China now has largest middle class with 109 million adults vs 92 million American middle class

Global wealth reached 250 trillion US dollars in 2015, slightly less than a year earlier, due to adverse exchange rate movements. The underlying wealth trends do, however, generally remain positive, according to the Credit Suisse Research Institute's annual "Global Wealth Report." The rise in household wealth was particularly strong in the US and China between mid-2014 to mid-2015. "Wealth is (nevertheless) still predominantly concentrated in Europe and the United States. However, the growth of wealth in emerging markets has been most impressive, including a fivefold rise in China since the beginning of the century," said Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam. China now accounts for a fifth of the world population, while holding nearly 10 percent of the global wealth. The Chinese middle class is now, for the first time, the world's largest.

This year, the Chinese middle class for the first time outnumbered it. The Chinese middle class now counts 109 million adults, well ahead of the 92 million adults part of the American middle class. Globally, 14 percent of the adult population belonged to the middle class in 2015 – 664 million adults in total.

Wealth Inequality Continues to Widen

Wealth inequality has widened in the aftermath of the financial crisis and this year was no exception. This year's rise in equity prices and in the size of financial assets in high-wealth countries pushed up the wealth of some of the richest countries and people, resulting in increased wealth inequality. The top percentile of wealth holders now own just over half of the world's wealth and the richest decile 87.7 percent.

158 page Credit Suisse 2015 global wealth databook

64 page Credit Suisse 2015 global wealth report

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10 states responsible for more than three quarters of organic food sales

 

 Eco Watch

16 Year Study Sitting down at work is no worse for you than standing up

The Guardian : Researchers at Exeter University and University College London followed more than 5,000 people over a 16-year period and their findings were published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing," said Melvyn Hillsdon from Exeter's sport and health sciences department.

"The results cast doubt on the benefits of sit-stand work stations, which employers are increasingly providing to promote healthy working environments."

The research found there was no influence on mortality risk for participants from sitting at work, during leisure time or watching television.

The NHS said on its website in advice published last year that there was "increasing evidence" linking excessive sitting with being obese, type-2 diabetes, some types of cancer, and premature death.

It recommends an active break from sitting every 30 minutes, citing expert Professor Stuart Biddle saying: "Sitting needs breaking up."

"Do some tasks standing, like having coffee and chats, or even writing a letter " Ernest Hemingway wrote his novels standing," he added.

This Android will make you fat Pepsi to sell $200 Chinese phone, next diabetes-inducing BYOD toy.

Sugary-drink dealer PepsiCo is making a phone. Well, "licensing its brand" rather than actually making it. But it's still a head-scratcher.

The Pepsi P1 is expected to launch next Tuesday, with a reasonable set of specs. Nothing Earth-shattering, but pretty decent for $200.

It is, however, only for Chinese consumers. So unless you can manage to import one, look elsewhere for your next diabetes-inducing BYOD toy.

In IT Blogwatch, bloggers feel pudgy just reading about it.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment.

To read this article in full go to // Computerworld

One-eyed environmental carbon policy created the conditions for fraud and other damaging problems

Ross Clark -  What fun it is watching again all those smug Volkswagen ads on YouTube, featuring men in mid-life crisis revving up their Golfs and Passats. German carmakers vie with French farmers for their sacred status in the European Union. That it has taken US authorities to sniff out the company's cheating on emissions tests doesn't say much for European environmental law, which is good at telling us we can only have low-powered kettles, but apparently unable to sniff out high emissions from overpowered diesel cars.

But the VW scandal isn't just a story of corporate turpitude. It is part-product of an environmental policy in Britain as much as across the EU which has become fixated on carbon emissions to the exclusion of virtually everything else. Diesels have grown to account for just under half the UK car market thanks to changes the Blair government made to vehicle excise duty. From 2001, punitive rates of up to £500 were applied to cars which emit carbon emissions of more than 225g/km, while cars below 120 g/km were treated to token road-tax rates. As manufacturers quickly discovered, the only way to get many vehicles below these thresholds was to make them diesel.

It was well known that diesel engines produced large amounts of tiny carcinogenic soot particles, but this was brushed over. Particulate emissions were meant to be dealt with by filters, yet these are known to become blocked if engines spend too much time idling, as they do on urban roads. Diesels also produce far higher levels of nitrogen oxides, the subject of the VW scandal.

But the problem doesn't end with diesel engines. Take wood-burning. That wood-combustion emits large quantities of soot particles was not lost on the authors of the 1956 Clean Air Act, passed to prevent a repeat of the deadly London smog of four years earlier. Wood fires were banned in smokeless zones along with coal fires. Burning wood also releases nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Yet come the advent of climate change, and emissions from wood-burning have been forgotten. Far from being banished, wood-burning is now actively encouraged through a scheme known as the Renewable Heat Incentive, which lets owners of pellet stoves and boilers claim thousands of pounds of subsidies a year.

Burning biomass pellets made from wood and other vegetable matter is not so polluting as an open wood fire: stoves operate at higher temperatures and combustion is therefore more efficient. But they are hardly 'clean' energy. According to one Portuguese study, pellet stoves were found to emit half to two thirds as much soot as wood fires. A study of air pollution in British cities by King's College London found that wood and pellet stoves account for 13 per cent of particulate pollution in some cities.

On a larger scale, coal-fired power stations have been incentivised to switch to burning wood pellets. The country's largest coal power station, at Drax in Yorkshire, is gradually converting all its burners to run on wood pellets. The incentives were based on the conceit that burning wood is carbon-neutral, because it releases into the atmosphere only carbon dioxide recently sucked from the air by growing trees. That ignores something important: growing and harvesting trees, as well as manufacturing wood pellets and getting them to a power station, consumes large quantities of fossil fuels.

When the Department for Energy and Climate Change eventually did the calculations, the results were shocking. As Britain consumed 4.6 million tonnes of pellets last year but only produced 0.3 million tonnes from our own forests, the vast bulk must be imported, mostly from North America. For every MWh of electricity generated by burning wood pellets it turned out that between 0.16 MWh and 0.96 MWh of energy was being consumed in making and transporting the pellets. Nearly as much fossil fuel was being consumed as 'renewable' energy produced. We might as well have burnt coal and generated electricity from that.

