#World Environment Day 2023

[advacademy]

Happy World Environment Day to All

The Earth is like our home, and we must work hard to preserve it clean and green. Let's pledge to make the world a better place to live on World Environment Day!

[69yard]

World Environment Day : History & Significance

World environment day World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5th to raise awareness and encourage global action for the protection and preservation of our environment. It is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness and action for the environment. Here is the history and significance of World Environment Day: History: World…

[rabbitcruiser]

World Environment Day 

World Environment Day urges all of us to protect our natural surroundings. The stunning facts? An estimated 7 million people die each year from causes related to air pollution, with a majority occurring in the Asia-Pacific region. This day, which falls on June 5, encourages worldwide activism. That means everything from littering to climate change. World Environment Day is both a global celebration and a platform for public outreach.

China, which now owns half the world’s electric vehicles and 99 percent of the world’s electric buses, hosted the 2019 event. “The country has demonstrated tremendous leadership in tackling air pollution domestically,” said Acting Head of UN Environment Joyce Msuya. “It can now help spur the world to greater action.” The UN first established World Environment Day in 1972.

When is World Environment Day 2024?

World Environment Day is observed on June 5 every year. Outside of our homes is the actual home we all live in, and preserving it for future generations is more crucial than ever.

History of World Environment Day

World Environment Day (WED) is one of the more unique and special holidays because of its history and its many firsts. It was created on the first day of the first-ever U.N. conference which focused on humans and how they interact with the environment.

However, this didn’t happen overnight. Sweden first suggested having such a conference to the U.N. way back in 1968. And in 1969, the U.N. agreed that after 3 years they would have a conference in Sweden that focused on environmental issues. Interestingly enough, the conference was led by Maurice Strong, a Canadian diplomat who worked in the oil and mineral industry, who also had a soft spot for the environment.

Finally, it all came together in 1972, after 4 years of preparations and $30,000,000 later. World leaders from around the world sat together to discuss how they can raise awareness to protect our environment — and it was then WED was made. Then 2 years later, the first-ever WED was celebrated with the slogan “Only One Earth.”

Ever since then, WED has been completely embraced by people everywhere, so much so that it’s even slowly creeping into pop culture (and we love it!) Celebrities around the world all encourage people, in their own unique way, to do their part and “ save the world”. Fan-favorites Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep are some of the many who constantly speak out about environmental awareness. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re a famous actor, an athlete or a student in college: gather your friends and spend a day outdoors doing fun activities towards preserving this beautiful planet. Believe us when we say, you’ll have a blast and feel so much better afterward.

World Environment Day timeline

1968 The Idea is Born  

Sweden suggests to the UN to have a conference that is focused on the environment.

1972 First U.N Environmental Conference

Maurice Strong finally leads the discussions about marine pollution, human overpopulation, and global warming.

1974 A Dream Debut

The first World Environment Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington.

2019 China Hosts World Environment Day

China raises awareness of the 7 million people who die annually from air pollution with the slogan  'Beat Air Pollution.'

Traditions of the Day

Sustainability and the protection of the environment are without a doubt among the most pressing issues we face in the world today. The core necessities of life all come from Mother Nature and, unfortunately, we take it for granted. World Environment Day encourages everyone from individuals to large-scale corporations to be more conscious of their impact on the environment.

A theme is observed every year. The theme for 2020 was ‘Biodiversity.’ Advocacy campaigns and calls for change are heavily promoted, all the while educating others to adopt healthy actions and break patterns that contribute to the degradation of the ecosystem. Just the simple act of switching off unnecessary lights has a tremendous effect. Exhibitions and events take place at educational institutions, with influential spokespeople in attendance.

By the Numbers

90 billion tons – the number of resources extracted from Earth every year.

7.8 billion – the number of people populating Earth.

4.1 billion – the number of consumers in the world.

5.6 billion – the number of consumers expected by 2030.

70% – the percentage of the world’s resources currently being overused.

2.12 billion tons – the number of waste dumped every year.

50 million tons – the number of e-waste produced every year.

$7.8 trillion – the value of the global production of synthetic chemicals.

2050 – the year when the world population is expected to be too big to feed.

2070 – the year when coral reefs are expected to be gone altogether.

World Environment Day FAQs

Is global warming real?

From the data gathered it seems so, and according to NASA, the debate is now moving from if humans are responsible for global warming to how is the best way to respond to the problem.

What fun activity can you do on World Environment Day?

Either by yourself or with a group of your friends or even family members, plant a sapling (young tree) and take a selfie with it. Don’t forget to post it on your social media with #SelfiewithSapling.

