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A male glossy black-cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus lathami) in flight.
Image credit: Matt Elsley/Eco Logical Australia
#matt elsley#photographer#eco logical australia#australian geographic#australia#glossy black-cockatoo#calyptorhynchus lathami#bird photography#nature
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The Power of Commercial Solar: How Commercial Solar Panels are Transforming Businesses
The shift towards renewable energy has become a vital consideration for businesses worldwide, and Australia is no exception. As electricity costs continue to rise and climate change initiatives demand greater corporate responsibility, companies are seeking cost-effective and environmentally sustainable solutions. One such solution is commercial solar. At Mission Green Solar, we help businesses harness the power of the sun through high-performance commercial solar panels designed to save money, reduce emissions, and future-proof operations.
Why Commercial Solar is a Game Changer
Investing in commercial solar offers businesses numerous benefits beyond simple cost savings. Here’s why switching to solar is the next logical step for forward-thinking enterprises:
1. Significant Cost Savings
Electricity is a substantial operational cost for most businesses, and rising energy prices can take a toll on profit margins. Commercial solar panels allow businesses to generate their own electricity, reducing their reliance on the grid and drastically cutting energy bills. Many businesses that install solar experience immediate savings, and in many cases, the initial investment pays for itself within a few years.
2. A Hedge Against Rising Energy Costs
Energy costs are prone to fluctuate based on demand, supply, and market changes. Solar panels provide a hedge against these rising costs. Once installed, solar panels allow you to generate your own energy at a fixed cost, which can insulate your business from future price hikes in electricity rates.
3. Boosting Sustainability and Corporate Image
Consumers and stakeholders increasingly prefer businesses that demonstrate a commitment to sustainability. Installing commercial solar panels showcases your company’s dedication to reducing its carbon footprint and supporting environmental goals. This shift towards green energy can elevate your brand's reputation, enhance your company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) profile, and even attract eco-conscious clients.
4. Renewable Energy Rebates and Incentives
Australian businesses can benefit from various government incentives that make switching to commercial solar even more affordable. These include the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) and feed-in tariffs, which reward businesses for generating excess electricity and feeding it back into the grid. At Mission Green Solar, we help businesses navigate these programs to maximize their return on investment.
5. Increase Property Value
Commercial properties fitted with solar power systems tend to have a higher market value. In a future where energy-efficient properties are in higher demand, businesses with solar panels will enjoy the added benefit of increased property value, whether for sale or lease.
Key Considerations for Commercial Solar Panels
When deciding to invest in commercial solar panels, businesses need to consider the size and scope of their energy needs, roof space availability, and local energy regulations. Here are some crucial factors to consider:
1. System Size and Energy Requirements
Determining the right size of your solar system is crucial. Our team at Mission Green Solar will conduct an energy audit to assess your current electricity usage and design a solar system that meets your needs. We ensure that you get the most efficient and effective solar solution based on your specific requirements.
2. Installation and Roof Space
Solar panel installation requires adequate roof space or ground space if installing ground-mounted panels. We evaluate your commercial property to ensure the best possible positioning for maximum sunlight exposure. Our team of experienced installers guarantees a seamless process from consultation to completion.
3. Financing Options
We understand that the initial cost of solar panel installation can be daunting for some businesses. However, Mission Green Solar offers flexible financing options and tailored payment plans to make it easier for businesses to go solar without significant upfront expenses.
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Why Educational Wooden Toys Are a Smart Choice for Kids?
When choosing toys for your kids, there are almost too many to count. Parents have a lot of options, from high-tech toys to old-fashioned ones. But it's important to choose toys for your child that keep them busy and make them think. Educational wooden toys have been around for a long time and can help kids of all ages in many ways.
At I Love Wooden Toys, we're happy to offer a wide variety of wooden toys that meet all the requirements. In this blog post, we'll talk about four reasons your kids should play with educational wooden toys.
1. Enhances Cognitive Skills
https://www.ilovewoodentoys.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Wooden-Roller-with-Rubber-Wheels-300x234.png
One of the most important benefits of teaching wooden toys is that they help kids' brains in a big way. Toys like the Wooden Peg Board and Cuisenaire Rods are made to help your child think more logically and solve problems. They are hands-on and require kids to move things around, which helps them understand different ideas better.
For instance, a Wooden Peg Board has holes and Wooden Pegs that kids can put into the holes. It may seem like an easy job, but it helps kids learn to recognise forms, understand space, and improve their fine motor skills.
2. Promotes Imaginative Play
A child's imagination is an important part of their growth, and educational wooden toys are great ways to help it grow. Classic toys like the Wooden Train Setand the Wooden Name Train give kids a lot of ways to play and use their imaginations. As your child plays, they can make up different situations, stories, and personalities, which helps them develop their creativity and social skills.
The best thing about wooden toys is that they don't have set jobs or parts, so your child can play with them in many different ways. For example, the Wooden Name Train could be taking a group of travellers to a strange place today and delivering packages tomorrow.
3. Environmentally Friendly
As worries about the environment grow, making good environmental decisions is important. Most wooden toys in Australia are made from eco-friendly materials and break down over time. Wooden toys are a better choice than plastic toys, which can take hundreds of years to break down.
4. Durability and Longevity
Wooden toys are known for being strong and staying for a long time. Plastic toys are easy to break or wear out, but a well-made wooden toy can last for decades or even centuries. In the long run, this makes them a better deal. At I Love Wooden Toys, we have many long-lasting toys, like Cattle Yards for Sale and Wooden Craft Supplies, so you can be sure you're getting your money's worth.
Conclusion
Educational wooden toys are more than just fun things to play with; they are important tools that help your child grow in many ways. They make kids smarter, get them to play with their imaginations, are good for the earth, and are made to last. Check out I Love Wooden Toys for a wide selection of these amazing toys, and give your child a healthy way to learn.
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Actiflow : Scam Revealed Don’t Buy Price And Shocking Truth!
What is the ActiFlow Supplement?
Actiflow is an eco-obliging yet immaculate dietary enhancement that safely keeps up with prostate wellbeing. It tackles strength from a natural mix of fixings that Actiflow fundamentally help in lessening side effects of harmless prostatic hyperplasia. The equation has acquired progress in engaging ordinary prostate issues, for example, regular pee, unfortunate pee stream, and fragmented bladder purging. Consequently, it has become hugely famous in the USA, Canada, UK, and Australia.
The dietary mix agrees with rigid quality necessities. The regular fixings are experimentally settled. They are powerful in improving great urinary capability and decreasing aggravation. Actiflow equation is an incredible choice in the event that you are somebody attempting to forestall oxidative pressure and keep up with uncommon wellbeing.
Few ActiFlow formula highlights:
• ActiFlow is an unadulterated prostate help supplement.
• It flaunts an all-normal equation that is without fake substances.
• The pills do exclude synthetic substances or energizers.
• It's not difficult to utilize and assists men with accomplishing more prominent outcomes with insignificant exertion.
Exactly How Does The ActiFlow Pills Function?
Actiflow pills assist with tending to the main driver behind prostate and testosterone inconveniences. The capability of the equation to improve prostate wellbeing has assisted it with becoming renowned. Every fixing was painstakingly decided because of their benefits for the prostate organ. Like saw palmetto is upheld with a long history of use as a characteristic solution for urinary issues.
Feline's paw bark helps keep the thyroid working at its ideal. It is by implication connected with prostate wellbeing. Men can likewise acquire help from side effects like regular pee and inconvenience starting pee by taking Actiflow supplement consistently.
Any reasonable person would agree that integrating these pills into your everyday schedule could be valuable for ideal prostate wellbeing. This is supported with various positive client Actiflow surveys and logical examinations on the authority site. When utilized according to directions on the fixings name, it is alright for most of clients. All things considered, talking with a specialist prior to taking any enhancement is prudent.
ActiFlow the Prostate Help Supplement Advantages!
ActiFlow supplement is novel in correlation with other ActiFlow prostate enhancements. It exclusively contains unadulterated and normal fixings that are prestigious for keeping up with sound prostate capability.
Prostate issues are frequently gotten on by aggravation or contamination the male urinary framework. This supplement is great for purging the regular framework. As such, it works on the urinary interaction.
As you become old, your bladder turns out to be more sensitive. BPH makes bladder control harder. This supplement assists with resolving such issues.
It has no counterfeit fixings, synthetic substances or energizers by any means.
The equation is easy to utilize and guarantees that all men obtain improved results with little exertion.
An unconditional promise backs each buy.
Review of the Ingredients in ActiFlow Capsules
ActiFlow supplement's exceptional plan contains 11 home grown extricates in every pill. These assistance the prostate capability ordinarily and furthermore dispose of unsafe poisons. The equation is totally protected. The significant fixings and their potential advantages are as recorded beneath.
Soursop leaf separate
This part helps address male wellbeing concerns. The fixing assists with cleaning out parasites, support drive, and control glucose in blood levels.
Bark of Feline's Hook
The feline's hook bark is known for an assortment ActiFlow prostate supplement of medical advantages. For quite a long time, individuals have been utilizing it to further develop prosperity and advance great wellbeing. Its ability to dispose of poisons from the body is its most prominent advantage. Poisons are hurtful mixtures that might develop in the framework after some time because of unfortunate dietary propensities and openness to natural poisons or synthetic compounds.
