Kiruna Project - Research File

RESEARCH FILE Jonas Bertlind | JEB0634 | UNIT 04 2017/2018 London Metropolitan Univeristy Professional Diploma in Architecture | RIBA part II

Disclaimer This File is a collection of media reports. I am not the author or creator of any of the following material, apart from my own reflections.

Any text passage within ‘xxxx’ is a citation. Any text passage within “xxxx” is a citation by the author of the original article and/or of third party.

Where pages have a light grey background I have reflected and/or elaborated, in my own words (text), upon a source of information. Pages without a light grey background have text from the original source without any of my own words. I have highlighted the essential parts of the text that are more interesting and relevant to my final year project and the reason I incorporated them into this file.

All sources are clearly revealed, and all authors are named when available. Dates of publication are also noted when available.

Front Cover Article - Indigenous Sami protest British mine on Arctic circle ‘Fighting for their way of life, the indigenous Sami population in northern Sweden have been camping out to block attempts

by British company Beowulf Mines to start blasting for iron ore.’

‘Police broke up the blockade of around 50 people made up of locals and Sami, who sang and chanted as they were taken away. In total eight people were detained for crimes varying from resisting arrest to trespassing.’

‘One protester who preferred to remain anonymous said:’ “It really shows how the system works. Police come and protect the companies with any force necessary. They don’t respect that we have another opinion and they treat us this way that you are seeing now.”

‘The proposed mine would be situated 50km from the town of Jokkmokk on the Arctic Circle, in the heart of Sami reindeer herding lands.’

‘The group which were said to have settled in northern Scandinavia at the end of the last ice age could see their traditions being bulldozed in a matter of years.’ euronews.com 21/08/2013

COVER IMAGE CREDITS: IMAGE FOR CHAPTER: COVER IMAGE SOURCE: https://futurism.com/images/age-automation-welcome-next-great-revolution/ N/A - futurism 2. Age of Automation Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images 3. Trade War https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-biggest-legal-danger-york-prosecutors-mueller-dershowitz/story?id=57401675 N/A - noisilyfestival 4. Recycling http://www.noisilyfestival.com/recycling-at-noisily-bring-your-own-water-bottle/ Image source: Emaze http://scientifist.com/biodiversity-predicts-trillion-species/ 5. Biodiversity N/A - euronews 6. Indigenous People http://www.euronews.com/2013/08/21/indigenous-sami-protest-british-mine-on-arctic-circle 7. Climate Change https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/43b3vq/china-is-celebrating-its-climate-change-success-even-though-emissions-are-still-going-up Imaginechina via AP Images 8. Melting Poles https://religionnews.com/2017/04/20/holocaust-climate-change/ N/A - Religion News Service Wikipedia 9. Paris Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference BSIP Getty Images https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-the-thawing-of-arctic-ice-release-diseases/ 10. Thawing Arctic https://www.von.gov.ng/climate-change-will-force-migration-143mn-people-world-bank/ N/A - Voice Of Nigeria 11. Climatic Migration https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/ N/A - Green Peace 12. Global Warming Architecture 2030 13. CO2 in Construction http://architecture2030.org/buildings_problem_why/ http://www.robeller.net/ Christopher Robeller 14. Digitality & Timber N/A - Inhabitat https://inhabitat.com/svalbard-unveils-stunning-new-arctic-science-center/svalbard-ed01/ 15. Arctic Architecture http://www.spiritualquestions.org.uk/2014/10/utopianism-town-planning/ N/A - [Daniel Burnham] 16. Townplanning https://www.archdaily.com/386056/light-houses-young-nordic-architecture-exhibition N/A - ArchDaily 17. Nordic Architecture Jessica Nildén 18. Arctic Millipede https://www.kirunalapland.se/en/see-do/the-city-transformation/ https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-we-shouldnt-let-politics-divide-us N/A 19. Politics News.cn 20. Kiruna Technology http://english.cctv.com/2016/12/16/VIDEKz7pXPZRu7q0esUr3Ut7161216.shtml https://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/10/30/heres-a-crucial-technological-fix-to-rising-health-care-costs/ ISTOCK PHOTO 21. Technological Aid N/A - Disruptor Daily 22. Robotics & 3D-Printing https://www.disruptordaily.com/construction-robots-3d-printers-laying-foundation-efficient-architecture/ N/A - Nerdy Frog 23. Future Technology http://www.nerdyfrog.com/top-6-future-technology/ Berry https://architectdesigned.net.au/2016/02/18/574/ 24. Architecture & Humour https://www.swedishlapland.com/product-story/the-sami-reindeer-experience/ Julian Simmonds 25. Kiruna & Sami

- “Everything is a consequence of everything”

...I often find myself saying in discussions about politics, philosophy, society, culture, history, economy, and not least architecture. A notion I picked up when reading David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity. To me this book was a revelation; a profound and perfect ascertainment of the last 150 (or so) years of human history.

Harvey skilfully tell the tale of the Western World Society, and why we ended up where we did (up until the 1980’s when the book was published.)

The Document This document should be read in conjunction with the Unit 04 Research Document, my personal IDS Logbook, my ADDT Report, and my IDS Report. Along with my final VR file, these documents and files constitutes my final year portfolio. The portfolio means to convey the complexity of the project and how multifaceted the outcome is, and what I have tried to respond to and achieve.

This documents primarily function is to backup my other personal work, to show it is contemporary, and to render it’s relevance clear. It is made up of readings and reflections upon articles and texts from news channels and emerging firms. I am not the founder of any of these texts (even if I sometimes reflect in text on the readings). However, they have in every way had a profound impact on the choices and decisions I made for my final project. They are a collection of inputs I have constantly carried with me through my final year.

More relevant research that has influenced the final project can be found in my Logbook and in the IDS Report.

The Project This document is made up of gathered readings and research I have undertaken during the year. It covers a wide range of fields, yet they are all interlinked, and very much linked to the brief of Unit 04 this year, my final project - The Agoruna & and Kiruna PUB - as well as to the masterplan of New Kiruna, and the proposed alternative masterplan of the very town centre where The Agoruna is located.

The Point I have tried to structure this document so that the reader is taken on a journey - just like I was during this project. The point of this document is to spot contemporary and emerging trends, in order to contextualise the political, social, economic, cultural, technological, and environmental situation of the globe we live in today.

It starts with present day- and future technology that may have a profound impact on our cities, nations, and societies in a near future.

It ends with the place for the project, Kiruna - Sweden’s northernmost city, positioned in the sub-Arctic - and the story of this place.

Jonas Bertlind | JEB0634 UNIT 04 2017/2018 London Metropolitan Univeristy Professional Diploma in Architecture | RIBA part II

CONTENT

1 | Introduction & Summary - Why these chapters?

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

|4

| Age of Automation - AI & UBI in industries and mining | Trade War - LKAB & Ore Mining to be affected? | Recycling - Is Littering affecting Biodiversity & Nature? | Biodiversity - Destruction of nature & Eco systems | Indigenous people - Arctic life & Climate change | Climate Change - Affects on the Arctic & Antarctic | Melting Poles - Rising sea levels calls for new Engineering | Paris Agreement - US climate denial & Coal digging | Thawing Arctic - Hit or miss? | Climatic Migration - Suffering & War? Arctic as a refuge? | Global Warming - Is there a fix? Can planting trees help? | CO2 in Construction - ET makes concrete obsolete? | Digitality & Timber - The North lead architectural revolution | Arctic Architecture - Design & Impact of Arctic Urbanism Townplanning - History, Communication & Speculating Past (and future?) | | Nordic Architecture - Vernacularly & Identity | Arctic Millipede - Kiruna moves due to Mining Operations Politics - Democracy under the loupe; local & international, real & cyber | | Kiruna Technology - Space-travel, economy and technology Technological Aid - VR, AI, Drones and scanning for well-being & design? | | Robotics & 3D Printing - Hit or miss? | Future Technology - A Dystrophy or Aid for Climatic Infrastructure? | Architecture & Humour - Could we do with something uplifting? | Kiruna & Sami - History & Storytelling

6 20 24 32 39 44 50 53 56 63 68 70 75 79 83 87 90 94 98 100 117 122 133 136

2 | Age of Automation Kiruna exist only because of the iron ore. But mining is becoming more and more automated, along with many other industries, such as sawmills. Engineered Timber is an essential part of this years project - An industry that is heavily affected by automation. In this section I’m having a look at the emergence of automation in industry, and its implications.