How often is World Environment Day celebrated?

Every year on June 5 World Environment Day is celebrated. The cool thing is, almost every year a new country hosts the holiday and since it was first celebrated 34 different cities in 25 countries have hosted this day.

How to Observe World Environment Day

Make a commitment to recycle

Plant a tree

Volunteer

It might seem like a basic tip, but are you really taking every possible opportunity to recycle? Next time you're thinking about throwing that piece of paper in the trash because a recycling bin isn't accessible, think twice. Holding a plastic container and too lazy to see if it's one of the biodegradable kinds? Open up your smartphone and look it up! Everyone's responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — including you.

Trees absorb odors and pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and ozone) and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. Placed strategically around a single-family home, they can cut summer air conditioning needs by up to 50 percent. By reducing the energy demand for cooling our houses, we reduce carbon dioxide and other pollution emissions from power plants.

Anyone can volunteer, and volunteering can make a difference to the whole community. Get out of your comfort zone by volunteering for the National Park Service, or stay local by volunteering at your farmers’ market. Any way you choose to participate, you'll feel the positive impact of getting out of the house and caring for the planet.

5 Interesting Facts About World Environment Day

Solar Panels

CO2 Vacuum Cleaner

The Ocean Cleanup

Plant-Based Plastic

Eco-Friendly Batteries

The largest solar farm, Yanchi Ningxia solar park in China, can provide up to 1 billion watts.

Developed in Switzerland in 2016, giant machines capture CO2 to clean the air we breathe.

Backed with $30 million and led by a 22-year-old, this company uses U-shaped screens to catch garbage in the ocean.

Created by an Indonesian company, it’s made from agricultural leftovers like corn, sugarcane, etc.

Developed in the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden using upgraded aluminum.

Why World Environment Day is Important

It reconnects us to nature

It raises awareness

It encourages us to take action

Sometimes we forget just how much natural systems support our own well-being. But we're part of nature, and we depend on it. So today's the perfect occasion to go out and enjoy your country's national parks, and celebrate the vital relationship.

More and more people are starting to understand that we need to sustainably manage our planet's resources and ecosystems. However, that belief is far from universal. That's why World Environment Day is so important: it provides an occasion to raise awareness and teach friends and family that the physical environment is fragile and indispensable. But before you begin promoting environmental awareness in your own community, make sure that you have a thorough understanding of environmental issues yourself. There's always more to learn!

The environment has become increasingly polluted with contaminants and toxins, and these have a harmful impact on our health. They can cause respiratory diseases and cancer—and that's just for starters. By raising awareness of the issues with the air that sustains us, World Environment Day inspires us to do something about it and fix the environment we can't live without.

Source

[acacia-may]

Fuegoleon Vermillion Red Roses [Romance Headcanons]

As part of my Rose Garden Headcanons (Valentine's Day) Event 🌹, here is a bouquet of Red Roses (Romance Headcanons)❤️ for Fuegoleon below the cut! 🥰

I haven't written a lot about Fuegoleon, but he is a fantastic character and I tried to give these headcanons a lot of thought in order to do him justice so I hope they turned out alright. Thank you so much for the ask and for reading!

R3. What do they look for in a romantic relationship? What would make them feel the most loved and supported by a significant other?

Given the way that Fuegoleon was raised as the eldest son of a royal family and his strong sense of responsibility, there is a dichotomy between what Fuegoleon actually wants in a romantic relationship and the marriage arranged for diplomatic reasons that he ultimately expects to have. Fuegoleon is a very responsible and reasonable man, so he has never really allowed himself to entertain the idea of the type of person he would actually want to be with if he was given the choice, always assuming that the choice would ultimately be made for him so it would be unrealistic and disappointing to get his hopes up too much. He is perhaps not as jaded as some other nobles and royals in this sense, but he doesn't really dwell on the possibility of love and his ideal traits in a beloved, all that often, beyond just to hope for someone kind with a strong sense of responsibility and honor.

That said, his ideal romantic relationship would really be an equal partnership wherein he and his beloved care for and support each other through everything life may throw at them. If he does not have the opportunity to marry for love, he would hope that he and his spouse would grow to love each other over time, but even before he developed those romantic attractions, he would take his vows of marriage incredibly seriously and do his best to be a good and loyal husband. Ultimately, Fuegoleon isn't too easily swayed by the fickleness of romantic feelings because to him, love is a decision to choose what is best for his beloved and to stay by his beloved's side no matter what happens. When Fuegoleon chooses to love someone, it is not a decision he makes lightly and, as such, he firmly intends to love that person forever and there is very little, if anything that could cause his resolve to waver. Fuegoleon will love through thick and thin and through good and bad times. His love may not be the flashiest, but it is sturdy, solid, and unshakable.