Stinging Bramble Leaf Concentrate
A super fundamental part has acquired favor lately for its ability to assist with harmless prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) side effects. This issue is described by an augmented prostate organ that causes urinary difficulties.
Pygeum Africanum Bark
Pygeum Africanum bark assists with controlling male testosterone levels. It helps individuals with stress, hypertension, or hypertension.
Juniper berry extricate
One of its key benefits is Juniper berry natural product's ability to safeguard the prostate from disease. The fixing is compelling in decreasing hair harm. It is likewise known to help moxie .
Burdock Root remove
Burdock root is a strong high-cell reinforcement that upholds solid irritation in the prostate organs. It assists with upgrading absorption and skin wellbeing, helping insusceptibility, and better hair development.
Goldenseal Root Concentrate
Goldenseal root separate is available in the equation to dispose of parasites and lift testosterone levels. It supports pee stream also.
Leaf of Parsley
This notable flavor is a culinary spice. It somely affects the body, quite regarding prostate and cardiovascular wellbeing.
Side Effects - ActiFlow Tablets
ActiFlow supplement's exceptional plan contains 11 home grown extricates in every pill. These assistance the prostate capability ordinarily and furthermore dispose of unsafe poisons. ActiFlow The equation is totally protected. The significant fixings and their potential advantages are as recorded beneath.
Soursop leaf separate
This part helps address male wellbeing concerns. The fixing assists with cleaning out parasites, support drive, and control glucose in blood levels.
ActiFlow Pills: Where to Buy?
The feline's hook bark is known for an assortment of medical advantages. For quite a long time, individuals have been utilizing it to further develop prosperity and advance great wellbeing. Its ability to dispose of poisons from the body is its most prominent advantage. Poisons are hurtful mixtures that might develop in the framework after some time because of unfortunate dietary propensities and openness to natural poisons or synthetic compounds.
Stinging Bramble Leaf Concentrate
A super fundamental part has acquired favor lately for its ability to assist with harmless prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) side effects. This issue is described by an augmented prostate organ that causes urinary difficulties.
Pygeum Africanum Bark
Pygeum Africanum bark assists with controlling male testosterone levels. It helps individuals with stress, hypertension, or hypertension.
Juniper berry extricate
One of its key benefits is Juniper berry natural product's ability to safeguard the prostate from disease. The fixing is compelling in decreasing hair harm. It is likewise known to help moxie .
Burdock Root remove
Burdock root is a strong high-cell reinforcement that upholds solid irritation in the prostate organs. It assists with upgrading absorption and skin wellbeing, helping insusceptibility, and better hair development.
Precautions
Goldenseal root separate is available in the equation to dispose of parasites and lift testosterone levels. It supports pee stream also.
Leaf of Parsley
This notable flavor is a culinary spice. It somely affects the body, quite regarding prostate and cardiovascular wellbeing.
The Conclusion: ActiFlow Buy or Not!
In this Actiflow survey, we have widely explored and broke down the Actiflow prostate wellbeing supplement. In general, this prostate help supplement is a feasible choice for men who need to keep up with their prostate wellbeing. The strong blend of spices conveys the most potential benefits like a lift in testosterone levels, an expansion in charisma, and a feeling of prosperity.
The trader offers a 60-day unconditional promise for shopper bliss. This allows you 60 days from the buy date to conclude whether you need to return the enhancement for a full discount. The presence of various positive audits from blissful clients upgrades trust in it. Indeed, it is a safe and proficient prostate arrangement. It merits a go!
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The Simon CASE: Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!
By Kristine Welby June 16, 2020 19 Comments
The Simon Case
Pool/Samir Hussein
The Simon CASE: Simon Says…Throw Your Brother Under The Bus!
“When Someone betrays you, it is a reflection of their character not yours.”
Last summer as Harry and Meghan were being slammed by the press literally for every breath they took, came word that they had flown to France on a private jet. They were dubbed hypocrites for taking a private jet after talking about the environment. Harry never told anyone not to fly, and Meghan never spoke about the environment. But they were both excoriated in the press and on social media. Of course, no fake outrage would be complete without fake pundits on various talk shows lambasting Harry and Meghan for the destruction of the environment.
When it was revealed that Sir Elton John had paid for the flight and paid to offset the carbon footprint, the conversation switched to “debunking the myth” of carbon offsets. Harry and Meghan were declared eco-hypocrites, despite the fact that William, in his efforts to outdo Harry, has spoken of the environment as much as Harry, and had even flown by private jet to Davos climate change forum. His attendance seemed nothing but grandstanding, since all he did was interview Sir David Attenborough. An interview which could have been done remotely, since environmental degradation is such a concern for him. This might sound trivial, but underscores the fundamental unfairness of the media’s attitude towards Harry. There is no shortage of perceived “hypocrisy” if one is determined to find it. But I guess it depends on where said hypocrisy needs to be found.
There was also the fact that William and his family had only just returned from their vacation on an exclusive private island, accessible only by private jet. And if that were not enough, we had the Queen’s favorite son flying hither and yon in private jets, in the midst of renewed outcry about his connection to convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew’s alleged sexual abuse of a trafficked minor. No private jet outrage there. Instead, when they were not attempting to equate Prince Andrew’s amoral actions to Harry and Meghan flying by private jet, they were ignoring Prince Andrew in favor of berating Harry and Meghan.
Then, just as it seemed the squall was reduced to a drizzle, along came pictures of the Cambridge clan boarding a commercial flight to Balmoral. £73 flight they declared, with pictures of the Cambridge family cosplaying ‘regular’ folks, with father and children carrying their own bags. It was a double whammy! William and Kate were not only heralded as frugal but of course environmentally conscious for flying commercial. That of course ignores the fact that Meghan and Harry’s personal travel is always privately funded and Sir Elton had paid for their trip; you can’t get more frugal than free.
Rebecca English tweet
“Stunt, stunt, stunt,” cried the people. “Obvious,” said the blue check.
William and Kate flight stunt
And it was, but wait there’s more. In the fanfare of the tabloids erecting a statue in honor of William the conqueror of duffel bags, came word from a real reporter with the Scotsman – There were two empty jets. The now defunct airline, Flybe had flown two empty planes, 500 hundred miles so they would be sure to have a commercial jet befitting the man waiting for his father and grandmother to pass…on the scepter. If Harry and Meghan’s small private jet was going to destroy the planet, then two empty commercial jets should spell the end of our galaxy. Harry clarified that flying private was for security reasons, which also apply to the rest of the royal family. Remember, this was not long after two men went to prison for plotting to kill Harry, because according to them, he was a “race traitor”, not to talk about the threats to his wife.
Of course, the people who seem to embrace their role as mouthpiece for KP, came out. Fully recovered from directing their fake outrage at Harry and Meghan taking a private jet, they were ready to switch to fake outrage in defense of William and his obvious stunt.
Emily Andrews and Chris Ship flight pr stunt
As with the jet stunt, we saw the denials for what they were, “fake”.
And then nearly a year later, this happened. An article about Simon Case of Kensington Palace who is now off to support the non-elected ruler of Britain – Dominic Cummings.
The Spectator’s tweet of the article about his departure proudly proclaimed:
“Boris’s new man in No. 10 was behind Will and Kate’s budget flight to Balmoral – when Harry and Meghan were criticised for flying by private jet says Camilla Tominey”
Simon behind Will and Kate’s budget flight
What the tweet should have said was: “It was a stunt.”
And a poorly thought out and executed stunt. By any objective measure, it was a failure. People immediately knew it was a stunt, and treated it with the ridicule it deserved. It did not affect change, except with the people desperate for any excuse to think William and Kate worthy of their privileged position. For those of us who think privilege should be earned not gifted, we saw William as a backstabbing, entitled, duplicitous craven bully. In the middle of a propaganda campaign against his brother and (post-partum) sister-in-law, William decided (or agreed) that it would be an excellent idea to do that, to attempt to embiggen himself.
If, as KP’s press minions originally claimed, the flight had been arranged months in advance, why did Flybe have to scramble( moving empty jets hundreds of miles) at the last minute to position a Flybe-branded plane on a route that was operated by their codeshare partner Loganair (eastern airways) in order to “maximize press coverage for the airline”? Was there a prior expectation that their royal passengers will be pictured on the flight and hence the need to “maximize press coverage”? Had the flights been arranged far in advance as the press mouthpieces insisted it was, the airline could have positioned the planes without costing themselves money by way of 2 EMPTY flights. And why is Camilla Tominey now making special mention of Case’s role in that fiasco? Was he in his role, KP’s reservation specialist? If not normally, why did he take interest in that particular flight?
We do know that the flights arrangements were made on the eve of their departure per the Scotsman. A flight that was obviously positioned to portray William and Kate as “better” and more “responsible” than Harry and Meghan. And why are we now receiving confirmation of what we suspected from the beginning? Is it a coincidence, that revised versions of old rumors (tights-gate, private jet, KP leak) are being trotted out now? Revisions we suspect are closer to, (but still not) the truth. All these revisions still manage to position William and Kate as the victims. Apparently, Kate was justified in claiming to have a temper tantrum because the bride got the final say for her own wedding party; or that the backstabbing of Harry and Meghan via media propaganda was engineered by someone else and William and Kate merely went along? I don’t know why they think either proposition makes them look good.
