'Unseen' News and Views
A new freely downloadable book
John Scales Avery
I would like to announce the publication of a book which discusses the duty of scientists and engineers to try to prevent the catastrophes that currently threaten human society and the biosphere.
The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link:
Three major threats to human society
Science and technology have conferred many benefits on human society, but as we start the 21st century, most thoughtful observers believe that our science-driven and information-driven industrial civilization has entered a period of crisis.
All indices are increasing rapidly – population, total wealth, industrial output, rates of scientific discovery, and so on. But it is clear that the total human footprint on the face of nature has become too great.
World set to miss environment-related Sustainable Development Goals – UN report
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Nairobi (UNEP)* – Despite progress in key environmental areas such as clean water, sanitation, clean energy, forest management and waste, countries are still living unsustainably and are on course to miss the environmental dimensions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, according to the Measuring Progress: Environment and the SDGs report.
– Over the past 75 years, there have been many UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions acknowledging Israel’s violations of international law, including a Resolution under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, that could have addressed, if implemented, the plight of the Palestinians.
A tower block lies in ruins in Gaza city following an Israeli air strike. The humanitarian community has welcomed the ceasefire agreed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel but warned that the destruction in Gaza will take years, if not decades, to fix. Credit: UNRWA/Mohamed Hinnawi
25 May 2021 (United Nations)* — In the UN Charter, a Non-Self-Governing Territory is defined as a Territory “whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.”
In 1946, several UN Member States identified a number of Territories under their administration that were not self-governing and placed them on a UN list.
25 May 2021 — As those individuals aware of it will have observed, presumably with deep regret, the latest ‘International Day for Biological Diversity’ passed on 22 May with the bulk of the human population continuing to act in ways that destroy Earth’s biosphere at an ever-accelerating rate.
Robert J. Burrowes
Unaware that many authors continue to report the ongoing destruction of Earth’s biodiversity, which is under siege on a range of fronts by unchecked human destruction of Earth’s biosphere as well as particular assaults on Earth’s living creatures, responses to this ‘hidden’ path to human extinction continue to waver between non-existent and token.
Consequently, in such circumstances, the destruction of biodiversity might yet become the means by which Homo sapiens is consigned to the fossil record ‘beating’ nuclear war, the climate catastrophe and electromagnetic radiation as the fundamental driver of extinction.
(UN News)* — Attacks on water and sanitation facilities in conflict zones around the world are putting the lives of millions of children around the world in danger, and are a much greater threat than violence itself, warns the UN Children’s agency, UNICEF, in a report released on 25 May 2021.
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Water Under Fire Volume 3, highlights that children’s access to water has been threatened in nearly every conflict-related emergency where UNICEF is responding.
22 May 2021 (WMO)* — New observations show that the increase in Arctic average surface temperature between 1979 and 2019 was three times higher than the global average during this period – higher than previously reported – according to the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP).
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 