In Fuegoleon, his beloved will always find a protector and a supportive life partner, and, in turn, what makes Fuegoleon feel the most supported and loved is his beloved's loyalty to him and willingness to stand by his side and face the good and bad of the world together. He also appreciates kind words of gentle encouragement and acknowledgment. It really means a lot to him to be told things like "I see you, and I appreciate you and all the good works that you do" and "I know how hard you try. Your diligence and sense of duty to your kingdom and your squad are admirable, but please don't push yourself so hard, dear." Even Fuegeoleon understands that he needs those gentle reminders that he doesn't have to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and that it is a responsible thing to look after himself in addition to looking after others, so it is particularly meaningful to him to receive this kind of encouragement from the one he loves most.

R4. How would they react to being in love? Would they want to keep it a secret--would they even be able to? Would they be awkward about it or take it all in stride?

Love would likely sneak up on Fuegoleon as it wasn't something he was ever expecting to get to have. Though it might take him a little while to realize his feelings and the fact that he had grown to love someone in a romantic way might surprise him, he would ultimately take the revelation in stride, recognizing and accepting his romantic feelings for what they were. However, even if Fuegoleon accepts his feelings internally, he would be very subtle about his attraction externally, and it is likely that no one would really pick up on it unless he chose to express it a little more openly. He might act a bit more curt or distant with his beloved out of some awkwardness, but the difference in demeanor would be incredibly slight (and most likely imperceptible to someone who didn't know him extremely well). This awkwardness would stem out of his politeness and his desire to be a gentleman (i.e. he wouldn't want to act improprietous on account of his feelings or make his beloved uncomfortable if his affection was not reciprocated). This is also the reason he would most likely keep his affection a secret--at least until he knew expressing his love would be appropriate and would not put his beloved in an awkward, uncomfortable, and/or socially damaging situation.

R5. What is a love song that really suits them and why?

After debating over several different songs, I decided on "Between the Raindrops" by Lifehouse and Natasha Bedingfield as a love song that suits Fuegoleon. It really summarizes what I think are some of the most important qualities of love to Fuegoleon: that love is unshakeable, that love lasts forever, and that love is an equal partnership of two people coming together to share their lives and support each other through no matter what happens. As a realist, Fuegoleon recognizes that life has its ups and downs and even a couple that loves each other deeply will eventually face hardships together. He wants his beloved to know that even though "the world's such a crazy place, when the walls come down, you'll know I'm here to stay." There is nothing that could shake, change, or crumble Fuegoleon's love--it is not fragile. He will be there for "chasing after gold mines" and "walking between the raindrops" with his beloved--for the best and worst times of life, and he firmly believes that "everything that's in our way, we're better than alright" because he and his beloved are facing this world together and supporting each other.

I also really like the line: "Riding the aftershock beside you off into the sunset" and how it subverts that fairytale "riding off into the sunset" ideal because I don't think a "fairytale" is Fuegoleon's ideal of love. His ideal of love is much more realistic where that "riding off into the sunset" comes after weathering the storms of life together. He recognizes that the ups and downs of life continue after a "happily ever after" and that true love is sticking with someone and supporting them throughout the life they now share together. This line also expresses the hope that there will be good times after the bad ones that I think is so perfect for Fuegoleon's character since he is so admirably determined and resilient.

Ultimately, I think that, for Fuegoleon, love really comes down to these lines from this song's refrain and that this is how he would characterize his own love for his beloved:

Hold on and take a breath I'll be here every step Walking between the raindrops with you

Between The Raindrops by Lifehouse YouTube Link

[solhwellness]

Environment Crisis and Mental Health: The Need for Urgent Action | Solh Wellness

During natural disasters and climate change, it is easy to focus on the immediate physical environmental damage. However, the consequences of these crises go far beyond what the eye can see. Environmental concerns can have a significant impact on mental health, causing stress, anxiety, and depression. Living in an unstable environment can cause chronic stress, which can have long-term mental health consequences.

Furthermore, the displacement and loss caused by environmental disasters can result in trauma, grief, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People who have lost their homes or loved ones may experience a range of emotions, from sadness to anger, and may find it difficult to cope with their loss. And, while economic hardships frequently accompany these crises, they can exacerbate mental health issues, especially for those who already face poverty, homelessness, or social isolation.