If Simon Case was the ‘mastermind’ behind the media war waged by the future-future King against his brother and sister-in-law, then Mr. Case is an unfeeling, amoral manipulator. After all it was under his watch that the (pregnant) Duchess of Sussex was subjected to a coordinated campaign of harassment by the British Media. It was under his watch, that Tim Shipman of the times wrote in his famous article, excerpts below.
“This sense of embattlement has been entrenched by William’s decision to reach out to senior figures in the media as he prepares for kingship and by the apparent decision of those same newspapers to side with the palace over Meghan and Harry by peddling the most negative coverage of the duchess’s relationship with her father, Thomas Markle. “Harry sees that as part of the headwinds against him,” a friend said.”
It is Case who was credited with encouraging William to attempt to sideline Harry and his popular wife, which led to rumors of exiling them to Africa.
“…the Duke of Cambridge has been encouraged by his private secretary, Simon Case, who says he believed that a period of separation between the two brothers would help them to define themselves better and also improve relations between them.”
“In some ways it would suit William to get his brother out of the country for a few years and Meghan as far away as possible,” said one friend of the brothers.
Sending the couple to Canada was “mooted, then booted” given that Meghan spent seven years living there and for some it was “too close to the US” and the inevitable tabloid magazine coverage that would ensue. Making Harry governor-general of Australia was discussed and dismissed. The problems were obvious. “The trouble is that you effectively set them up as king and queen of a whole separate country,” according to one source. “And 24-hour media means that Australia is not as far away as it used to be.”
Here we are today, Harry and Meghan have stepped down as working royals, and moved to the United States of America, home to the media capital of the world. The public knew the economy plane trip was a stunt. We knew the leaks were coming from inside the Palace. No one but trolls believed the tights (or is it skirt length?) story. William will be remembered as a twat who on a state visit told the world that the media was hyping up COVID-19, even though at the time, hundreds were dying daily. Yet the apparent architect of the clusterf*ck, Simon Case, is credited with turning William into a statesman(yes) and it was his “success” at KP that lead Britain’s bumbling prime minister to invite him back to No. 10 Downing St.
As it were, the latest Spectator article only seeks to confirm what every rational and logically thinking person suspected was a calculated move by William’s court to hurt is brother. One has to wonder when all these facts became known to Camilla Tominey. Also is she the only reporter who is privy to these facts? Why were some in the royal rota adamant that flight arrangements were made far in advance? Did they question the seeming improbable coincidence(ahem) of the Cambridges and their brood being pictured boarding a domestic flight, whose exact price(£73) they seemed to know even after the fact? Or were they just willing to give William & Kate the benefit of the doubt, which they never extend to Harry and Meghan? So many questions still to be answered. If I were a betting woman, I will bet my last penny that there are more Cases to be unveiled. Stay tuned.
#royals#prince william#kate middleton#prince harry#meghan markle#duke of cambridge#duke of sussex#pr stunt#royal reporters#duke and duchess of cambridge#duke and duchess of sussex
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Significant The Bioenergy Code
The ability of agriculture to attain salinity take care of is significantly confined by its long-expression drop from the terminology of business. In depth planting of traditional crops has the chance to improve normal water take advantage of and arrest the salinisation strategy. If these perennials have been also commercially eyes-getting, the cost of salinity treatment might possibly properly be minimised. Offered the tough manufacturing placement of food merchandise, it honestly is logical to make 'non-food' perennial crops, in certain woody plants fitted to manufacturing items. This pieces of paper examines the example of Sweden, exactly where there has been a era of expenditure in establishing forest harvest deposits rehabilitation, and swift cycle woody crops for bioenergy, having said that with only confined success. By comparison, supplementary residues from forestry market are easily saleable for very low worthy of uses like bioenergy.
The Carry and General public Features Committee has carried out an Inquiry right into a environmentally friendly Queensland intrastate shipping and delivery market. Bioenergy Sydney opposes the drilling process and furthermore encourages the Power to take into consideration alternative strategies to aid the nation’s potential self-reliance, like the advancement of a effective biofuel industry. System SA introduced a Discussion Papers as element of display last last final results to formulate the very 1st long-word method for system advancement in To the south Modern australia also as Bioenergy Sydney was motivated to give feedback into this method. Bioenergy Australia features the functionality of bioenergy in the transition for some reliable, inexpensive and decarbonised The Bioenergy Code by Angela Carter in To the south Sydney. Mindfully made to influence To the south Australia’s competitive favourable aspects, Advancement Express is in fact a demonstrate wonderful results strategy to promote market development by answering the wants of enterprise with one another with market sectors.
Mindfulness could very well be practiced by anybody- all humans have the functionality of rehearsing mindfulness. Not only that, mindfulness methods are available to you any time you need them. The significantly more routinely you exercise mindfulness, the a lot more available it'll be for you when you need it. As you pursueyour goals, I expect you can combine Diane Sieg’s strategies for more mindfulness into your life.
When your mind wanders, just observe that, take your mind has wandered, as well as refocus in your breath. Mindfulness is normally utilized with mindfulness activity or meditation. Mindfulness movement requires yoga and fitness, tai chi, backpacking or walking, and abdomen dancing. Meditation could possibly be a helpful exercise to implement into the day.
It's also assessed precisely how sustainability standards address the transformation of specific ecosystem sorts. An comprehensive establish of features is incorporated about both eco friendly agricultural control, sustainable woodland administration, or eco friendly generation of biofuel feedstocks. Similarities at the same time as dissimilarities on the inside and among the about three classes are determined. Finally, essential boundaries to, along with problems for, recognition systems are reviewed, and referrals are produced for considerably more advancement of sustainability demands. The approach facilitates investment in vitality systems that can assist in reaching Victoria’s pollutants focus on, along with the Victorian Green Power Goal.
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The Quinoa Issue
The quinoa objection will be familiar to many vegans, it is one that has been very popular since a particular New York Times article raised concerns about how the price rising price of quinoa has left many Bolivian people, for whom the crop is a staple, unable to afford it. This artical was instantly seized on to promote an anti-vegan agenda, wherein the implication was that the rise in quinoa consumption is the fault of vegans who continue eat the now trendy food. Others recognised that the tiny percentage of vegans worldwide were fairly obviously not responsible for a global boom in sales, but pointed the finger at vegans nonetheless by arguing that vegans care more about the animals than the poor farmers growing their quinoa. There are some glaring problems with this logic right from the offset, and many factual errors in the information used to support it.
Firstly, even if it were true that vegans were starving Bolivian farmers by buying quinoa, this entire argument would still be founded on a tu quoque fallacy. This argument essentially uses a red herring to point the finger back at vegans as opposed to having to defend meat eating, rather than attacking our argument, they have appealed to the idea that we are hypocritical because of our personal consumption habits. Even if these claims were true, this would still not be an effective argument against veganism, it is an argument against us as individuals. It is attacking the idea that we actually follow these values, rather than discussing the merits of the values themselves. If every vegan on earth were a hypocrit, that would not make veganism itself hypocritical, it would just mean that we have all failed in following it’s principles.
The story of the starving Bolivian farmers not being able to afford their own crop hit the news worldwide, and the guilt trip consumers had been taken on as a result did in fact, reach the ears of those being used as a pawn in these anti-vegan arguments; the farmers themselves. Their reaction was curious, to say the least:
“To me, quinoa … is absolutely changing the lives of our regional community of people,” German Nina, a quinoa farmer, said during a conference call organized by Alter Eco Foods, which sells quinoa products that are fair trade certified.”
These stories were still spreading rapidly through western media, mostly spurred on by social media influencers and journalists practically rabid at the idea of having a blunt object to hit vegans and milennials with, both the perceived markets for this product, yet the farmers themselves were telling that the increase in the price of the crop has meant they are making far more money than they were before, and are in a better position because of it. As for not being able to afford their own product, farmers are simply setting aside some of their own crop for personal consumption, as they always have. That farmers would have to buy their own crop back at market value was always a very strange assumption, and one that almost no one spreading this story seems to have stopped to consider. Another study in FoodPolicy concluded, similarly, that even when the price of quinoa had gone up by 400%, quinoa farmers did not have to cut back their consumption.
It is “very good news for small, indigenous farmers,” says Pablo Laguna, an anthropologist who has studied quinoa’s influence on local communities in Bolivia. Quinoa’s popularity, he says, is bringing more income to the southern highlands, traditionally one of the poorest regions in Bolivia.
Contrary to the idea being spread that livelihoods are being ruined by quinoa consumption, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has expressed concern that the quinoa boom has been so good for the Bolivian economy that the country should be careful not to rely solely on it as a source of income, since it may one day fall out of favor with westerners. He points out that, far from Bolivians not being able to afford quinoa, domestic consumption of the crop has increased threefold since the “quinoa boom.” In general, growers have greatly benefited from the increased popularity of quinoa.