3 | Trade War Can Trump’s tariffs on imported steel affect the future of extraction of iron ore in Kiruna, - the major ‘ingredient’ in steel?

4 | Recycling Extraction of natural resources often lead to contamination and littering of nature. Is there an efficient way of recycling the much of the littering products that plague our natural environment - such as plastic? What are the costs and implications?

What if we don’t? Moreover these products mostly contribute to increased CO2.

5 | Biodiversity Contaminated ecosystems, disrupted (even erased) ecosystems, due to extractions of natural resources and increased CO2-levels will have global implications. The importance of evolved ecosystems - all places in the world has a part in ecosystems. Even such a barren country as the Arctic.

6 | Indigenous People Global economy, global warming, and biodiversity affect the Sami people in the north of Sweden (including Kiruna). What are the implications for the Sami when the Arctic starts to warm?

7 | Climate Change The Arctic and Antarctic have a profound impact on the global climate, but how can we tell they are affected by global warming? How will Kiruna cope with this new situation and what are the implications for the rest of the planet?

8 | Melting Poles As the ice of the poles melts, the ocean in the rest of the world rises. How much and what does this mean for our civilisations and nations? Can new costly engineering sort us out? Does it affect Kiruna?

9 | Paris Agreement Meanwhile Trump has withdrawn the USA from the reduction of CO2 goals of the rest of the world. Is it justified, or is he just providing artificial breathing for a business that should be dead and buried already? Should we not put Nature First, rather than ‘America First’?

10 | Thawing Arctic The tundra has, for as long as man can see, provided a solid base to build upon. The soil has been permanently frozen for millenniums. But with global warming, the tundra starts to thaw; ancient bacteria comes alive, natural gas is released into the atmosphere, and the solid ground is starting to crumble and sink. On the other hand thawing and melting ice ease access to natural resources such as fossil fuels and minerals, and it presents a shorter sea-route for transport between Asia and Europe that what was previously possible. Nations race into the thawing Arctic to extract even more natural resources. How will LKAB and Kiruna cope with mining competition? The Arctic region can now thrive, although there will have to be a lot of rebuilding before expansion can occur. Good or bad for Kiruna and the Arctic region?

11 | Climatic Migration As global warming reduces the ice in the polar regions, causing flooding in many areas of the world. With a heating planet, many places will also see long periods of drought. Climate migrants and refugees will become a more common feature of the future. How much disturbance can this cause? Could Kiruna and the Arctic even become a refuge?

12 | Global Warming To reduce global temperature, planting trees that has been cut could be one response. Or not, depending of who you ask and how it is done. Either way trees produce CO2 in the beginning of their lives, but after some years the start to absorb it. At least up to a certain age/size. Then they’re ‘full’ and northing much happens. However they will keep the CO2 they absorbed after being felled. Sweden has a massive boreal forest, but since people started to understand they could make money out of selling felled trees on their land, they started to produce fast-growing forest. If this forest is not maintained it will prevent biodiversity and further enhance climate change rather than prevent it.

13 | CO2 in Construction Kiruna is right on the tree-line longitude and the grown of trees is slow. The climate in the north of Sweden produces trees that grow slowly, but still holds a quite poor quality in terms of building material. However there is a way of producing massive prefabricated timber elements that does not require high-quality timber. Engineered Timber (ET) does in many ways resemble pre-cast concrete elements but can drastically reduce CO2 emission of construction.

14 | Digitality & Timber Sweden, as well as the rest of the world, has in recent years embraced digital algorithmic design aid. Digital design technology embrace robotic prefabrication of architectural construction elements that allow fast, cheap, and bespoke design. With CNC milling techniques complex timber design can be achieved to little cost. New Kiruna could be built from these massive prefabricated elements, and they could be provided by Stora Enso - A Swedish producer of this type of elements that is just about to inaugurate their first ET factory in Sweden. This would reduce CO2 emissions further as the both forest (i.e. the timber) and the factory is very near.

Emerging digital techniqes are also discussed, and thier impact on the architectural profession.

15 | Arctic Architecture Much more thought has been put into urban architecture than one would think. Ralph Erskine, Frei Otto, and Arup for instance, has since long had both utopian ideas sketched out, and profound research made. This intelligence should not be forgotten, but studied carefully. Kiruna, which sits within the Arctic Circle, should listen carefully...

16 | Townplanning There is a link between Andre Breton’s Exquisite Corpse, Colin Rowe’s Collage City, and Nolli and Piranesi;s Campo Marzio - Namely; based on Piranesi’s map they have all advocated the benefits of a town (any piece of work with not just one author) which is NOT completely homogeneous in its perception, but rather a conglomerate of different ideas - a patchwork of urban fabric - ‘a little bit of this, a little bit of that’. A rejection of the modernist town-plan. Can Kiruna benefit from taking a different stand-point than most town-plans that is still heavily influenced by modernist ideals?

17 | Nordic Architecture Even though a slightly different masterplan for Kiruna can be envisioned, vernacular architecture can still have its say. It is important to make the inhabitants of old Kiruna feel at home in the new town, and the architecture in the north or the Nordic countries have much to offer - both in terms of efficiency and appearance - that local people recognise and can identify with.

18 | Arctic Millipede This chapter looks at the surrounding worlds views on the move of the town of Kiruna. Could it be an important precedent for town that has to move in the future? Perhaps due to climate change; rising sea levels, or further extractions of natural resources? Or perhaps all of the above..

19 | Politics A brief look at local opinions, the state of world democracy, and media’s role in our world, that nowadays incorporate cyber-news and social media. Could today’s political and medial climate affect the move of Kiruna?

20 | Kiruna Technology Economy and technology are inseparable. What does the future hold for Kiruna, technology, tourism and tech?

21 | Technological Aid Could new Kiruna be designed with the help of recent technology? What are the latest design technologies that could be applied and how do they work? What could be achieved?

22 | Robotics & 3D Printing Could new Kiruna be helped by robotics and 3D printing? Emerging techniques seek to cut costs and crate bespoke parts, as well as making transportation and energy more efficient and accessible.

23 | Future Technology New technology also seek to prevent too much climatic change. Will Kiruna be able to make use of massive engineering leaps, or will the new engineering techniques preserve Kirunas present climate, or at least make the climate more resilient to global climate warming?

24 | Architecture & Humour Perhaps more humour is the answer? When researching, little other than dystopian scenarios can be visualised. Perhaps a level of silliness is the right antidote...?

25 | Kiruna & Sami ...Either way the town has its own story, and there is a profound importance of telling the story of the place - not least to the local community. They deserve to be seen and acknowledged for what they are, and have been. Their story needs to be told, so that at least they know their old town and traditions will not be forgotten, and the local community’s identity can be consolidated and preserved.

‘The ramifications for jobs are obvious, but Amazon Go also changes the relationships between business and employee, governments and citizens.’

‘The Green Institute argues that shorter hours and a universal basic income would be better than more jobs.’

Tim Dunlop, Fri 9 December 2016

Tim Dunlop, Mon 9 January 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ dec/09/amazon-go-means-more-than-just-job-losses-it-willrestructure-the-economy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/10/age-of-automation-what-if-more-work-is-the-problemnot-the-solution?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Why is this relevant?

Technology changes the way we go about our daily lives.

Fundamental actions, that have been more or less static for centuries are being challenged.

Why is this relevant?

The Green Institute is an Australian non-profit organisation that investigate and support green politics, education, democracy, and research, ecology, and social justice within this realm. In this article Dunlop takes a closer look at a report by The Green Institute;

Amazon Go is a new shopping concept where the customer picks his products from the shelf and then simply leave the store. The change will be deducted from the customers account, and a receipt will be sent.

