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marmar

marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
July 11, 2022

Humans need to value nature as well as profits to survive, UN report finds


(Guardian UK) Taking into account all the benefits nature provides to humans and redefining what it means to have a “good quality of life” is key to living sustainably on Earth, a four-year assessment by 82 leading scientists has found.

A market-based focus on short-term profits and economic growth means the wider benefits of nature have been ignored, which has led to bad decisions that have reduced people’s wellbeing and contributed to climate and nature crises, according to a UN report. To achieve sustainable development, qualitative approaches need to be incorporated into decision making.

This means properly valuing the spiritual, cultural and emotional values that nature brings to humans, according to the report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes). The assessment includes more than 13,000 references, including scientific papers, and indigenous and local sources of information. It was done in collaboration with experts in social science, economics and humanities.

The report builds on the Dasgupta review, which found the planet is being put at “extreme risk” by the failure of economics to take account of the true value of nature. Incorporating diverse worldviews and knowledge systems will be key to leading to a more sustainable future, the report says. ...............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/11/humans-value-nature-survive-un-report-age-of-extinction





July 11, 2022

Yellowstone bison goring incidents highlight America's decreasing awareness of nature


By Dennis Jorgensen, bison program manager for World Wildlife Fund's U.S. Northern Great Plains Program


(NBC News) Bison are oh-so-fluffy, ambling, plant-eating animals that have long captured the world’s attention because of their majestic dignity. Increasingly, however, they also make headlines because of dangerous run-ins with tourists. Already this summer we’ve seen two high-profile bison gorings at Yellowstone, both caught on video.

As a resident Montanan, professional bison conservationist and neighbor of nearby Yellowstone National Park, I can understand why people feel the urge to touch these massive mammals. They are a sight to behold — both undeniably cute and seemingly oblivious to our presence. However, as a biologist, I assure you that they are keenly aware of our approach. They can and will respond with lightning-fast reflexes if we get too close.

Indulge me for a minute. The average NFL lineman weighs around 310 pounds, and the league’s fastest player has been clocked at about 23 miles per hour. In comparison, a bison can weigh more than 2,000 pounds and run more than 35 miles per hour. But unlike in the NFL, there isn’t a referee to blow the whistle when a bison feels threatened. They charge until the threat has been diminished.

Recent and ongoing injuries from bison gorings in parks and protected areas are tragedies for both people and bison. Bison aren’t out to get tourists, but with visitation in Yellowstone and other parks on the rise, wildlife is feeling more pressure than ever. Approximately 4.86 million people visited Yellowstone in 2021, its busiest year to date. American travel has exploded recently, as families cooped up during the pandemic embrace their summer vacations. But that (understandable) wanderlust comes with a cost. More broadly, more than 55% of Earth’s land is shared by people and wildlife. As our footprint extends even farther into wild spaces, encounters between people and wildlife increase, often leading to instances of human-wildlife conflict. ............(more)

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/yellowstone-bison-goring-incidents-highlight-americas-tourism-problem-rcna37363




July 11, 2022

Record number of signatures collected to put abortion rights on Michigan ballot in November


(Detroit Metro Times) A coalition that launched a petition drive to amend the state’s constitution to affirm abortion rights plans to turn in a record 753,759 signatures on Monday.

Reproductive Freedom for All must submit about 452,000 valid signatures for the initiative to appear on the November ballot.

“The Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade will not take away the rights and freedoms of people in Michigan to determine if and when they become a parent,” Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, said in a statement Monday. “We will not allow forced pregnancy in our state, nor will we stand by as the devastating impacts of a post-Roe world disproportionately impact people of color, LGBTQ+ communities, young people, low-income people, and those living in rural areas. This is your body, your ballot, your choice.” ..........................(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/news/record-number-of-signatures-collected-to-put-abortion-rights-on-michigan-ballot-in-november-30538090




July 11, 2022

Ok, Fage plain greek yogurt with fresh berries in it.....


.... is the bomb diggity!

Just felt like I had to share it. You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

July 11, 2022

Michigan abortion rights activists: We're putting issue on November ballot


(Detroit Free Press) Organizers of a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the Michigan constitution said they turned in more voter signatures than any other constitutional amendment in state history to qualify for the November ballot.