It is not just insider sources confirmijng this, either. A study from the Towson University Department of Economics found that during the quinoa boom, the welfare and economic situation of both consumers and producers of quinoa in Bolivia increased rapidly as a result of the global increase in demand for quinoa, but it was the growers who benefited most of all. The paper concluded, unambiguously, that “The claim that rising quinoa prices were hurting those who had traditionally produced and consumed it [is] patently false.” Another study in FoodPolicy concluded, similarly, that even when the price of quinoa had gone up by 400%, quinoa farmers did not cut back their consumption.It stands to reason, then, that if quinoa were to become unpopular due to these scare stories, the toll on the economic situation of those whose livelihood’s are depending on farming it would be catastrophic, and yet these stories persist, and are still especially popular with anti-vegans in particular.
The fact that quinoa which was not produced in Bolivia or Peru is widely available also did not seem to phase it’s attackers. If someone did have real and genuine concerns about the welfare of Bolivian quinoa growers, why not simply purchase quinoa grown in Western Australia, where the crop is becoming increasingly popular? Or even Quinoa grown in North America, a growing enterprise? The truth is that this criticism always had less to do with concern for farmers in Bolivia and more to do with having a convenient reason to reject veganism. That people spreading this nonsense are unaware of what Bolivian farmers themselves are saying is obvious, and it seems reasonable to conclude that this is something they would have spent at least a few minutes researching if their criticisms of quinoa did come from a place of genuine concern.
Now, none of this is to say that there are no problems with quinoa. All high demand crops come with problems, from the potential of worker exploitation, to over-producing leaving land arid, to unequal distribution at home, pesticide use, land clearance- the potential ethical issues are many. What’s more, as we have already established, the price of quinoa is indeed rising, but so is the price of every other staple food in Bolivia. This is a result of several factors, including western demand, widespread droughts and periods of intense flooding. To ignore this wider context in order to use quinoa as an isolated example and to lay the blame for the regional and global problem of inflation of food prices at the door of vegans alone is completely absurd.
The problems of quinoa are shared by just about every other staple crop on earth, and it is curious indeed that we never hear these arguments about corn, wheat, grain or soy from meat eaters, most of which is used as animal feed. Mono-crops used for feeding animals involve some of the most destructive farming practices on earth, with vast swathes of land being deforested for it, and crop pickers being exploited to pick it. Since the animals fed to meat eaters require far more crops to get them to slaughter weight than they will ever give out in meat, a meat eating diet actually requires far more crops, and therefore crop labour, than a vegan diet does. That’s not even factoring in slaughterhouse workers themselves, who are some of the most exploited workers on the planet.
What anti-vegans want to do with arguments like this is to create a false dichotomy, where it is either consume animal products or consume quinoa, when in fact, most of us can be perfectly healthy without consuming either one. That quinoa is eaten by more meat eaters than vegans is beyond question, it appears with meat and fish on menus far more frequently than it appears with vegetables or beans. For those who do have genuine concerns about quinoa though, the conclusion should be obvious. Just don’t eat quinoa. Many people don’t, including many vegans, and if that is done out of ethical concerns then that is perfectly legitimate. What is not legitimate however, is using the problems of quinoa as a justification for eating animals, as if that were the only reasonable option they are left with.
This argument, similar to the myriad of other fallacies thrown at vegans on a regular basis, is nothing more than an attempt to capitalise on very real social and political issues in order to score points against veganism. These points are seldom made with any nuance, analysis or prior research, and are repeated ad nauseum purely because they confirm the existing bias of those spouting them. It is long past time that we genuinely worked towards solving issues of food availability, crop production and the inequalities of our capitalist system, rather than simply using the very people we should be advocating for as mere pawns to support an anti-vegan agenda.
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Artificial turf: A Significantly Popular Choice for the Yard
As Australia's severe drought has actually turned lots of eco-friendly, lush gardens and also yards right into brownish, lifeless dustbowls, a boosting number of Australian property owners are counting on synthetic lawn as a sensible remedy. Likewise, more residence building contractors, landscapers, and also sports as well as commercial centers are actively exploring and promoting artificial surface areas, triggering a dramatic surge in synthetic lawn demand below in Australia. There are lots of benefits to mounting artificial turf versus all-natural grass, here are just a few: The Advantages of Artificial turf versus All-natural Grass Watering With enhancing Phase 3, Stage 4 and also Phase 5 water restrictions in position throughout most of the country, water preservation is currently at a crucial point, as well as numerous house owners are finding that they are merely not allowed to sprinkle their lawns. While rain containers can definitely ease the problem in the short term, they really just function if there is adequate rains to fill them up. Grey water systems could additionally address several of the problem, however the truth is that the chemicals and soaps in grey water gathered from some of these systems can, otherwise treated appropriately, really damage a yard. Lastly, for business applications, consisting of football ovals, golf courses, retirement home, residential property growths and sporting facilities, the cost and initiative to carry water through a pipe system or vehicle could be expensive (and, as has actually been seen current, can anger a community's residents using this precious source for a non-vital purpose). Artificial turf, on the other hand, calls for no watering, therefore assisting Australians to conserve water. A synthetic lawn stays green, rich and soft regardless of environment changes, temperature or other environmental problems, making it a logical and also sensible option for both residence and organisation applications. Upkeep The hot and dry climates one-of-a-kind to Australia make natural grass very challenging (and costly) to preserve. Homeowners, councils, and also property monitoring firms invest big amounts of loan on water, plant foods, chemicals, chemicals, mowing as well as general work to keep their natural turf in good problem. Artificial turf, nonetheless, calls for none of these expensive products. Keeping a synthetic yard is as easy as raking the leaves when needed, and also an occasional topdressing of sand or rubber. On top of that, lots of artificial lawn producers will use an unique UV finish to shield the grass against the rough ultraviolet rays of the sunlight-- making certain that the synthetic grass will not fade or deteriorate with age. Environment As stated over, maintaining a natural yard yard needs routine use fertilizers, chemicals and also pesticides. Besides the intrinsic risk of direct exposure to children, pets as well as indigenous animals in the area, these items invariably migrate right into the soil, groundwater, as well as at some point right into lakes, streams and even the sea. This can have substantial lasting impacts in the world's plants, animals, the air we breathe and the food we consume. Artificial turf, on the various other hand, needs no chemicals or chemicals for maintenance, and supplies a secure, healthy atmosphere for families as well as the public. Safety All-natural yard yards and sporting activities fields are seldom completely level. With routine use, a yard yard will develop dips, mounds, bumps, openings as well as various other variances that could trigger tripping, twisted ankle joints or various other significant injuries.
A properly-installed artificial grass, however, is most frequently improved top of flat, degree ground (usually dug deep into as well as grated), which contains one or two layers of compacted, smashed base and a layer of foam cushioning. The lawn is after that in-filled with a mix of either rolled sand or smashed rubber, and then raked or cleaned to ensure a consistent, level, soft surface area. When done right, an artificial yard or sports field is much secure compared to all-natural grass, therefore the reason why more significant sports organisations as well as colleges in the U.S. and also Australia are changing their turf and all-natural turf with synthetic surfaces. Look Innovation has actually greatly boosted synthetic lawn in the past years. Gone are the days of neon-green Astroturf or knee-burning plastic-fibre carpets. Today, synthetic turf can be found in various fiber lengths, colours and weaves, and also is produced to precisely duplicate the look and feel of natural rye, bermuda, bluegrass, centipede or practically any kind of sort of all-natural lawn readily available. The new generation of synthetic lawn also feels exceptionally soft to the touch, which is a welcome enhancement for children and pets. Price It is frequently thought that natural grass is more affordable than synthetic grass-- as turf seed or lawn transplants are reasonably economical. So at $50 to $100 per square metre (set up), the bulky up-front financial investment for purchase and installment of artificial turf could appear expensive. However actually, the costs over the long-term are in fact less than that of all-natural grass. When considering the 5- to 10-year price of grass seed, water, plant foods, lawnfeed as well as pesticides, in addition to the work and time to trim, cut, aerate, fill, mulch and maintain a natural turf lawn, it comes to be clear that a synthetic yard could pay for itself within a few years, relying on the dimension of the area and also the priced estimate cost. For the ordinary home owner, however, one of the most prominent advantage of having an artificial lawn is "Time". Less time keeping a grass suggests more time enjoying it. interesting for backyard cricket with the youngsters. More time for yard footy. Or just merely "more time in the yard".
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Tips for Choosing the Best Tour Company in Australia
Group tours are usually interchangeable with big buses and camera-clicking tourists racing through a country. But multi-day tours are complex. Their success depends on several factors: the talents of the guide(s), the logic of the itinerary, the quality of the hotels and included meals, the selection of transportation, the different types of activities, and the mix of people in the group. In this article, you will get some information on how to find the best tour company so you get one that is inexpensive, eco-friendly, provides local guides, and gives back to the local community.
Research The Costs
With tour companies, it's not always true that you get what you pay for. Many city tours companies nickel-and-dime you, while some are good at maximizing value for your money. Ask them how your money is spent to find out if you are acquiring the best value for your money. Additionally, ensure that you ask if more money has to be paid when you arrive. Many companies need you to pay extra money when the tour starts or don't include a park or attraction entrance fee.