Whether burning pellets reduces carbon emissions depends on what would otherwise happen to the wood from which they were made. If the pellets come from sawdust or fallen trees that would have been burnt by US foresters, it makes sense from the point of view of carbon emissions to burn them for energy. But if the trees would have been allowed to decompose where they fell in a Canadian forest, rotting slowly or turning to peat, it makes no sense at all.

It is an obsession with carbon emissions, too, that has driven policy on biofuels. Again, it makes sense from an environmental point of view to burn agricultural waste to produce energy. It is another matter to produce biofuels on a scale that requires the deforestation of land on which to grow them. Wind turbines, too, have been incentivised with little regard to other environmental problems. It emerged this week that gannet populations off Scotland face decimation from a new offshore windfarm close to their breeding grounds because they fly at a height above that of the lowest tips of the blades.

Then there is nuclear power. Remember the 'Nuclear power: no thanks' stickers that were the trademark of greens in the 1970s? The problems of nuclear energy have not gone away. We still have the issue of how to secure nuclear waste which will take thousands of years to decompose. And while nuclear power in Britain has an excellent safety record, no government has explained how we would deal with the economic cost of a serious disaster like the one that struck the Fukushima plant in Japan after the 2011 tsunami. Nuclear power is one thing in remote locations; quite another in highly developed ones. If the same 18-mile exclusion zone had to be set up around Hinkley Point as around Fukushima, we would have to evacuate Bridgewater,Weston-super-Mare, Taunton and several other towns.

Yet the green movement has gone strangely quiet on nuclear power. Anything which reduces carbon emissions they now reckon is good — even if 30 years ago they were trying to tell us nuclear toxicity would give us all cancer. When environmentalism becomes fixated on one thing the loser inevitably turns out to be the environment.

Please read full and follow at:
The Volkswagen diesel scandal was driven by carbon obsession

Easier for Einstein - Guidelines for 49 CFR Shipping Rules

Guidelines for 49 CFR Shipping Rules

By: Nikki Burgess, DGSA, CDGP, Staff Regulatory Specialist, Labelmaster

 

Labelmaster recently conducted a survey of its core business clients – shippers of hazardous materials (referred to as dangerous goods or DG) – to determine their thoughts about working with the occasionally complex sets of regulations governing this important logistics function. Among the findings, some 56% percent of respondents agreed with the statement "…even Einstein would have difficulty understanding 49 CFR shipping requirements," while 59% noted the inherent challenge of simply keeping pace with the changes and modifications in regulations as time passes.

 

In reality of course, the question about Albert Einstein is a bit of hyperbole. The brilliant physicist and teacher would probably not have any trouble understanding the rules. Why? Amidst his genius, his other quite practical qualities were his meticulous attention to detail and his organized and methodical nature, no doubt real benefits when formulating the theories that continue to help explain the basic physical nature of the world around us today. We may conjecture that these qualities would also prove very useful to him were he to reappear today as a dangerous goods professional.

 

It is apparent that many people are intimidated by the appearance and massive word count of the regulations. Whether it's the US 49 CFR Parts 100 – 185 that govern DG shipments here in the U.S., the ICAO TI and its translated iterations, the IATA DGR or AIR Shipper, the IMDG Code for ocean shipping, or any one of the large number of foreign equivalents to the 49 CFR like the EU ADR or the Canada TDGR, all of these publications feature sufficient small text and large lists and revisions that may at first seem overwhelmingly complicated to use to the uninitiated eye. However, this is not really the case.

 

Like even Einstein did with his theories, the solution to the problem is best accomplished through a step-by-step process. Regardless of which set of shipping regulations one is following, these guidelines are recommended:

 

1. Determine the correct set of rules to work with. In the U.S. and if shipping by ground, the right set of rules is almost certainly the 49 CFR Parts 100 – 185. This is the law of our land for shipping dangerous goods.

 

When shipping by air, the ICAO TI or one of its derivations is most often the correct choice. Note that many air carriers have their own specific rules, called "variations" or "limitations," that often exceed the otherwise stated regulatory requirements for the particular dangerous good you are shipping. You must be aware of and adhere to these rules when shipping by this mode.

 

Some domestic air carriers also operate solely under the rules found in the 49 CFR, although this is unusual except in limited application like Gulf of Mexico oil field services and the Alaskan Bush.

 

If shipping by an ocean carrier, it's likely that the IMDG Code is your guide, although, here again, shippers using only internal US waterways often use only the 49 CFR. In any case, remember that as the U.S. law, the 49 CFR Parts 100 – 185 always has primacy and often will affect or modify the regulations found in the other (internationally used) texts. In these cases, such modifications usually appear as "state variations" or possibly "Special Provisions" which will notify you that such a circumstance exists. Always check for these.

 

2. Be sure that everyone involved with shipping has the specified training. In the U.S., 49 CFR 172.700 – 704 specifies the most basic mandatory training required for shippers of dangerous goods. The other sets of regulations have their own requirements – one should be trained for both the type and level of expertise required for the dangerous goods you ship and the modes of transport you intend to use. Remember to document your training because any competent auditor will ask for these records.

 

3. Classify dangerous goods. After identifying regulations and training, it's time to classify the dangerous good or goods. Review Section 14 (Transportation) of your product's Safety Data Sheet (SDS). If the product is already classified, there's a good chance that this information is already available for you. It also may be in Section 16 (Other/Miscellaneous Regulatory Information).

 

If you are not the original manufacturer, contact them. They are required to have this information available. If the product still must be classified, then all of the sets of regulations offer classification sections that will guide you to a proper finding based on your product's physical characteristics and/or health effects.

 

The purpose of classification is to find the right hazard class and packing group, and the most accurate proper shipping name, which will lead you to the correct UN Identification number. That vital number will specify the packing instructions that will instruct you in the requirements for correctly packaging, marking, labeling and, if applicable, placarding your dangerous good, as well as the right type of information required on accompanying shipping papers and any other documentation.

