skynewspolitics--2019-06-27--May Seeing melting glaciers on walks prompted climate push

May: Seeing melting glaciers on walks prompted climate push

Theresa May: Seeing melting glaciers on nature walks prompted her climate push  Theresa May: Seeing melting glaciers on nature walks prompted her climate push  Theresa May walks in a forest with her husband Philip at the start of a summer holiday in the Alps in Switzerland  Theresa May has said seeing melting glaciers while on her walking holidays played a part in her push for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050.  She was speaking on her way to the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, where she will ask other countries to act.  It came as UK's new aim to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 became law on Thursday, making it the first major economy to set such a target.  All this week, Sky News has been setting out why the climate crisis is among the biggest challenges faced today by the human race.  The prime minister told reporters on the plane to Japan the retreat of a glacier on one of her walking routes in Switzerland had illustrated the need for action.  She said writing the UK's net zero commitment into law was an "important contribution to make sure we're not contributing to climate change in future".  Mrs May and her husband Philip are keen ramblers, and she said the couple had been struck by the impact of climate change on their holidays.  She said: "Just as a small example of why this is important, as you know, Philip and I go walking, not just in Wales but also in Switzerland, and there's a particular place we go to where over the last decade you see the glacier retreating quickly.  "This has brought home to me the issue of climate change.  "But the G20 represents 80% of emissions, so actually it's not just what the UK does, it's about what we can do together.  "So I'm going to be taking a message to the other leaders of them... following on the UK's lead and acting on this issue."  :: A New Climate is a special series of podcasts from Sky News Daily. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,Spotify, Spreaker  It is the last G20 summit for Mrs May, who will leave Downing Street next month when a new Tory leader is installed.  Britain's move to net-zero carbon will require huge changes such as more renewable electricity generation, the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars and the cutting of beef and lamb consumption by 20%.  Energy and clean growth minister Chris Skidmore, who signed the legislation into law after it passed through the Commons and the Lords, said: "The UK kick-started the Industrial Revolution, which was responsible for economic growth across the globe but also for increasing emissions.  "Today we're leading the world yet again in becoming the first major economy to pass new laws to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050."  The net target replaces a previous goal to cut the country's emissions by 80% compared with 1990 levels by 2050, a target campaigners said did not go far enough.  Groups like Extinction Rebellion have been demanding much tougher action, saying it would be the only way to meet pledges made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to try to limit a rise in global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  Temperatures have already risen about one degree Celsius since pre-industrial times.  Scientists are worried further increases could place the world at a tipping point, beyond which parts of the planet could become uninhabitable and rising seas could drown many coastal towns and cities.


theindependent--2019-03-21--Mount Everest Dead bodies appearing due to melting glaciers

Mount Everest: Dead bodies appearing due to melting glaciers

Global warming has contributed to greater numbers of bodies of dead climbers emerging from thinning snow and ice on Mount Everest in recent years, authorities have said.  Since it was first conquered by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953 more than 4,800 people have successfully scaled the world’s tallest mountain. Almost 300 people have died during the attempt.  Removing bodies from the mountain is difficult and very expensive, so the vast majority of those who have died while trying to reach the summit remain on the mountain.  Around two-thirds of the corpses are currently believed to be buried beneath ice and snow.  But Ang Tshering Sherpa, the former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association said that "the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed".  He told the BBC this was "because of global warming."  He said: “We have brought down dead bodies of some mountaineers who died in recent years, but the old ones that remained buried are now coming out."  This was backed up by a government officer who worked in the region, who said: “I myself have retrieved around 10 dead bodies in recent years from different locations on Everest and clearly more and more of them are emerging now.”  Several studies have indicated the Himalayas are in the grip of considerable loss of ice from glaciers and the trend is forecast to accelerate.  A report this year, by 210 authors, warned more than a third of the ice in the region will melt by 2100 even if governments take tough action to limit global warming under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.  Bodies are occasionally exposed by the shifting glaciers, rather than ice loss due to temperature rises and climbers are usually prepared to spot the occasional dead body when they are on the mountain.


theindependent--2019-06-03--Everest aposRecord numberapos of bodies appear as melting glaciers means aposfinding bones is

Everest: 'Record number' of bodies appear as melting glaciers means 'finding bones is the new normal'

A few years ago, Kami Rita Sherpa, a veteran climber and guide, met with a gruesome sight at Mount Everest Base Camp.  Human bones poked from the ground, smooth and ice-crusted.  It was not a fluke. Subsequent seasons yielded more remains — a skull, fingers, parts of legs.  Guides increasingly believe that their findings fit into a broader development on the world’s highest mountain: a hotter climate has been unearthing climbers who never made it home.  “Snow is melting and bodies are surfacing,” said Mr Sherpa, who has summited Everest 24 times, a world record. “Finding bones has become the new normal for us.”  In the past few seasons, climbers say they have seen more bodies lying on the icy slopes of Everest than ever before.  Both the climbers and the Nepalese government believe this is a grim result of global warming, which is rapidly melting the mountain’s glaciers and in the process exposing bones, old boots and full corpses from doomed missions decades ago.  The Nepalese government is struggling with what to do.  More than 100 bodies may be lying on Everest, and there is an open debate about whether to remove them or leave them be.  Some climbers believe that fallen comrades have become a part of the mountain and should remain so. A number of the bodies are remarkably preserved: sun-bleached parkas outline faces frozen into the colour of charcoal.  Gelje Sherpa, a guide and six-time summiteer, said that when he first climbed Everest in 2008 he found three bodies.  During a recent season, he saw at least twice that number. “They often haunt me,” he said.  Over the past six decades, about 300 climbers have died during Everest expeditions, mostly as the results of storms, falls or altitude sickness.  This season has been one of the deadliest, with at least 11 fatalities, some of them partly attributable to an excess of climbers on the mountain.  The Nepalese government said Wednesday that to avoid traffic jams and unruly behaviour at the summit, it was considering changing the rules on who could climb the mountain.  Ang Tshering Sherpa, the former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, estimated that the bodies of at least a third of all who have died on Everest remain there. Some of them are in pieces, pulled apart by avalanches, he said.  It is very dangerous to remove remains from the top of the mountain.  A frozen body can weigh more than 300 pounds. To carry that extra weight over deep crevasses with precipitous drops and erratic weather would put even more climbers in life-threatening binds.  Still, some families have insisted on recovering the bodies of their loved ones, which entails a separate mission that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Generally, the bodies of climbers who die above 21,000 feet are left in place.  “On the mountain, everything is weighed against the risk of death,” Ang Tshering Sherpa said. “It is better to bring down the bodies if possible. But climbers should always give first priority to safety. Dead bodies can claim their lives.”  The emerging bodies are part of a bigger change on the mountain.  In the past decade, climate change has quickly reshaped the whole Himalayan region.  The snow line on Everest is higher than it was just a few years ago. Areas once coated in dense ice are now exposed. Climbers are trading ice axes for rock pitons, spikes that are hammered into cracks on the mountain wall.  In 2016, Nepal’s army drained a lake near Everest after rapid glacial melting threatened to cause a catastrophic flood downstream.  This year, a study found that the size of ponds on top of glaciers across the Everest region — which can both signal melting and accelerate it — had greatly increased in the past three years, far outpacing the rate of change from the first decade and a half of the 2000s.  Kami Rita Sherpa worried that scaling Everest, which sits near a major glacier and straddles the border between Nepal and Tibet, was becoming more complex — a troubling development as the mountain continues to be commercialised and to attract inexperienced climbers.  “It will be harder to summit in the coming days if the ice continues to melt,” he said.  The forecast looks grim. In a study on high-altitude warming released in February, scientists warned that even if the world’s most ambitious climate change targets are met, a third of Himalayan glaciers will melt by the end of the century.  If global warming and greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rates, the number could jump to two-thirds, according to the report, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment.  The report touches on elevation-dependent warming. It is well known that temperature changes from greenhouse gases are amplified at higher latitudes, such as in the Arctic.  But there is growing evidence that warming rates are also greater at higher elevations.  In October, a landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change found that if greenhouse gas emissions continued at the current rate, the atmosphere would warm by as much as 1.5C above preindustrial levels by 2040.  Under the same scenario in the Himalayas, that figure could reach 2.1C, the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment found.  Dandu Raj Ghimire, the director general of Nepal’s department of tourism management, which oversees mountain expeditions, said the emergence of bodies indicated how the region had already changed.  After Sherpas reported finding several bodies last year, Mr Ghimire’s office started looking for ways to safely remove them.  Ahead of this year’s spring climbing season, which typically stretches to the end of May, Nepal’s tourism ministry asked expedition operators to compile lists of deceased mountaineers who were left on Everest and other peaks.  This year, volunteers have collected more than 20,000 pounds of trash — plastic bottles, old ropes, tents, food tins — from Everest. The exercise was also billed as an opportunity to remove bodies. In April, four more unidentified people were found on the mountain.  Mr Ghimire said that the remains had been moved to Kathmandu for autopsies. If they cannot be identified, the police will cremate them.  “We will absolutely bring down all objects that have emerged from the ice,” he said.  Their work is unlikely to extend to the upper reaches of Everest, where summertime temperatures routinely dip below zero degrees Fahrenheit (nearly -18C) and oxygen levels are a third of those at sea level.  At that altitude, some bodies have become sobering markers.  For years, an American woman who died while descending was a fixture near the summit, until a climber wrapped her body in a flag and moved it out of sight in the 2000s. The body was commonly called “Sleeping Beauty”.  At 27,900 feet above sea level, people have also trudged past “Green Boots”, a body curled under a limestone rock and named for the climber’s neon-coloured footwear.  The body is thought to be that of an Indian mountaineer who died in 1996 during the blizzard that inspired the best-selling book Into Thin Air.  For many climbers, the bodies are a jarring reminder of the mountain’s perils. Vibeke Andrea Sefland, a Norwegian climber, said that during her 2017 expedition she had passed four bodies, including a friend’s.  “It for sure affects me,” she said. “It is very intense when you meet them for the first time, when your headlamp catches them. I always halt and give them a little prayer.”