Get Local Guides
Guides can break or make your trip. They will explain everything to you and maintain the flow of the tour. Ensure that the company uses knowledgeable, local guides. The guide should be a local or long-term resident, know the regional language, have travel experience, and know life-saving procedures. If you are not sure about the guides, call the customer service line and ask them about their guides.
Safe Operation
The tour company should be experienced when organizing any tour. For instance, they must know all the precautions during a golf tour. They should guide people on how to drive a golf cart, the speed and all turns, and how people should sit, and they should provide each very small and big detail.
Check the Mode of Transportation
Regardless of whether you are going for a day out in Australia on tour or to work, bus or coach travel is a popular option for traveling. Choose a tour company which provides the service of luxury buses or coaches so that you can truly enjoy any tour and have ever-lasting memories of your time. So while choosing a tour company don't forget to consider this factor.
A Balanced Schedule
Moving around will leave you wishing you had a holiday from your holiday, but you don't want to be sitting in the same place the entire day. You're spending them to fill your day. How do they do that? Do they have a lot of activities arranged, or do they leave you to your own devices? Ensure that you get a balanced schedule of all the activities and choose a balanced day tour.
Environmental Impact
There's a growing trend among travelers known as ecotourism. It's about more responsible travel, not only toward the environment but also toward the people in that area. This means using regional guides, hotels, and services and reducing waste and your footprint on the regional habitat. Moreover, these companies offer better and more interactive tours that give you a good degree of autonomy.
Group Size
Tour companies with smaller groups tend to be more mindful of the environment. You can bring family and friends together for a special occasion in a world-renowned wine region. Wine tour companies should specialize in creating unique and personalized tours across several areas throughout Australia. So get information on what you are getting into so you don't find yourself and your dear ones in a group too small or too large for your tastes.
Check Their Reputation
Check online reviews to see what a company's reputation is. Some reviews are not always genuine; someone hates a tour because the weather is hot. So look for companies average 85% or higher (or 4 out of 5 stars). The negative reviews are probably just outliers if a company is highly rated.
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Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Size, Share With Top Companies, Region Forecast 2021-2027
Natural Resource Management Consulting Market 2021-2027
A New Market Study, Titled “Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Upcoming Trends, Growth Drivers and Challenges” has been featured on fusionmarketresearch.
Description
This global study of the Natural Resource Management Consulting market offers an overview of the existing market trends, drivers, restrictions, and metrics and also offers a viewpoint for important segments. The report also tracks product and services demand growth forecasts for the market. There is also to the study approach a detailed segmental review. A regional study of the global Natural Resource Management Consulting industry is also carried out in North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Near East & Africa. The report mentions growth parameters in the regional markets along with major players dominating the regional growth.
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This report analyses the impact of COVID-19 on this industry. COVID-19 can affect the global market in 3 ways: by directly affecting production and demand, by creating supply chain and market disruption, and by its financial impact on enterprises and financial markets.
This report provides detailed historical analysis of global market for Natural Resource Management Consulting from 2015-2020, and provides extensive market forecasts from 2021-2030 by region/country and subsectors. It covers the sales volume, price, revenue, gross margin, historical growth and future perspectives in the Natural Resource Management Consulting market.
Leading players of Natural Resource Management Consulting including: Acacia Natural Resource Consultants Accenture AFC India Agricones ARTD Consultants Cascadia COWI DAI EC3 Environmental Consulting ECO Consulting Eco Logical Australia EcoAnalysts Ecosphere Environmental Services ERM FCG FirstCarbon Solutions GHD ICF Integrated Natural Resources Management Consultants Mott MacDonald Natural Resources Consulting Engineers NRC NRM Corporation Owl Ridge Redstart Ricardo Rodgers Consulting Strategic Natural Resource Consultants Umwelt Wildwood Consulting
Market split by Type, can be divided into: Biological Services Fisheries & Hydrology Wetlands Analysis Forest Management Environmental Documentation Permitting & Compliance
Market split by Application, can be divided into: Industrial Energy Industry Environmental Protection
Market split by Sales Channel, can be divided into: Direct Channel Distribution Channel
Market segment by Region/Country including: North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Spain etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Southeast Asia etc.) South America (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia etc.) Middle East & Africa (South Africa, UAE and Saudi Arabia etc.)
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Overview 1.1 Natural Resource Management Consulting Definition 1.7 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Dynamics (COVID-19 Impacts) 1.7.1 Market Drivers/Opportunities 1.7.2 Market Challenges/Risks 1.7.3 Market News (Mergers/Acquisitions/Expansion) 1.7.4 COVID-19 Impacts on Current Market 1.7.5 Post-Strategies of COVID-19 Outbreak
Chapter 2 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Segment Analysis by Player 2.1 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Sales and Market Share by Player (2018-2020) 2.2 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Revenue and Market Share by Player (2018-2020) 2.3 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Average Price by Player (2018-2020) 2.4 Players Competition Situation & Trends 2.5 Conclusion of Segment by Player
Chapter 3 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Segment Analysis by Type 3.1 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Market by Type 3.1.1 Biological Services 3.1.2 Fisheries & Hydrology 3.1.3 Wetlands Analysis 3.1.4 Forest Management 3.1.5 Environmental Documentation Permitting & Compliance 3.2 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Sales and Market Share by Type (2015-2020) 3.3 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Revenue and Market Share by Type (2015-2020) 3.4 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Average Price by Type (2015-2020) 3.5 Leading Players of Natural Resource Management Consulting by Type in 2020 3.6 Conclusion of Segment by Type
Chapter 4 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Segment Analysis by Application 4.1 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Market by Application 4.1.1 Industrial 4.1.2 Energy Industry 4.1.3 Environmental Protection 4.2 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Revenue and Market Share by Application (2015-2020) 4.3 Leading Consumers of Natural Resource Management Consulting by Application in 2020 4.4 Conclusion of Segment by Application
Chapter 5 Natural Resource Management Consulting Market Segment Analysis by Sales Channel 5.1 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Market by Sales Channel 5.1.1 Direct Channel 5.1.2 Distribution Channel 5.2 Global Natural Resource Management Consulting Revenue and Market Share by Sales Channel (2015-2020) 5.3 Leading Distributors/Dealers of Natural Resource Management Consulting by Sales Channel in 2020 5.4 Conclusion of Segment by Sales Channel
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GIFT IDEAS FOR 12 YEAR OLD KIDS IN AUSTRALIA.
4M – Green Science – Rover Robot : Designed for fun, interactive indoor and outdoor play. Enhances children’s development in hand-eye coordination, creative thinking skills, engineering skills, construction skills, logical thinking and many more!
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4M Green Science Eco-Tech Bulb : The award-winning 4M Green Science Eco-Tech Bulb can be powered up as a lamp or torch using gravity or hand-powered. Children can power up this ingenious overhead lamp with gravity to light up your surroundings. Or, simply bring it with you and crank the handle to create a dynamo torch.
#toys to learn#unique gift ideas for kids#best gifts for 14 year old boy#best birthday presents for 10 year old boy#gift ideas#christmasgifts#best robotics for kids#kids building stem kits
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A Better Option to Play for Our Kids
Wooden toys provide a rustic charm to a celebration that is simply not present in plastic toys. This is why they remain popular toys even though they are thousands of years old & compete with more modern alternatives. They are timeless in their design, and their high quality ensures that they will be passed down from older to younger siblings and beyond.
Toys from the prehistoric period (about 4,000 years ago) were almost exclusively crafted from wood. Roman children played games akin to chess with small carved wooden pieces and with bigger copies of chariots and horses for role playing. A mapmaker, created the first jigsaw puzzle out of wood to aid in geography education. Wooden puppets and Wooden Name Train were use in entertainment for kids. In the Victorian era, elegant and pricey wooden doll houses entered the market. And after WWI, it was common to see children playing with model airplanes and cars made from wood.
Wooden toys like Wooden Train Set are making a comeback as people become more environmentally conscious. They do not need batteries, are created from a renewable resource, and are simple to recycle. Toys created locally help the community and the environment by avoiding the pollution caused by shipping.
Our kids can play much more safely with Wooden Toys Australia. Wooden toys are safer than plastic ones since they do not harbor germs and cannot produce harmful chemicals when bitten on. Because they can be used in so many various games, they also help our kids develop their imaginations. They are not a toy with only one use that fosters inattention and stunted creativity. Shape sorters, construction blocks, and model craft kits are just a few examples of the age-appropriate toys that feature them. The vast majority are instructive, helping your kid build motor skills and problem-solving techniques while having a blast.
Toy manufacturers who follow all the rules and are respectful of the environment are a rarity, but they do exist. Do not assume the quality of Educational Wooden Toys simply because it is wooden. There is a chance that the wood is poisonous or that the paint is carcinogenic. Make sure the company you are purchasing from uses FSC-approved wood and non-toxic paints.
Toys have a profound impact on children's development and their outlook on the world. Play kitchens, houses, and automobiles are just a few examples of the many toys that are designed to teach kids important life skills while still being entertaining. As a result, it is important to give kids toys that help them develop important abilities like motor coordination, logic, and creativity as they play. You can help your kids develop environmentally responsible habits by buying them eco-friendly toys and explaining why it is important.