 

4. Select the appropriate UN specified packaging. Except in the case of very small shipments of dangerous goods (called De Minimis, Excepted, or Limited Quantities), regulated dangerous goods typically must be packed in UN tested and approved packagings. These range in size from small fiberboard boxes up through a variety of drums, crates, and even bulk packagings like containerized tanks or rail tank cars.

 

Regardless of its size, each UN certified specification packaging type will have passed performance tests and been assigned classification markings which, in concert with the packing instructions, will specify its legal use. It is imperative to understand the UN specification markings on the packaging selected. It is essential to verify that the packaging is one that is specifically authorized for use in carrying the type and quantity of dangerous goods that you are shipping, and via the mode of transport that you have selected.

 

Be sure to follow the authorized packing instructions for the package. A set of these should come with the packaging when you purchase it unless it is already preprinted on the packaging itself, a circumstance common with fiberboard boxes, for example.

 

5. Label and mark packaging. In the world of DG, those are two separate functions. Labels usually refer to the Hazard Class label or labels required on the outside of the package. These are the diamond-shaped labels (referred to as "square on point" in the regulations) that display the appropriate hazard class number, symbol and, if applicable, division number. These labels are regulated in color, size and appearance; it's important to make sure you apply only the correct labels.

 

Several other labels also exist and may be required including Lithium Battery Handling Labels, Cargo Aircraft Only Labels, and Time & Temperature Labels. The specific types required for your shipment will vary with type and mode of transport.

 

Markings also are required and may refer to both text like the UN number and proper shipping name as well as other markings like the Limited Quantity and Overpack markings.

 

If the load is a large one, or a small load of certain dangerous goods, placarding may be required for the vehicle and/or container in which the DG is loaded. In general, placarding is more common for ground and ocean shipments; however, it is always vital to verify all of the needed labels, placards and markings for DG shipments.

 

It's important to review both the specific packing instruction and the marking section in the regulations to confirm that all required labels and markings are correctly applied. Once the load leaves your facility it is too late to correct what may prove to be a dangerous or costly oversight.

 

6. Make sure documentation is in order. Despite nearly everyone's distaste for excessive paperwork, the shipping papers and other documents that may be required for transport of your DG is the way that, along with labels and markings displayed on the package, you communicate all of the required information about your product to people and places further down the transport chain.

 

Required documents can vary quite widely depending on the mode of transport. In very general terms, ground transport in the United States requires DG information to be recorded on the bill of lading. Shipping by air or ocean carrier under ICAO or IMO regulations usually requires a specific dangerous goods declaration (DGD).

 

Other documents may be required, depending on the DG in question. Most lithium battery shipments, for example, require additional documents. Of course, in all of the regulations, there are specific exceptions and additions to all of these general guidelines. It is important to understand the necessary requirements for the specific load and mode of your shipment prior to offering it for transport in commerce.

 

While shipping dangerous goods can be somewhat complicated, particularly to the newly initiated, it doesn't really take the intellect of an Einstein. Follow the straightforward systematic method outlined above to get to the end of your DG transport application safely and compliantly. Always read and understand the regulations governing your shipment before you ship it. Never guess – not with dangerous goods, and certainly not with atomic energy. Albert Einstein would surely approve.

 

# # #

About the Author: Nikki Burgess is a staff regulatory specialist at Labelmaster and the company's expert on OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard. She has more than 30 years of experience in the hazard communication, dangerous goods, and environmental, health and safety sectors, including the U.S. Navy and the trucking, heavy manufacturing, and railroad industries. Ms. Burgess' training includes degrees from the University of Washington and Governors State University, professional certification as a Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA), Certified Dangerous Goods Professional (CDGP), an EPA Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) Specialist, and multiple certifications in both shipping and responding to emergencies involving DG by rail.

 

Sixth Circuit Grants Stay for Federal Clean Water Rule

Michael Best: On the morning of October 9, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Sixth Circuit) issued a nationwide stay against the enforcement of the controversial "Clean Water Rule" (Rule), which was promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and took effect on August 28, 2015. This stay effectively halts the enforcement of the Rule until the Rule is reviewed by the federal courts.

 

The Rule was the EPA's and ACOE's effort to clarify federal jurisdiction over the nation's waters in light of the uncertainty created by multiple Supreme Court (Court) decisions in past decades. The Rule has been subject to significant criticism by farmers and ranchers, real estate developers and the energy industry for its exercise of federal jurisdiction over certain tributaries, "adjacent waters" and waters having a "significant nexus" to navigable waters. On the other hand, the EPA claims that the Rule only applies to waters historically protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA) and environmental groups have applauded the Rule. In a previous alert on the Rule, we outlined the details of the final rule and foreshadowed the inevitable litigation, of which the stay granted today is the most significant development thus far.

 

Since our previous alert on this topic, numerous lawsuits have been filed to challenge the Rule in both federal district courts and the federal circuit courts of appeal. Before today's stay, the Rule had already been enjoined in 13 states, yet there remains uncertainty under the CWA regarding whether the challenges against the Clean Water Rule should be heard in the federal district courts or federal circuit courts. Therefore, while the Sixth Circuit issued a nationwide stay of enforcement of the Rule, the stay is granted "pending determination of [the court's] jurisdiction." Interestingly, the challengers of the Rule in the Sixth Circuit case have filed a petition arguing that proper jurisdiction lies with the district courts, not the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit wrote that it anticipates issuing a decision on the jurisdictional matter in the coming weeks.

 

The Sixth Circuit's stay sheds some light on what aspects of the Rule may be the focus of a federal court's review. For example, the Sixth Circuit's decision concluded that the challengers, a group of 18 states, had shown a sufficient likelihood of prevailing on the merits because it is "far from clear" whether the Rule's distance limitations, discussed in our previous alert on this topic, fit with the Court's previous holdings on the topic. The Court also referenced the Rule's distance limitations in finding the rule adoption under the Administrative Procedures Act to be facially suspect, noting the distance limitations were not contained in the proposed rule. Finally, the Court found that a stay of the Rule would best provide a continuation of the status quo and "temporarily silence the whirwind of confusion that springs from uncertainty about the requirements of the new Rule" while it is reviewed by the courts.