If the state's elections panel certifies the Reproductive Freedom for All amendment to appear on the ballot, voters could decide the future of abortion access in Michigan after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a national right to abortion for nearly half a century.

Monday marks the deadline for groups seeking to place constitutional amendments on the ballot to submit their petitions.

Ballot measures to change Michigan's constitution must collect at least 425,059 voter signatures, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan said in a news release that 753,759 voters from every county in the state signed onto the abortion rights amendment to place it on the ballot for voters. .................(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/11/voters-abortion-michigan-ballot/10007016002/




July 11, 2022

How Americans Became Convinced Divorce Is Bad for Kids


How Americans Became Convinced Divorce Is Bad for Kids

BY GAIL CORNWALL AND SCOTT COLTRANE
JULY 11, 20225:55 AM


(Slate) Many Americans think it’s a shame that only 70 percent of children in the U.S. live in one home with two parents and under 50 percent live with two biological, married parents. They see divorce and single parenthood as normal yet still unfortunate, since accepted wisdom says children suffer long-term, irreparable harm when their parents live separately. On social media, that looks like everything from an Isla Fisher meme with the quote “You can’t underestimate how traumatic divorce is for the children,” to Catholic influencer Leila Miller writing “Divorce is simply a bloodless form of child sacrifice.”

But a careful review of academic research—and the historical and cultural context in which it was conducted—calls this shared understanding into question. Most of the problems associated with being a child of divorce are instead related to sexism, racism, homophobia, shoddy recordkeeping, and insufficient government support.

Divorce was rare before the American Revolution. For those who were not enslaved, about one-third of children lived with a stepparent or single parent. But that owed to mortality rates; marriages just weren’t often dissolved. When they were, rights to the children belonged to their father. In the business section, next to ads for horse rentals, colonial newspapers published “runaway wife” reports. Illustrating just how commercial an undertaking marriage was in early white America, these husbands didn’t plead for their erstwhile partners’ return; they just declared themselves off the hook for debts the women incurred. But after America divorced King George III, attitudes toward personal independence and contractual obedience shifted. By the 19th century, suffragists argued that not only would an expanded right to exit marriage permit women to escape bad ones, but the threat of separation would allow them to renegotiate the terms of good ones. Men also increasingly felt entitled to love matches and fulfillment. Around the time frontier mentality took hold, runaway husband ads became more common than runaway wife ones. The “tender years” doctrine assumed children needed to be with their mothers, reversing the custodial default. By 1970, California had authorized no-fault divorce, and most states followed suit within a decade.

This liberalization of divorce during the second half of the 20th century occurred against a backdrop of increasing female employment and independence. In the attendant cultural battle, some people directly defended patriarchal gender roles ordained by nature and God. But many instead made children their rallying call. The 1965 Moynihan Report—a document written by Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his staff to convince the federal government to bolster civil rights legislation with policies addressing economic inequality—decried the “crumbling” of family structure in Black communities. Divorce rates, which were even across race until 1960, had indeed risen more steeply and earlier among Black women. But the report’s emphasis on family structure gave conservatives an excuse to ignore the structural forces behind that stat and insist on self-help rather than actual help. On the campaign trail in 1976, Ronald Reagan held up the straw man of the “welfare queen,” a Black single mother gaming the system. This was the sexist, racist narrative of the declining family that the conservative “family values” movement of the 1990s and 2000s carried forward. Pro-marriage PR campaigns—run by organizations like the Institute for American Values and the Promise Keepers—were also deeply homophobic. They promoted heterosexual marriage with funding from conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. (This connection continues: Leila Miller wrote an April 2022 article titled “The Ten Sins of Gay Surrogacy.”)

....(snip)....

In a 2003 paper, Paul Amato of Penn State created an index of overall psychological well-being and concluded that the overlap between adults with and without divorced parents was 90 percent, meaning only about 10 percent of those with divorced parents had more mental health issues and reported lower life satisfaction and happiness than those with married ones. Almost half, 42 percent, exceeded the average well-being score of the married parents sample.

....(snip)....