A wooden dowel may not seem like much at first glance. Most people's first thought as they see a plank of wood is not of a flurry of creative activity. But for a few lucky people, inspiration strikes and they quickly pick up the skills necessary to put their ideas down on paper.
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Design A Natural Garden in A Small Space
Most of the people that have their own garden, they want a feel of nature in their garden, as way of release from the glass, asphalt and concrete of urban life. Is it really possible, within the limits of a suburb or town plot, to grow a "natural evacuation" in an area that is inescapably manipulated and artificial? The small answer has to be undesirable. Yet in case the question is advanced from a specific angle, then the longing for a home garden through Permaculture Education Online that does have a natural sense can be pleased to a considerable level.
By way of method, it is crucial not to be led amiss by the misleading and mistaken terms that are often bandied. The very impression of garden design like, is normally thought of as the conversation of a "herbal" garden. "Just you need to plant whatever you like the most and let things grow in a natural manner," is a common catchphrase. The inference is that randomness matches nature, while Permaculture Australia design matches artificiality. If you will join Permaculture Design Course Online you can design your garden in an efficient manner. Yet virtually there is not anything random about a natural eco-system. Actually, the exact opposite is the case, because the population levels and presence of the mass of creatures, is ruled by the precise and strict laws of nature.
As in overall nature, the design rules, not to be muddled with personal choice, follow rules that have worldwide application, not just because specific groups of people such as architects, artists of Online Permaculture Course and fashion designers have commanded what is "in" and what is "out", but just because of the recognized effect certain incentives have on the human brain. Online Permaculture Design which is unbalanced would make people feel uncomfortable, as would one that is unclear and confused, due to the human desire to know what is happening. Plants which are not in measure with the spaces and objects surrounding them, would feel out of place, even a sense of conflict is answerable to ensue from flower bed which is a "riot" of color.
Satisfying outcomes can just be gained in the long way if the garden is formed by obeying to the design rules. In small areas, the near one stays to fix geometrical extents, the higher the chance of getting the sense of calm and ordered agreement craved for by many garden owners.
The query then comes as to which type of geometry must underline the straightforward setting out of the site. The most least natural and formal effect is obviously derived from strict regularity, while irregular balance can make a clear, logical arrangement that is even more stimulating as well as less contrived. Know that curved lines are more natural and softer in feel compare to straight ones, but to keen the underlying design strength, the curve radius must equal or be balanced to other projecting lines in the garden.
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The alt-right may depart from mainstream conservatism in a number of ways, but one trait they both have in common is an obsession with something known as “Western Civilization.” The term gets waved around a lot by people all across the political right. The near-genocidal Traditionalist Worker Party founder Matthew Heimbach once headed a chapter of the “Youth for Western Civilization,” Stanford pop historian and Kissinger hagiographer Niall Ferguson makes a hierarchical distinction between “the West and the rest,” while noted social-scientific blowhard Jordan Peterson has repeatedly declared that “The West is right.” But what is this mysterious entity called “the West” anyway? Or, to break the question down a bit more, what do they think they mean by “the West,” what are they actually signaling by talking about “the West,” and why should anyone care about “the West” at all (since, spoiler alert, it’s largely a fabrication)?
When people on the right talk about “the West,” they almost always do so in glowing terms. It’s the “birthplace of democracy” or the “mother of reason” or the “nursemaid of science” or any number of other natal clichés. The achievement of the West, in their minds, is a kind of origination or invention of various significant cultural institutions that, for better or worse, now shape the experiences of billions of people around the world. (Ferguson nauseatingly calls these great Western institutions “killer apps.”) Setting aside for a moment the fact that modern democracy looks absolutely nothing like the Athenian system, or that Indian scholars began developing multiple systems of formal logic several hundred years before Aristotle was born, this affection is understandable: democracy and reason and science are generally considered good things, and it’s good to want to know how they came about.
But is that really all that’s going on? Some other facets of this fixation suggest not. If one browses the corners of the internet frequented by the far right (and I do not advise doing so without something pleasant at hand to drink, like overproof whisky or a warm mug of cyanide), one finds a pretty high concentration of jokes and memes centered on the Crusades, which are implied to be a great moment in the clash of civilizations. Current Affairs readers, who are noted for their depth of learning and historical savvy, might find this somewhat confusing. After all, the Crusades are famous mostly for their large death toll, their ultimate ineffectiveness, and their having inadvertently caused one of the longest and bitterest religious schisms in history between the Eastern and Western Christian churches. Not exactly a proud civilizational high point. Those same readers might conclude that a West-loving person celebrating the Crusades must have some other facet of them in mind. That facet, to no one’s surprise, turns out to be anti-Arab racism, and the numerous downsides to the Crusades are overlooked in favor of their having been occasions for a bunch of Europeans to kill a lot of Arabs.
I don’t pretend to have uncovered some great secret about the far right. Talking to these people mirrors the experience of talking to someone who’s just a bit too interested in German artillery from the First and Second World Wars, though the alt-right’s attempts at dog-whistle Nazi fandom are less like a soft whistle than a fifty-piece military band. The more mainstream right, however, despite its frequent disavowal of racism, upholds these very same visions of European superiority and colonial conquest, and, moreover, does so in terms that an attentive reader cannot help but gloss as racial. Its representatives will say otherwise: their devotion is to the “culture” of the West, or to history, or to “Judeo-Christian values.” But the way in which this culture and these values are represented must occasion serious reflection on what the “values” in question actually are.
The preferred aesthetic modes of this kind of “Western culture” conservatism are classicism and neoclassicism, and this should give us immediate pause. I don’t mean to deride classical and neoclassical art. Classical sculpture and architecture are genuinely beautiful, and while some neoclassical architecture is bland and derivative, it has also given us beautiful public buildings and spaces that are pleasant to look at and move through. But it’s hard to think of monumental edifices of white marble and not suspect that the “white” might bear a heavier load than the marble. Sarah Bond, a historian and archaeologist at the University of Iowa, reminded us of this last year when she published an essay bringing to popular attention what scholars have known for a while now: the plain white marble commonly associated with Greek and Roman antiquity was in fact painted and brightly colored, and that the “idealized” proportions of classical sculpture have a long history of deployment in explicitly racist scientific literature, like medical textbooks describing phrenology. Bond’s argument is that we need to be conscious of the ways in which a classicizing aesthetic of white marble forms and European facial features can unintentionally uphold notions of white racial superiority. After making this eminently sensible point, Bond was subjected to coordinated online harassment and death threats from the far right, while mainstream right-wing publications like the National Review scoffed at her radical suggestion that we ought to discuss ancient statues as they actually were.
Classicist Donna Zuckerberg has also written against alt-right appropriation of antiquity and has faced similar death threats from the far right and scorn or indifference from the mainstream right. In the desire of these supposed custodians of history to maintain their already-existing conceptions of antiquity even at the price of ignoring what these statues were actually like, we see history actively giving way to other concerns. When a supposedly mainstream conservative publication dismisses expert scholarly opinion and wonders why we can’t just keep the statues white, it doesn’t take a trained philologist to draw out what’s really going on.
Since, however, I actually am a trained philologist, I’d like to draw this out a bit further. The notion of a “cultural inheritance” common to “Western” people—a category that is both strikingly modern and shockingly difficult to define—purports to stand for a cohesive “European” achievement. (It also attempts to escape any possible charge of racism, by insisting that race has no bearing on culture, i.e. the problem with Muslims is their faith rather than their ethnicity. This is completely untrue, of course. White supremacy is omnipresent in American and European cultures, and people who are not white consequently experience those cultures very differently from both white people and from one another, depending on where they are and how their race is perceived.) We can see this rhetoric in detail in the Paris Statement, a recent product of the “cultural right” put out by a small but representative group of European conservatives and endorsed by “respectable” conservative journals like the National Review. The statement is careful to disavow racism from the very beginning but then posits a crucial dichotomy between a “true Europe” that is vital and productive and strong (but also somehow under threat), and a “false Europe” that is hollow and weak (but also somehow threatens to overwhelm the true Europe). Umberto Eco once identified a particular rhetorical register of fascism in which “by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.” The constant vacillation between the vitality/vulnerability of “true Europe” and the unreality/unstoppability of “false Europe” fits Eco’s criterion exactly. The “true Europe” is also identified repeatedly with particular people as their patrimony or inheritance, which certainly implies ancestry and “roots.”
Indeed, the notion of European culture as a kind of patrimony can be traced back to the 19th-century search for the “original” Indo-Europeans, the people who spoke the language from which the Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Slavic, Iranian, and Indic languages, along with many others, all descend. It was by asserting Germans’ direct descent from this group that the Nazis asserted a hereditary German right to rule over Europe. Using the same conceptual apparatus smuggles in questions of race, as it were, through the back door.
The Paris Statement also suggests that the primary threat to Europe is too much “openness,” particularly to the cultures of Muslim immigrants. These cultures are, apparently, incompatible with Europe and cannot exist within its borders. This particular strain of argument is drawn straight from Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, which posits a unified “West” identified primarily with Protestant and Catholic Christianity and predicts that the next great conflict will be between “Western” and “Islamic” civilizations. This connection illustrates the strong cross-pollination between European nativism and American neoconservatism, and the ease with which each substitutes “Europe” and “the West” for one another when translating their ideas back and forth.