The gravity of these issues necessitates immediate action to meet the mental health needs of those affected by environmental disasters. This includes making mental health services, such as counselling and therapy, and community-based support networks available. However, treating the symptoms is insufficient. We must also address the underlying causes of environmental crises, such as climate change, by lowering carbon emissions, investing in renewable energy, and implementing environmentally sustainable practises.

What effect do heat waves have on mental health?

Heat waves can have a significant impact on mental health by increasing stress, anxiety, and despair. Heat waves can harm your mental health in the following ways:

Sleep disruptions: High temperatures can make it difficult to fall and stay asleep, resulting in fatigue and irritability during the day. This makes it more difficult for you to focus and complete daily tasks, which lowers your mood.

Heat waves can cause physical discomfort, such as headaches, dehydration, and exhaustion, which can lead to increased stress and anxiety.

Isolation: To avoid the heat, people may stay indoors during heat waves, leading to social isolation and loneliness. This can exacerbate depression and anxiety.

Financial strain: During heat waves, increased use of air conditioning and other cooling measures can result in higher energy bills, causing financial strain and contributing to stress and anxiety.

Hot temperatures have been shown in studies to increase the risk of violence and aggression, causing fear and anxiety in affected communities.

How can you maintain your mental health during the summer?

Summer can be a wonderful time for mental health, but it can also be difficult, especially for those who are dealing with mental health issues. Here are some suggestions to help you maintain your mental health during the summer:

Managing your child's climate anxiety: Climate anxiety affects children, and parents struggle to address it. Being truthful with children is essential because they can quickly discover the truth, resulting in a loss of trust. However, parents must consider their children's emotional needs and avoid alarming them with statements like "The world is going to end." As a society, we must teach children how to cope with the emotions associated with climate change and offer them support.

Go outside: Exposure to natural sunlight can boost your body's vitamin D and serotonin levels, both of which have been shown to improve your mood. Simply stepping outside, breathing in fresh air, and enjoying the natural environment can help to relax your mind and body. Gardening, hiking, or paddle boarding for at least 30 minutes in the sun is essential for your self-care routine. Spending time outside is an important part of living a healthy lifestyle.

Take time to relax: Most of us use our paid vacation time to complete household tasks that we don't have time for during the workweek, such as cleaning the closet, organising the garage and scheduling overdue appointments. However, it is preferable to use this time to unwind and enjoy yourself. You could read a book at home or take a trip to a new location. It is critical to spend your vacation time relaxing and getting away from your daily responsibilities.

Plan a getaway to refocus your energy: Getting away from your usual surroundings and experiencing a change in scenery may help you relax and redirect your energies to the present moment. Getting away from your daily routine, whether for a short overnight trip or a long foreign vacation, can help renew your mind and boost your mood. This will be extremely useful when you return to your normal life and responsibilities.

Get enough sleep: Sleep deprivation can have a negative impact on your mental health, so aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Apps like Sleep Cycle can help you track your sleep and determine the best time to wake up.

Stay physically active: Going to the gym, taking a yoga class, or going for a walk outside can all improve your mood. Inactivity during the summer, on the other hand, can be harmful to both physical and mental health. A daily 20-30-minute cardiovascular exercise session, whether at the gym or outside, can significantly improve our overall well-being. You may be surprised at how much better you feel once you incorporate physical activity into your daily routine.

Stay Hydrated: Dehydration can aggravate anxiety and depression symptoms, so drink plenty of water throughout the day.

Be mindful of your sun exposure: While some sun exposure can be beneficial, excessive sun exposure can result in sunburns, dehydration, and other health problems. 

Be mindful of your sun exposure: While some sun exposure can be beneficial, excessive sun exposure can result in sunburns, dehydration, and other health problems. 

Self-care: Schedule time to do things that make you happy, such as reading, walking, or practising yoga. 

Stay Connected: Keep in touch with friends and family, and if you're struggling, consider joining a support group or seeking therapy. Reach out using mental health apps such as the SOLH App.

Financial strain: During heat waves, increased use of air conditioning and other cooling measures can result in higher energy bills, causing financial strain and contributing to stress and anxiety.

We can help mitigate the mental health impact of environmental crises and build more resilient communities by taking these steps. It is past time to prioritise the mental health of those impacted by environmental concerns and take action to prevent further harm. We have the ability to make the world a safer, healthier, and more sustainable place. And if you're looking for both clinical and holistic methods of mental healing, as well as an easy and accessible solution, contact Solh Wellness. We offer therapy programmes with easy access to experts with years of experience in the field at Solh Wellness. Download the Solh App to improve your mental health and quality of life.