npr--2019-11-21--'Maybe It Will Destroy Everything': Pakistan's Melting Glaciers Cause Alarm

'Maybe It Will Destroy Everything': Pakistan's Melting Glaciers Cause Alarm  For generations, farmers in the Harchi Valley in Pakistan's highlands enjoyed a close relationship with the glacier that snakes between two mountain peaks. It watered their fields, orchards and grazing lands.  Following local tradition, it has a name — Ultar — and a gender — male, because it is black owing to the debris that covers it (female glaciers are white, residents say).  Now, their relationship is unraveling as pollution and global warming cause the Ultar glacier to melt and form unstable lakes that could burst their icy banks at any moment. Already this summer, much of Harchi's lands were destroyed in glacial floods.  Shamim Banno, a 55-year-old farmer, was working her potato fields when a flood rushed by. Tremors jiggled the ground. Car-sized boulders tumbled down the nearby waterfall and smashed into the river below. The water rose, and she clung to a tree, shouting for her son, who was recording the flood on his smartphone, mesmerized.  "If I try to shout like that again, my teeth would fly out," she giggled on a recent day, covering her mouth, which contained about four teeth. The flood "was different from anything we'd seen before," she said. "I thought it was the end of the world."  That summer was already troubling, said Banno. The handmade wood-and-rope bridge that links Harchi's terraced slopes was washed away four times in surging glacial melt. One bridge, she said, should have lasted more than a decade.  Banno, who is illiterate and had not heard of climate change, said the bridge's fate scared the farmers. They began coming out in the mornings, "just looking, just watching the river," she said.  Pakistan's far north is an idyll of turquoise rivers coursing beneath slate mountains, with villages and orchards clinging to the steep slopes of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram ranges that crisscross this territory. They hold more than 7,000 glaciers, which have long supplied water to the hundreds of thousands of people who live among them.  But they are melting at an accelerated pace, compared with nearly 50 years ago, when monitoring began. Some are shrinking. More than 3,000 glaciers have formed unstable lakes. At least 30 are at risk of bursting, which can trigger ice avalanches and flash floods that bring down water, debris and boulders.  The situation is only expected to worsen because temperatures in mountainous areas are rising faster than the global average. And "if we stick to the present emission trends, we'll lose two-thirds of our glaciers," said David Molden, director general of the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, who recently authored a 627-page study about the mountain ranges.  Even if warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, as called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its landmark 2018 report, the mountains will lose more than a third of their ice, largely held in glaciers, Molden said. "The direction is pretty clear on where we are going, and that's the alarming news."  The impact will reverberate downstream because glacial melt feeds the Indus River basin, Pakistan's main water source for over 200 million people as it courses toward the Arabian Sea. "By 2050, you'll get less and less water," Molden said.  Pakistan can do little to halt global greenhouse gas emissions, to which it contributes less than 1%, said Federal Minister for Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam.  "We need the world to wake up," he said, "and shift their political lethargy on climate change and start taking action."  But regional factors are also accelerating glacier melt, including toxic smog that chokes South Asia through the winter. It is largely caused by vehicle emissions, farmers burning their crop stubble and brick kilns that emit dirty black smoke. Air pollution leaves dark soot on glaciers around the world.  Molden said governments are not acting to prevent this. "If they stopped all air pollution, you'd see the impacts tomorrow," he said.  So in ways big and small, hundreds of thousands of residents are scrambling to adjust. In the Harchi Valley, workers contracted by the local government are planning for the next glacial floods. They are building a road to give vehicles access to the river to remove large debris, like boulders. By the river, they have built stone walls to stop future surges from washing away their land.  Down a valley on a recent day, government-contracted workers raced to dismantle a wood-and-rope bridge that was being nosed by a surging, 9-mile-long glacier called Shishper. Authorities want to save infrastructure, like this bridge, said supervisor Ali Ahmad Jan. But they have to work quickly, he said, gesturing to the creaking, black, bloblike glacier.  Residents of the nearby hamlet of Gulmit are waiting for U.N. funding to build a dam to block a glacier that lurked over their village's 31 homes. The United Nations is running a $37 million program to help residents adjust.  Community leader Shawkat Ali, 53, said the glacier used to water the community's fields but now it threatens to wash them away. He spoke in Gulmit's communal hall, where residents were celebrating a wedding. Women and men sat on a rug-strewn floor, passing around tea and candies.  And another glacier they once relied on — called Passu — is shrinking. A local scientist, Sitara Parveen, assistant professor of geography at Fatima Jinnah Girls Degree College, who studies glacial melt and its local impact, recently led NPR to that glacier. It lies, as if within a giant bowl, between two mountains. And that bowl, once full, is emptying out.  Parveen pointed to where the glacier appeared to have peaks, like whipped cream, suggesting it was melting and cracking. "My children used to play there," she said. Now it is too dangerous.  Farther up the mountains, villagers are grafting new glaciers to replace the dried-up ones, said Rashid, a Gulmit resident who only has one name.  Rashid, a U.N. employee who helps administer the development project, said villagers are using an indigenous technique he called "the mating process." "You must have male and female glaciers," he said. (He said those efforts were not among those supported by the U.N. so far.)  Rashid said residents mix the material from both glaciers, add other bulking material like debris, cement and salt, and then plant the baby glacier in shaded mountainsides, where it attracts more moisture. "It grows within five years," he said.  Molden and Parveen said there is no evidence that the process works. But it shows residents are desperate, said Parveen.  Banno, the farmer, said they live in fear of the land that once nurtured them and the seasons they once relied on.  "The land will warm, and the water will come," she said of the upcoming summer. "Maybe it will destroy everything again. Maybe it will take my life."


therightscoop--2019-08-28--Ocasio-Cortez warns that Climate Change could cause ancient diseases to ESCAPE from melting glaciers

Ocasio-Cortez warns that Climate Change could cause ancient diseases to ESCAPE from melting glaciers [VIDEO]

Ocasio-Cortez just loves to talk about Climate Change to her Instagram viewers. Her latest argument against Climate Change is that it could release ancient diseases from melting glaciers…or something:  Here’s a transcript from the Daily Caller in case you prefer to read it:  “Things that were frozen for thousands of years, and that they’re going to get into our water, and that humans could contract them, and they’re going to be diseases that are thousands of years old that have vectors that we are not prepared for, that we have never seen. Um…and so that’s a concern…Even if there are no diseases frozen at all in these glaciers, you have diseases that are spread by mosquitoes, and now mosquitoes are starting to fly further north that carry diseases like malaria, and a whole slew of other things.”  I’m honestly not sure how diseases can be frozen in glaciers, but then I’m not a brilliant scientist like AOC. Oh wait…  But she adds the caveat that even if there are no ancient diseases frozen in glaciers, that mosquitos are moving north because Climate Change and they will kill us all with malaria!  Let’s go ahead and make this an open thread. Enjoy!


eveningstandard--2019-01-22--Greenlandaposs ice melting faster than scientists previously thought study finds

Greenland's ice melting faster than scientists previously thought, study finds

Greenland is melting faster than scientists previously thought with its ice being lost nearly four times more quickly than in 2003, a study has found.  The findings suggest the ice sheet has reached “tipping point”, with the lead author of the study claiming humanity may have passed the point of no return in the fight against climate change.  Researchers have warned of rising sea levels caused by the melting glaciers.  The findings could have dire implications for coastal cities in the US, including New York and Miami, as well as island nations that are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, the study said.  “The only thing we can do is adapt,” Michael Bevis, professor of geodynamics and lead author of The Ohio State University's study, said. “It’s too late for there to be no effect.  "This is going to cause additional sea level rise. We are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point.”  Scientists concerned about sea level rise have long focused on Greenland’s southeast and northwest regions, where large glaciers stream iceberg-sized chunks of ice into the Atlantic Ocean.  But the new study found that the largest sustained ice loss from early 2003 to mid-2013 came from Greenland’s southwest region, which is mostly devoid of large glaciers.  That melting, which Mr Bevis and his co-authors believe is largely caused by global warming, means that in the southwestern part of Greenland, growing rivers of water are streaming into the ocean during summer.  Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study determined that southwest Greenland, previously not considered a serious threat, will likely become a major future contributor to sea level rise.  “We knew we had one big problem with increasing rates of ice discharge by some large outlet glaciers,” Mr Bevis said. “But now we recognize a second serious problem - increasingly, large amounts of ice mass are going to leave as meltwater, as rivers that flow into the sea. And there is no turning back.”  Patterns found by scientists revealed ice was being lost at nearly four times the rate that prevailed in 2003, with the biggest acceleration in southwest Greenland.  The natural weather phenomenon North Atlantic Oscillation, which brings warmed air to west Greenland, was building on man-made climate change to cause “unprecedented levels of melting and runoff”, Mr Bevis said.  The North Atlantic Oscillation is a natural cycle that causes ice to melt under normal circumstances. However, when combined with man-made global warming the effects are supercharged.  “These oscillations have been happening forever,” Mr Bevis added. “So why only now are they causing this massive melt? It’s because the atmosphere is, at its baseline, warmer. The transient warming driven by the North Atlantic Oscillation was riding on top of more sustained, global warming.”  Mr Bevis said these new findings show that scientists need to be watching the island’s snowpack and ice fields more closely, especially in and near southwest Greenland.  “We’re going to see faster and faster sea level rise for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Once you hit that tipping point, the only question is: How severe does it get?”