This inevitably will have implications for work opportunities.

We need to find other jobs when machines, robots, and automated systems takes over many of our trades.

But In this article Dunlop also argues that there needs governing changes too; “Furthermore, it suggests the role of government will need to change, involving itself less with regulating business and more with redistributing wealth.”

According to Dunlop, retailer can save as much as 15% by implementing these systems, which is why we can expect them to be very popular.

However, he sees this as a possible ‘fix of the problem’ that more and more people are shopping online. He speculates that this can indeed draw shoppers and, as a consequence of this, back to the nowadays more empty town centres.

But what Dunlop is most interested in is the reshuffled relationships between employees, businesses, citizens, and governments; “We are moving from a globalised world of manufacturing giants to a networked one of technology giants.”

Where governments used to set up a market, and the rules that apply - domestically, and globally, they are/should not ‘facillitate innovation and education’. But more importantly, he says, they need to ‘see that the wealth generated in the new economy doesn’t simply flow to a tiny number of people at the top of the new corporations.’

This, according to Dunlop, can be achieved with UBI, Universal Basic Income.

“The idea of full employment as a desirable political goal is so taken for granted that we barely think about it. But what if work – in the form of paid employment – isn’t the unalloyed good we routinely presume it to be? What if, in fact, more work is the problem?”

In the document the issue of getting dignity from paid work is questioned, Dunlop reports. Is there not more dignity in helping others, and contributing to consolidate the local community, the document is asking.

What is important to acknowledge here, says Dunlop, is that UBI (Universal Basic Income) is not a ceiling of earnings, but a floor. It is also important that the idea is not sold as the Golden Rule, or ‘the silver bullet’. Rather, UBI should be considered as one part of a revised political, social, and economical ‘package’, that needs to be implemented as technology progress.

The document does not impose ‘a finished package’ of this sort, but aims to contribute to a debate that, at the moment, is far too quite. Both Dunlop and The Green Institute agrees that we risk a very uncomfortable future if automation-systems are not considered as ‘game-changers’, which they most certainly are, and will become. The message is clear; We need to be ready for this paradigm-shift if we do not want to risk putting a lot of people’s future at stake.

‘AI program AlphaGo may have trounced the world’s best Go player but it could mean humans will win in the future of work.’

Tim Dunlop, 1 June 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/01/if-humans-areno-longer-the-smartest-creatures-onthe-planet-we-can-reimagine-our-lives Why is this relevant?

“What are you going to do with your life when the machines are better at your job than you are?” Tim Dunlop asks in the beginning of this article. He is telling the story of, when recently, the World champion of Go, Ke Jie, lost a first-tothree tournament to the machine, AlphaGo, with the score 3-0. It seems AI is now smarter and better than a human, any human. And this game is not about calculation possible future moves, that would simply be a matter of memory.

But in this game the computer need to “understand the state of play and develop a strategy in order to win”. Real AI in other words, not just calculations - “there are more possible moves than there are atoms in the universe”.

So what kind of implications will this have in the long run for humans, and our jobs? Dunlop establish an argument that there are some things an AI probably can never do; understand our embodiment by interactions with our environment. It is this that we should embrace and spend our days doing, rather than trying to “beat” a machine that is superior our abilities. By this he means that we should do things we care dearly about, not doing work we do not like for the sake of money. These tasks will be made by machines anyway. We should work with what fulfil a need and a longing in our life. Dunlop sees a possibility that this can be a way of finally becoming liberated from tasks which we may not fully enjoy in our lives/jobs.

He draws parralells with ancient Greece and their amazing civilization, with

all its inventions like Democracy and ground-breaking philosophical concepts that has formed our western society. This could not have happened unless there were slaves who took care of the less exotic work. He insinuates that our future ‘slaves’ could be the machines, that either way are way better than us at doing the “simple” but time consuming, and the less attractive work.

I hope Dunlop is right, that this is how we use our machines in the future. My only concern is that at the moment, while we do certain parts of our jobs that we might not enjoy fully, at least we get paid by an employer.

What happens when our employers replaced us with machines? Where does the monthly pay-check come from?

And what would happen if it was to become the opposite? That since the machines are smarter than us, why would we not be the ones taking care of the simpler tasks, becoming the

slaves of the machines? This scenario has been widely explored in many sci-fi concepts over the years, and they are almost exclusively dystopian.

‘Machines threaten jobs generating £290bn in wages and could widen inequality gap, according to IPPR’

‘While automation will have implications for the low-skilled jobs often filled by migrants, technology could offer additional, and better, opportunities’

Richard Partington, Thursday 28 Dec 2017

Pádraig Collins, Thursday 20 Oct 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/28/ uks-poorest-to-fare-worst-in-age-of-automation-thinktankwarns?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ oct/20/is-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-bad-news-for-migrants-and-refugees?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Jobs accounting for a third of annual pay in the UK risk being automated, according to the study by the IPPR thinktank.

Warning that low-paid roles are in the greatest danger, it urged ministers to head off the prospect of rising inequality by helping people retrain and share in the benefits from advances in technology.’

...‘almost half of Australians fear technology or foreigners are a threat to their jobs. This leads to some fundamental questions about the impact the fourth industrial revolution is going to have on migration and refugees. If jobs now routinely done by migrants (such as cleaning, fast food and other low-skilled, low-paid work) are increasingly automated, does it mean countries take fewer migrants? Does it mean they will only want well-educated migrants? And does this have implications for how refugees are valued by the wider community?’

‘Mathew Lawrence, a senior research fellow at the IPPR, said: “Managed badly, the benefits of automation could be narrowly concentrated, benefiting those who own capital and highly skilled workers. Inequality would spiral.”

‘The IPPR estimates that 44% of jobs in the UK economy could feasibly be automated, equating to more than 13.7 million people who together earn about £290bn.’ ...’ estimates the changes could occur over the next 10 or 20 years. From the collective pay pool worth £290bn, middle-income jobs such as call-centre workers, secretaries and factory workers are likely to be hollowed out.’

‘The research follows similar studies warning of the risks arising from the current rapid advances in technology, which have enabled machines to take on work that was once the preserve of humans.’

‘Ministers are also being urged to consider new models of company ownership in the face of increasing returns to asset owners, because rising automation could result in higher profits for those who own companies - at the expense of workers’ salaries.’

“Government is working closely with industry to ensure the benefits of new technologies are felt across different sectors of the economy up and down the country, while creating new high-skill, well-paid jobs,” the BEIS said.’

‘Labour seized on the report to attack the Conservatives’ track record on handling the economy, saying the time was right for widespread adoption of democratic models of company ownership.’

‘The government has taken some steps to address the challenges ahead, including a partnership with the TUC and the CBI to develop a national training scheme for workers, as well as launching an industrial strategy to drive up productivity.’

‘Dr Anna Boucher of the University of Sydney is a migration specialist – she co-founded the migration studies unit at the London School of Economics – and says technology will not lead to a drop in immigration.’ ‘[Song] says advances in technology are unlikely to affect how refugees are valued. “Refugees are accepted for humanitarian grounds, not economic demand ... However, in recent years and at the UN summit [in September], legal and complementary pathways were suggested as alternative ways to protect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.’

‘Matching refugees’ skills to jobs in their new country benefits both the individual and the host nation. In Berlin, Syrian refugee and developer Hussein Shaker, who struggled to find work using his IT skills due to his lack of German, co-founded MigrantHire. He soon found that tech companies in the city were so desperate for developers they didn’t care whether employees could speak German. It was their knowledge of ones and zeroes that mattered most.’

‘Vicki Mau, manager of migration support programs at Red Cross, says the ideas that have come out of Techfugees, such as an app to help connect migrants with interpreters and another to help link individuals to friends, mentors, services and employment, have been very innovative. “These are great for Red Cross and invaluable for participants, such as refugees and asylum seekers looking for work and mentors,” she said.’