[suchananewsblog]

World-Earth-Day-The-Big-New-5-book-wildlife-conservation-India-tigers

With 226 portraits, and essays from main specialists, together with Jane Goodall, photographer Graeme Green’s newest guide goals to boost consciousness about wildlife conservation . .

[littlestprince]

getting crossed on a tuesday eating a peanut butter honey sandwich all comfy in my bed and watching youtube <3

[pureverwatertanks]

purever happy world environment day 2023, world environment day, pure water, save water, healthy water, purever water tanks

[ashotasfireandasdeepastheocean1]

🌍🌊🌎🌱🌏

WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY —

The United Nations designated 5 June as World Environment Day to highlight the protection and health of the environment as major issue; The degradation of the environment affects the well-being of peoples and economic development throughout the world.

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💚💙

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[drsohinisastri]

Happy World Environment Day 2023.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

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[nasa]

9 Out-of-This-World Moments for Space Communications & Navigation in 2023

How do astronauts and spacecraft communicate with Earth?

By using relay satellites and giant antennas around the globe! These tools are crucial to NASA’s space communications networks: the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network, which bring back science and exploration data every day.

It’s been a great year for our space communications and navigation community, who work to maintain the networks and enhance NASA’s capabilities. Keep scrolling to learn more about our top nine moments.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, on the company's 29th commercial resupply services mission for the agency to the International Space Station. Liftoff was at 8:28 p.m. EST.

1. In November, we launched a laser communications payload, known as ILLUMA-T, to the International Space Station. Now, ILLUMA-T and the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) are exchanging data and officially complete NASA’s first two-way, end-to-end laser relay system. Laser communications can send more data at once than traditional radio wave systems – think upgrading from dial-up to fiber optic internet. ILLUMA-T and LCRD are chatting at 1.2 gigabits per second (Gbps). At that rate, you could download an average movie in under a minute.

NASA’s InSight lander captured this selfie on Mars on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

2. Data analyzed in 2023 from NASA’s retired InSight Mars lander provided new details about how fast the Red Planet rotates and how much it wobbles. Scientists leveraged InSight’s advanced radio technology, upgrades to the Deep Space Network, and radio signals to determine that Mars’ spin rate is increasing, while making the most precise measurements ever of Mars’ rotation.

TBIRD is demonstrating a direct-to-Earth laser communications link from low Earth orbit to a ground station on Earth.

3. We set a new high record! The TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload – also demonstrating laser communications like ILLUMA-T and LCRD – downlinked 4.8 terabytes of data at 200 Gbps in a single 5-minute pass. This is the highest data rate ever achieved by laser communications technology. To put it in perspective a single terabyte is the equivalent of about 500 hours of high-definition video.

A 34-meter (112-foot) wide antenna at Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex near Canberra, Australia.

4. This year we celebrated the Deep Space Network’s 60th anniversary. This international array of antennas located at three complexes in California, Spain, and Australia allow us to communicate with spacecraft at the Moon and beyond. Learn more about the Deep Space Network’s legacy and future advancements.

An illustration of the LunaNet architecture. LunaNet will bring internet-like services to the Moon.

5. We are bringing humans to the Moon with Artemis missions. During expeditions, astronauts exploring the surface are going to need internet-like capabilities to talk to mission control, understand their routes, and ensure overall safety. The space comm and nav group is working with international partners and commercial companies to develop LunaNet, and in 2023, the team released Draft LunaNet Specification Version 5, furthering development.

The High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking node launched to the International Space Station in November and will act as a high-speed path for data.

6. In addition to laser communications, ILLUMA-T on the International Space Station is also demonstrating high-rate delay/disruption tolerant networking (HDTN). The networking node is showcasing a high-speed data path and a store-and-forward technique. HDTN ensures data reaches its final destination and isn’t lost on its path due to a disruption or delay, which are frequent in the space environment.

The Communications Services Project (CSP) partners with commercial industry to provide networking options for future spaceflight missions.

7. The space comm and nav team is embracing the growing aerospace industry by partnering with commercial companies to provide multiple networking options for science and exploration missions. Throughout 2023, our commercialization groups engaged with over 110 companies through events, one-on-one meetings, forums, conferences, and more. Over the next decade, NASA plans to transition near-Earth services from government assets to commercial infrastructure.