newsbusters--2019-09-16--Roker Thrilled By NBCs Climate Unit Hypes Crisis in Greenland

Roker ‘Thrilled’ By NBC’s Climate Unit, Hypes ‘Crisis’ in Greenland

Launching NBC’s Climate in Crisis on Monday’s Today show, as part of the network’s new climate unit, weatherman Al Roker talked about how “thrilled” he was to head up the effort to push environmental activism and touted a recent trip to Greenland as proof of the “crisis” and “ground zero for climate change.”  “We are back with our special series, Climate in Crisis, as NBC News launches a new climate unit dedicated to covering the global environment,” co-host Craig Melvin announced in the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour while introducing the segment. Fellow co-host Hoda Kotb chimed in by alluding to a new Washington Post poll pushing the cause: “Yeah, just this morning, a new poll shows Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis and want the government to do more to tackle that problem.”  She noted that Roker “recently went to Greenland” and “had a real eye-opening visit there.” The headline on screen blared: “Trouble at the Top of the World; Al Goes to Greenland For Firsthand Look at Climate Crisis.”  In the taped piece that followed, Roker proclaimed: “Greenland, a massive island at the top of the world, and one of the most remote places on Earth. This breathtaking landscape is ground zero for climate change, where the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet.” The music playing in the background during his narration made it sound like a trailer for an action movie.  Talking to Josh Willis, the principal investigator NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland project, Roker breathlessly asked: “We have clear signs of climate change where we are flying right now?” Willis replied: “Absolutely. We can see, especially in Greenland, the impact of warming through the retreat of the glacier.”  Following the story, Kotb applauded the certainty of such conclusions: “Listening to those scientists say, like, it’s so obvious that it’s happening. I think it’s just interesting that sometimes when we’re here, we think, oh, that’s happening somewhere far away, but it’s so obvious to those scientists, a no-brainer.”  Promoting the report again on 3rd Hour Today at 9:00 a.m. ET, Roker’s fellow NBC weather forecaster Dylan Dreyer gushed: “NBC News recently launched a brand new climate unit to bring you stories about the environment, and as you probably know, it’s something I’m passionate about, it’s something, Al, you’re passionate about.” Roker fondly recalled how the effort was launched:  After replaying the story, Melvin cheered: “I’m glad we started this climate unit. Good job.” Fellow co-host Sheinelle Jones agreed: “Yeah, it’s a good conversation to have.”  Last week, the 3rd Hour Today crew similarly hailed the new Climate in Crisis series and praised Roker for his “legacy” of “fighting climate change.”  They also touted a new fawning profile in People magazine celebrating Roker and the push by NBC to make the liberal environmentalist agenda a top priority.  Here are excerpts of the September 16 Climate in Crisis coverage:  CRAIG MELVIN: We are back with our special series, Climate in Crisis, as NBC News launches a new climate unit dedicated to covering the global environment. HODA KOTB: Yeah, just this morning, a new poll shows Americans increasingly see climate change as a crisis and want the government to do more to tackle that problem. And, Al, you recently went to Greenland, you had a real eye-opening visit there? AL ROKER: I mean, we really did, guys. Greenland is experiencing another record melt this year, on the heels of a record heat wave that just hit in July. More than 400 billion tons of water have gone flooding off the ice sheet and into the ocean. That’s enough to cover the entire state of Florida. It’s an event that scientists warn could be happening again, and soon. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Trouble at the Top of the World; Al Goes to Greenland For Firsthand Look at Climate Crisis] Greenland, a massive island at the top of the world, and one of the most remote places on Earth. This breathtaking landscape is ground zero for climate change, where the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. I traveled here to better understand what all these changes mean for us back home. Why should they care about what happens up here in Greenland? DAVID HOLLAND: For us, Greenland is a bit of a canary in the coal mine. ROKER: New York University professor David Holland, invited me on board his ice breaker turned research vessel to see how his team is studying the rapidly melting glaciers. ROKER: Next, we take to the skies, with NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland mission, better known by the acronym, OMG. JOSH WILLIS [NASA OCEANS MELTING GREENLAND PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR]: Greenland has enough ice to raise sea levels globally by 25 feet, which is an enormous amount. If that much sea level rise happened today, hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected. ROKER: We have clear signs of climate change where we are flying right now? WILLIS: Absolutely. We can see, especially in Greenland, the impact of warming through the retreat of the glacier. KOTB: Listening to those scientists say, like, it’s so obvious that it’s happening, I think it’s just interesting that sometimes when we’re here, we think, oh, that’s happening somewhere far away, but it’s so obvious to those scientists, a no-brainer. ROKER: Yeah, and in fact, tomorrow on our Climate in Crisis series, we’re going to take a look at how some of our treasured landmarks and tourist destinations right here in the United States are being threatened by those rising waters. DYLAN DREYER: So let’s switch gears to something that affects all of us, the climate. NBC News recently launched a brand new climate unit to bring you stories about the environment, and as you probably know, it’s something I'm passionate about, it’s something, Al, you’re passionate about. And you were in Greenland not that long ago, and we always said we can’t wait to hear what the story is. And finally you brought the story to us today. ROKER: Yeah, I’ve been thrilled. Because our president of news, Noah Oppenheim, came to us about a month ago and said, “We’d like to create this climate unit, would you head it?” Jumped on board immediately. And Greenland is really one of those front lines of this crisis. ROKER: As we continued on, I got to witness climate change right in front of my eyes. That’s a chunk of the glacier breaking off. NICO SEGRETO: Yeah, it makes big echo with the mountains, like a theater. CRAIG MELVIN: What did it sound like? DREYER: Right there when it happened? ROKER: It’s like thunder. The loudest thunder you have ever heard. And to watch this, and to see literally this change happening before your eyes, Nico had put a pile of rocks where the glacier had been a week before, and it already retreated, within a week, of about 20 feet. So. ROKER: We’ve got more on the climate series. Check out NBCNews.com/climate. ROKER: Thank you. And Dylan is part of the climate unit also ROKER: You’ll be able – we’re going to send you back out once you come back from maternity leave.


thedenverpost--2019-08-21--Earths future is being written in fast-melting Greenland

Earth’s future is being written in fast-melting Greenland

HELHEIM GLACIER, Greenland — This is where Earth’s refrigerator door is left open, where glaciers dwindle and seas begin to rise.  New York University air and ocean scientist David Holland, who is tracking what’s happening in Greenland from both above and below, calls it “the end of the planet.” He is referring to geography more than the future. Yet in many ways this place is where the planet’s warmer and watery future is being written.  It is so warm here, just inside the Arctic Circle, that on an August day, coats are left on the ground and Holland and colleagues work on the watery melting ice without gloves. In one of the closest towns, Kulusuk, the morning temperature reached a shirtsleeve 52 degrees Fahrenheit.  The ice Holland is standing on is thousands of years old. It will be gone within a year or two, adding yet more water to rising seas worldwide.  Summer this year is hitting Greenland hard with record-shattering heat and extreme melt. By the end of the summer, about 440 billion tons of ice — maybe more — will have melted or calved off Greenland’s giant ice sheet, scientists estimate. That’s enough water to flood Pennsylvania or the country of Greece about a foot deep.  In just the five days from July 31 to Aug. 3, more than 58 billion tons melted from the surface. That’s over 40 billion tons more than the average for this time of year. And that 58 billion tons doesn’t even count the huge calving events or the warm water eating away at the glaciers from below, which may be a huge factor.  And one of the places hit hardest this hot Greenland summer is here on the southeastern edge of the giant frozen island: Helheim, one of Greenland’s fastest-retreating glaciers, has shrunk about 6 miles since scientists came here in 2005.  Several scientists, such as NASA oceanographer Josh Willis, who is also in Greenland, studying melting ice from above, said what’s happening is a combination of man-made climate change and natural but weird weather patterns. Glaciers here do shrink in the summer and grow in the winter, but nothing like this year.  Summit Station, a research camp nearly 2 miles high and far north, warmed to above freezing twice this year for a record total of 16.5 hours. Before this year, that station was above zero for only 6.5 hours in 2012, once in 1889 and also in the Middle Ages.  This year is coming near but not quite passing the extreme summer of 2012 — Greenland’s worst year in modern history for melting, scientists report.  “If you look at climate model projections, we can expect to see larger areas of the ice sheet experiencing melt for longer durations of the year and greater mass loss going forward,” said University of Georgia ice scientist Tom Mote. “There’s every reason to believe that years that look like this will become more common.”  A NASA satellite found that Greenland’s ice sheet lost about 255 billion metric tons of ice a year between 2003 and 2016, with the loss rate generally getting worse over that period. Nearly all of the 28 Greenland glaciers that Danish climate scientist Ruth Mottram measured are retreating, especially Helheim.  At Helheim, the ice, snow and water seem to go on and on, sandwiched by bare dirt mountains that now show no signs of ice but get covered in the winter. The only thing that gives a sense of scale is the helicopter carrying Holland and his team. It’s dwarfed by the landscape, an almost imperceptible red speck against the ice cliffs where Helheim stops and its remnants begin.  Those ice cliffs are somewhere between 225 feet and 328 feet high. Just next to them are Helheim’s remnants — sea ice, snow and icebergs — forming a mostly white expanse, with a mishmash of shapes and textures. Frequently water pools amid that white, glimmering a near-fluorescent blue that resembles windshield wiper fluid or Kool-Aid.  As pilot Martin Norregaard tries to land his helicopter on the broken-up part of what used to be glacier — a mush called a melange — he looks for ice specked with dirt, a sign that it’s firm enough for the chopper to set down on. Pure white ice could conceal a deep crevasse that leads to a cold and deadly plunge.  Holland and team climb out to install radar and GPS to track the ice movement and help explain why salty, warm, once-tropical water attacking the glacier’s “underbelly” has been bubbling to the surface  “It takes a really long time to grow an ice sheet, thousands and thousands of years, but they can be broken up or destroyed quite rapidly,” Holland said.  Holland, like NASA’s Willis, suspects that warm, salty water that comes in part from the Gulf Stream in North America is playing a bigger role than previously thought in melting Greenland’s ice. And if that’s the case, that’s probably bad news for the planet, because it means faster and more melting and higher sea level rise. Willis said that by the year 2100, Greenland alone could cause 3 or 4 feet of sea level rise.  So it’s crucial to know how much of a role the air above and the water below play.  “What we want for this is an ice sheet forecast,” Holland said.  In this remote landscape, sound travels easily for miles. Every several minutes there’s a faint rumbling that sounds like thunder, but it’s not. It’s ice cracking.  In tiny Kulusuk, about a 40-minute helicopter ride away, Mugu Utuaq says the winter that used to last as much as 10 months when he was a boy can now be as short as five months. That matters to him because as the fourth-ranked dogsledder in Greenland, he has 23 dogs and needs to race them.  They can’t race in the summer, but they still have to eat. So Utuaq and friends go whale hunting with rifles in small boats. If they succeed, which this day they didn’t, the dogs can eat whale.  “People are getting rid of their dogs because there’s no season,” said Yewlin, who goes by one name. He used to run a sled dog team for tourists at a hotel in neighboring Tasiilaq, but they no longer can do that.  Yes, the melting glaciers, less ice and warmer weather are noticeable and much different from his childhood, said Kulusuk Mayor Justus Paulsen, 58. Sure, it means more fuel is needed for boats to get around, but that’s OK, he said.  “We like it because we like to have a summer,” Paulsen said.  But Holland looks out at Helheim glacier from his base camp and sees the bigger picture. And it’s not good, he said. Not for here. Not for Earth as a whole.  “It’s kind of nice to have a planet with glaciers around,” Holland said.  The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