‘Despite spending the world’s second-largest amount on automation, Australian companies are not ready for robots – or for retraining staff’ Max Opray, Tuesday 24 Jan 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/25/artificial-intelligence-has-arrived-but-australian-businesses-dont-know-how-to-use-it ‘Independent research agency Vanson Bourne was commissioned by IT company Infosys (which as a seller of an AI platform has a vested interest in promoting such technology) to poll 1,600 business leaders of companies with more than 1,000 staff and at least US$500m in annual revenue across Australia, China, the United States, Germany, France, India and the UK.’ ‘Groth said the lack of skills was relevant to another of the survey’s findings – that Australian business leaders are the most likely to be planning to make workers redundant rather than reassign those whose roles have been made obsolete

by AI technology.’

‘A 2015 Ceda report found 40% of Australian jobs were under threat from automation. But University of New South Wales professor of AI, Toby Walsh, said that figure was unlikely as as many new jobs would be created as eliminated by automation. He said the jobs wipeout would be felt most by entry-level workers. That doesn’t have to mean less prosperity however. If machines create more wealth, it is just a matter of distribution.’

“One popular idea is a universal basic income, for which there are experiments in a number of countries, but that is not the only lever – there could be taxations on corporations and the very rich. Or there’s no fundamental reason the weekend has to be two days’ long – making it three days would ease the jobs shortage.”

‘Commissioned by AI personal assistant firm Julie Desk, Censuswide carried out another industry-funded survey across the UK in November/December and found 47% of professionals were willing to hand responsibility for scheduling meetings, booking restaurants and other administrative tasks over to AI personal assistants.’

‘The survey of 1,000 people indicated a generational gap in terms of trust in an AI personal assistant – nearly 62% of respondents aged 16 to 24 said they would trust an AI for handling the back and forth emailing of such tasks compared with 35% of those aged 55+.’

‘The survey indicated roughly two hours a week would be saved by automating such tasks, with respondents saying they would redeploy this time to pursuits such as taking care of their family (24%), going shopping (21%) and making love (20%).’

‘Robotics and prefabrication could see more 3D printers deployed on building sites but quality control remains a problem’ Oliver Balch, Tuesday 31 Jan 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/31/building-by-numbers-how-3d-printing-is-shaking-upthe-construction-industry?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other “If it doesn’t need to be a thing of beauty and it just needs to be rapidly produced, then it’s only a matter of time before it [3D printing] is seen to be viable,” says Hainsworth, who is based in Sydney.’

The Wasp project...’ has built a 12m high, solar-powered 3D printer that uses water, vegetable fibre and soil to build a basic adobe-like structure.’

‘Another 3D printing construction project that has generated a great deal of excitement is a proposed steel bridge in Amsterdam.’

“If you are talking about printing a public house or building, you have to demonstrate that it will hold,” notes Clément Moreau, the chief executive of the French cloud-based 3D printing firm Sculpteo, which launched a new titanium printing service earlier this year. “This regulation is very problematic ... everywhere that we want to put 3D printing, we have to face the regulation issues.”

‘Assuming regulators can be convinced, the potential upsides of 3D printing for the construction industry could be huge. Among the factors in the technology’s favour are productivity gains, reduced labour costs and safer working environments, as well as the sort of one-off, complex building designs that are not technically and economically feasible at present.’

‘He concedes that it could be economically viable to shift component manufacturing on site for very large building projects. In the short-term, however, 3D printers of the scale and sophistication required are likely to be too expensive for average contractors. Instead, Dominic Thasarathar, head of thought leadership for the construction industry at the Nasdaq-listed tech company Autodesk, anticipates leasing companies to branch out into 3D printers and other cutting-edge automated machinery as the technology evolves.’

‘As for the skills required, tomorrow’s building engineers and architects will ideally need to master the software programming skills on which 3D printing rests. Learning to co-work with automated technology will be an increasingly important requirement for the welders, masons, bricklayers, carpenters and other workers who physically build our houses and offices too.’

‘The fourth industrial revolution will see many jobs go. However, it will see many more created. Our challenge is to embrace this tsunami of change and ensure, through continuous and innovative training and re-skilling, that no section of the workforce is left behind.’

Stephen Martin, Mon 26 September 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/ sustainable-business/2016/sep/26/ why-we-must-embrace-digital-disruption-and-ensure-no-worker-is-left-behind?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Why is this relevant?

As more and more work is being performed by robots, rather than man, we need to acknowledge that jobs are disappearing, and we need to adapt.

At first hand this goes for the worker on the manufacturing floor. But in the long run it also concerns academics and many other occupations out there.

Online Big Data is making information accessible to all. An example of this is illustrated in the (creepy!) film Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, by Dan Gilroy. Taking that one step further how long before AI can interpret Big Data and form proposals of solutions, based on on-line sources (stats, charts, surveys, but also e-books & journals, etc)?

‘The current wave, characterized by automation becoming smarter, machineto-machine communication, artificial intelligence and continued technological improvements– and otherwise described at the fourth industrial revolution – still brings uncertainty and threatens a broader range of occupations and skill levels.’

However, this article can mainly be linked to UBI (Universal Basic Income), and/or the workers right to be offered adaptability and the possibility of further education to attain a contemporary suitable job, rather than to fall out when the emerging societal turn that programming and robotics bring, happens. But mostly Martin is speculating on the future generation, and what we (and they) should think about in terms of education.

As a former construction worker, I have witnessed the impact of cheaper foreign workforce from the front. Here I want to make it absolutely clear that I’m not saying it is wrong to accept foreign workforces, or robots, but there is, and there will be a clash when the second, third and fourth industrial revolution meet, and we need to be aware and provide for alternatives to avoid alarming confrontations. It is not a coincidence that Trump was elected, and that Brexit happened on the basis of discontent, by largely, the workforce of industry and construction.

‘Earlier waves of industrialisation have primarily affected low-skilled manual labour and past improvements in technology have typically made jobs at the lower end of the skills spectrum obsolete – for example, flight navigators but not pilots; typists but not data analysts.’

However, this article is positive of the changes what will undoubtedly come, and Martin says; ‘While much of the discussion is centred on the negative aspects of digital disruption, one aspect rarely mentioned is the associated opportunities. Not all jobs are at risk of being automated and past waves have created jobs that no one could have predicted.’

Here Martins also recalls the changes that previous industrial revolutions have brought, and is (subconsciously?) repeating a kind of philosophical version of the golden rule of energy, but aimed at jobs: energy (jobs) can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it (they) can only be transformed from one form (job) to another. He says; ‘The jobs of the future are likely to be in areas where machine thinking and robotics are most challenged in imitating human thought, and jobs that require a high level of social and emotional intel-

ligence, creativity and critical thinking.

These jobs include dentists, teachers and occupational therapists.’

‘The fourth industrial revolution has enormous emancipative power but only if we get the language, policy and politics right – for everyone.’

‘Jobs will be lost in the age of automation but the creative industries will grow and the ability to work with ambiguity, diversity and empathy will be valued.’

David Ritter, Fri 7 October 2016

Tim Dunlop, 26 Sepember 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ oct/07/its-up-to-organised-people-to-ensure-the-new-economy-serves-the-greater-good?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ sep/26/humans-are-going-to-have-the-edge-over-robotswhere-work-demands-creativity

Why is this relevant?

With new technology, the world spins ever faster. But we need to get it right, right now. David Ritter ponders upon the future that we are in for, and how to get things right - right now.

Why is this relevant?

The transformation of the job market brings uncertainty. But do we really have anything to worry about? Dunlop here speculates and tries to see what future holds.

‘To have any chance of keeping the global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees, emissions must peak by 2020 then make a swift march forward to zero.’ ...’almost 40% of Australian jobs have a likelihood of disappearing in the next 10 to 15 years because of the tech revolution.’

Ritter points sharp critique towards current Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull’s term of the Australian people as ‘assets’, and ‘human capital’. He calls for a new, different political language. He also advocates for organised people to address political issues that cover threats to the planet and our societies - fossil fuels, banks and finances, and human rights.