 

We will continue to monitor the developments of the Clean Water Rule and provide updates through future client alerts. A copy of the Sixth Circuit's Order can be found here.

Soure: ​From Michael Best Attorney Client Alert  by  David A. Crass  and Cameron F. Field

EPA's New RE-Powering America Electronic Decision Tree Tool

​EPA's RE-Powering America's Land Initiative is pleased to announce its release of an Electronic Decision Tree tool to help communities, local governments, site owners and other stakeholders explore the feasibility of solar or wind energy on formerly contaminated properties and underutilized sites.

The electronic decision tree is a downloadable computer application that
- Explores potentially contaminated sites (e.g., brownfields, RCRA permitted, Superfund sites), landfills, and underutilized sites and rooftops

- Walks users through a series of Yes / No / Skip questions supplemented by tips and links to relevant tools and information resources

- Screens for site characteristics, redevelopment considerations, criteria specific to landfills and contaminated sites, energy load, policies and financial considerations ; and

- Generates reports of the screening results and user annotations that can be printed and/or copied into another document

The tool is not only a screening tool but also offers context specific information regarding the various considerations that go into such screening.The decision tree tool is intended to engage non-experts in renewable energy to screen potentially contaminated or underutilized sites or landfills for whether they are good candidates for solar photovoltaic (PV) or wind projects.It is built so that experienced professionals can quickly navigate through the decision tree, and less experienced stakeholders can access additional information as they make their way through the questions.The tool is not intended to replace or substitute the need for a detailed site-specific assessment that would follow this kind of initial screening.

For additional information, please visithttp://www2.epa.gov/re-powering/re-powerings-electronic-decision-tree

158 families controlling our election

NY Times - Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision five years ago. 

2016 Election Cycle Led By Billionaire Donors

The pluralist stance of American politics contends that true power in the United States has been constitutionally vested in "the people" through mechanisms like the electoral process, freedom of speech, and the ability to establish political parties. The traditional view is that these aspects of our political system result in a broad distribution of power that prevents any one faction from gaining an inordinate amount of influence. And today the New York Times has revealed the shortcomings of this narrative by publishing the names of the 158 wealthy families that have donated almost half of the money spent towards the 2016 presidential race. This group of donors is primarily Republican and is dominated by interests in the banking industry. These facts lend credence to the idea that national policy making is influenced heavily by a relatively small group of people. That the American body politic is largely controlled by a deep state.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

World Population likely 10 billion in 2050

According to the results of the UN 2015 World Population Revision, the world population reached 7.3 billion as of mid-2015, implying that the world has added approximately one billion people in the span of the last twelve years. Sixty per cent of the global population lives in Asia (4.4 billion), 16 per cent in Africa (1.2 billion), 10 per cent in Europe (738 million), 9 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean (634 million), and the remaining 5 per cent in Northern America (358 million) and Oceania (39 million). China (1.4 billion) and India (1.3 billion) remain the two largest countries of the world, both with more than 1 billion people, representing 19 and 18 per cent of the world's population, respectively.

At the country level, much of the overall increase between now and 2050 is projected to occur either in high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or in countries with large populations. During 2015-2050, half of the world's population growth is expected to be concentrated in nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America, Indonesia and Uganda, listed according to the size of their contribution to the total growth. 

According to the medium variant of the 2015 Revision, global fertility is projected to fall from 2.5 children per woman in 2010-2015 to 2.4 in 2025-2030 and 2.0 in 2095-2100. Steep reductions are projected for the least developed countries, from 4.3 in 2010-2015 to 3.5 in 2025-2030 and 2.1 in 2095-2100. However, for countries with high fertility there is significant uncertainty in the projection of fertility, even in the 15-year horizon of the post-2015 development agenda, and more so in the long-term projection to 2100. Slower-than-projected fertility declines would result in much higher population totals in all subsequent time periods. For example, a scenario in which all countries had a fertility rate that was consistently half a child higher than in the medium variant would produce a population of 16.6 billion in 2100, more than 5 billion higher than the medium-variant projection. 

Globally, life expectancy at birth is projected to rise from 70 years in 2010-2015 to 77 years in 2045-2050 and to 83 years in 2095-2100. Africa is projected to gain about 19 years of life expectancy by the end of the century, reaching 70 years in 2045-2050 and 78 years in 2095-2100. Such increases are contingent on further reductions in the spread of HIV, and combating successfully other infectious as well as non-communicable diseases. Both Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to gain 13-14 years of life expectancy by 2095-2100, while Europe, Northern America and Oceania are projected to gain 10-11 years. 

Why World population will likely be higher than 9.75 billion in 2050

1. The UN has been revising its population projections higher for the last 15-20 years. They have kept expecting the birthrate in Africa to decline faster than it actually has

2. The population census in African and many other poorer countries tend to be out of date. Which means the most recent census is old and inaccurate. This tends to mean an undercount. China likely has an undercount of 10-30 million because of the second and third child being hidden because of the one child policy. World population is likely already 7.5 billion and not 7.3 billion.

3. China will move completely away from population control by 2020 and shift to encouraging more children. This will likely mean that China's population will not fall much after 2030.

4. There will be more improvements in medicine that will further increase life expectency. 

Technology Review also has a world population graphic.

Read more »// Next Big Future

Solar powered Reverse Osmosis water purification system

Deep in the jungles of the Yucatan peninsula, residents of the remote Mexican village of La Mancalona are producing clean drinking water using the power of the sun.

For nearly two years now, members of the community, most of whom are subsistence farmers, have operated and maintained a solar-powered water purification system engineered by researchers at MIT.

The system consists of two solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity; these, in turn, power a set of pumps that push water through semiporous membranes in a filtration process called reverse osmosis. The setup purifies both brackish well water and collected rainwater, producing about 1,000 liters of purified water a day for the 450 residents.