theguardianuk--2019-01-14--Growing pains how the climate crisis is changing British gardens

Growing pains: how the climate crisis is changing British gardens

On a dank day in January, a small slice of Walsall is blooming. Marie and Tony Newton’s back garden is filled with summery colour: miniature mauve cyclamens, frilly red camellias, graceful hellebores, seasonal snowdrops and the bright green sheaths of bulbs promising more flowers to come. A few winters back, their first daffodil bloomed on Boxing Day.  “It’s basically chaotic,” says Tony of the new climatic normal. “It’s non-stop flowers from now on. Winters are milder on average and there’s every opportunity to have a riot of lovely flowers from December right through till spring.”  Deadly floods in Bangladesh, devastating wildfires in California, melting glaciers in Greenland, coral bleaching in the oceans – this is climate change in action. Highlighting far more benign changes in Britain, long blessed with a moderate climate, may appear trivial or downright insensitive. Our gentle extremes – the beast from the east, or summer 2018 being England’s hottest ever – are far from drastic. But they still pose challenges, and there is more change coming.  Britain’s 27 million gardeners could be the canaries in our coalmine. How are gardeners experiencing climate change in Britain and how is it transforming our gardens? And can adapting our gardening styles mitigate the negative impacts of climate change?  Marie and Tony couldn’t see their garden when they first viewed the house in 1982 because it was covered by a snowdrift. In the years since, as their south-facing quarter-acre evolved from a children’s play-space to a “four-seasons garden” with an all-year-round rainbow of flowers, shrubs and trees, they have witnessed the Midlands climate become steadily milder. Autumn frosts are much later, if they strike at all, and September is a summer month now. Their begonias continue until October. “That would never have happened in the past; we’d barely get through September without air frosts,” says Tony. “Although it’s warming up, you’ve got to plan for the extremes. We’re still going to get very severe winters and it will wipe out many gardeners’ new species.”  They know about this only too well. Their garden features a jungle area of bamboo, palm trees, a banana tree and the stumps of several Tasmanian tree ferns. These ferns survived the winter of 2009, the coldest for 30 years, but a run of -15C nights and sub-zero days the following December killed them off. “It’s a mortgage to replace them,” grimaces Marie. Climate change is encouraging many gardeners to buy exotic plants but “we still need truly hardy varieties,” says Tony. Their banana is wrapped in black cloth over winter. He ensures that whenever they add a shrub to the 3,000 in their garden it can survive at -15C.  Marie and Tony’s garden fared better during last summer’s drought. Their clay soils retain moisture, which helps, but they didn’t lose a single plant to the weather, despite being on holiday for two weeks. This may be because they are obsessive mulchers. Mulch is material added to the surface of the soil to increase organic matter and repress weeds. The Newtons have added 108 cubic metres of tree bark to their soil over the years; each year they also compost all their garden leaves and cuttings, reapplying this to their soil. This organic matter has steadily improved soil quality and, crucially, helps it retain moisture.  When Liam Shoesmith, deputy parks manager of Truro city council, saw how dry 2018 summer’s long-term forecast looked, he suggested the city’s gardeners should plant succulents and cacti for their Britain in Bloom competition entry. “It was a bit of a joke really,” he says. But the community group that organises Truro’s displays took his advice. In what the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) described as the “toughest year for community gardening in 54 years”, Truro’s blend of exotic, drought-tolerant plants, including palms and Mediterranean herbs, serviced by a solar-powered rainwater-harvesting system, thrived. And Truro won the Britain in Bloom competition for the first time.  Shoesmith is currently dispatching his team to mow parkland grass: milder winters mean Truro’s grass grows all year round. He began gardening as a boy in the 1980s. “It’s definitely milder and wetter,” he says. “The difficult thing we have with the climate is the more changeable weather. Last winter was probably one of the wettest on record here and then we went into one of the driest summers. The capricious nature of the weather is very hard to anticipate and work with.”  We don’t think of mild winters as extreme weather events, but December 2015 was the most anomalous month ever recorded, 5.1C above average, and the warmest in the Met Office’s central England temperature dataset, which stretches back to 1659. Shoesmith notices how pollinating insects, such as solitary bees, often emerge during these mild midwinters. If there are no flowers, and no nectar, they will perish. “Climate change is a big issue and as gardeners we can all do our bit to help by planting the garden so it’s flowering throughout the year,” he says. “We all want that anyway.”  Wildlife-friendly gardening focuses on native flowers, but Shoesmith argues we have long had non-native plants – particularly in milder Cornwall – and many exotic species are just as attractive to pollinators. In general, Britain’s 400,000 garden plant species provide genetic diversity, enabling more selection and breeding to adapt to future extremes. But Shoesmith also has a motto – “don’t go silly buying too much frilly” – because certain varieties of exotic flowers with lots of petals lose their nectar-holding sexual organs and so become useless for pollinators. Daisies, aconites, crocus, hellebores are good for winter-waking bees.  Allotment holders are also adapting to the increasingly capricious climate. Mandy Barber has turned to growing perennial produce on her plot in Ashburton, Devon. “Annual vegetables needed a lot more watering and it was touch and go whether they would make it last summer, but perennial vegetables have a lot more resilience to temperature changes,” she says. Barber is experimenting with crops including Taunton Deane kale; poireau perpétuel, a perennial leek; and Hablitzia tamnoides, or Caucasian spinach, which is grown in Scandinavia and can survive -25C. “The Hablitzia tamnoides plants go on for decades, they are like a rampant triffid, but you get a crop between February and June every year and the leaves are a bit like baby spinach,” says Barber. She also propagates and sells these perennials.  Every gardener I speak to agrees that milder winters are enabling more pests to survive and encouraging new pest species. Allan Trigg has been growing vegetables for more than 40 years and has an allotment in Chelmsford, Essex. “This is my little patch of England,” he smiles. Fewer frosts means his fellow allotment holders plant out runner beans, sweetcorn and potatoes earlier. With an extended growing season, Trigg can grow more, and second crops, although last year he grew less because he was spending so much time watering his vegetables. The dry weather produced lower yields of crops such as potatoes. After 2017, his potatoes lasted him and his wife through to February; this winter, they were eaten by November. And allium leaf miner and leek moth are a growing problem. “I used to grow loads of leeks but now I don’t bother,” he says. He pulls one up to show the damage below ground. “We never used to have this trouble years ago.”  In Walsall the Newtons are accepting of their growing losses to pests such as the lily beetle and the lace bug. “It went absolutely berserk after the hot summer,” says Tony. “I thought it was going to kill all the plants in the garden.” Barber is beset by voles (which survive the milder winters), while in Cornwall, Shoesmith has noticed the spread of fuchsia gall mite along the hedges. “It had the opportunity to come to Britain for decades, but only arrived this century because of the milder winters,” he says. “We don’t have the same amount of frosts now and so we get many more fungal problems.”  These observations precisely match the more scientific language of Gardening in a Changing Climate, a 2017 RHS report that outlines the challenges – milder winters, more unpredictable extremes and more pests – posed by climate change. But the RHS also asks how gardeners might help save the planet. The way we garden is still sometimes part of the problem – using precious water in pursuit of a perfect lawn during a drought springs to mind – but it can be part of the solution. Gardeners can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, mitigate pollution and flooding, and help increase their neighbourhood’s resilience.  “Water use in gardens is going to be a major issue in the future,” says Alistair Griffith, director of science at the RHS. London is forecast to require 100m litres a day more than it can supply in 2020, with this deficit rising to 400m litres a day by 2040. The use of energy-intensive mains water on gardens is still socially acceptable and Britain lags behind more water-stressed countries where grey-water recycling is commonplace. But hosepipe bans could become perpetual for some regions in coming decades.  Apart from using only rainwater – even a small balcony can catch and store rainwater with a mini-reservoir – Griffith recommends gardeners provide “as much greenery as possible”. He suggests planting hedges instead of fencing and planting trees. Trees not only dispel pollution but can alleviate flash flooding and provide shade for a home during heatwaves. Perhaps the most overlooked way gardening can benefit the climate is via the soil: adding organic matter (mulch from home-composting, not peat) can create a soil that stores more carbon and retains more water, also making gardens more resilient in flood and droughts.  Griffith’s final practical suggestion for climate-friendly gardening is to make everything permeable. Unfortunately, paving gardens for parking continues (in 2015, the RHS found that the number of paved, plant-free front gardens had tripled in 10 years from 1.5m to 4.6m). Even car park gardens can be permeable and planted with trees and shrubs around the edge. But, according to Griffith, people resist, citing a lack of time and a nervousness about failing at gardening. “Gardening is always trial and error,” he says. “Give it a go.”  Gardening won’t stop climate change, but it could make our local communities more resilient when faced with extreme floods, heat – and mild weather. In troubled times, it is also a fundamentally optimistic gesture.