“A sufficiently powerful coalition will require alliances across classes, engaging progressive movements, existing social institutions and socially embedded business.” ...” we must remind ourselves who is in charge here. It is essential that changes in technology are the subject of democratic debate and control. Tech shapes our practical access to rights and freedoms and shapes our human subjectivity in all kinds of ways.”

Ritter sees little objection, and a simple-minded attitude towards giant tech companies. He argues that we should not let them roam free of policies, and that the governments put pressure on these companies so that they aim to serve the greater good.

“We live in a capitalist system, and the point of capitalism is to destroy jobs, not create them. That might sound counterintuitive but it is easy to explain.”

Dunlop referrs to MIT economist David Autor’s influential essay ‘Why Are There Still So Many Jobs?’. He sees how the market has changed many times in past decades, and underlines how jobs have not disappeared per se, but rather been transformed, although he recognise this transition isn’t always smooth - especially for individuals.

But now we are moving towards even more automation then ever before. Dunlop however, sees areas where automation still is far off; jobs that require creativity and empathy.

“It means that Stem skills (science, technology, engineering and maths) will be good things to have. Amazon, for instance, employs hundreds of PhDs in mathematics, working on logistics for their ever-growing delivery services.” ...

“In a development rarely discussed by politicians – who tend to dismiss the arts as soft and impractical – it means that higher education in arts-related subjects, including ethics, critical thinking and social relationships are also likely to be valued and in (relative) demand.”

According to Dunlop it is very likely that artist jobs are the last ones ‘under threat’ of disappearing from the job market.

Dunlop also sees how future jobs become more and more short-term, or project based, and come together via networks. Here artists and people with creative jobs have a good chance of seeing success through adapting, while labour-jobs will find the market harder to adapt to. This is where Dunlop advocates for the UBI.

‘There are some hopeful signs but for most disadvantaged women, technology changes will diminish work opportunities and increase barriers to upskilling’ Jane Gilmore, Wednesday 7 Dec 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ dec/08/could-automation-make-life-worse-for-women?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

23% between 2006 and 2011, whereas the number of men only increased by 14%.’

‘The WEF [World Economic Forum) (also) identified that women would be more affected by the coming changes than men.’

‘Another area of positivity is in small businesses and start-ups.

While women are still only around 34% of all business operators in Australia, this number has increased by 46% over the last 20 years, one of the few areas of significant growth for women. And this trend is continuing, with 44% of people who started a small business in 2013 were women.’

“In absolute terms, men will face nearly 4m job losses and 1.4m gains, approximately three jobs lost for every job gained, whereas women will face 3m job losses and only 0.55m gains, more than five jobs lost for every job gained.”

‘Encouragingly, this group has strong representation of migrant women, women with disabilities, rural women and older women, the groups most likely to be affected by job losses in the fourth industrial revolution.’

‘Women, however, are not a homogenous group, and the changes will not be spread evenly across the female population.’

‘The WEF report identified the three most common barriers to gender parity as unconscious bias from managers, lack of work-life balance, and lack of role models. The underlying cause of all those issues is the insidious persistence of gender roles, and our expectations of how both men and women will conform to outdated stereotypes. Unless this is addressed the future looks bleak for women, regardless of automation.’

‘For women with transferable skills, the fourth industrial revolution could be a boon, as technology and dismantling of the traditional eight-hour office day makes flexible work, new careers and start-up opportunities more accessible.

Furthermore, those skills traditionally associated with women, including caring and empathising, may become more highly prized in the workplace, which could be a plus for female workers.’

‘Those women already in disadvantaged groups, however – older women, women lacking education or formal qualifications, rural women and immigrant women – could have a very difference experience. Their existing disadvantages will be compounded by diminishing opportunities for unskilled work, and higher barriers to upskilling’ ‘Current ABS data shows the highest ratio of women’s employment is in clerical and administrative jobs (76% female), followed by community and personal services (68% female) and sales workers (64% female).’

‘That WEF report predicts two-thirds of the expected 7.1 million job losses over the next five years will occur in office and administration areas, as self-serve checkouts, online sales, and automated bookkeeping processes become more widespread’ ‘Women are historically absent from Stem fields. Roughly 30% of Stem graduates are women, less than 30% of Stem jobs are held by women and the gender pay gap in the Stem fields is also around 30%.’

‘The number of women with Stem qualifications increased by

‘Valuing men as caregivers, subordinates, and part-time workers will have a twofold benefit. Firstly, it removes the assumption that women are primarily caregivers, and secondly, it provides men, who are also going to experience deteriorating employment opportunities, with an alternative means of finding identity and self-worth outside work.’

‘The sum of all these statistics paints an unarguable picture of women bearing the full brunt of the lost economic opportunity inherent in raising children. That women are already so far behind men in terms of earning ability and career progression makes the threat of automation and concomitant job losses much more serious.’

‘Predicting the future is tricky. Technological advances, unimaginable only 20 years ago, are now prosaic, and humans are endlessly inventive and adaptable. Despite all the gloom of the current outlook, we can’t discount the possibility of currently undreamed-of innovation making radical changes to society and our expectations of the future.’

‘Design engineer David Thomasson can see a future where robots make feature films, build cities autonomously and let humans get on with helping each other.’

Alexandra Spring, 29 March 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ mar/29/can-machines-come-up-with-more-creative-solutions-to-our-problems-than-we-can Why is this relevant?

David Thomasson is the principal research engineer for strategic innovations at Autodesk, the company that creates 3D design software for manufacturing, entertainment, engineering, infrastructure and construction.

In the conversation between David Thomasson and author of the article Alexandra Spring, a very different view on artificial intelligence than what Tim Dunlop has, emerge; ‘If there’s any comfort offered during the current debate around robots, automation and the future of work, it’s that robots can’t do creativity.’ That is how this article starts - one sense a ‘but’ lurking.

Thomasson says; “The idea there is to explore this future that we can see coming, where humans and machines are going to be working much more closely. If we are to have any sort of meaningful relationship with robots and machines, we need to be able to communicate with them in a more human-like way [and] be intuitive about it. That involves natural language, gestures, and using facial expressions and body language.”

He has just (2016) taught a robot how to draw. Thomasson gives an example of how machines can become creative in unexpected ways - how they can be even more efficient than we ever could; His example is an imaginary bridge. He says you can give the machine a few simple instructions, and then let it think (or generate) for a while. You can then flicker through several alternatives it has come up with, perhaps sorting by aesthetics, or cost.

“It also tends to be quite organic-looking, it’s getting back to nature’s processes, and nature is much wiser than we are in working out what the world needs. I think we are going to get close to that; with these systems we are going to end up with more creative solutions to our problems. It’s going to end up with more energy-efficient designs, much less waste and more efficient use of human resources. As the machines get creative, it’s going to be much better for us.”

Thomasson is very optimistic about this future collaboration,

and when speculating on future work skills needed he says; “It will be much more psychology- and social science-[oriented]. Those will be the skills that people need.”

He sees work opportunities that aim to make a more socially just world, and that people spend more time trying to help other people.

He has been/is involved in 3D printing a bridge over a canal in Amsterdam; ...”this is a pretty solid first step into the world of infrastructure being built autonomously. It’s not a big step to imagine the big data that’s been collected by a city – it knows the flow of people, the traffic, the energy and water requirements, the air quality, all that information will be drawn into a central system. Then artificial intelligence will work out what’s best for the occupants of the city and can make its own decisions about what infrastructure is needed. You can imagine where you can get the robots to go and build another bridge where a bridge is needed, or build another water purification plant, or fix roads. I definitely think that’s where it’s headed.”

Contrary to Dunlop, Thomasson sees artistic work performed by machines as a given in a not too far future; “The machines can move like people, can encourage interaction and participate in physical creation, be it dance or sculpture or drawing. These machines are taught to move with us in lifelike ways. There’s a lot of research going into how to do that.”

