to their environment. They do it with something called swarm intelligence.
One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all-at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.
The collective abilities of such animals - none of which grasps the BIG PICTURE but each of which contributes to the group's success - can surely be analagous to the interconnections & the inter-reactions of interconnections of the crowds of peoples - in Hong Kong, Central London, Glasgow & Wembly over the course of the week-end - in no dissimilar way than swarming honey bees, which frequently differ about where to establish a new nest - invariably choose the best site - or "the birds" flocking through the trees of the forest in Psyop's superbly integral artistic animation for high definition MTV - perform with balletic co-ordination.…
Added by Michael Grove at 10:28 on November 28, 2010
Lords & Masters have been working on since the first Earth Conference in Rio three decades and more ago, without an inkling of success !!!???
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?q=LORDS+%26+MASTERS#…
Added by Michael Grove at 10:05 on November 12, 2023
Airport, the third-busiest airport in the UK.
Live-streamed to an invited audience at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, Operation Zenith is the UK’s first contribution to the recently-launched European Commission’s U-Space Demonstrator Network.
Employing air traffic management systems and technology interfaces that are compliant with U-Space programme requirements, the success of Operation Zenith provides a realistic view of a future in which UAVs can be flown safely within visual line of sight and beyond (VLOS/BVLOS) in integrated airspace.
Alastair Muir, NATS safety director,said: “Operation Zenith has been an outstanding success in bringing together the manned and unmanned aviation industry to shine a light on our vision for the future of aviation. NATS is committed to working towards creating a foundation service to ensure the safe and efficient use of airspace. With more than 25 key players from across the aviation industry cooperating on this project, it has been possible for us to create a safe environment in which drones and commercial aircraft are able to co-exist safely in controlled airspace.
“From distributing medicines to delivering parcels, investigating crash sites to inspecting industrial installations, drones have a great deal to offer and we believe that carving up the skies to offer commercial drones a slice of segregated airspace is not the answer. From our perspective, allowing visible UAVs safe access into controlled, integrated airspace is the best way forward, both for the drone industry itself and for aviation as a whole.
“With the number of drone-related airspace incidents on the rise, it’s essential that we take steps now in order to create a safe environment for UAVs to be integrated with manned aircraft and factor their presence into redesigned airspace that’s able to cope with the increasing demands of modern aviation in our busy skies.”
https://airtrafficmanagement.keypublishing.com/2018/11/23/uk-first-as-drones-fly-safely-in-manchester-airports-controlled-airspace/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_imagery
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es?'
The result is a 40 minute film about the knowns and the unknowns of the science, about the risks, and about being hopeful for the future too. Interviews with Sir David Attenborough, Mark Lynas, David Shukman, Prof Dieter Helm, the UK Youth Climate Coalition, and Ross's grandparents among others, offer fresh perspectives on a subject that saturates the media, divides the public, and yet is still meaningless to many.
At a time when the hype is blowing over and people feel put off by scandals, Beyond the Brink seeks to lay out how things really stand now.
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Generous sponsorship has meant the film is available for free for anyone to watch and use. You're encouraged to hold your own screenings and show your friends! But the success of the film relies on people knowing about it. Please help spread the word wherever you can if you like what you see and hopefully Beyond the Brink can help engage, inform and perhaps inspire people about the challenge ahead.
Please visit www.beyondthebrink.org to find out more.
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Music by:
Goldrush | http://www.myspace.com/goldrushmusic
Graphics | http://soundcloud.com/graphics
Message to Bears | http://www.myspace.com/messagetobears
Stornoway | http://www.stornoway.eu/…
of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.
Beginning with Charles Darwin's first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines.
Most exhilarating is Johnson's conclusion that with today's tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow's great ideas.…
eached to the point of infertility. Massive dust storms pick up the loose soil and carry it as far as Tokyo and Taipei. During sunset, fumes from factories block out the sun well before it can be observed sinking below the horizon.
But all this may be finally changing.
In 2005, the Chinese government, in cooperation with the World Bank, completed the world’s largest watershed restoration on the upper banks of the Yellow River. Woefully under-publicized, the $500 million enterprise transformed an area of 35,000 square kilometers on the Loess Plateau — roughly the area of Belgium — from dusty wasteland to a verdant agricultural center.
The result of careful terracing, replanting of native vegetation and restrictions on grazing, the rejuvenated land now supports a thriving local agricultural economy. Even better, the new vegetation reduces flooding and dust storms by anchoring the region’s soil and is becoming a large carbon sink.
As the Copenhagen meeting on climate change begins, the restoration project may finally get the attention it deserves. A new film directed and written by John Liu, the founder of the Environmental Education Media Project and a veteran eco-film director, will tell the story of the Loess Plateau. The documentary, “Hope in a Changing Climate,” takes the story of the Loess Plateau as its lead, but quickly moves to Rwanda and Ethiopia where similar successes have come from a process known as forest landscape restoration.
Copenhagen is the first time forest landscape restoration will be on the agenda at a major international climate conference. Under what is known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation Plus (REDD+), Copenhagen negotiators hope to establish a regulatory regime to fight deforestation and manage forested areas. Proponents of forest landscape restoration are hoping this could include recognition and support for projects across the globe.
That could be a major step forward in popularizing landscape restoration. The process suffers from being literally as exciting as watching grass grow. It can take decades for vegetation to fully return, and strict attention must be paid to mundane matters like grazing and over-planting. Mr. Liu’s documentary overcomes this stumbling block with jaw-dropping fades from muddy denuded landscapes to lush fields.
It is becoming harder to deny the importance of forest landscape restoration in combating climate change. A new study by the World Resources Institute shows that about 1 billion hectares of land could be restored across the globe. Rough estimates indicate that carbon sequestration through this process could eliminate 50 percent more carbon from the atmosphere than a proactive cessation of deforestation could.
Still, forest landscape restoration is decidedly complex. Because ecosystems vary based on geography, and lasting success depends on the support of local residents, the process is pesteringly cross-disciplinary. Any forest landscape restoration project requires the know-how of engineers, ecologists and soil scientists, plus an understanding of local economics and politics.
In the Loess Plateau locals built and must maintain the terraces that have brought about their ecosystem’s incredible recovery.
Much hangs in the balance of the Copenhagen talks, and although forest landscape restoration is a shining light in what has over the past few months become a darkening debate, it is no panacea. It must be implemented in combination with carbon cuts and sound anti-deforestation policies.…
old order, and only luke-warm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order. This quality of lukewarmness arises partly from a fear of adversaries, who have the law on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.” Machiavelli - The Prince - 1513
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