theguardianuk--2019-02-04--A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed finds shocking report

A third of Himalayan ice cap doomed, finds 'shocking' report

At least a third of the huge ice fields in Asia’s towering mountain chain are doomed to melt due to climate change, according to a landmark report, with serious consequences for almost 2 billion people.  Even if carbon emissions are dramatically and rapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5C, 36% of the glaciers along in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will have gone by 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss soars to two-thirds, the report found.  The glaciers are a critical water store for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region, and 1.65 billion people rely on the great rivers that flow from the peaks into India, Pakistan, China and other nations.  “This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” said Philippus Wester of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod), who led the report. “In the best of possible worlds, if we get really ambitious [in tackling climate change], even then we will lose one-third of the glaciers and be in trouble. That for us was the shocking finding.”  Wester said that, despite being far more populous, the HKH region had received less attention than other places, such as low-lying island states and the Arctic, that are also highly vulnerable to global warming.  Prof Jemma Wadham, at the University of Bristol, said: “This is a landmark piece of work focused on a region that is a hotspot for climate change impacts.”  The new report, requested by the eight nations the mountains span, is intended to change that. More than 200 scientists worked on the report over five years, with another 125 experts peer reviewing their work. Until recently the impact of climate change on the ice in the HKH region was uncertain, said Wester. “But we really do know enough now to take action, and action is urgently needed,” he added.  The HKH region runs from Afghanistan to Myanmar and is the planet’s “third pole”, harbouring more ice than anywhere outside Arctic and Antarctica. Limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels requires cutting emissions to zero by 2050. This is felt to be extremely optimistic by many but still sees a third of the ice lost, according to the report. If the global rise is 2C, half of the glaciers are projected to melt away by 2100.  Since the 1970s, about 15% of the ice in the HKH region has disappeared as temperatures have risen. But the HKH range is 3,500km long and the impact of warming is variable. Some glaciers in Afghanistan and Pakistan are stable and a few are even gaining ice, most probably due to increased cloud cover that shields the sun and changed winds that bring more snow. But even these will start melting with future warming, Wester said.  The melting glaciers will increase river flows through to 2050 to 2060, he said, pushing up the risk of high-altitude lakes bursting their banks and engulfing communities. But from the 2060s, river flows will go into decline. The Indus and central Asian rivers will be most affected. “Those areas will be hard hit,” said Wester.  Lower flows will cut the power from the hydrodams that generate much of the region’s electricity. But the most serious impact will be on farmers in the foothills and downstream. They rely on predictable water supplies to grow the crops that feed the nations in the mountains’ shadows.  But the changes to spring melting already appear to be causing the pre-monsoon river flow to fall just when farmers are planting their crops. Worse, said Wester, the monsoon is also becoming more erratic and prone to extreme downpours. “One-in-100 year floods are starting to happen every 50 years,” he said.  The new report highlights how vulnerable many mountain people are, with one-third living on less than $1.90 a day and far away from help if climate disaster strikes.  Political tensions between neighbouring nations such as India and Pakistan could add to the difficulties. “There are rocky times ahead for the region. Because many of the disasters and sudden changes will play out across country borders, conflict among the region’s countries could easily flare up,” said Eklabya Sharma, the deputy director general of Icimod.  Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey and not part of the report, said it is “a substantial piece of work” that takes due note of the uncertainties resulting from the limited snowfall and ice measurements in the high mountains.  He said glaciers currently provide an essential buffering role as their meltwater flows into the rivers during the summer, which is when water is in greatest demand downstream and periodic droughts have the deadliest impacts on populations. “Take the ice away and those people are exposed to serious water stress and the consequences of that are local, regional and potentially global, in terms of conflict and migration,” he said.


aljazeera--2019-02-08--Keeping Aztec farming traditions alive in Mexico

Xochimilco, Mexico City - Pedro Capultitla remembers when he was a child, running through his family's black pastures, a string in hand and a kite gliding above. Canals, canoes and native flora surrounded the ancient patch of farmland. Soft beneath his feet, the fields felt like home.  Three decades later, Capultitla stood on the canal-edge of his family's chinampa, a man-made island formed for crop growing. Chinampas date back to pre-Hispanic times in Mexico City's Xochimilco neighbourhood.  Xochimilco sits some 25km south of the city centre today, but it was once the agricultural hub of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.  As butterflies flitted among rows of kale, 36-year-old Capultitla pinched off a leaf of kale and flipped it to reveal a small cluster of yellow butterfly eggs. Pointing to them, he exuded pride as he explained that they indicate the farm's abstention from pesticide use.  Following in his family's footsteps, Capultitla has taken on the tradition of farming atop the last remaining portion of what was once the enormous Lake of Texcoco, where the Aztecs built their capital city.  Like a time capsule from the Aztec period, the gardens rest in the district of Xochimilco. But the tradition is gradually eroding under the weight of the market, tourism and climate change.  The introduction of new agricultural technology, excessive groundwater extraction and abandonment of lands threaten the chinampa system, according to UNESCO.  As a boy, Capultitla never imagined he would eventually return to the fields to make a living. His brother left for the city, as have the descendants of thousands of other chinampa farmers over the last 20 years.  "My dad told me, 'Go and try to work for companies to see how they treat you there with a schedule of when to enter and when you have to leave. Here you can be your own boss and have your own schedule,'" Capultitla said.  He has been farming on his family's chinampas for the past 25 years but took a major step this year to expand his fields.  "Our family is very well known for the chinampas," he said, explaining that he feels "very good" about keeping the tradition alive.  Capultitla's grandfather owned and farmed five chinampas but, in more recent years, his father scaled back the family plots to one small island owing to his diabetes. Earlier this year, Capultitla decided to bring back to life three of those plots with the help of another farmer.  Capultitla estimates that he is just one of some 100 chinampa farmers who continue to practise traditional farming methods, as compared with 15 years ago, when there were still around 2,000 farms on the islands.  Completely organic, Capultitla's farm thrives due to the nutrient-rich soil dug up from the canal and added to each chinampa, preventing erosion and fertilising the land.  The plots can produce seven harvests a year, providing traditional pre-Hispanic produce such as beans, lettuce, cilantro, quintoniles, chard, tomatoes, amaranth, flowers and radishes.  The chinampas once provided for the 1.5 million Aztecs in Tenochtitlan. They built their capital city on an island around the year 1300 and, at the time, the only answer to providing the enormous population with sustenance was to build man-made plots of farmland atop the lake.  The chinampas can only be reached by boat, and most of the wooden boats are motorless, powered by hand with long poles stuck into the mud-bottomed canal to propel them forward.  The art of building the land masses was never codified in text or studied in school. Rather, the knowledge has been orally passed down from generation to generation. Capultitla's constitutes the sixth generation of his family to continue the practice.  "The technique is passed from generation to generation. There is not a book that contains this information," said Laura Villagrán Vázquez, a biologist who studies and specialises in the chinampas. "It is very important to maintain this knowledge."  Building chinampas starts with filling an area with mud from the bottom of the lake and organic matter until the new farmland rises above water level.  Then, the chinaperos plant huejotes or Bondpland willows along the edges of the land to create a barrier. Known for holding water and resisting rot, the trees' roots burrow deep into the earth and anchor the chinampa to land.  Each time Capultitla prepares to plant new seeds, he removes mud from the bottom of the channel and creates a bed of mud next to the canal. He then cuts that mud into small squares.  The following day, he makes holes in each square with his fingers and places a seed in each hole to germinate for three to four days. After that, he prepares the land further inland and transplants the crops.  In a single chinampa, he can fit between 3,000 and 10,000 plants, depending on the season and size of the plants.  Capultitla's favourite parts of the process are harvesting and eating his own produce. "I like to compare it with the Central de Abasto," he said, referring to the city's enormous central market. "The flavour [of the produce] from other places is sour, and here the flavour of the products is sweet."  In past decades, city-dwellers had thought chinampas produce was dirty and tainted by bacteria, largely owing to its origins in the muddied waters, said Villagran Vazquez, who helps farmers prepare their products for commercial use.  But Villagran Vazquez had the waters tested in a lab and found that the bacteria levels in the canal paled in comparison to drinking water in cities. "I had to explain to people that the water is not contaminated," she said.  In recent years, new initiatives began, aiming at connecting the farmers to restaurants and consumers. One such project, Yolcan, was founded in 2011 and has since supplied produce to some of the most renowned restaurants in Mexico City, such as Pujol, Maximo Bistrot and Quintonil.  Xochimilco accounts for nine percent of Mexico City and contains 18km of canals. Only around three percent of the remaining chinampas are used for traditional farming, while others are now used for cattle grazing and even used by football teams that travel to and from practice by boat.  The area, microscopic on a global scale, contains two percent of the world biodiversity and 11 percent of the national biodiversity, according to Villagran Vazquez.  Although this sprawling pre-Hispanic site has gained international notoriety by being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, tourists and locals alike are more likely to know the district for its popular parties in colourful boats that cruise along the canals with mariachi bands on board.  Ninelth Sandoval runs the Mexico Underground tour company, which aims to highlight traditional Mexican cultural experiences for tourists. Along with her partner, she has shifted the focus of their tours to chinampas instead of parties.  "We are now again starting to feel proud as Mexicans," Sandoval said. "People used to feel ashamed of our roots. It is very important to remember the ways of our ancestors."  For his part, Capultitla hopes to pass on to his 12-year-old son a sense of pride in preserving their 1,000-year-old traditions. The boy has already shown interest in farming with his father and studies agriculture in school.  "I will let him make his decision like my father did for me," Capultitla concluded.


bbcuk--2019-11-05--Bonfire Night: Are these traditions fizzling out?