The interview finishes off by a short speculation about autonomous AI, since it progresses far faster than any expert had ever imagined; “Longer term is going to get interesting once artificial intelligence gets way beyond our capability, then things are going to get messy potentially. That’s a huge area of research – the study of morals and ethics and how to see that happens safely. That’s much more of a grey area, I’m not sure about the optimism there.”

John Harris, Sat 25 Nov 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/nov/25/cobot-machine-coming-job-robots-amazon-ocado ‘With many jobs in service industries on the verge of being automated away, what new work will there be for the millions of people who currently do them?’

‘There are two broad schools of thought about what is happening to paid employment in the 21st century. One is essentially optimistic. The optimists cite the way that, although technology always does away with some jobs, it usually creates others. If the Industrial Revolution was bad news for weavers, it also led to millions of people working in hitherto unimagined occupations, from train driving to rocket science.

With some justification, the optimists also tend to evangelise about the liberating prospect of people being freed from some of the most monotonous, soul-destroying work.’

‘The other view is more downbeat, and points to the possible dawn of what Harari describes as “the useless class”: large numbers of people who will have no economic value. In this view of things, we need to accept that if paid employment will soon be in much shorter supply, we have to come up with radical answers – starting with the introduction of a universal basic income.’

‘Meanwhile, Amazon’s experiments with drones are well known (it officially launched a drone-based delivery method called Prime Air in 2013, though it is unlikely to become a reality until 2020 at the earliest). The company is also said to be researching the use of driverless vehicles.’

“What is happening now is just a natural continuation of something that’s been happening for a long time.” Perticucci, Amazon’s European vice-president for customer fulfilment, says.

‘As well as its own brand, Ocado manages orders for Waitrose and Morrisons.’... “We are better than a supermarket,” reads a sign on one of the walls.’ ... ‘Here, things could not be more different.’

‘Everything is based around a labyrinth of conveyor belts and storage towers, which ferry three different kinds of crate around the building.’ ... ‘The software that keeps a great deal of the system running works through machine learning: it draws conclusions from mistakes, and also notices if particular manoeuvres speed things up.’

‘This is not the most advanced of Ocado’s distribution

centres.’ ... ‘In partnership with a British firm called Oxbotica, Ocado has trialled driverless delivery vans, which earlier this year did two-mile loops around Greenwich in south London.

Together with the Disney corporation, the company is involved in robotics work aimed at approximating the dexterity of the human hand’ ...’ Its robotics teams have worked on a suction-based picking robot that can move tins, boxes and other products that have a uniform shape. “It uses a camera to look into the bin and figure out what and where to pick, and then where to place it,” Voica says. “It can do part of our range, and it’s ready to be deployed.” ..’ Frey has been intensively researching the relationship between automation and human employment since 2011.

He now spends 90% of his professional life working on the subject, and his findings do not make for comforting reading.’

‘Automation, he explains, first hit manufacturing. Then it began to affect secretaries and bookkeepers in the “white collar” parts of the economy, where AI and new digital innovations are now advancing even further. Although the technology is only just starting to be implemented, the same effect is set to tear through unskilled or semi-skilled work in services.’

‘Aviva insurance has 33 million customers spread across 16 countries. Its future is being planned from what it calls “a digital garage” in Hoxton Square, one small part of the expanding cluster of tech businesses centred around Old Street, London’s Silicon Roundabout.’

‘Obviously, this is not the kind of automation you can see. It is based around an endless array of computer applications – in Aviva’s case, as many as 40 – which crunch numbers and process information behind a wall of apps and websites.

Most of us tend to think of the insurance industry as being awash with forms, bills and people processing applications and claims, but that is not how the future is going to look at all. This year’s PwC study found that 32% of UK jobs in finance and insurance might soon be automated.’

‘Aviva’s chief digital officer is Andrew Brem.’ ... “I don’t know why I get asked what kind of house I live in, because I only need to look at Google Street View to know that. There are lots of different places to get information in an automated way. We want to make it totally frictionless.”

‘The company, he says, has investments in tech startups which are using AI to speed up how Aviva might amass information about people. He says he can’t give away the details, but one of them is working on the application of AI

‘As robots slash the time it takes to complete an order at companies like Amazon and Ocado, what does that mean for their human colleagues?’ to selfies. “From the selfie, the software can, for example, make judgments about your body mass index,” he says. “So you don’t have to get someone to measure you. These are experimental things, but we want to experiment.”

‘This kind of talk will jangle some people’s nerves. Might automation extend to software that trawls people’s Facebook profiles? “Not yet, no. We’re not doing that at the moment.”

‘What about a newspaper report in February that Aviva planned to ask each of its 16,000 employees whether their job could be automated? “Employees who answer ‘yes’ will be retrained for another role at the firm,” the report suggested. The scheme was reportedly discussed at the highest level of the company.’

‘What will all these changes mean for the kind of jobs the company can offer people, I ask Brem. “Repetitive, menial tasks are less relevant, right?” Brem says. “Here, we’re talking internally about the organisation of the future and what it means for work: the gig economy, and all that kind of stuff.

My view is that, let’s face it, we’re all going to have many careers and jobs over our long working lives now. We’re going to be employed and self-employed – that distinction’s going to go, I think. But the important thing is to have really good basic education, plus some cultural traits like resilience, curiosity and adaptability… and at various points, we’re all going to have to retrain.”

‘One firm’s employees are packing their extra day off with activities and have more energy for work’ Eleanor Ainge Roy, Thursday 29 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/29/heckit-was-productive-new-zealand-employees-try-four-dayweek?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Taylor is one of 200 employees at New Zealand trustee company Perpetual Guardian, which is halfway through a six-week long trial which could have profound implications for the future of labour. Staff are working four days a week but getting paid for five.’

‘While her colleagues still socialise during the work day, the office space is quieter and more concentrated, and “water-cooler chats” are briefer. “I am feeling significantly better equipped when I begin the work week now,” she says’ ‘Last year the Autonomy Institute made renewed calls for the implementation of a four-day week, saying it would help even out the unhealthy distribution of work and shift the focus to producing better work in a shorter time.’

“People have been training for marathons, going to the dentist, getting their car serviced, or doing the shopping for their elderly parents. All the stuff that has been put on the back burner, but either helps themselves or their family. Life administration”, says Christine Brotherton, head of people and capability for Perpetual Guardian.

‘For the last two years a Swedish care home trialled a sixhour work day, with mixed results. Benefits included a 10% drop in sick leave and higher job satisfaction, but overall increased costs by 20%.’

‘Amazon is also reportedly piloting a 30-hour work week for some employees. Whilst workers on the 30-hour work week receive the same benefits as full-time employees, they earn 75% of the salary – and results aren’t in yet on the pilot’s outcomes. KPMG and Deloitte offer four-day work weeks to some employees (with certain conditions attached), while Google allows some employees full control over 20% of their working week, hoping that the creative freedom will lead to new ideas and innovations.’

‘Perpetual Guardian’s CEO, Andrew Barnes, a Briton, says the experiment is generating interesting data, which will be analysed by academics at two leading New Zealand universities before a decision on extending the trial is made.’

“Just as the fourth industrial revolution in Australia will transform jobs, it will do the same for the welfare system. Universal basic income, targeted cash transfers, negative income tax and a family wage could be ways to guarantee living standards for ordinary people and keep the economy afloat”

‘Stumping up for workers made redundant by robots is ‘‘dangerous nonsense’’, says former minister Nick Boles in new book.’

Gideon Haigh, 10 November 2016

Heather Stewart, Thursday 28 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/11/ basic-income-for-all-a-500-year-old-idea-whose-time-hascome?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/28/ tory-mp-condemns-universal-basic-income-on-moral-grounds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Why is this relevant?

“What might a welfare system of the future look like? What is the potential of ideas such as a universal basic income or a negative income tax, long discussed by economists, mostly beyond the ken of politicians?” asks Haigh.

‘Universal basic income, or UBI, has sparked the attention of people ranging from Silicon Valley to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, as a way of guaranteeing workers a minimum income and ensuring they are not left behind by automation.’

He refers to Thomas More’s novel Utopia, and points out that the idea of UBI has been around for some 500 years.

