization [sic] of the US electric grid could be achieved at reasonable cost.” But the main body of the Evaluation contains this statement, without any citation to support it: “With all available technologies at our disposal, achieving an 80% reduction in GHG emissions from the electricity sector at reasonable costs is extremely challenging, even using a new continental-scale high-voltage transmission grid. Decarbonizing the last 20% of the electricity sector as well as decarbonizing the rest of the economy that is difficult to electrify (e.g., cement manufacture and aviation) are even more challenging.”

Unfortunately, the Evaluation was taken by a segment of the press as a condemnation of the whole idea of getting to 100% renewable energy. The pro-fossil fuel press gave the impression that somehow the Evaluation was all the better because of the sheer number of scientists who were named as co-authors, despite the fact that some of them had no credentials in energy or climate science, or seemed to have conflicts of interest.

Dr. Jacobson responded to the Evaluation with a letter, “The United States can keep the grid stable a low cost with 100% clean, renewable energy in all sectors despite inaccurate claims,” in the same publication that published both it and his original paper. (http://bit.ly/Jacobson-response-letter) He also gave us a detailed, line-by-line response. (http://bit.ly/jacobson-evaluation-line-by-line) In some ways, the line-by-line response is a very much more interesting read than the original paper. One way is that it evaluates objections that have arisen.

My own assessment of Dr. Jacobson’s original paper is that, at the age of two years, it is a little out of date, because of steep declines in solar power and, more to the point, battery storage since it was published.

In addition, I think that it does not address the possibilities of bio-digesters, which the National Renewable Energy Laboratory said, in 2013, could replace 40% of our demand for natural gas. The waste producing the gas has to be dealt with one way or another, and, in keeping with Dr. Jacobson’s standards, could be used in fuel cells. (It could also be used as a replacement for some fossil fuels as a feedstock for other chemicals.)

Another minor issue I would mention is that ammonia, which is carbon-free, can be used as a fuel. A number of technologies have been developed for clean manufacture of ammonia. While ammonia can be burned directly, and has been used in the past to power buses with internal combustion engines, it also has the advantage that it can be used as a fuel for fuel cells, because it can be used to store much larger quantities of hydrogen than can be kept as a gas in tanks of the same volume.

A recent article of mine, listing alternative sources of energy, was published at CleanTechnica.com, “Getting the Last 20% Of Our Energy from Renewables.” (http://bit.ly/getting-the-last-20) In it, I listed a number of technologies that could fill in for fossil fuels in what are currently difficult places.

Given two years’ hindsight, I would argue that Roadmaps was, if anything, a bit too conservative. I think we have made scientific and technological progress Dr. Jacobson did not envision.

In his email, Dr. Jacobson also said, “We have a paper for 139 country roadmaps … coming out the first week of August in the journal, Joule.” We might all look forward to seeing that.

We Don’t Need Fossil Fuels! posted first on Green Energy Times

A big solar storm could wreak havoc on GPS and everything else on your phone

Solar storms, which involve magnetized particles that shoot out of the sun, can shake up the balance of Earth's magnetic field.

If a solar storm were strong enough, it could de-orbit satellites and cripple the electric power grid.

The sun has been extremely calm lately. But that's not necessarily a good sign.

  We may not always notice what the sun is up to, sitting some 93 million miles away here on Earth. But there's always a chance that it could shoot nasty space weather our way.

On the surface of the sun, giant fiery eruptions can send magnetically charged particles out into space. If these particles come in contact with Earth's magnetic field, they can have dangerous effects. 

If a solar storm pierces Earth's atmosphere, it can send solar particles down onto the planet and weaken our protective magnetic bubble. The biggest solar storms can cause ripple effects in our power systems, heating and even destroying electrical infrastructure. That can send electronic communications haywire, and it's happened several times before.

The biggest, most dangerous solar storms are prompted by coronal mass ejections, which are essentially great balls of fire that shoot out from the sun. Scientists still aren't sure what causes these bursts, but they know they're related to the sun's magnetic field. Researchers can observe the bursts about eight minutes after they take off from the sun, which is how much time it takes signals to travel from the sun to Earth.

"The problem is we can’t control that large ball of garbage at the center of the solar system," astrophysicist Scott McIntosh, who directs the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Business Insider.