Illustration by C.M. Duffy
What exactly, then, is this “Western culture” that so fascinates and concerns them? What is the common inheritance that modernity has supposedly abandoned? This proves a far more difficult question to answer because the idea of “the West” turns out to be a surprisingly modern way of looking at Europe and the countries formed by European settlement and colonization (principally the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, from 1918, occupies an important place in this. Not only is it one of the favorite texts of the modern alt-right, but it was the text through which a great many Anglophone intellectuals took up the notion of a unified “West” that could be talked about across historical periods. Spengler wasn’t the first prominent scholar to speak of it, but he was the most publicized, and his framework was particularly influential on the European political right. Though Spengler did not espouse the same sort of vicious anti-Semitism that would later result in the Holocaust, he did help to cement the notion that the world was divided into distinct “civilizations” along ethno-religious lines, writing in his introduction that “it is self-evident that for the Cultures of the West the existence of Athens, Florence, or Paris is more important than that of Lo-Yang or Paliputra.” Lest we mistake his meaning, he writes only a few pages earlier that “We men of Western culture are, with our historical sense, an exception and not a rule. World-history is our world picture and not all mankind’s.” This is not overt eugenicist superiority, but it clearly searches for the exceptionalism of an internally coherent “West,” which lays the intellectual groundwork for the systemic exclusion of Jews, Romani, and others who can be labeled foreign.
Shortly after Spengler published the first volume of Decline, American education began a series of reforms that would shape the way that we perceive “the West.” Throughout most of the 19th century, the elite universities in the United States stuck to a curriculum centered on the Greek and Latin classics. Toward the century’s end, some of those universities, most famously Harvard, began switching to an elective system in which students had far greater choice in what they would study. In partial reaction to this, as well as to the horrors of World War I and the failures of European nationalisms, professors at Columbia and the University of Chicago formed their own curricula grounded in what they considered “great books” of human civilization, the designated classic texts that supposedly comprised the core of worthy human insight.
These courses didn’t begin as exclusively “Western,” but they quickly became so. The designers aimed to strengthen American democracy and our relationships with European countries by promoting an understanding of American “roots” as well as the common heritage of “Western” countries generally. Historian-turned-biologist Dylan Morris sums up this transition in his Master’s dissertation on the subject:
“Since American freedom was founded upon Western roots, [educators] argued, American citizenship required a grounding in the Western tradition. In the context of conflicts with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the great books educators argued that opposition to totalitarianism required the sense of universal values their education could provide… Moreover, associating the great books with the West also allowed the great books educators to avoid explicitly making the claim that the books were greater than any modern thought or than the works of the emerging ‘East,’ claims that increasingly risked being seen as ‘new medievalism’ and ‘ethnocentric,’ respectively.”
Morris notes that these educators at once attempted to disavow any claims of “Western” supremacy, but also claimed that this education would impart “universal values,” claiming the “universal” perspective for the West in the same way that Spengler claimed for “world history.”
Of course, capitalism will find a way to monetize anything that comes near it, and “great books” are no exception. The moment of truly explosive popularity for “great books” came in 1952 when Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, who had been responsible for the curriculum at Chicago, released a set of “Great Books of the Western World” published by Encyclopedia Britannica. It sold very well and found its way into middle-class homes across the country. This, far more than the curricula at a couple of elite universities, shaped popular American perceptions of “Western Civ” and its importance to national identity. But it’s instructive to compare Adler and Hutchins’s set with another famous “Great Books” collection, the Harvard Classics, put out in the late 19th century by Charles Eliot, the Harvard president responsible for instituting the university’s elective system. Both sets of books market themselves as a kind of self-education. By reading and reflecting on these books, privately and in their own home, a person will become better equipped for citizenship in a democratic society. But the earlier Harvard set, even with its sparse selection of Buddhist texts, Indian epic, and excerpts from the Qur’an, is far more inclusive of non-“Western” perspectives than the later Chicago set. In the Chicago set, we can also see the barest gesture toward including Russian literature under the canon of “the West,” with a single novel each from Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. As Morris observes, Adler’s equation of “Western” with “universal,” begun in his curriculum and in the Britannica series’s pompously-titled Syntopicon, reached its apex with the 2000 publication of his final book, How to Think About the Great Ideas, in which he identifies exactly 103 “Great Ideas” that, he claims, sum up all of human thought: “All the Great Ideas are recognizably the same as they were in the ancient world. None of them is a ‘modern discovery.’ The ancient Greeks had a name for all 103 of them.” Leaving aside my severe professional skepticism that the concept of an “Angel” is a universal idea or that fifth-century Athenians had any notion of such a thing, this assertion is remarkable for the bald transparency of both its intellectual parochialism and its sheer snake-oil hucksterism. Here, for the low price of $34.95, is every idea worth considering, all explored in a list of books you already know and respect.
The notion that “Western thought” contained every major human intellectual contribution was not inevitable, and in fact would have been unthinkable a century beforehand. What makes this collapse of perspective noteworthy and alarming is the wildly different attitude that 19th-century European intellectuals held toward “the East,” by which they meant chiefly Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Indian cultures. Indeed, much of the intellectual life of the later 1800’s was marked by a pervasive enthusiasm for the literatures and religions of these regions. Between 1879 and 1910, Oxford University Press put out a fifty-volume series of the Sacred Books of the East, overseen by Max Müller, one of the leading Indologists of the era. That a press could undertake such a mammoth series with the expectation that it would sell speaks to the ready appetite of both scholars and the literate public for “Eastern” material. The late 19th century also saw a minor literary mania for Edward Fitzgerald’s famous English translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, which kindled enthusiasm for Persian and Arabic literature among readers of all ages.
We know, of course, that this enthusiasm was also suffused with an Orientalism that effaced the great cultural diversity of Asia and the Middle East, turning them into a unified blob of Eastern exoticism while exploiting the people and resources of those regions. But at the same time, it did get something right: other people in other places had produced art and thought that was different from our own, but no less worthy. That this zeal to learn from other cultures would give way, in the 20th century United States, to Adler’s bargain-bin parochialism seems to me one of the great tragedies of American intellectual life.
The 20th century shift in the focus of educational curricula and book series shows that popular notions of “great” literary and cultural achievement, though overwhelmingly focused on Euro-American works, once did attempt to embrace important works outside that sphere. Only later did it become entangled with delimiting “the West” and limiting its selections to that area. But perhaps more importantly, it also demonstrates just how unstable the idea of “the West” was and remains to this day. Nowadays it’s hard to find a “Great Books of the West” list that doesn’t include major Russian authors, and even many of the self-avowedly “Western” curricula like those at Columbia and UChicago have incorporated readings from the Qur’an and from Islamic thinkers like Ibn Rushd, Al-Ghazali and Ibn Sina. The idea of the “West” as a distinct and self-contained set of cultures and works is a deeply modern idea, and the gaps between contemporary articulations of “the West” and those from even the middle of the 20th century show how closely that idea reflects the twists and turns of modernity rather than any kind of unchanging body of historical tradition.
But I don’t just mean to jab a finger at the right and lecture them on their ignorance, abundant though it may be. What I mean to expose here is that there is no stable “Western” tradition at all. There were other concepts that encompassed Europe, like the medieval and early modern idea of “Christendom,” but Christendom was badly damaged by the Wars of Religion and was thoroughly dead after the French Revolution, and in any case, “Christendom” is a very different thing from “the West.” The latter is a modern invention, taken up by some elite college professors and then sold door to door for a tidy profit. The right, particularly the “respectable” right, is very keen to claim that it remains faithful to some cultural inheritance that the left has abandoned in favor of contemporary fashionable orthodoxies, but they play the same game that we do—they’re just better at selling it. In fact, the most prominent tradition of left-wing scholarship, Marxism, is markedly older than the idea of “the West,” since the first volume of Capital was published in 1867.
The harm in buying into the right’s framing of a venerable and antiquated “Western tradition” goes somewhat beyond being mocked by classicists in academic footnotes. Accepting their terms means accepting, implicitly, that there is a tradition of thought with enough internal coherence that one can decide what falls within it and what doesn’t. This is the premise of those conservatives like former education secretary William Bennett, whose report on higher education declares that “our society is the product and we the inheritors of Western civilization,” and immediately goes on to identify “Western civilization” with “masterworks of English, American, and European literature.” This is a transposition of the Paris Statement into a more intellectual and less geopolitical register, but it sounds all the same notes: a patrimony that belongs to “us” by inheritance; the necessity of maintaining its integrity; the danger that opening it too widely will destroy it; the implicit threat from influences inside it but somehow also foreign. (It’s curious that the right, which so loathes “identity politics,” embraces the most extreme and dangerous forms of identity politics: the civilizational and the national.)