Up until recently there has been little (much?) need for the concept, or as Haigh puts it; ’universal basic income has looked like an elegant solution in search of a problem’, but with evermore automatisation this has increasingly become a more real debate.

He points out recent and current pilot projects around the world; Finland is working on a trail, Switzerland recently went to the polls to vote for/against such a scheme (rejected), and in Oakland, California a similar pilot is investigated.

What is interesting is that its not solely the left that advocates the potential benefits, but also very much so the right, although the arguments and the agenda migh differ.

What Haigh see as a potential problem is the embedded and deeply rooted in the concept of having pride in having a job, and preferably one with status. However, Haigh is eschewing any such notions and says that most income support once condemned, nowadays is commonly accepted. He does, however, feel that it is necessary to do further investigations on the topic, before a real implementation of the system can realistically considered. The raise of tax is a hot potato, he acknowlege, and that it should be more easy to implement UBI in Scandinavia, where taxes are already high, and supports a lot of public services.

Haigh finishes the article with a clear link to democracy; he cites Tim Lyons that argues the current Australian government’s agenda is edulcorate and outdated. He sees a need to address the fact that all people may not have jobs in a near future, but we cannot just let them starve.

“The main objection to the idea of a universal basic income is not practical but moral,” he writes.’

“Its enthusiasts suggest that when intelligent machines make most of us redundant, we will all dispense with the idea of earning a living and find true fulfilment in writing poetry, playing music and nurturing plants. That is dangerous nonsense.”

“Mankind is hard-wired to work. We gain satisfaction from it.

It gives us a sense of identity, purpose and belonging … we should not be trying to create a world in which most people do not feel the need to work.”

“Currently, the government is able to target help on those who need it most and can therefore afford to be modestly generous. If, in future, everyone were to receive the same basic income, the poorest would suffer a big drop in their income while average earners’ taxes would go up.” Boles argues.’

‘Boles is widely viewed by his colleagues as one of the more thoughtful backbenchers in a party hungry for a convincing riposte to Corbyn’s radical socialism.’

‘Rather than seeking to compensate workers for losing their roles in a more automated economy, he argues that the government should invest heavily in equipping them with the new skills they will need – including the creation of new twoyear technical qualifications.’

‘Corbyn used his party conference speech in September to suggest a Labour government would use the tax system to ensure that the benefits of automation are widely shared across the economy: an idea quickly dubbed the “robot tax”.’

‘But Boles warned that taxing firms that benefit from automation would simply discourage them from investing. “The only sure result of a robot tax would be lower investment, lower productivity and lower wages.”

‘If we could understand how the infant mind develops, it might help every child reach their full potential.

But seeing them as learning machines is not the answer.’

Alex Beard, Tuesday 3 Apr 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/03/howbabies-learn-and-why-robots-cant-compete?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other Deb Roy and Rupal Patel had just become parents in 2005.

‘This normal-looking suburban couple weren’t exactly like other parents. Roy was an AI and robotics expert at MIT, Patel an eminent speech and language specialist at nearby Northeastern University.’ ... ‘As Roy’s interest turned into a career, he wondered about android brains. What would it take for the machines he made to think and talk? “I thought I could just read the literature on how kids do it, and that would give me a blueprint for building my language and learning robots,” Roy told me.’

‘If we could create machines that learned like humans, could we also develop ones that could help us perfect human learning?’

‘Hirsh-Pasek is legendary in the field of early child development. The author of 12 books and hundreds of academic articles, she is a distinguished faculty fellow who runs Temple’s Infant and Child Laboratory, whose slogan is “Where Children Teach Adults”.

‘Even in utero, babies are learning. At that stage, they pick up sounds. One-hour-olds can distinguish their mother’s voice from another person’s. They arrive in the world with a brain primed to learn through sensory stimulation. We are natural-born explorers, ready made for scientific inquiry. We have to understand this if we were to realise our learning potential.’

“We enter the world ready to ‘read the perfect cues out of the environment’,” said Hirsh-Pasek.’

‘But robots can only reach out in ways they have been programmed to, can only learn from stimuli they were instructed to pay attention to. It limits them to a small range of experiences that would shape their behaviours. There is no meaning in their methods. Babies, on the other hand, are social learners.’

‘If all of us are to achieve our potential as learners, the question we have to answer is how we ought to shape this environment. Human brains have specially adapted to learn.

Our long period of immaturity is a risky evolutionary strategy, making us vulnerable early on to predators or sickness, and delaying for many years our capacity to reproduce, but the

payoff is immense. We can actively incorporate enormous amounts of the latest information from our environment and social group into our cognitive development.’

‘Scientists have long recognised the nature-v-nurture debate as fallacy. A huge amount of our brain development takes place in the first three years. In those years, the brain grows in relation to the environment, forming itself in interaction with sensory experience.’

‘It is why infants don’t learn to talk from video, audio or overhearing parental conversations. We haven’t evolved to.

That’s why it matters that we talk to our children. It’s also why we can’t learn from robots – yet.’

‘At Temple University, Hirsh-Pasek told me that we can’t simply drop kids in front of iPads and expect them to catch up – but that doesn’t mean we should give up entirely on intelligent machines.’ ... “What the machine can’t do is be a partner,” Hirsh-Pasek told me. “It isn’t social. It’s interactive without being adaptive.”

‘In 2003, the psychologist Patricia Kuhl experimented with teaching American infants Mandarin. Split into three groups (video, audio and flesh-and-blood teacher) only those with a human tutor learned anything at all.’

‘These findings are clear: if you start on the decoding before you have an underlying understanding of story, experience, sensation and emotion, then you become a worse reader.

And you like it less. Treat kids like robots during early learning and you put them off for life.’

‘Watching his son, Roy had been blown away by “the incredible sophistication of what a language learner in the flesh actually looks like and does”. Infant humans didn’t only regurgitate; they created, made new meaning, shared feelings.’

‘The learning process wasn’t decoding, as he had originally thought, but something infinitely more continuous, complex and social.’

‘He had discovered that human learning was communal and interactive. For a robot, the acquisition of language was abstract and formulaic. For us, it was embodied, emotive, subjective, quivering with life. The future of intelligence wouldn’t be found in our machines, but in the development of our own minds.’

‘As Australian children go back to school, what should we be doing to get them ready for the fourth industrial revolution?’

Saadia Zahidi, Monday 30 Jan 2017

learning.’

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/30/we-may-have-less-than-five-years-to-change-howwe-learn-earn-and-care?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘While there are deeply polarised views about how technology will impact employment, there is agreement that we are in a period of transition. Policy needs to catch up and facilitate this transition. We propose four areas of action: recognition of all work models and agile implementation of new regulations, updated social protection, adult learning and continuous re-skilling, and proactive employment services.’

‘Globalisation and technology are accelerating both job creation and destruction. Some estimates have put the risk of automation as high as half of current jobs, while others forecast a considerably lower value of 9%. Still, all occupations will go through change: we found that on average one-third of the skillsets required to perform today’s jobs will be wholly new by 2020.’

‘At the same time, education and training systems are not keeping pace with these shifts. Some studies suggest that 65% of children now entering primary school will have jobs that do not yet exist and for which their education will fail to prepare them, exacerbating skills gaps and unemployment in the future. Even more urgent, underdeveloped adult training and skilling systems are unable to support learning for the active workforce of nearly 3 billion people.’

‘The near-term outcomes of these dynamics, compounded through other demographic, geopolitical and economic factors, are profoundly challenging. They include skills gaps in the workforce that are difficult for employers and workers alike, unemployment and job displacement, particularly in blue-collar and services work, rising fear of further technological unemployment, insufficient supply of talent for many high-skill occupations, and loss of female talent and potential. Together these factors are exacerbating income inequality and creating a crisis of identity.’ ...‘turning away immigrants, trade or technology itself, and disengaging from the world, is a distraction, at best. At worst, this will create even more negative consequences for those already losing out – and many more. It is up to courageous, responsible and responsive leaders and citizens to take the long view and set out on the path to more fundamental, relevant reforms and an inspiring future.’

