Winners and Losers as the Climate Changes

Heat, drought, smog, and car and power plant emissions motivate a search for ways to deal with the climate changes they are causing.

      Cosmetic experts, for example, have found plants that purify the skin from pollutants and protect it from sun damage. Moringa seeds from trees that purify water where they grow in Africa and Asia are the secret ingredients in Vichy's Purete Thermale, a cleansing gel that removes pollution's impurities from the skin.

     Leila Janah wondered how women in Uganda managed to have lovely, unwrinkled skin despite their country's sun-soaked environment. She discovered their secret was a rare strain of African nilotica shea nuts with an extra concentration of healthy fatty acids that they purchased in a market in Gulu, Uganda. Inspired by this find, she developed a high-end beauty cream line, LXMI, named for the Hindu goddess of beauty and prosperity. Her creams contain not only organic cold-pressed butter from Gulu's shea nuts but also antioxidant fighting Ndali vanilla and Nile-grown hibiscus flowers known to plump and smooth the skin. Perhaps best of all, because LXMI is a high-priced brand that will be sold at Sephora, Janah is able to pay a dignified living wage to the women who harvest the raw materials in her creams.

      Drought has launched many a scheme, including an ill-advised one to drag an iceberg south, to provide water for farmers who are said to account for 69% of the water used around the world. Pimpri Sandas in India is among the world's villages that are watering their crops with unfiltered rainwater collected in tanks on billboards designed by Kinetic. Once a tank is full, water sensor technology sends a text message to a mobile phone that alerts a tanker to pick up and deliver the water. In India, Vodafone, owner of the billboards, funds the entire process. Other businesses, such as Hindustan Unilever and Reliance Industries, have constructed dams and ponds to help communities conserve water.

     What do frustrated farmers do when their crops die from drought and they go deeper into debt year after year? They move to cities where the UN estimates two-thirds of the world's population will live by 2050. This coming migration emphasizes the importance of the growing urban farming movement which, unfortunately, can produce too little and be too expensive for many displaced farmers. Nevertheless, it is worth examining the option of producing crops closer to where they are consumed. This process reduces pollution from trucking, a health benefit as well as a way to reduce climate warming carbon emissions. And urban farms also absorb rainwater and prevent sewer overflow from polluting rivers and lakes.

     City farms can be as simple as outside planter boxes or black pond liners filled with soil. A variety of crops can be planted to determine which are best suited for local conditions, including natural rainfall rather than irrigation. More complicated urban farms rely on greenhouses, earthworms, compost, and recycled water, that is, aquaponics (for more details, see the earlier post, "Exotic Farming."), where filtered water from tanks of edible fish water crops. In some cases, computers monitor water levels, nutrient concentration, and ideal temperatures for different crops.

     Overall, efforts to increase yields by planting crops that can withstand changes in traditional heat and rain conditions have not been promising. While cross-breeding created hybrid maize seeds that mature over shorter periods and use water more efficiently, sales are expensive and not widespread. Hybrid seeds have to be purchased each year rather than grown from the seeds of earlier crops, and since fake and falsely labeled seeds have been sold as drought-resistant, the new seeds gained a reputation as unreliable.

   

   

   

Fashion Polices AI

As I worked my way through Vogue's September issue, 800 pages featuring clothes global designers see us wearing in the coming months, you can imagine how surprised I was to find an article about artificial intelligence (AI).

     It seems Kate Darling, who studied law in Basel, Switzerland, and now works at MIT, develops robot ethics based on findings from experiments involving the way people and robots with AI that think on their own relate to each other. She began thinking about the way human beings design, use, and treat machines with AI after she bought a small, intelligent robot dinosaur ten years ago. When someone held her dinosaur upside down by its tail, and she heard its tilt sensor causing it to squirm and cry, she'd tell the culprit to put the dinosaur down, and she found herself petting it until it stopped crying.

     Now, Darling deals with questions that are philosophical as well as technical concerning:

• Privacy, if sensors in things (the Internet of things") can spy on us
• Surgery performed by robots
• Companions for vulnerable elderly populations
• How robots with AI will affect the labor market, since they do things like make complicated cocktails and teach
• Autonomous weapon systems
• Choices made by driverless cars faced with killing passengers or pedestrians
• Ways robots can motivate and manipulate people--What can toys cause kids to do? Can robocalls influence people to vote a certain way or buy a certain product?

     Darling sees a need for legal protections for robots, if violence against robots (just as violence against animals) can lead humans to be violent toward each other. Her experiments show humans treat robots as if they were alive, not as if they were toasters or other kitchen appliances. What does it say, if someone is unable to empathize with a machine? Or can violence toward a machine be a healthy outlet for someone who otherwise would be violent toward a person.

     What about a robot's look and speech?  Years ago Japanese research showed robots that look too human can inspire fear or revulsion. Humans like the look of little, soft, and cute new robot characters. Some social robots are learning to understand and even use humor and sarcasm as well as regular expressions. Siri is said to have helped an autistic boy who developed a relationship with her to interact with real people. But impolite robots also might have a negative influence on behavior.

