'Unseen' News and Views
21 October, 2016 (Greenpeace) Last week, in Kigali, Rwanda, governments across the world agreed on a landmark deal to phase down HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons). HFCs are greenhouse gases that are up to a thousand times more powerful than CO2. They are used as refrigerants in things like air conditioners, and contribute the rapid warming of our planet..
5 October 2016
I would like to announce that an updated and very much enlarged edition of mu book “Science and Society” will very soon be published by World Scientific (in November, 2016).
John Scales Avery
The book can be purchased at a 20% discount at the following address by quoting the code number WSSPPS20. http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/10227
This book has a very interesting history. In 1986, a friend from the World Health Organization called my attention to an essay contest sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
A prize was offered for the best essay on how to give science and engineering students a sense of social responsibility for the consequences of their work. I wrote an essay arguing that the best way to do this would be to introduce a course on the history and social impact of science.
With more people forced to flee their homes than at any time since World War II, world leaders came together at the United Nations on 19 September 2016 to adopt the New York Declaration, which expresses their political will to protect the rights of refugees and migrants, to save lives and share responsibility for large movements on a global scale.
Greek volunteer life-guards help a young child out of a boat that reached the shores of Lesbos, having crossed the Aegean sea from Turkey. Photo: UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis
At the opening of the UN General Assembly’s first-ever Summit for Refugees and Migrants, delegations adopted the landmark Declaration, which contains bold commitments both to address current issues and to prepare the world for future challenges, including, to start negotiations leading to an international conference and the adoption of a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration in 2018, as well as, to:
A key message of the 2016 International Year of Pulses is that pulses are highly nutritious—the little seeds are packed with nutrients, and are a fantastic source of protein. Photo: Courtesy of FAO
See the facts: it is estimated that globally, some 190 million hectares of pulses contribute to five to seven million tonnes of nitrogen in soils. As pulses can fix their own nitrogen in the soil, they need less fertilizer, both organic and synthetic and, in this way, they play a part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
5 September, 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Watching Christianity nearly a century–fundamentalist Christians fighting ritualistic Christians fighting secularism, generally moving fundamentalism–>ritualism–>secularism–maybe the same for Islam? Their similarities make “Islam right now” a repetition of Christianity; their differences shout, Watch Out! Let us see where this leads us.
Johan Galtung
Violence-prone fundamentalist evangelical Christians are still on top of the USA and some Nordic countries; but much less in ritualistic Catholic-Orthodox Christianity, meaning by far most of Europe.
Beauty of worship, the psychology of confession, less verbalism; all help.
Secularism makes faith so metaphorical for many that Christianity becomes only a ritual for Christmas-Easter, baptism-marriage-funeral (if there are no secular alternatives). Result: empty churches.
Our secular age makes literal faith in dogmas difficult, and that tears at the faith. But this is where two major differences enter:
You only leave home when home won’t let you stay –Warsan Shire*
© UNICEF/UN024109/Khuzaie | Children and families recently displaced from Fallujah, where the fighting has escalated since May, wait at an arrival area at a camp in Amiriyat Al Fallujah in Anbar province.
Some come from places where war is without end.
The numbers of protracted emergencies – conflicts that have lasted for over five years – are growing.
As well, fifteen new conflicts have broken out or reignited in the past five years.
They flee the brutalities of civil war and gang-related violence, assault, rape, recruitment, disappearance and murder.
23 August 2016 – The courage of the men and women who in August 1791 revolted against slavery in Haiti “has created obligations for us,” the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on the day set aside for remembrance of that rebellion, noting that “all of humanity is part of this story” and efforts to teach the history of the slave trade will help build a better world.
Shackles used to bind slaves. UN Photo/Mark Garten
“The uprising was a turning point in human history, greatly impacting the establishment of universal human rights, for which we are all indebted,” said UNESCO Director-General in her message for the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, marked annually on 23 August.
23 August 2016 – The flow of refugee and migrant children – seeking refuge from brutal gangs and stifling poverty in Central America and making their way to the United States – shows no sign of letting up, despite the risks of being kidnapped, trafficked, raped, or killed on the journey, a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found.
Alexis, 18, with his brother Wilson, 6, and their pet, a Caracara, at home in Omoa, Honduras. Photo: UNICEF/Adriana Zehbrauskas
In the first six months of 2016, almost 26,000 unaccompanied children and close to 29,700 people travelling as a family – mostly mothers and young children – were apprehended at the US border, according to the report, Broken Dreams: Central American Children’s Dangerous Journey to the United States.
**Photo: The sign outside the current New Scotland Yard building, located in Victoria, London. | Author: Man vyi | public domain.| Wikimedia Commons.
Scotland Yard is creating a special unit designed to counter online harassment in the UK. The program will cost almost 2 million pounds, with five detectives and an army of volunteers, hunting down Internet trolls.
15 August 2016, TRANSCEND Media Service – When the time arrives for national elections in the United States, most of the candidates campaign on the slogan: making America great again. However, not one political figure brings into the open the real source of the nation’s great problem. Many of those running for an office tend to defend the way things have been going.
**Image: John Trumbull’s painting, Declaration of Independence, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The painting can be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill. The original hangs in the US Capitol rotunda…
US Constitution Needs Revision
Up to now, the United States Constitution was never revised, far less updated, since it was composed some 300 years ago when things were entirely different from those of our times.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 