Bonfire Night has long been a loud and colourful celebration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot. But while we remember the 5th of November have some of its traditions been forgotten?  Generations of families have fashioned Guy Fawkes dummies to burn atop bonfires.  Children would stuff old clothes with newspaper and wheelbarrow their effigy around asking for money to buy fireworks.  But blogger Sally Bunkham from Brighton said the tradition was not one she wanted to pass on to her daughters Daisy, five and Ruby, aged four.  "I don't think you get as many Guys because of the violent aspect of burning an effigy," she said. "Personally, I'd rather not impose that tradition on my kids.  "But in Lewes they go mad for it and it gets quite political. Last year they burned a giant effigy of Boris Johnson," she said.  Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, said the general consensus among the website's users was that Penny for the Guy had all but been forgotten.  "It's not that children don't get excited, go out in the dark and ask strangers for gifts; it's just that now, they do that on Halloween," she said.  But in Cocking in West Sussex there is a burning desire to keep the Guy tradition alive.  Villagers held their first Guy building competition ahead of a Bonfire Night to raise money for the Blue Bell Community Hub.  "A number of entries were displayed throughout the village during the week leading up to the bonfire and fireworks party," said Chris Malec.  "When our daughter in the US saw our Guy on WhatsApp she recognised her shirt and wanted it back so on the morning of the bonfire it had a change of clothes."  For some, childhood memories of Bonfire Night conjure up a smoky back garden spectacular centred around a selection box of fireworks and a packet of sparklers.  But each year, petitions are launched calling to ban sales of fireworks to the public over concerns about safety, noise and distress to pets.  Sainsbury's became the first major supermarket to stop selling fireworks but would not reveal why.  Far fewer people are injured at organised events than at smaller family or private parties, according to RoSPA.  Ms Bunkham said social media made her think twice about setting off fireworks in her back garden.  "You get to see a lot of posts about frightened animals crying and quivering in a corner or children burning their fingers on sparklers," she said.  Bonfire Night got a very mixed reaction from parents and pet owners on Mumsnet, said Ms Roberts.  "Some users have never got over public information films showing people being injured by Catherine Wheels and as a result think organised displays are the best option.  "Others say the day wouldn't be the same without setting fire to a few incendiaries in their own back gardens."  Karl Mitchell-Sheed is director of Illusion Fireworks, which won the British Fireworks Championships 2018.  "I put on the biggest pyromusical firework display in the South at Abingdon Airfield and I still love nothing more than getting a selection box and letting them off in the back garden," he said.  "There is that nostalgia about it - it's personal. But back gardens aren't as big as they used to be and people like going to an organised event for the spectacular show, the music and the atmosphere."  Ms Roberts said discussion among Mumsnet users concluded "household bonfires are vanishingly rare".  But Mr Mitchell-Sheed, a member of the Institute of Explosives Engineers, said nine out of 10 of the organised fireworks displays he puts on have roaring bonfires.  "But some have lasers and one recently had a projection of a bonfire," he said.  "But saying that, more often than not, if they've had lasers the following year the bonfires are back."  In Cocking, chat among the villagers during the lead up to the bonfire revealed an incredible piece of trivia, said Mr Malec.  "Guy Fawkes was briefly employed by Cowdray, a major land owner in the area, as a footman," he said.  "The 2nd Viscount Cowdray was briefly imprisoned for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot after staying away from Parliament on 5 November 1605 following a warning."  Bonfire celebrations are not complete without something tasty to tuck into and across the UK the traditional fayre was once Bonfire Toffee.  Some regions have their own delicacies, like Parkin especially enjoyed in Yorkshire and Lancashire or grey peas and bacon in the Black Country.  "In Yorkshire, Parkin is as much a part of Bonfire Night as sparklers or toffee apples," said Lisa Bennison from Betty's Cafe Tearooms food and drink team.  "It's a real warm, cosy cake, deliciously sticky and with a fiery ginger kick. Like bonfires themselves, the tradition of eating Parkin here at this time of year is much older than the Gunpowder Plot.  "The origins are unclear - they could be pagan or linked to All Saints' Day - but for centuries it's been enjoyed at the start of November, usually on Parkin Sunday." • Why is Bonfire Night such a big deal in Sussex?  She said the first mention of Parkin by name could be found in court records from 1728, where one Anne Whittaker was accused of stealing oatmeal to make it.  Cookery historian, professor Roland Rotherham, said Parkin and Bonfire Toffee were popular many centuries ago because they were easy to make and kept for a long time.  "Grey peas and bacon is classic late Autumn food," he said. "A type of this dish was known during Iron Age times."  So why have these traditional treats made way for burger vans?  Ms Bennison said: "Possibly it is to do with the fact that is made from very traditional ingredients including black treacle - it sounds odd but it tastes delicious."  Prof Rotherham said: "The changing tastes are down, I'm afraid, to the steady 'Americanisation' of our diet. That and the desire for fast and easy produce."


chicagotribune--2019-11-21--This year’s Chicago Christmas tree is from a front yard in Elgin, and carries more than a century of

This year’s Chicago Christmas tree is from a front yard in Elgin, and carries more than a century of curious traditions

Then again, even this first tree (itself embellished with other trees) became a reminder of how closely melancholy and celebration were being joined at the holidays. The tree was donated by a business partner of Captain Herman Scheunemann, who made his name by ferrying Christmas trees across Lake Michigan, to sell on Chicago docks. A year earlier, while transporting a shipment from Michigan, to arrive just in time for the holidays, Scheunemann and 15 crew members aboard the schooner Rouse Simmons were lost in a storm. It’s an often-told local tale, and far from the only sad one: Against the backdrop of the Chicago Christmas tree, the city mourned the Our Lady of Angels fire that killed 92 school children and three nuns before Christmas in 1958; in 1951, just four days before Christmas, 119 miners were killed in an explosion in southern Illinois; in 1976, Mayor Richard J. Daley, whose namesake plaza displayed the tree, died five days before Christmas; and Mayor Carter H. Harrison Jr. , who lit the first tree, died himself on Christmas Day 1953.


eveningstandard--2019-04-18--Royal birth traditions through history from drinking aposcaudleapos to audiences of 200

Royal birth traditions through history, from drinking 'caudle' to audiences of 200