Since the PVRO system was installed, the village has been operating it as a business, selling 20-liter bottles of water to residents for 5 pesos — a price that the community agreed upon, and about one-tenth the price of bottled water that is intermittently supplied by a centralized facility an hour's drive from the village.

At this price, the community reaps a profit of about 49,000 pesos, or $3,600, per year. The community has appointed a committee to manage the incoming funds, setting aside some money for maintenance and repair of the system, and investing the rest back into the community. 

"They're also trying to develop a business plan focused on selling clean water to tourists who come to the local Mayan ruins," Elasaad says. "So it's been interesting seeing what they've done with this new economy."

She adds that the residents in La Mancalona have taken ownership of the technology, having been trained to operate it on a day-to-day basis, from changing out ultraviolet lights and filters to testing the water quality and replacing batteries.

The MIT-developed system is located next to a government tower that contains undrinkable water, and only intermittently. Photo: Field and Space Robotics Laboratory/Fondo Para La Paz

Desalination Journal - Field evaluation of a community scale solar powered water purification technology: A case study of a remote Mexican community application

Read more »// Next Big Future

Ugh...NUCLEAR FACILITIES NOT READY FOR CYBERATTACKS: WHAT’S THE "FALLOUT"? (Not Punny)

Securityintelligence - Nuclear facilities are now a critical facet of the American utility market. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), these facilities generated almost 20 percent of U.S. electricity through 2014, with 99 reactors in use across the country. Owing to the volatile nature of the materials and processes in any nuclear plant, companies have developed excellent physical safety and security procedures.

But as noted by a new Chatham House report based on interviews with 30 industry experts, cybersecurity risk is underestimated at nuclear facilities, leaving these critical producers open to cyberattacks. If plants are breached, what's the fallout?

The Myth of Air

A recent SecurityWeek article discusses some of the reasons for this lack of nuclear cyber readiness. The biggest problem? A belief that air-gapped systems effectively curtail the risk of cyberattack. The idea here is that since potentially vulnerable points such as industrial control system (ICS) software are often isolated from the Internet, there's little chance they could be compromised by attackers. The Chatham report, however, found that many nuclear facilities use technology such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to forge outside-facing connections — and in some cases, plant operators aren't even aware they exist.

Risk assessment is also problematic. The nuclear industry doesn't have a set of unified guidelines for measuring such risk, and the infrequency of cyber incident disclosures often provides a false sense of security. And according to the report, "very few" plants actually take steps — such as installing software patches, for example — to mitigate security risks. What's more, most are reliant on perimeter defenses alone to stop attackers, which hasn't been successful for retail, finance, manufacturing or other energy companies.

Culture also plays a role. As noted by Dark Reading, nuclear operations and IT staff don't always get along. Operations employees are focused on preventing accidental nuclear incidents, while IT professionals focus on curtailing intentional damage. Add in a different set of employment standards for regular staff and IT teams and it's not surprising to see that cybersecurity isn't making headway.

In sum: Nuclear facilities are protected only by myth and miscommunication. And that's a problem.

Please read on at:

https://securityintelligence.com/news/nuclear-facilities-not-ready-for-cyberattacks-whats-the-fallout/

Ending Extreme Poverty and current count of the poor

Globally, only about 10 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty; in Africa the number is down to 35 percent. "Technology has absolutely had a leading role," Economist Sachs said. "Nothing has been as important as the mobile phone."

The World Bank uses an updated international poverty line of US $1.90 a day, which incorporates new information on differences in the cost of living across countries (the PPP exchange rates). The new line preserves the real purchasing power of the previous line (of $1.25 a day in 2005 prices) in the world's poorest countries. Using this new line (as well as new country-level data on living standards), the World Bank projects that global poverty will have fallen from 902 million people or 12.8 per cent of the global population in 2012 to 702 million people, or 9.6 per cent of the global population, this year.

Actual poverty data from low income countries come with a considerable lag but the organization, which released the information on the eve of its Annual Meetings in Lima, Peru, based its current projections on the latest available data.

Read more »// Next Big Future

Record 94,610,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Lowest in 38 Years

(CNSNews.com) - A record 94,610,000 Americans were not in the American labor force last month -- an increase of 579,000 from August -- and the labor force participation rate reached its lowest point in 38 years, with 62.4 percent of the U.S. population either holding a job or actively seeking one.

In other disappointing news, the economy added only 142,000 jobs in September, well below economists' expectations, but the unemployment rate remained at 5.1 percent, where it was in August.

The number of Americans not in the labor force has continued to rise, partly because of retiring baby-boomers and fewer workers entering the workforce.

 

In September, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation's civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 251,325,000. Of those, 156,715,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.

The 156,715,000 who participated in the labor force equaled only 62.4 percent of the 251,325,000 civilian noninstitutional population. The last time the labor force participation was as low as 62.4 percent was in October 1977. (The rate had been 62.6 percent for the 3 months prior to September.)

The participation rate dropped for both men 20 years and older (the 71.3 percent in September is a record low in BLS data going back to 1948). It also dropped for women 16 years and older (56.4 percent participation rate in September compared with 56.7 percent in the two preceeding months).

Last month, 56,647,000 women 16 and older were not in the labor force, an increase of 394,000 from August and up 1,066,000 from September 2014.

That number also rose for men: In September, 32,387,000 men age 20 and older were not in the labor force, up 202,000 from August and an increase of 804,000 from September 2014.

Please read full and follow at: 
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/record-94610000-americans-not-labor-force-participation-rate-lowest-38

Water content of foods and things, #USGS Water #Science #School

What is the water content of things?

Water is needed to not only grow everything we eat but also to produce almost all the products we use every day. This water is supplied by nature as precipitation or added by people during the growing and production process. You can't tell by the size of a product or the appearance of a food how much water was actually used to produce the item.

Use the form below to enter your guess about how much water is used to produce some common foods and products. Please realize this exercise is meant to give you an estimate of how much water is needed to produce these items. It is very difficult to come up with accurate water-use numbers, and the large variety of food-growing and production techniques used worldwide means that the amount of water needed can vary a huge amount, depending on how and where the food is grown.

