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bparksj28

Arctic ice: Now you don't | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/21563278

economist fortune arctic ocean vanishing

shared by bparksj28 on 23 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • The summer sea ice is shrinking so much mostly because greenhouse warming is raising Arctic temperatures. This has direct effects: when the air is warmer, more ice melts. It also has indirect effects. Warm, salty water from the North Atlantic sliding below the cold, fresh upper layers of the Barents Sea may be one of them. Another could be that warmer air is often moister. Moist air traps more heat in summer. In winter it tends to create more clouds, which keeps the surface below warm.
  • ice-albedo effect:
  • The melt is happening much faster in reality than it does in computer programs.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The effects in the Arctic, on fisheries and trade, may be easier to measure.
  • On the other side of the ocean the Parry Channel, a part of the Northwest Passage which has been ice-free in previous years, this year stayed resolutely impassable.
  • Such quirks will make the Arctic an unpredictable place to work. But if the details are tricky, the big picture is clear. Clear as an open ocean.
bparksj28

Factory fire raises safety questions for big box stores like Wal-Mart, Sears - Nov. 30,... - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by bparksj28 on 30 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Ten people were injured after jumping from windows to escape the inferno at the 10-story building. Eye witnesses say that managers had locked the windows and gates to the buildings, which had no fire escapes, effectively trapping the workers in.
  • A total of 112 people were killed and at least 200 more were injured in a fire Saturday at the Tazreen Fashions Factory, located near Bangladesh's capital city Dhaka. Two days later, another apparel factory near Dhaka caught fire.
  • Photos of items sold at Wal-Mart
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • taken in the Tazreen Fashions factory surfaced in the days following the fire. The retailer responded by saying that the factory was no longer authorized to produce merchandise for it.
  • "A supplier subcontracted work to this factory without authorization and in direct violation of our policies. Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier," Wal-Mart said.
  • Workers rights experts, however, claim that it's unlikely that retailers wouldn't know where their stuff is produced, as a matter of cost and production control.
  • "In order to be profitable, you have to control the supply chain, monitor quality, prices and the speed of delivery,
  • "It's strange that a company would say they had no idea who was making stuff for them."
  • The audits, completed by what it calls accredited or internationally recognized auditing firms, are carried out every six to 24 months. But the reports are not published online. Nor are they shown to factory workers, according to Nova. "There's no transparency. They never publish their findings as to whether or not there's a violation, so there's not much scrutiny about the audits," he said.
  • n order to keep production prices low, Nova said that companies rely on cheap labor, which often goes hand-in-hand with low wages, poor working conditions and safety concerns.
  • "It is such a poor country and so desperate for jobs that they ignore the most minimal labor rights standard," he said. "It's as if everything has to give way just to maintain these garment jobs. There's a fear that the labels will flee and go to another country.
  • Bangladesh's ready-made garments make up 80% of the country's $24 billion in annual exports, and the country has about 4,500 garment factories that make clothes for large global stores including
  • bparksj28 on 30 Nov 12
     
    Bangladesh Factory Fire
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