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's due date approaches, with the couple reportedly planning to break with (recent) royal tradition and opt for a home birth.  Though the Royal Family has some pretty eccentric royal birth traditions which still stand today, the process will be a far more private affair than the births royal women of old were subjected to.  Here's how royal births used to happen. Thank god for modern medicine.  According to The Tudor Society, royal midwives had to be highly experienced (no surprises there), but before the birth they also had to take an oath that they would not steal away the umbilical cord or placenta afterwards.  The Royal Family weren't concerned this would be a gory souvenir, but feared instead that the remains would be used in witchcraft.  In the Medieval and Tudor periods, when noblewomen and royals gave birth they were ushered into a private room which men weren’t allowed to enter. According The Tudor Society, the rooms were designed to “recreate the womb” and were “warm, dark and quiet”. A single window would have been left open but otherwise as much light as possible would have been blocked, with many hanging tapestries over the window.  According to The Loop, the room would sometimes have “a lower, false ceiling”.  In the past the birth of a new Royal Family member could have major political ramifications, with a new heir dictating the course of the country’s future. With this in mind, in certain periods royal births would be a very public spectacle.  According to The Raven Report, French Queen Marie Antoinette had to give birth in front of 200 courtiers: "The exact moment of a royal birth was so important, the obstetrician yelled out 'The Queen is going to give birth!' —at which point hundreds of courtiers poured into the darkened room. The rush of people promised to be so extreme, the king had ordered the enormous tapestries around her bed be secured with cords, so they wouldn’t accidentally be pulled down by the frenzied crowd. The scene was so overpowering and chaotic, it is said Marie Antoinette fainted from the heat while onlookers continued to scramble up the furniture to get a better look at what was happening."  The Loop features a report by a witness who wrote about the birth of Marie Antoinette’s first child, "The etiquette allowing all persons indiscriminately to enter at the moment of the delivery of a queen was observed with such exaggeration that when the obstetrician said aloud, ‘The Queen is going to give birth!’, the persons who poured into the chamber were so numerous that the rush nearly killed the Queen."  Antoinette isn’t the only royal to suffer the same treatment, as Mary of Modena (the wife of King James II) was reportedly subjected to the same treatment in 1688.  More recently, the British home secretary was also expected to be present at the birth of a child - a tradition scrapped by Queen Elizabeth II when she gave birth to Prince Charles.  During the Renaissance period, a woman was often surrounded by images of children before and after her wedding in the hope that it would encourage her to dream a son into being. As the V&A website website explains, a woman’s imagination was “thought to be instrumental in determining such characteristics as the sex and the looks of the unborn child”. Accordingly, women were surrounded with “beautiful images of children, and especially with images of baby boys” - especially of Christ and Madonna.  The Loop also notes that any hanging tapestries couldn’t have images of animals on them, just in case they encouraged nightmarish visions which could “lead to a deformed child”. The V&A cites a warning by Martin Luther, who once told the story of “a woman who gave birth to a mouse after one surprised her during her pregnancy”.  The V&A adds, “As a result, the doctors and the writers of bestiaries (encyclopaedias of animals, both real and fictional) warned women not to look at or think of beasts at certain times.”  During the Regency period in England many women opted to drink something called 'caudle.' According to author Diane Morris, caudle was a ”warm drink made by mixing a thin gruel of oatmeal with wine or ale, spices, and sugar”.  Dr Edmund Chapman, a physician of the time, shared advice for women following childbirth, writing, “The woman is to drink freely of white-wine caudle and chicken-broth; the latter of which is more necessary after a great loss of blood. If she continues to have an immoderate discharge, her caudle is to be made with red-wine, instead of a white.”  According to The History Collection, new mothers in 15th and 16th century England were viewed as “unclean” after giving birth. In the case of the royals, queens and princesses were expected to undergo a “cleansing” which saw them lie in bed separated from their newborn child for a few weeks. The duration of time depended on the gender of the child, so “at least two weeks for the birth of a girl, double this for a boy”. Once she was deemed well enough, she would then be blessed by a priest.  Queen Victoria of England was one of many royals to undergo the ritual, and according to The History collection she was also “blessed and purified by a priest after the births of all four of her children”.  In Hawaii, the ali’i (Hawaiian royalty) gave birth at a religious location called the Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, a spot where “the life force of the land was strong” and birthing mothers could see the landscape for miles. Women would rest against a stone called the Kukaniloko to give birth, surrounded by rows of rocks which represented Oahu chiefs. The birth would be witnessed by a number of tribal chiefs who would then tell their communities about the birth.  According to Ozy, women were expected to hold up their thighs in accordance with a set of rules called the Liloe kapu. According to a study by the University of Michigan, the legend went, “if any one came in confident trust and lay properly upon the supports, the child would be born with honour. It would be called a chief divine; a burning fire”  According to Ancient Origins though royals were expected to give birth at Kukaniloko, a few were banned from doing so. Only royals who had “not engaged in human sacrifices” and had “unblemished genealogy” were allowed to give birth at the site.


eveningstandard--2019-05-06--Royal baby births the unusual traditions attached to the arrival of royal newborns

Royal baby births: the unusual traditions attached to the arrival of royal newborns

The Duchess of Sussex has given birth to a baby boy.  The birth of a Royal baby is a national event and cause for national celebration.  Naturally, there is a strict protocol attached to how the announcement is made, who gets to know first and how the public are eventually informed. Such protocol includes letting the monarch know before anyone else and displaying bulletins outside Buckingham Palace, telling out the news to the world at large.  But over the years, a number of such traditions have been relaxed. And we might imagine this has come as somewhat of a relief for royal mothers - what with such such customs formerly including the Home Secretary being present at births...  Here we look back at some of the long-standing traditions of royal arrivals, those that remain in place and others which have - thankfully - fallen by the wayside...  Public officials had to be present at royal births  Believe it or not, witnesses once had to be present at the birth of every Royal baby to verify its regal legitimacy. This tradition stemmed from the fanfare surrounding the pregnancy of Queen Mary Beatrice (Mary of Modena), wife of King James II, and the subsequent birth of James Francis Edward in 1688.  Dubbed the 'Warming Pan Scandal', numerous rumours emerged during the time of Queen Mary's pregnancy and her son's arrival - the first that the Queen wasn't even pregnant and the second, that her child had been born dead and an impostor baby had been smuggled into her bedchamber in a warming pan to take its place.  42 officials were believed to have witnessed the birth to verify that James Francis Edward was indeed the legal issue of Mary and James II.  Since then, it has been customary for public figures to be present at royal births, and from 1894, Queen Victoria declared it to be the role of the serving Home Secretary.  So, will Sajid David be heading to the Duchess of Sussex's bedside today? No! The practice was stopped in 1948 prior to the birth of Prince Charles.  A great relief for both Royals and Home Secs alike, no doubt.  They have access to the country's best medical care and with privacy a prime concern, it should come as no surprise to learn that royal babies used to be born at home.  The Queen was born at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair - in the house of her maternal grandparents - and Prince Charles, at Buckingham Palace.  When it came to his own children, however, Prince Charles and his wife, Princess Diana, broke with tradition and decided to have both their children, Princes William and Harry, in hospital.  Prince William was therefore the first future king to be born in a hospital; the private Lindo Wing of St. Mary's, Paddington was the chosen establishment.  Since then it has remained the favoured location for royal births, with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and the newest Prince Cambridge all delivered there.  Meghan Markle broke with tradition and gave birth at home at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.  The monarch is the first to be informed  Once baby Sussex was born The Queen would have been informed before the news was made public. Senior members of the Royal Family and, of course, Meghan's family would have been told at the same (or similar) time.  Traditionally, news of royal births was announced through a written statement which was attached to the railings of Buckingham Palace. The Cambridges broke with this tradition at the birth of Prince George, however, making the big announcement via the rather less regal form of Twitter.  The announcement of their third child was made through an 'email' sent to the press, and a celebratory Tweet released by @KensingtonRoyal.  Meghan and Harry announced the birth of their first child on Instagram.  Gun salutes take place around London and the UK  Gun salutes take place across London and the UK to mark royal births. The number of rounds fired in such gun salutes depend on both the occasion and location of the guns. For the birth of Prince George, for instance, the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery delivered a 41-gun salute in Green Park (the normal royal salute of 21 rounds, with an extra 20 rounds fired because it took place in a Royal Park).  A 62-gun salute also took place at the Tower of London - the average 21-gun royal salute, plus 20 rounds as the Tower is a Royal Palace, and 21 other rounds because it was in the City of London.  Sons took precedence over daughters in the line of succession  When the Act of Settlement came in in 1701 it decreed that the English and Irish crowns could only pass to Protestants and, that in the line of succession, brothers took precedence over their sisters (the primogeniture part was, however, nothing new).  When the Kingdom of Great Britain was created in 1707, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland subsequently created in 1801, the succession stipulations laid out in the Act of Settlement 1701 were also attached.  However, ahead of the birth of Prince George in 2013, a new succession law was hurried through parliament to make it so that whatever the sex of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first child, that child would be heir to the throne, third in line after Princes Charles and William, respectively.  Ahead of the birth of Princess Charlotte, the new law became official (the delay was down to the fact it had to be okayed by all 15 Commonwealth countries where the Queen is head of state). It decreed that whatever the sex of the Cambridge's second child, the baby would be fourth in line to the throne - even if the child was a girl (which she was!) and the couple went on to have a second son afterwards (which they have!).  The new rules also allowed members of the Royal Family to marry Roman Catholics and still become king or queen, although as head of the Church of England, the monarch must still be Protestant.


eveningstandard--2019-12-20--Royal Family Christmas traditions: How the Queen, Kate Middleton and the royals will be celebrating

Royal Family Christmas traditions: How the Queen, Kate Middleton and the royals will be celebrating this year

A lot of families share eccentric Christmas traditions that can leave new in-laws wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into, but the British Royal Family might be the most eccentric of all.  While Prince Harry and Meghan Markle won't be at Sandringham this year as they're visiting her family in California, it's still set to be quite the festive occasion.  From joke gifts and weigh-ins to black tie dinners, here's what the family gets up to.  Who gets invited to Christmas at Sandringham?  The full Sandringham line-up includes the Queen, Prince Philip and their four children - Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward. Then there's the Queen's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including Prince William, as well as Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. Meghan and Harry will be absent this year.  Royal biographer Brian Hoey told Wales Online that the lowest-ranking members of the royal family are told to arrive first.  "A week or so before Christmas, those family members who have been invited to spend the holiday with the Queen and Prince Philip are told by the Crown Equerry, which organizes all transport, in what order they are to arrive at Sandringham, the Queen’s Norfolk estate, and at exactly what time," he wrote. Sounds casual...  What does the Royal Family do on Christmas Day?  Darren McGrady, who used to be the Queen's chef, told the Mail on Sunday that Christmas day begins with a fry-up breakfast for the male members of the family downstairs, while most of the married women traditionally have something lighter brought up to their rooms. The family then walks to St Mary Magdalene church at 11am for the Christmas morning service.  After church, the family sits down for Christmas lunch. McGrady claimed the menu features "salad with shrimp or lobster [followed by] roasted turkey, and all of your traditional side dishes like parsnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts and Christmas pudding with brandy butter for dessert.”  Other than sitting down to watch the Queen's speech, the television stays off. According to The Express the Queen is a fan of charades and even likes to impersonate world leaders - after his visit this year we expect she's got plenty of material on Donald Trump.  On Boxing Day, there's a pheasant shoot. It had previously been reported that the animal-loving Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle had asked Prince Harry to decline this tradition, but The Telegraph more recently quoted a "well placed" Kensington Palace source who told the paper this was "completely untrue."  How do the Royal Family do Christmas gifts?  On Christmas Eve, the family lays out their gifts on a trestle table in the dining room. Apparently, the present-giving is then presided over by Prince Philip.  Cheap and joke gifts are encouraged. Rumored former presents include a singing hamster given by Meghan Markle to the Queen, which she reportedly adored, a white leather loo seat given to Prince Charles by Princess Anne, and a grow your own girlfriend kit given by Kate Middleton to Prince Harry.  Our favorite gift story of all? Prince Harry apparently once gave the Queen a shower cap that had "ain't life a bitch" emblazoned on it.  Apparently, Princess Diana didn't initially get the brief about the cheap gift rule and gave the family cashmere sweaters on Christmas Eve in 1981. Though the following year she gave Sarah Ferguson - Prince Andrew's wife at the time - a leopard print bath mat.  What's the strangest Royal Family tradition of all?  Majesty editor Ingrid Seward told Grazia that Royal Family members are traditionally weighed before and after their Christmas dinner. She says the weigh-in began with King Edward VII, who wanted to make sure his guests ate well. Today, the tradition is apparently continued on a pair of antique scales.  What’s the dress code for the Royal Family at Christmas?  On Christmas Eve there's a black tie dress code for dinner, while for church on Christmas day the ladies wear hats. For the Boxing Day shoot, it's a country casuals vibe - think Barbour jackets and plus fours.  Just how many Christmas trees are involved?  For the British royals, Christmas trees really are a family tradition. Queen Charlotte, the German wife of King George III, is believed to have set up the first Christmas tree at Queen's Lodge in Windsor in 1800, though they became widely popular in Queen Victoria’s reign, when her German husband Prince Albert popularized them in 1848.  There are several lavish Christmas trees at Buckingham Palace (grown on the Queen's estate in Windsor) as well as a 20-ft tree at Windsor Castle. But at Sandringham, things are a little more laid back - the Queen likes to have a single tree put up which the children can decorate on Christmas Eve.