Yet another consideration is how far back to go in the chain of production to estimate water use. For beef, some estimates only consider drinking water for cattle, whereas other sources may consider the water needed to grow the food that the cow eats.

The data here were taken from two sources:

• The Water Footprint Network
• Water Content of Things: The World's Water 2008-2009, Peter Gleick, The Pacific Institute

See Chart here
http://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-watercontent.html

The Decline of ‘Big Soda’ - represents the single largest change in the American diet

NYtimes: 

Over the last 20 years, sales of full-calorie soda in the United States have plummeted by more than 25 percent. Soda consumption, which rocketed from the 1960s through 1990s, is now experiencing a serious and sustained decline.

Sales are stagnating as a growing number of Americans say they are actively trying to avoid the drinks that have been a mainstay of American culture. Sales of bottled water have shot up, and bottled water is now on track to overtake soda as the largest beverage category in two years, according to at least one industry projection.

The drop in soda consumption represents the single largest change in the American diet in the last decade and is responsible for a substantial reduction in the number of daily calories consumed by the average American child. From 2004 to 2012, children consumed 79 fewer sugar-sweetened beverage calories a day, according to a large government survey, representing a 4 percent cut in calories over all. As total calorie intake has declined, obesity rates among school-age children appear to have leveled off. 

Please read full and follow at: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/upshot/soda-industry-struggles-as-consumer-tastes-change.html?_r=1

Oil and gas industry getting hidden subsidies, study says; industry official says data misinterpreted

A study by the environmental group Friends of the Earth that focused on the oil and gas industry in North Dakota found that the "royalty-free flaring of natural gas from wells on public and tribal lands amounts to a hidden federal subsidy worth tens of millions of dollars," Phil McKenna reports for InsideClimate News. "But one of the biggest producers of oil in the state, Continental Resources, Inc., challenged the findings, suggesting that the research overstated the volumes of hydrocarbons being burned at wells." Jeff Hume, vice chairman of strategic growth initiatives, told McKenna, "They have obtained flare volume reports which are accurate, [but] what they don't realize is the majority of gas that is reported as flared is inert gas, not hydrocarbons."

The study found that "over a six-year period, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management subsidized the burning of $524 million of natural gas by oil and gas companies operating on public and tribal lands in North Dakota," McKenna writes. "Federal regulations allow oil companies to flare gas without paying royalties if it is the only way they can economically extract oil from a well, Ross said. The companies in the North Dakota study flared 107 billion cubic feet of natural gas from 2007 to 2013, the study found. The carbon dioxide emissions from this were equal to the annual output of more than 1.3 million cars, according to the report. This royalty-free flaring resulted in a $66 million subsidy over the six years of the study for oil and gas companies in North Dakota, the report found."

Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources officials countered that "the study overstated the company's share of flared methane or other hydrocarbons," McKenna writes. Of the 55 billion cubic feet of gas that Friends of the Earth reported as hydrocarbons flared by Continental Resources in North Dakota, Hume said "more than 53.4 of it, or more than 97 percent, was carbon dioxide or nitrogen from enhanced oil recovery operations outside the Bakken formation in Bowman and Slope counties." (Read more) 

Anonymous insiders reveal real hacking risks to nuclear power plants, report

Computerworld: The risk of serious cyber-attacks on nuclear power plants is growing, according to a new report by think-tank Chatham House. If you follow this type of news, then this is probably not a big shocker, but did you know there have been around 50 cyberattacks on nuclear plants? 

One unnamed expert quoted in the Chatham report (pdf) claimed, "What people keep saying is 'wait until something big happens, then we'll take it seriously'. But the problem is that we have already had a lot of very big things happen. There have probably been about 50 actual control systems cyber incidents in the nuclear industry so far, but only two or three have been made public." The report claimed that there is limited incident disclosure and a "need to know" mindset that further limits collaboration and information-sharing.  

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Towards pills that can mimick many of the benefits of exercise

Everyone knows that exercise improves health, and ongoing research continues to uncover increasingly detailed information on its benefits for metabolism, circulation, and improved functioning of organs such as the heart, brain, and liver. With this knowledge in hand, scientists may be better equipped to develop "exercise pills" that could mimic at least some of the beneficial effects of physical exercise on the body. But a review of current development efforts, publishing October 2 in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, ponders whether such pills will achieve their potential therapeutic impact, at least in the near future. 

Several laboratories are developing exercise pills, which at this early stage are being tested in animals to primarily target skeletal muscle performance and improve strength and energy use--essentially producing stronger and faster muscles. But of course the benefits of exercise are far greater than its effects on only muscles.

"Clearly people derive many other rewarding experiences from exercise--such as increased cognitive function, bone strength, and improved cardiovascular function," says Laher. "It is unrealistic to expect that exercise pills will fully be able to substitute for physical exercise--at least not in the immediate future."

Figure from an earlier 2013 look at exercise polypill

Physiology online - Exercise is the Real Polypill (2013)

Trends in Pharmacological Sciences - Exercise Pills: At the Starting Line (2015)

Read more » at  Next Big Future

Study Finds Humans Are Worse Than Radiation For Chernobyl Animals via @Slashdot

A study published today in Current Biology shows that wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is actually more abundant than it was before the disaster. According to the authors, led by Portsmouth University professor of environmental science Jim Smith, the recovery is due to the removal of the single biggest pressure on wildlife—humans. "The wildlife at Chernobyl is very likely better than it was before the accident, not because radiation is good for animals, but because human occupation is much worse," Portsmouth University professor of environmental science Jim Smith says. "We were trying to emphasize that this study is a remarkable illustration of an obvious, but important message," he said. "It is ordinary human habitation and use (farming, forestry, hunting) of land which does most ecological damage."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Quantum computing: First two-qubit logic gate in silicon | #tech #Engineering

Andrew Dzurak and his team have built a quantum logic gate in silicon for the first time.

An Australian team of engineers has built a quantum logic gate in silicon for the first time, making calculations between two qubits of information possible – and thereby clearing the final hurdle to making silicon quantum computers a reality. Their work was published online in the international scientific journal, Nature, on 5 October 2015 (London time). 

