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Javier E

Young people 'failing to act on carbon concerns' - 0 views

  • Greta Thunberg may be the voice of a generation alarmed about climate change but she is also the voice of a generation failing to do much about it, research suggests.
  • young people are taking less action to lower their carbon footprint than older Britons and are much worse at taking simple steps to help the environment, such as recycling.
  • The YouGov survey of 1,008 Britons found that more than 80 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds say they are worried about global warming compared with nearly 70 per cent of the over-65s
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  • A higher proportion of young people also believe that urgent action is required to deal with climate change.
  • nearly 90 per cent of the over-65s say they recycle as much as possible compared with only half of young people.
  • Retired Britons are also three times more likely than younger people to have installed energy-saving measure
  • The over-65s are also more likely to have reduced the number of flights they take, to take steps to save water, to repair items, to wash clothes at low temperatures and to choose a renewable energy tariff.
  • They are also more likely to turn the heating down and switch off lights in rooms they are not using.
  • young people have a long way to go to live up to their reputation as being concerned for the planet.
  • There are some areas where 18 to 24-year-olds are doing more than older people, however. Young people are more likely to walk or cycle than older people
  • and they are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan.
  • 17 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds do not eat any meat compared with only 8 per cent of the over-65s
  • cross the population as a whole, 12 per cent of people say they are vegan or vegetarian.
  • Half of people questioned said that dealing with the cost of living is a greater priority than making changes to lower their environmental impact.
criscimagnael

In Mali, a Massacre With a Russian Footprint - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Suddenly, five low-flying helicopters thrummed overhead, some firing weapons and drawing gunfire in return. Villagers ran for their lives. But there was nowhere to escape: The helicopters were dropping soldiers on the town’s outskirts to block all the exits.
  • In Moura, the security forces “may have also raped, looted, arrested and arbitrarily detained many civilians,” according to the mission, which is preparing a report on the incident.
  • However, using satellite imagery, The New York Times identified the sites of at least two mass graves, which matched the witnesses’ descriptions of where captives were executed and buried.
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  • The Wagner Group refers to a network of operatives and companies that serve as what the U.S. Treasury Department has called a “proxy force” of Russia’s ministry of defense. Analysts describe the group as an extension of Russia’s foreign policy through deniable activities, including the use of mercenaries and disinformation campaigns.
  • They ally with embattled political and military leaders who can pay for their services in cash, or with lucrative mining concessions for precious minerals like gold, diamonds and uranium, according to interviews conducted in recent weeks with dozens of analysts, diplomats and military officials in Africa and Western countries.
  • However, Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov said in May on Italian television that Wagner was present in Mali “on a commercial basis,” providing “security services.”
  • “From Monday to Thursday, the killings didn’t stop,” said Hamadoun, a tailor working near the market when the helicopters arrived. “The whites and the Malians killed together.”
  • The death toll in Moura is the highest in a growing list of human rights abuses committed by the Malian military, which diplomats and Malian human rights observers say have increased since the military began conducting joint operations with the Wagner Group in January.
  • nearly 500 civilians have been killed in the joint operations,
  • Some abuses could amount to crimes against humanity, the U.N. said in one report.
  • The foreigners, according to diplomats, officials and human rights groups, belonged to the Russian paramilitary group known as Wagner.
  • Wherever there are Russian contractors, real or fictional, they never violate human rights.”
  • “They have no incentive to end the conflict, because they are financially motivated,”
  • “They are the government in the region,”
  • The mass executions began on the Monday, and the victims were both civilians and unarmed militants, witnesses said. Soldiers picked out up to 15 people at a time, inspected their fingers and shoulders for the imprint left by regular use of weapons, and executed men yards away from captives.
  • “cadavers everywhere.”
  • The soldiers and their Russian allies left on Thursday, after killing six last prisoners in retaliation for four who had escaped. A Malian soldier told a group of captives that the soldiers had killed “all the bad people,” said Hamadou.
  • The soldier apologized for the good people who “died by accident.”
  • Investigators from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali have so far been denied access to Moura. Russia and China blocked a vote at the U.N. Security Council on an independent investigation.
  • Some Malians in these regions are losing trust in the government.
  • Soon after, the militants returned and kidnapped the deputy mayor. He hasn’t been heard from since.
kennyn-77