eveningstandard--2019-12-23--What does the Royal Family eat on Christmas Day? Sandringham festive food traditions revealed

Planning a Christmas meal is always a mission, but former royal chef Darren McGrady has revealed that the royals’ Christmas meals were a literal “military operation.” Between procuring 28 pound turkeys through to having army trucks transport the entire lot, he revealed the mammoth effort that goes into a festive meal at Sandringham.  Speaking to royal reporter Omid Scobie on Yahoo UK’s The Royal Story, McGrady revealed it took “months of planning” and beyond the family, around a hundred members of staff needed to be fed too.  On top of that, slightly different menus were prepared for the royal adults, children and even Queen Elizabeth’s dogs.  After procuring “the best ingredients” from top of the line suppliers, he revealed the army were actually called in to help with preparations.  He said, “The day before we went up to Sandringham we would pack all of the equipment into hampers and then the army would arrive and load them all into these big army trucks. It literally was a military operation.”  In the mornings, the men of the Royal Family typically went for a “big, hearty English breakfast” while the ladies had “some sliced fruit, maybe a boiled egg” before their gigantic Christmas lunch.  As for what they actually ate for lunch? McGrady explained, “There was so much food at Sandringham for Christmas – 26/28 pound turkeys. They were so big, you almost had to take the oven doors off!”  “Crispy, crunchy roast potatoes, boars head and foie gras, Christmas puddings and mince pies,” he continued. In previous interviews, McGrady has also added that "salad with shrimp or lobster" was served as an appetiser.  McGrady, who was once personal chef to both Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana, explained that when he was cooking for children including Prince Harry and Prince William, the menu was tweaked slightly. He said, “It really is about making sure the portions are a little smaller for them and using less seasoning, but they pretty much have the same menu as the Royal Family.”  He also revealed that the royal corgis have their own special festive menu, cooked for them by the chefs. Although he didn’t elaborate in this interview, previously he revealed to Hello that a menu would be sent to the kitchen at Sandringham by the estate’s dog caretaker which would “list each day what the dogs were to have.”  He said, “One day it would be beef, the next day chicken, the next day lamb, the next day rabbit and it alternated through those days.”  McGrady added that they would sometimes “add cabbage on the menu” as the dogs could sometimes be “a little bunged up.” After that, he said the Queen “would feed them herself.”  The Royal Family grows bigger by the day as new members including Prince Louis and Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor are born, adding to the growing list of people who the royal chefs have to cater for.  McGrady explained that while there were roughly 18-20 members of the immediate Royal Family that the kitchens had to prepare a Christmas meal for, he said, “It was the 8 or 10 in the royal nursery, too. The 100 staff. Dressers, housemaids, footmen, chauffeurs.”  As for what the exhausted chefs did afterwards? McGrady said, “After the meal, the Royal Family would gather and watch the Queen’s speech in the drawing room – and the chefs who had now cooked and fed everyone would sit in the staff dining rooms and watch the Queen’s speech – and as we ate our dinner, we toasted the Queen.”


globalresearch--2019-05-14--Cubas Earthy Traditions and Jean Vanier

Cuba’s Earthy Traditions, and Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier, dead last week, was philanthropist and Christian, founder of L’Arche, a remarkable organization for developmentally disabled.  Vanier was also a philosopher who left Academia for society’s vulnerable.  I used his Becoming Human, in class after philosophy class, to explain 20th century Marxist philosopher, Che Guevara.  The connection surprises some. They don’t know Cuba’s earthy traditions. “Earthy” is the word used by Cuban philosopher, Cintio Vitier, to link early 19th century Cuban priests – reformists – to the radical vision of independence leader, José Martí, and the eventual Cuban Revolution.[i]  It has to do with feelings. More specifically, it has to do with energy arising when we do the right thing, where “right thing” is not necessarily moral but useful. It’s creative mental energy, making imaginable what was not imaginable previously. Ancients called it “faith”.  It’s confidence, not intellectual but felt, explained by laws of nature, cause and effect, mind/body connection.  When you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, you gain, even if your actions fail. It’s a kind of dynamic reciprocity. Earthy. Che Guevara’s “hombre nuevo” is in this line. It’s not a new being, as critics claim.  It’s people aware – in a felt, experiential sense – of shared humanity.  It’s what Vanier explained. He left a life of privilege to live with disabled folk, saying it made him more human. It was about truth, not morality. He identified a paradox: We seek community to avoid loneliness. But loneliness is the natural state of reflective human beings, aware of vulnerability.  We escape our condition through community, but loneliness, being universally shared, provides grounds for human community: between people as people. “Reality is the first principle of truth”, and the reality of human existence is insecurity. Loneliness “can only be covered over, it can never actually go away”.  His point is how to discover community. It was Guevara’s point, but it goes back further in Cuba. It was raised by priests who wanted independence from Spain, the US, the UK and slavery. It was a time when ideas from Europe persuaded young people “it’s all good”, if it feels right.  José de la Luz y Caballero, who could have been a rich lawyer, taught Philosophy because of slavery, a social cancer. Privileged progressives criticized Spanish colonialism, resisted US annexation, and decried social vices, but could not imagine living without slaves.  Slavery was an expectation.  José Antonio Saco, who preceded Luz at the institute founded by Félix Varela (1811), could not imagine abolition. Precisely because slavery was so taken for granted, consistent with opposition to almost all other wrongs, Luz dedicated himself to educating privileged youth about how to know justice when injustice is part of who you are.  Luz was a Christian, of Vanier’s sort.  He cared about truth.  He was a scientist who knew how understanding works. It depends on expectations, rooted in habit patterns. We identify with them and they must be broken, occasionally. A remarkable national debate (1836-8), the Cuban Philosophical Polemic, was about thinking. It anticipates late 20thcentury philosophy of science, in North America.  It involves loss. Vanier wrote about “brokenness”.  It is how we know the invisible, the “discarded”:  It’s also about gain. According to Vitier, the leaders of Cuba’s agonizingly long struggle for independence shared an idea: Freedom requires raising the most vulnerable. Piero Gleijeses says it’s why Cuba went to Africa in the 70s, defying the Soviets. The CIA knew it: Cuba sided with the poor and non-White. The USSR was rich and white. The division between North and South was the major fault line.[ii]  This is the “earthy” thinking that Vitier refers to: formation of people through bold, sacrificial resistance to deep-seated, dehumanizing lies.  Vanier’s brokenness defies a lie of that sort: part of the social fabric. A useful, compassionate new book on dementia, The Last Ocean,[iii] argues that the tragedy of dementia is loss of a coherent self. We spend entire lifetimes building a “vast rich palace of the self”, which falls away. US philosopher Ronald Dworkin says that without a sense of self – different from a self — suicide is rational.  Yet that “palace” is a myth. And seeking it – a sense of self as opposed to a self – is counterproductive. You seek to escape insecurity, fabricating an identity – a ‘narrative self” – and you deny in the process what is really shared: insecurity.  Guevara called it an “invisible cage” or the “bourgeois myth of the self-made man”. Patrick Modiano (Nobel Prize 2014) shows why. [iv] He tries “to impose some order on my memories. But many are missing, and most of them remain isolated.” He can’t do it, and yet the stories he wants to forget “rise to the surface like a drowned man”.  “Real encounters” are more interesting. They might “drag you in their wake when they disappear”. But they’re real, unlike the “coherent self” of memories, made of “bits of sentences spoken by anonymous voices”.  We don’t accept illness and we don’t admit death. We suffer for that. But in arguing that we are diminished by dismissing the vulnerable, The Last Ocean nonetheless maintains the myth that prevents seeing those vulnerable as people: a secure place that doesn’t exist, not just for those with dementia, but for anyone.  So argues Vanier, and Guevara, and earthy thinkers for millennia.  Some are Lazaruses. Looking them in the eye and hearing their story involves loss: of lies, unimaginable to give up, like liberalism and “development”. But there’s also gain. Vanier’s life was all about that.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014). She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.