It’s also possible even the small negative effect that’s seen along with divorce isn’t caused by divorce. Texan kids who live in homes with pools go to college at higher rates, but it’s not because swimming makes them smarter; their parents’ wealth independently drives both phenomena. Similarly, children whose parents divorce are more likely to have lived in a high-conflict home prior to the breakup. If a child ends up struggling with, say, substance use, the stress of that conflict would be behind it, not the divorce. In support of this theory, a 1999 study found that children whose high-conflict parents don’t split experience even greater behavioral problems, and a 2004 paper showed positive effects of ending high-conflict marriages. A 2014 study found no effect of family structure on psychopathology after controlling for conflict. ...........(more)

https://slate.com/technology/2022/07/divorce-bad-for-kids-history.html





July 9, 2022

Sex therapist issues warning after 'gimpman' returns to UK village




A man in a black latex costume - dubbed "Gimpman" has once again been spotted in the UK village of Yatton in Somerset.

As reported by The Sun, the return of the so-called "Gimpman" comes after several stories emerged back in 2018 of a man in a skin-tight outfit taunting villagers.

The newspaper reports that last month, a 19-year-old teaching assistant and her boyfriend were left shaken up after their encounter with the mysterious figure. It was the 16th reported sighting of the man since he first hit the streets back in 2018.

https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1542187409089126403

Following the news that the latex-clad troublemaker has returned, sex therapist Isabelle Uren has spoken to the Daily Star about what the mysterious man's presence could mean.

Explaining the significance of the gimp suit, Uren said: "Someone might wear a bondage suit to show complete submission. .............(more)

https://vt.co/news/weird/sex-therapist-issues-warning-after-gimpman-returns-to-uk-village





July 9, 2022

Wimbledon Women's Final ......... (spoiler)


Congrats Elena Rybakina.

July 9, 2022

Salt Lake City Confronts a Future Without a Lake

Salt Lake City Confronts a Future Without a Lake
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is disappearing as a “megadrought” persists across the Southwest, forcing the fast-growing city nearby to curb its water use.

Peter Yeung
July 8, 2022 at 8:00 AM EDT


(Bloomberg CityLab) From the southern rim of the Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, barely any of the pinkish, saline waters that used to engulf the million-acre basin are visible.

“For years the lake lapped right here,” says Ella Sorensen, motioning at the gritty dried lake bed underfoot. “But I have watched it disappear over time.”

Sorensen is the manager of Audubon’s Gillmor Sanctuary, a 3,597-acre wetland preserve along the lake’s southern border, about 10 miles from downtown Salt Lake City. Utah’s iconic body of water has been beating a retreat from the state’s capital: In July 2021, the Great Salt Lake reached its lowest level since measurements began in 1875. The lake’s surface area has shrunk to about 950 square miles, according to the US Geological Survey, less than a third of the 3,300 recorded in 1987. This week, the record was broken again.



As the lake has dried, the complex web of life that these brackish waters support has been imperiled, including hundreds of bird species that rely on the insects and shrimp that breed here. “This is a key stop on the migration route,” Sorenson says. “But it’s mind-bogglingly dry these days. ..............(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-07-08/drought-leaves-salt-lake-city-with-a-looming-water-crisis?srnd=premium




July 9, 2022

Like two viruses that just won't die......


(Guardian UK) Fourteen years after her star power and incendiary rhetoric rallied crowds in her bid for the US vice-presidency, Sarah Palin takes the stage again on Saturday night – with a very different man at her side than during the 2008 election.

Palin was the running mate of presidential nominee John McCain, a war veteran and Republican party stalwart who was this week posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.

This weekend, however, as Palin seeks election to Congress, the headliner at her campaign event in her native Alaska is Donald Trump, the former president and longtime nemesis of McCain. The before-and-after contrast says much about the evolution of the Republican party over the past decade.

It was Palin, then the governor of Alaska, who in the 2008 race arguably did more than anyone to set the stage for Trump’s raucous, racist demagoguery that took him all the way to the White House in 2016. Both candidates elevated celebrity and charisma above knowledge or expertise.

Now the wheel has turned and it is Trump seeking to give Palin a boost as the 58-year-old chases Alaska’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, made vacant by the death of Don Young, who held it for 49 years. ............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/09/sarah-palin-comeback-trump-alaska-republicans




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Hometown: Detroit, MI
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