It's the first time calculations between silicon quantum bits has been demonstrated. To achieve this, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) team constructed a device, known as a 'quantum logic gate', that allows calculations to be performed between two quantum bits, or 'qubits'. The advance completes the physical components needed to realise super powerful silicon quantum computers.

Lead author Menno Veldhorst (left) and project leader Andrew Dzurak (right) in the UNSW laboratory where the experiments were performed. Credit: Paul Henderson-Kelly/UNSW.

Any conceivable application, or software program, that would run on a quantum computer is made up of a series of basic one-qubit and two-qubit calculations.

Until now it had not been possible to make two silicon quantum bits "talk" to each other, to perform such "two-qubit" calculations, or "logic gates". The UNSW result means that all of the physical building locks have now been constructed, and so computer engineers can finally begin the task of building a functioning quantum computer in silicon.

Industrial manufacture now possible

A key advantage of the UNSW approach is that they have reconfigured the 'transistors' that are used to define the bits in existing silicon chips, and turned them in qubits.

"Because we use essentially the same device technology as existing computer chips, we believe it will be much easier to manufacture a full-scale processor chip than for any of the leading designs, which rely on more exotic technologies," says Professor Dzurak.

"This makes the building of a quantum computer much more feasible, since it is based on the same manufacturing technology as today's computer industry," he adds.

Dzurak noted that that the team had recently "patented a design for a full-scale quantum computer chip that would allow for millions of our qubits, all doing the types of calculations that we've just experimentally demonstrated."

He said that a key next step for the project is to identify the right industry partners to work with to manufacture the full-scale quantum processor chip.

Please continue reading from: Engineering

http://www.engineering.unsw.edu.au/news/quantum-computing-first-two-qubit-logic-gate-in-silicon

Economics, well this isn't good

Items from Economics news:

ConAgra Foods Lays Off 1,500 (Salt Lake Tribune)

Chesapeake Energy Lays Off 740 (KFOR News Channel 4)

Whole Foods Lays Off 1500 (CNBC)

20 Largest U.S. Layoffs in 2015 (ZeroHedge)

Are Apple and Facebook bad for democracy?

Computerworld: We're trying to have a democracy here, and ideally an informed one.

Nowadays, however, almost everyone is too distracted with their smartphones to muster the attention span to put up with reading a newspaper or news magazine delivered by a publisher, or even watching TV news.

Instead, we get news through apps and on social networks. The biggest source of apps in the U.S. and the biggest social network are Apple's App Store and Facebook, respectively.

This trend transfers the job of gatekeeper of what political information reaches the public from publications, editors or news directors to the likes of Apple and Facebook -- the companies that choose, in Apple's case, which apps are allowed and which are banned or, in Facebook's case, which news stories or sources are favored by its secret algorithms.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EPA Lowers the Ozone Ambient Air Standard

On October 1, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lowered the existing ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) to 70 parts per billion (ppb) from its current level of 75 ppb. The rule can be found here. This revision, if upheld by the courts, will result in more Wisconsin counties being classified as nonattainment which will, in turn, result in higher regulatory burdens for expanding economic activity within those areas. EPA estimates the cost of the rule at $1.4 billion with concurrent public health benefits between $2.9 billion and $5.9 billion, however industry critics disagree with these values.

By way of background, the Clean Air Act required EPA to set NAAQS for ozone and five other pollutants. NAAQS are set at levels which are deemed protective of human health and the environment with an adequate margin of safety. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review these standards every five years and update the standards if necessary.
 
The last ozone NAAQS review process was completed in 2008 and resulted in EPA setting the ozone standard at 75 ppb. On January 19, 2010, EPA proposed lowering the ozone NAAQS to a level between 60 and 70 ppb, with former EPA Administrator Jackson recommending 65 ppb. However on September 2, 2011, President Obama directed EPA to withdraw the proposal. This prompted a lawsuit wherein a federal court judge ordered EPA to finalize its review of the ozone NAAQS by October 1, 2015.

In November 2014, EPA proposed revising the ozone standard within a range of 65 to 70 ppb, but sought comment on lowering the standard to 60 ppb. This proposal was quite controversial since the lower end of the range approaches natural background ozone levels in portions of the western United States.

On October 1, 2015, EPA finalized the new standard at 70 ppb. EPA justified departing from Administrator Jackson's 2010 recommendation of 65 ppb by asserting that EPA now has more data that was unavailable in the past.

Now that EPA has lowered the standard, States must begin the implementation process. EPA issued a memorandum dated October 1, 2015 which provides states and EPA Regional offices with guidance on how to implement the new standard. Within the memo, Acting EPA Air Chief Janet McCabe asserts that EPA will work with states "to carry out the duties of ozone air quality management in a manner that maximizes common sense, flexibility and cost-effectiveness while achieving improved public health expeditiously and abiding by the legal requirements [of the Clean Air Act]."

This memorandum commits EPA to issue new designation guidance in early 2016. Nonetheless, nonattainment designations will likely be due within two years (Fall 2017) and therefore will be based on ozone data collected in calendar years 2014 through 2016. Infrastructure state implementation plans (SIPs) will be due within three years (Fall 2018) and attainment plans within 5 years (Fall 2020). Attainment will be required by 2020 and 2023 for marginal and moderate nonattainment areas, respectively.

Want to know effects on Wisconsin?
Read More from Todd E. Palmer of www.michaelbest.com
 

Are bladeless turbines the future of wind energy? |

MNN - Mother Nature Network...turbine consists of a fiberglass carbon fiber cone that vibrates when wind hits it. At the base are rings of repelling magnets that pull in the opposite direction to which the wind is pushing. Electricity is then produced via an alternator that harnesses the kinetic energy of the vibrations.

Lower output, but lower costs

Overall, its makers say the Vortex will produce less energy than a conventional turbine (about 30 percent less to be precise), but because you can fit twice as many in any given area, and because the costs are about half that of a traditional turbine, its hoped that the overall impact will be a net positive in terms of ROI, and that's before you take into account benefits like the lower cost of capital making it more accessible for individual installations, or the fact that bird and bat deaths would no longer need to be taken into account when siting such turbines.