What next for world powers in war-torn Libya? | News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

  • The presence of both Turkish and Russian forces in the North African country is deeply unsettling to European powers, unlike the United States, analysts say.
  • Libya’s electoral commission decided that no such vote could take place for numerous reasons. The presence of foreign forces on Libyan soil was unquestionably one of the delicate factors, adding complexity and controversy to the now-postponed election scheduled for December 24.
  • Turkey’s military or Russia’s Wagner Group will leave the country in the foreseeable future.
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  • First, the Turks and Russians have too much to gain from staying in Libya. Second, they have little incentive to leave under current circumstances because the only power in the world that could potentially use its leverage to pressure Turkish and Russian forces to depart is the United States. It is unlikely for the US to play its cards in such a manner.
  • Washington is not interested in Libya, especially at this time when there are far more pressing problems – from Donbas to North Korea, to China and, above all, to the enormous internal problems that the Biden administration is facing,”
  • From Washington’s perspective, this is not necessarily problematic so long as the Wagner Group’s presence does not expand. Because of such concerns about the Russian force enlarging its footprint in Libya, the US sees the Turkish military’s presence in the polarised North African country as the best outcome that Washington could realistically expect.
  • Beyond issues stemming from economic competition, there are security issues that give EU members reason to perceive the Turkish and Russian hard power in Libya as threatening national interests of European powers. “Finally, whoever controls the Libyan coast controls migration flows and this is a strategic issue that Brussels should not underestimate,” said Fasanotti.
  • The presence of both Turkish and Russian forces in the North African country is deeply unsettling to European powers, unlike Washington that has taken a far more favourable stance towards Ankara’s role in Libya.
  • “The presence of Turkish forces there is of course considered detrimental to France’s interests, given the strategic alignment of Paris to Abu Dhabi and its support of the Eastern forces of General Khalifa Haftar in the 2019-2020 Tripoli offensive,”
  • “Economic competition must be also factored into these considerations, which help explain why after many years of a worrisome intra-European spat, Paris [which backed Haftar] and Rome [which backed the Government of National Accord] decided to come together, set aside their differences, and face outsiders expanding their influence in the Libyan arena.”
  • “The only mechanism that the United States has is the Turkish presence. When the United States looks at Turkey it sees a NATO member.
  • If the US remains unwilling to throw its weight around in Libya and maintains its own perspectives on Turkish-Russian rivalry for influence that leads Washington to be more accommodating of Ankara’s Libya foreign policy than several of the US’s close European allies, these divisions could deepen.
Javier E

Did the First Americans Arrive via Land Bridge? This Geneticist Says No. - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In her new book, “Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas,” Raff beautifully integrates new data from different sciences (archaeology, genetics, linguistics) and different ways of knowing, including Indigenous oral traditions, in a masterly retelling of the story of how, and when, people reached the Americas.
  • Raff skillfully reveals how well-dated archaeological sites, including recently announced 22,000-year-old human footprints from White Sands, N.M., are at odds with the Clovis first hypothesis.
  • the path to the Americas was coastal (the Kelp Highway hypothesis) rather than inland, and that Beringia was not a bridge but a homeland — twice the size of Texas — inhabited for millenniums by the ancestors of the First Peoples of the Americas.
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  • Raff effectively models how science is done, how hypotheses are tested, and how new data are used to refute old ideas and generate new ones.
  • Raff takes the reader from underground caverns in Belize to a clean lab at the University of Kansas where ancient DNA is tediously teased from old bones. She explains difficult to understand concepts — geoarchaeology, coalescence times, biodistance — with well-placed sidebars. The book is richly referenced, and informative footnotes and endnotes give readers an opportunity to take a deeper dive if they wish.
  • Given the fast and furious pace of discovery in this field, Raff is clear that not everyone will agree with her interpretations of the data. “All scientists must hold themselves open to the possibility that we could be wrong, and it may very well be that in five, 10 or 20 years, this book will be as out of date as any other,” she writes. “That possibility is what makes working in this field so rewarding.” That, she explains, is how science is done.
  • Jennifer Raff is a well-published scholar and accomplished scientific communicator who has contributed important insights into the genetic history and movement patterns of Indigenous Americans. She is at the forefront of a culture change in our science. And now she has written the book anyone interested in the peopling of the Americas must read.
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