     Since AI technology can be used for good or bad, robot ethics is a very cutting-edge, fashionable field of study all over the world these days.

Coming Soon: Global Citizen Festival

Saturday, September 24, 2016 is the day to be at the Global Citizen Festival. (MSNBC will carry the festival on TV. Check local listings.) On the Great Lawn at New York's Central Park, the agenda will include solutions to world problems, especially poverty, and performances by Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Demi Lovato, and Metallica.

    Global Citizen is a worldwide effort that mixes music with actions to support girls and women, health, education, food and hunger remedies, water and sanitation, and the environment.

     Speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 20, 2016, President Obama echoed the ideas of Global Citizen. He repeatedly said young people throughout the world have unprecedented access to information and ways through social media to express themselves. They care about the environment, and they are more tolerant than previous generations of differences in religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, and ethnic and historical backgrounds. Technology and their own eyes enable them to see the contrast between poor and rich, slums and skyscrapers. They want greater control over their own lives and to share the benefits of free trade and advances in technology. They are not satisfied to let 1% of humanity control the world's wealth.

      When global citizens take actions (emails, tweets, petition signatures, phone calls) to fight poverty and worldwide injustices, they earn points they can redeem for tickets to attend shows, events, and concerts, such as Bieber's Helsinki on Sept. 26, 2016 and Sia's in Boston on October 18, 2016. Details are available at globalcitizen.org.

   

Where Will You Be Happiest in a New Country?

Where will it be easiest to make friends, if you move to a different country for any reason? At internations.org/expat-insider/, you can find the results of an InterNations survey of 14,000 respondents who moved to 67 countries. Countries are ranked for friendliness from the three most welcoming to foreigners (Taiwan, Uganda, and Costa Rica) to the least friendly (Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait).

Before moving to a different country, you can register for free at the InterNations website (internations.org) to find tips about moving to and living in any of 390 cities around the world. InterNations also can help you 1) connect with other expats in each city and 2) meet international people at exciting events there.

Become A Discriminating Chocolate Consumer

Buy a chocolate bar and only 3% of the price usually pays for the raw ingredients (cocoa, butter, milk, and sugar). Buy a chocolate bar that comes from one country, such as Madagascar, where the cocoa is processed and the bar is manufactured and more people are employed, companies make more money, and countries collect more taxes.

     When there is more money to be made, why don't the many cocoa growers in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Sao Tome and Principe, Papua New Guinea, Grenada, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, and Vietnam become single origin chocolate producers for the chocolate bar, bulk cocoa, and fine chocolates market?

     The obstacles are many. Dedicated people have to prune, deliver, and peel cocoa beans. Since the manufacturing process determines the finished chocolate product's taste, setting up a factory requires a major amount of investment and production expertise. Current labeling doesn't help consumers determine if the raw cocoa and the finished chocolate product come from the same country. Finally, there is the challenge of breaking into European and US markets dominated by companies, such as Hershey.

     Nonetheless, kids search for Pokemon Go characters, why not look for African stores that carry Chocolat Madagascar chocolate bars?

Will African Roses Replace Dutch Tulips?

World events can have both positive and negative effects on countries. By voting to leave the EU, Britain's new tariff relationships hold promise for Africa. On the other hand, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explosion on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 1, 2016 casts doubt on a deal between a US and Chinese company and much more.

     While the UK currently imports most of its fresh fruit from Spain and 70% of its fresh vegetables from Spain and the Netherlands, African countries anticipate they will gain a larger share of the UK market for flowers, vegetables, fruit, and tea, should tariffs on EU goods increase and tariffs on African imports end. South Africa already is the second largest source of the UK's fresh fruit, and a quarter of Kenya's fresh produce exports go to Britain. Changes in taste also might continue to boost UK imports of African produce, like pineapples, melons, and avocados, not grown domestically. Retailers caution African exporters, however, that regulations require imported produce to be safe and responsibly produced.

     Although African countries might gain from Britain's EU exit, they suffered from the Falcon 9 rocket explosion. The Amos-6 satellite that was destroyed would have given Africa internet access to Facebook.



   

   

What To Do When Under Attack

Although not every victim can survive an attack by a gang member, terrorist, or lone shooter out to right a perceived injustice, techniques developed by law enforcement agencies do save lives.

     The first thing to do if you hear gunfire, an explosion, or a scream is to recognize the danger and quickly calm yourself with repeated deep breaths in and out through your nose and mouth. It is the time to take decisive action, not to panic, freeze, or underestimate the threat. Firecrackers are not set off in office buildings.

     Since the best possible action is to get out, be aware of exits wherever you are.

     If getting out is not an option, deny access to the shooter: lock doors, pull down shades, erect barricades, remain quiet.

     When defending yourself is the only option, become an angry, violent warrior. Go for the attacker's eyes with a pen, key, or anything that will injure. Kick the attacker's legs, and use your fist, not to punch, but as a hammer to pummel.

     Statistics in many urban areas show 98% of shooters act alone and 96% are male.