As with any new technology, however, it's important not to get too carried away before full-scale field trials prove that the concept is technically and commercially viable. Already, some experts are questioning the assumptions behind The Vortex. In MIT Technology Review's coverage of the company, several wind energy researchers suggested that large-scale applications may run into challenges.

Questions remain

In the aforementioned article, Sheila Widnall, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at MIT, suggested that there's a fundamental qualitative difference between the vorticity produced at small scale, and at low wind speeds, and how wind would behave at higher speeds and with larger turbines:

"With very thin cylinders and very slow velocities you get singing telephone lines, an absolutely pure frequency or tone. [...] But when the cylinder gets very big and wind gets very high, you get a range of frequencies. You won't be able to get as much energy out of it as you want to because the oscillation is fundamentally turbulent."

She also questioned whether the "silent" operation promised by the company would actually turn out to be a reality. The wind itself, when oscillating, will create significant noise in a wind farm made of Vortex's. It would actually sound like a freight train, she suggested.

One of many potential innovations

The Vortex is just one of many different wind energy concepts that are in active development — and whether or not it comes to fruition remains to be seen. One thing is certain: While current wind turbine technology is already beating many experts expectations in terms of how quickly it would scale up, we can safely assume that there is always room for improvement. The fact that engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs across the world are exploring different ways to harness the wind's energy should be an encouraging sign that renewable energy's already bright future is likely to only get brighter.

Please read full and follow at: 
http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/are-bladeless-turbines-future-wind-energy

Legionnaires' Bacteria Reemerges In Previously Disinfected Cooling Towers

Slashdot
with the New York Times' unsettling report that 15 water-cooling towers in the Bronx that this week tested positive for Legionnaires' disease  had been disinfected less than two months ago. From the NYT: After an outbreak of the disease killed 12 people in July and August in the South Bronx, the city required every building with cooling towers, a common source of the Legionella bacteria that cause the disease, to be cleaned within two weeks. ... [The] city found this week that bacteria had regrown in at least 15 towers that had been cleaned recently in the Morris Park section of the Bronx. The testing occurred after a fresh outbreak in that area that has killed one person and sickened at least 12, and spurred an order from health officials for the towers to be disinfected again.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why Canada is banning microbeads ... Spoiler we only have one earth

Public Radio International [feedly] Canada has taken a bold step toward banning them. The microbeads, found in dozens of beauty products widely sold in the US as well, are actually tiny pieces of plastic.

Neutrogena advertises "energizing microbeads" in their foaming scrub.

Credit: 

Steven Davy

Toothpastes, facial scrubs, body lotions, shower gels filled with tiny pieces of polyethylene.

And the real problem created by these plastic beads is where they go after we rinse and spit. Microbeads end up in lakes, rivers and oceans — and that's got Canadian biologist Lisa Erdle worried.

Erdle works for Ontario Streams, a conservation group based in Toronto. She's spent the past few months collecting water samples from the surface of Lake Ontario.

Water samples from Lake Ontario, Canada.

Credit: 

Andrea Crossan

"When we have the net in the water, we are sort of skimming the surface and then collect everything in this really fine mesh," explains Erdle. "[We] then rinse it down and then this gunk, some are a little messier than others is what is collected in the net."

Microbeads are small — like the size of a grain of sand, small. That's the problem. They are too small to be caught by the filters in wastewater plants.

"Most people who are using these face washes, body washes, hand soaps, cosmetics, have no idea that there is plastic in the products that they're using," says Sherri  Mason.

She studies microbeads at the State University of New York at Fredonia. The water samples that Lisa Erdle collects on Lake Ontario go to Mason.

"So [consumers] use these products, they wash their face, they go down the drain and they are not realising that they are actually releasing plastic into the environment."

Mason analyses how much plastic is making its way into in the largest freshwater ecosystem on earth — the Great Lakes.

What she's found is the stuff of nightmares.

New York state alone dumps around 19 tons of microbeads down the drain every year. Once these beads enter the water, they attract toxic substances, like PCBs.

"The concern is that as [the beads] are ingested by organisms that live in the water, they desorb into that organism so you have things like PCBs or PAHs, triclosan," says Mason. "Some of these chemicals that are known to be endocrine disrupters, they are known to be carcinogens. They are known to have very significant human health impacts and basically the plastics act as a means to move those chemicals from the water and into the food web."

And they become part of the food chain.

Products that include microbeads.

Credit: 

Steven Davy

"The smaller the plastic the bigger the impact, so it's the pieces that you can't see that are of most concern to scientists because they are more easily ingested, whether intentionally, like a fish seeing this round plastic might think it's a fish egg and eat it, or unintentionally. The beginning part of the food chain are filter feeders, like mussels. And literally all they do is filter water through their bodies so they are not choosing what they eat so anything that's in the water will end up in these organisms."

The fish eat the microbeads. We eat the fish.

And it's why the Canadian government announced in July that it intends to ban the use of microbeads in personal-care products.

The Canadian government reviewed more than 130 scientific papers and concluded that microbeads should be added to the national list of toxic substances.

"It's important to realize that water connects us all to each other," says Mason. "If it's in the water, it affects everybody whether you live in Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or upstate New York."

There are some states in the US that have passed bills banning microbeads. But the US bans don't go into affect until January 2018. And those bills only ban some microbeads, allowing the use of biodegradable ones.

Those are also plastic, though they can be broken down under laboratory conditions. It's not clear whether the beads would biodegrade at the bottom of a lake.

But there is some reason to be hopeful that microbeads will soon be a thing of the past. A number of large beauty product manufacturers are phasing out the use of microbeads.

Meaning that next summer, it's possible that Lisa Erdle won't be seeing as many of those tiny blue plastic balls on the surface of the water.

"I care about this because I grew up on the lake,' says Erdle. "I swim in Lake Ontario, I sail. I fish as well. So, I want a clean lake."

Do you want to know what products have microbeads in them? Here's a list of the products using beads. 

Please read full and follow at: 

 Public Radio International
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-30/why-canada-banning-microbeads