He said Earth's upper atmosphere is "wickedly" impacted by the sun's magnetic spewing, which can throw off our delicate modern balance of technology and metal wires. 

"It's real even if you don't feel it every day," he said. "You might not, your banking institution might, your power grid company almost certainly does, and your telephone company absolutely does."

Solar storms can do major damage

Space forecasters usually get between 17 and 36 hours of warning that a cloud of these dangerous particles is on its way to Earth from the sun. Then they run models to see where the impacts of the magnetic disturbances might land. It's important lead time because electromagnetism drives a lot of our technology. When the Earth's magnetic balance is off, wires and cables don't work like normal, and satellites can even fall out of geosynchronous orbit. 

McIntosh said the US government is so worried about these threats that it is aggressively stepping up a plan to build more super-transformers that can weather the geomagnetic storms.

"All your infrastructure is toast," he said. That can be especially true at higher latitudes and places where minerals underground have high conductivity, like the Northeastern US. "Could you imagine DC or New York City being without power for six months, or eight months a year because of a solar event that they didn't forecast well?"

Space forecasters who monitor the sun's activity from an observatory in Hawaii do their best to avoid that fateful scenario. They call power suppliers in vulnerable spots around the country whenever they think the Kp index (which measures geomagnetic activity) could pass a crucial threshold. Their recommendation is usually to crank down the voltage on the power lines for a few days to avoid blowing out transformers. 

On average, federal forecasters say they alert power companies about dangerous incoming solar spinoffs about once a month. Usually, it all unfolds outside the awareness of the general public.

The Aurora Borealis can also be a sign that a solar storm is toying with the Earth's magnetic field. Typically, that spectacle is reserved for people near the poles. But when the light show starts to drift into more temperate latitudes, the dancing sky is giving us a hint that there are disturbances in the magnetosphere.

Big solar storms have hit us before

Perhaps the most infamous Earth-bound solar shot was the 1859 Carrington flare. The flare spread "northern" lights as far south as Hawaii.

"That was blowing up telegraph lines all over the world," McIntosh said.

Scientists have estimated that a great flare rivaling 1859's would cripple our modern energy grid, and that it could take $2 trillion to rebuild big power systems in the first year of recovery.

In 2012, Earth narrowly missed a major solar storm as big as the Carrington flare. 

"If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire," astrophysicist Daniel Baker said after he published a study of the storm in 2013.

Other flares have impacted Earth more recently, though. In 1989, 6 million people in Quebec lost power for nine hours because of solar flare. Then there were the Halloween solar storms of October and November 2003, when 17 flares erupted on the sun at once. Airplanes were re-routed, spacecraft instruments were powered down, and the power went out in Sweden for about an hour, NASA said. That year, the northern lights were seen in Texas and Florida. 

And just last year, when the trifecta of hurricanes Irma, Harvey and Maria were blasting the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the Earth got slammed with the biggest solar flare we'd seen in a decade. As hurricane clouds were making it challenging for radio waves to travel efficiently, the sun doubled down and rendered ham radios (a staple of disaster relief work) temporarily useless. 

Is a big one on the way?

While much of the sun's activity is still mysterious, we know that the big orange ball is operating on an 11-year cycle of high to low activity. Recently, the sun has been getting quieter with each cycle. Right now, we're at the lowest recorded solar minimum in 100 years. McIntosh predicts the next cycle will be 25% weaker than this. But a quiet sun is not a calm sun.

"The biggest geomagnetic storms come when the sun's very weak," he said.

A big solar storm could make modern life a mess, since without power, sewage can back up in cities. And what would happen if satellite-powered GPS is keeping a self-driving car on the road as a big solar storm hits? 

"I’d hate to be like the boy that cried wolf," McIntosh said, "but if something bad did happen, could we cope?"

In 2014, physicist Pete Riley estimated that the odds of a big, Carrington-sized storm hitting the Earth in the next decade are about 12%. That's more than a one-in-ten chance.

McIntosh said we only know of one good way to weather a solar storm of that scale: "You batten down the hatches electronically, you power everything down, and try and ride it out. And you hope that when you come back up, it's still there."