Framing matters around an “us” and a “them” invites an audience to imagine what these degrading influences are. Some blame leftist Jewish academics like the expatriate Frankfurt School, others blame feminism and suggest that things were better when nobody had to care what women thought. Charles Murray has written that “Europe dominate[s] the narrative of human accomplishment,” and that “so does the minority that has become known in recent years as dead white males,” implying that any attempt to uncover the histories of women’s accomplishment must be distorting fact in the service of politics. (Incidentally, this is demonstrably false. Philosopher Christia Mercer has recently made a very persuasive case that much of René Descartes’s most famous philosophical argument was drawn from the writings of the Christian mystic Teresa of Avila.) When the left cedes this ground and allows the right to frame discussion in terms of a very white and male “West,” we allow the right to construct a Euro-American past that does not involve Jews or women or people of color, which sets the stage for excluding the ideas of Jews and women and people of color from present consideration.
We also concede the notion that this continuous and identifiable “West” developed primarily through its own powers, with only marginal influence from the “non-Western” peoples. This myth of self-generated vitality is an old one, traceable back to the Athenian myth of the first Athenians springing from the soil of Attica, and finding new and horrifying life in the Third Reich’s foundational myth of Germanic aboriginality. But it is well known that European civilization has always engaged in trade and exchange with non-European peoples, and that those peoples have sometimes exercised profound influence on large segments of culture. This is not even something that takes careful exegesis to discover. Throughout medieval scholastic philosophy, for example, the commentaries on Aristotle by the Andalusian Muslim polymath Ibn-Rushd are explicitly quoted either to confirm a point or as as an authority sufficiently eminent to demand specific refutation. The whole shape of this most stereotypically European period of thought depends on that influx of Arabic philosophy. Even the very Christianity held so dear by so many avowedly secular right-wing intellectuals is the product of contact between a heretical Jewish sect and the Hellenistic culture that pervaded the Mediterranean in that era. There simply isn’t any way to imagine modern Europe without the foundational influence of these and many other distinctly non-European voices.
Of course, acknowledging Euro-American cultural and intellectual debts is not sufficient. A focus on the cultural integrity of “the West” also elides the ways in which so many European countries built their wealth and cultural production through colonial exploitation and enslavement of non-European people. This cannot be pushed to the periphery. It was foundational to Euro-American modernity as we know it, and any serious attempt to understand European and American societies must confront it. In a very real sense, focusing on an integrated “West” minimizes and obscures that historical atrocity. It says that the development of European and North American nations came about through the actions and ideas of people unequivocally on the cultural “inside,” and relegates the ideas and actions of exploited and enslaved peoples to a footnote. This is the very same “history as therapy” of which the right so often accuses fields like Afro-American Studies and Gender Studies. It tells its intended audience that only the actions of people like them really matter, and that any historical crimes weren’t really so bad as to affect the foundations of their culture.
As it happens, I am not at all an opponent of “history as therapy.” Quite the contrary, I think that finding our individual and collective selves through the study of history is one of the most rewarding uses of leisure, and that everyone should have the time and resources to do so. But good therapy requires honesty, as any qualified therapist will tell you. Far from being a process of constant affirmation, an effective course of therapy often forces us to confront the parts of ourselves we least want to acknowledge, and to abandon the comfortable illusions that allow us to ignore the harm we do to others and to ourselves. This therapeutic end is precisely what requires us to abandon the notion of an integrated and continuous “West” in our studies of history and culture. By continuing to speak in those terms, we allow our discussion to be shaped by an illusion that obscures millennia of ongoing contact between European nations or settlements and non-European peoples, as well as the many evils perpetrated against those peoples. We allow ourselves to say that only “our” people’s deeds and experiences matter, and that other people’s deeds and experiences are not really important enough to affect who “we” are.
So where does this leave our view of literature or history or other forms of culture? How are we to structure our conversation and study of these things without a term like “the West” to draw them together? This is a less difficult proposition than it might appear, since these subjects were studied before the invention of “the West” and will continue to be studied in other ways. There are plenty of ways to frame questions of literary and cultural history that don’t lie about which people matter, and we certainly shouldn’t abandon studying the histories and cultures of Europe and North America. These regions and cultures exercise enormous influence around the world, and understanding them is a worthwhile project. But we have an obligation to do so responsibly, in a way that is faithful both to the material and to our fellow human beings. Virtually no one involved in the culture wars over “Western Civ” in the 90’s ever said that the study of Plato or Cervantes or the Thirty Years’ War was worthless. They just aren’t the only things that matter, and we should delight that there is so much more for us to know that does matter and that can instruct and delight us. The poet and classical scholar A. E. Housman put it best:
“Other desires become the occasion of pain through dearth of the material to gratify them, but not the desire of knowledge: the sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our story-book. So long as the mind of man is what it is, it will continue to exult in advancing on the unknown throughout the infinite field of the universe; and the tree of knowledge will remain for ever, as it was in the beginning, a tree to be desired to make one wise.”
The realization that “the West” has not exhausted all worthwhile human endeavor should fill us with wonder at the scope of human possibility. There will always be more to know, more places to see, more people to meet. For those of us on the left who claim to love humanity, I can think of few more powerful visions of our future.
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In Australia, Just One Wasp Can Ground an Airplane With a Strategically Placed Nest
https://sciencespies.com/news/in-australia-just-one-wasp-can-ground-an-airplane-with-a-strategically-placed-nest/
In Australia, Just One Wasp Can Ground an Airplane With a Strategically Placed Nest
New research conducted at Brisbane airport shows how the invasive keyhole wasp builds their nests over important sensors, causing havoc for aircraft, George Dvorsky reports for Gizmodo.
Keyhole wasps like to lay their eggs in small, pre-made cavities like window crevices, electrical sockets and, as their name implies, keyholes. Airplanes, meanwhile, rely on external sensors that are shaped like thin tubes. If the pilot realizes after takeoff that a sensor is blocked, the plane just has to turn around so it can be cleaned. But in a worst-case scenario, malfunctioning sensors are catastrophic. The new study, published on November 30 in the journal PLOS One, confirmed keyhole wasps are the sensor-blocking culprit, figured out their favorite size sensors for nest-building, and found that they built most of their nests near a grassy field at the airport.
The researchers hope that airports will be use the data to better combat the six-legged saboteurs.
“When we did some background research we realized that this wasn’t just an inconvenience, that you just had to clean these things out and swat the wasps away; this could actually lead to major accidents,” says Eco Logical Australia ecologist Alan House, lead author on the new study, to CNN’s Hilary Whiteman.
A plane crash off the coast of the Dominican Republic in 1996 that killed all 189 passengers and crew was linked to blockage of the pitot tube, which measures the speed that air is flowing through it as a proxy for how fast the plane is flying. The pitot tube’s measurements can show if the plane is flying fast enough to be stable, or if the plane is flying too slow, putting it at risk of stalling. Inaccurate airspeed readings can cause dangerous reactions by the pilots—or software.
“It’s not a Mayday emergency but it’s the next level down, and it closes the runways,” says House to New Scientist’s Donna Lu.
The wasps are native to the Americas, but have been flying around Brisbane for over a decade. The insects have figured out a speedy strategy for establishing their nests.
“We have anecdotal reports from ground crew at Brisbane that a plane can have arrived at the gate and within a matter of two or three minutes, a wasp will be flying around the nose of the plane having a look at the probe,” House tells CNN. House adds to Belinda Smith at ABC News Australia, “When the plane first comes in, those probes are too hot for the wasp, so I think what she’s doing is waiting for it to cool down.”
Once the tube is cool, the wasp fills the cavity with mud, an egg and a bit of prey, like a caterpillar. A thin wall of mud at the front seals the nest, and solidly blocks the pitot tube. This process can happen in under 30 minutes, as was the case when a wasp nest blocked the temperature probe on a flight from Brisbane to Newcastle in 2015, per ABC News Australia.
Most airlines have instituted rules requiring their planes to cover external sensors when they land at Brisbane airport, so House emphasizes that flying from Brisbane is generally safe, reports New Scientist. But to better understand the wasps’ behavior, House and the research team 3D-printed replicas of pitot tubes to mount at strategic points around the airport.
The team monitored the tubes for 39 months, between 2016 and 2019, and found 93 blockages, all in tubes larger than a tenth of an inch wide. The wasps built nests all year, but the team saw the most activity between November and May. All of the nests were located near a grassy field at the airport.
Brisbane airport wildlife manager Jackson Ring, a co-author on the study, tells CNN that the wasps probably rely on the field for the grubs they stuff into their nests. With that in mind, the airport has started spraying the field with pesticides and has already seen a reduction in wasp activity.
While all of the nests that the researchers found were built by keyhole wasps, not all of them housed keyhole wasp young. One nest hatched with five cuckoo wasps. These parasitic insects lay their eggs in other animals’ nests.
They’re native to Australia, so the fact that cuckoo wasps disrupted a keyhole wasp nest is actually “a real positive,” says University of Adelaide wasp taxonomist Erinn Fagan-Jeffries, who was not involved in the study, to ABC News Australia.
Often, invasive species can take over an area because they face no threats in their new environment, but Australian insects beg to differ.
“It means that some native Australian parasitic wasps are able to attack this introduced species,” Fagan-Jeffries tells ABC News Australia. “There’s a chance that those native parasitoids might be able to help keep the invasive wasp populations low and stop them from spreading too fast.”
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