Middle and high school students solve a coding experiment during NASA's Office of STEM Engagement App Development Challenge. 

8. Every year, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement sponsors the App Development Challenge, wherein middle and high school students must solve a coding challenge. This year, student groups coded an application to visualize the Moon’s South Pole region and display information for navigating the Moon’s surface. Our space communications and navigation experts judged and interviewed students about their projects and the top teams visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston!

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soars upward after liftoff at the pad at 3:27 a.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 26, from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida carrying NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 crew members to the International Space Station. Aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft are NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

9. The Near Space Network supported 19 launches in 2023! Launches included Commercial Crew flights to the International Space Station, science mission launches like XRISM and the SuperBIT balloon, and many more. Once in orbit, these satellites use Near Space Network antennas and relays to send their critical data to Earth. In 2023, the Near Space Network provided over 10 million minutes of communications support to missions in space.

Here’s to another year connecting Earth and space.

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[reasonsforhope]

— Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considered extinct for more than a century.

— Experts concluded that the giant anteater ventured across the border from the Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina where a rewilding project has released around 110 individuals back into the habitat.

— The sightings emphasize the importance of rewilding projects, both to restore animal populations in specific regions and help ecosystems farther afield.

— Organizations across Brazil are working to protect and maintain current giant anteater populations, including rallying for safer highways to prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions that cause local extinctions.

Playing back hours of footage from a camera trap set in Espinilho State Park in the south of Brazil in August 2023, Fábio Mazim and his team banked on possible sightings of the maned wolf or the Pantanal deer and had their fingers crossed for a glimpse of a Pampas cat (Leopardus pajeros), one of the most threatened felines in the world.

What they didn’t expect to see was an animal long presumed extinct in the region. To their surprise, the unmistakable long snout and bushy tail of a giant anteater ambled into shot.

"We shouted and cried when we saw it,” the ecologist from the nonprofit Pró-Carnívoros Institute told Mongabay. “It took a few days to grasp the importance of this record. A sighting of a giant anteater was never, ever expected.”

Last seen alive in the southwest of the Rio Grande do Sul state in 1890, the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) has since been spotted 11 times since August 2023, although the scientists are unsure whether it’s the same one or different individuals. However, the sightings confirm one clear fact: The giant anteater is back.

It's a huge win for the environment. Giant anteaters play an important role in their ecosystems, helping to control insect numbers, create watering holes through digging and are prey for big cats such as jaguars and pumas.

The habitat of the giant anteater stretches from Central America toward the south cone of Latin America.

Its conservation status is “vulnerable,” although it is considered extinct in several countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Uruguay, as well as specific regions such as the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina and (until now) Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and the Cordoba and Entre Rios regions in Argentina.

‍In the last six months, the giant anteater was spotted on camera 11 times in the Espinilho State Park in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It was the first time in 130 years that the species has been seen alive there.

Yet not only is it a triumph for conservationists to see these animals returning to Brazilian biomes, it’s also a surprising mark of success for a rewilding program about 150 kilometers (93 miles) away in neighboring Argentina.

‍Rewilding Argentina’s biomes

‍Iberá National Park in Corrientes province in northeastern Argentina is a 758,000-hectare (1.9 million-acre) expanse of protected land comprising a part of the Iberá wetlands with its swaths of grasslands, marshes, lagoons and forests. The region was once home to just a handful of giant anteaters after habitat loss, hunting and vehicle collisions decimated the population.

Since 2007, the NGO Rewilding Argentina, an offspring of the nonprofit Tompkins Conservation, has been reintroducing the species back to the area, most individuals being orphaned pups rescued from vehicle collisions or poaching.

So far, they have released 110 giant anteaters back into the wild. Nowadays, several generations inhabit the park, transforming it from “a place of massive defaunation to abundance,” Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation for Rewilding Argentina, was quoted as saying in an official statement.

The project has been so successful that the giant anteaters appear to be venturing farther afield and moving to new territories beyond national borders, such as Espinilho State Park in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region...

Experts now hope that a giant anteater population can reestablish itself naturally in Espinilho State Park without the need for human intervention.

“The giant anteater returning to Rio Grande do Sul shows the success of the work done in Argentina and how it’s viable, possible and important to do rewilding and fauna reintroduction projects,” Mazim said. “It is also an indication that the management of conservation units and also the agricultural areas of the ecosystems are working,” he added. “Because if large mammals are coming from one region and settling in another, it is because there is a support capacity for them. It is an indication of the health of the environment.”

-via GoodGoodGood, via May 25, 2024