SEE ALSO: A 40-year-old mystery about rising temperatures on the moon has been solved — and it was probably the Apollo astronauts' fault

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NOW WATCH: A paraglider braved severe weather to fly across the Northern Lights

By Mekela Panditharatne

Feb. 12, 2018

Four months after Puerto Rico was battered by Hurricane Maria, Congress last week approved more badly needed emergency assistance, including $2 billion to repair the island’s severely damaged power grid. An additional $9 billion will be directed to recovery and restoration projects in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The expectation is that this aid will help provide relief not only to the hundreds of thousands of utility customers in Puerto Rico who are still without power but also to the more than three million islanders as a whole, who are still being warned to boil water before drinking it. But the money from Washington falls far short of the island’s requirements.

Puerto Rico needs more than bandages. It needs to rethink and redesign its electric, water and wastewater systems, both to protect them against the next big storm and to provide the dependable service they were failing to give residents before Hurricane Maria. To accomplish that and other rebuilding needs, Puerto Rico had sought $94.4 billion in total disaster aid in November. That included nearly $18 billion to rebuild the power grid — nine times what Congress has provided.

Achieving resiliency in the face of powerful storms will require the wholesale rebuilding of the island’s utilities. Simply patching them up will not be enough. If that’s the extent of the fix, the island is likely to find itself back in the same place after the next big storm, with taxpayers asked to spend new billions on more life preservers.

Even before Hurricane Maria, decades of disinvestment had left Puerto Rico’s energy grid and water and wastewater systems particularly vulnerable to hurricanes.

Among its many problems, a storm-damaged dam is putting 70,000 people downstream at risk, and the island’s water system is old and leaky; about half of the water conveyed by its pipes disappears. These leaks make the system vulnerable to contamination by microbes in the ground and water — a problem worsened by hurricane-induced pressure loss.

And, of course, when the power goes off, water and sewage treatment systems shut down. Millions of gallons of untreated sewage and contaminated water were released after the hurricane. Even today, Puerto Ricans remain at risk of bacterial contamination in their water.

Before the storm hit, Puerto Rico had the worst drinking water quality of any state or territory in the nation. Nearly 70 percent of the island’s water customers received their tap water from systems that were found to have unlawfully high levels of contaminants like coliform bacteria, volatile organic compounds and harmful byproducts of disinfection, or that were not treating their water in accord with federal standards.

The island’s largest utility, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority, which operates water and wastewater systems, was under several court-enforced agreements to end sewage discharges from degraded wastewater plants that violated the Clean Water Act. Making matters worse, the Environmental Protection Agency cut off funds to the utility because it was unable to repay earlier loans.

Before Hurricane Maria, the island’s water and wastewater utility said that it would need to invest $2.4 billion over the next decade to fix these longstanding issues. That number would be higher now: Puerto Rico’s government has said that a majority of its water and wastewater treatment infrastructure was damaged by the hurricane.

The island’s brittle electricity grid provides another lesson in disaster mitigation. Before Hurricane Maria, the grid was prone to blackouts. Puerto Ricans experienced power failures four to five times more often than did the average utility customer elsewhere in the United States. Transmission lines cutting across the island’s mountain regions often failed. In 2016, a fire shut down the entire grid for three days. Even when it worked, electricity was expensive.

Investment in renewables like solar power and improving energy efficiency would increase Puerto Rico’s resiliency. The use of microgrids that combine solar power and battery storage could significantly cut fuel consumption and help hospitals, water treatment plants and schools keep working in a weather-induced blackout. Such microgrids would also provide more reliable power to isolated communities.

Whether or not a plan announced recently by the island’s governor to privatize Puerto Rico’s energy utility is carried through, the funds set aside by Congress for the island’s power grid will still allow Puerto Rico to release this latest federal money to private utilities for resilient, sustainable rebuilding.

Scientists point to the possible contribution of climate change to Maria’s intense rainfall — as well as to the rainfall of Harvey and Irma, its predecessor hurricanes. The Caribbean is already seeing changes in land and ocean temperatures that mimic global climate trends. The mass movement of Puerto Ricans to the mainland after last fall’s hurricanes may provide one of the first examples of a large-scale climate migration in the Americas.

It’s no surprise that Hurricane Maria wreaked the havoc that it did in Puerto Rico. The island’s fragile infrastructure was ripe for a clobbering. These lessons shouldn’t need to be learned twice.

Mekela Panditharatne is a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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