‘Most education systems are so far behind the mark on keeping up with the pace of change today and so disconnected from labour markets that nothing short of a fundamental overhaul will suffice in many economies. The eight key areas of action here are early childhood education, future-ready curricula, a professionalised teaching workforce, early exposure to the workplace, digital fluency, robust and respected technical and vocational education, openness to education innovation, and, critically, a new deal on lifelong

‘Often undervalued and unregulated, care is one of the most fundamental needs among both young and old populations. It has a strong impact on education, and holds potential for job growth. We propose six areas of action: recognise and value care as a vital sector of the economy, professionalise the care workforce, rebalance paid and unpaid work responsibilities, expand high-quality care infrastructure, create new financial provisions to facilitate care, and use technology as a tool for balancing care and work.’

‘It’s the harder path to follow, there’s no doubt about it. Transforming education ecosystems, creating a care economy and managing the transition to a new world of work require political will, innovative policy, new financing models and, most importantly, a new mindset.’

‘But this is also the only viable path if we want to get ahead of the transition under way and turn this moment of flux into an opportunity for revitalising growth and realising human potential in the age of the fourth industrial revolution.’

This article first appeared on the World Economic Forum site. The white paper on Realizing Human Potential in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: An Agenda for Leaders to Shape the Future of Education, Gender and Work

‘Regional locations are seeing the first effects of the ‘Study shows all governments need to play a greatfourth industrial revolution. How these businesses re- er role in restructuring mining sector to compensate spond will be a lesson for everyone’ for automation effects’ David Sparkes, Sunday 27 Nov 2016

Oliver Balch, Friday 20 Jan 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ nov/28/mining-manufacturing-and-fruit-picking-can-automation-save-mackay-jobs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/20/autonomous-mining-will-cost-jobs-and-tax-income-itstime-for-governments-to-act?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘For Hegerty, fear has been replaced by a belief that automation not only holds the key to long-term survival but it can create better jobs than those replaced.’

‘Automation is fast becoming a reality in the world of mining.’... ‘Tele-remote ship loaders, automated rock breakers and semi-autonomous crushers are just some of the hightech equipment now being rolled out by the sector’s leading edge companies.’

‘The idea of 21st century mines being run from centralised control centres far from the dust of the coalface has several significant selling points. Automation is arguably greener, safer and – after the initial up-front investment – has cheaper running costs.’

‘More to the point, he says there is simply no choice – businesses like his can embrace automation or disappear. “I believe that automation will be the cornerstone of our business within the next five years,” he says. “Manual fabrication will become the exception rather than the rule.”

‘Examples of automation are popping up regularly in regional Australia. Driverless trucks have been operating above ground for some time, particularly in Western Australia, and now Queensland University of Technology is working with Caterpillar to develop driverless trucks that can operate in underground mines.’

‘Ceda’s chief executive officer, Prof Stephen Martin, says although mining and manufacturing jobs are most at risk from automation, the impact will spread much further, affecting jobs that involve low levels of social interaction, low levels of creativity, or low levels of mobility and dexterity.’

‘Mackay is a classic example of a region with plenty at stake as automation looms on the horizon. A huge percentage of its workers are either in the mines, or in workplaces providing services to the mining sector. The region’s employment figures have d been dented by low coal prices, forcing a degree of introspection and adaptation.’

‘Martin also says the private sector must take responsibility.

“Businesses need to accept change is happening and be looking for opportunities for how they can adapt and innovate in their business to keep pace and embrace the opportunities that technological advancement brings,” he says.’

‘Martin also points out that the jobs of the future in Australia are likely to be in the service sector, a significant shift from the years of the mining boom, and this will require a “serious rethink of how we train and retrain our workforce”.

“If you’re moving from mines that employ 5,000 to 10,000 people down to 500 or 1,000, then you’re obviously not going to get the same amount of local jobs,” says Howard Mann, senior adviser on international law at International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and co-author of a recent study on the impact of automation in the mining sector.’

‘With the deployment of automated technologies expected to peek in 10-15 years, now is the time to rethink how the mining pie is currently sliced up.’

‘In Mann’s view, policymakers need to consider a greater role for state-owned companies, tighter profit-sharing agreements and more service-oriented (rather than ownership) concessions, among other measures’ ‘Davy points towards the example of Cerro Verde copper concession in Peru, where US-based mine operator Freeport-McMoRan has helped poultry farmers and artisan weavers build up their businesses. Such as they exist, however, most job creation schemes tend to focus on integrating local businesses into mining companies’ own supply chains.’ ...‘emerging economies heavily dependent on mining should consider how best to obtain the skills and technical knowhow to best exploit it.’

‘Educators in advanced economies are still puzzling over precisely what skills and management strategies mining professionals will need in a more automated future.’

‘His pledges about the future of work helped him win but automation means jobs won’t return anywhere any time soon’

‘US president calls on Brussels to respond in kind to temporary amnesty, while move against Beijing hits stock markets’

Tim Dunlop, Monday 14 Nov 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ nov/14/no-politician-can-keep-a-promise-to-bring-back-jobsespecially-not-donald-trump

Daniel Boffey, Friday 23 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/22/ eu-expects-escape-trump-steel-aluminium-tariffs-talks?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The states that turned from Barack Obama to Trump closely hew with the areas most affected by disruptions associated with globalisation and economic downturn.’

‘Amid relief in Brussels that the EU had won a temporary reprieve from Trump’s already announced action to protect the US from imports of steel and aluminium, Wall Street braced itself for retaliation from China. Beijing announced it would consider higher tariffs on pork, aluminium pipe and other goods from the US, a trade worth about $3bn.’

‘The structural changes that have occurred – the shift from an industrial economy to one built on knowledge, information and automation – mean that we will never again require the same number of people working to produce the things we need. What’s more, technology is displacing not just blue-collar jobs but white-collar ones as well, and this is unprecedented.’

‘Yes, jobs will be created, but there will be no obvious path from the jobs lost to those created. The new jobs will require either high-level technical skills or the sort of the interpersonal skills associated with an arts degree – everything from problem solving to collaboration and teaching.’

‘Having said all that, it is hard to fault the approach Trump is taking without also criticising his opponents. Clinton and Bernie Sanders ran on job creation every bit as much as Trump did, and so does just about every politician in the western world. Here in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull ran at the last Australian election on the slogan “jobs and growth” and was barely challenged to explain how he would achieve either.’

‘The Labor party’s jobs plan was more credible, and talked about “innovation and more local jobs in advanced manufacturing, renewable energy and services”, but it simply did not mention rising to the challenge of automation. At the end of the day, it was a vision for recreating the past rather than building the future.’

‘This doesn’t mean our future prospects are bad, far from it, but it does mean rethinking our whole relationship with work.

It means recognising that a job is an increasingly unreliable way of ensuring that everyone shares in the wealth of our societies.’

‘Instead we need a radical and inclusive reinvention of the economy around shorter working hours; government intervention that favours the many rather than the few, including fairer taxation regimes and policies of redistribution; and an embrace of the new technologies of energy, communication and information that have the potential to ensure an improving standard of living for those outside the 1%.’

“It is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world. It’s out of control,” the US president said as he signed a memorandum. “We have a tremendous intellectual property theft situation going on, which likewise is hundreds of billions of dollars.”

‘Just 24 hours before tariffs were to be enforced on the EU, the Trump administration announced it was exempting the bloc, along with Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and South Korea, while trade talks with those nations were ongoing.’

‘About £35bn worth of Chinese imports to the US will be affected by tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium.’

‘The White House said Trump would direct the office of the US trade representative to publish a new list of proposed tariffs within 15 days. They are likely to cover sectors such as robotics, hi-tech trains and aerospace. There will then be 30 days for responses.’

‘China has warned it would take “all necessary measures” to defend itself. Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, referred to imports of US soybeans, aeroplanes, cotton and cars, saying they could be viewed as examples of unequal trade. The US also “refuses to export what China wants”, she said, possibly referring to restrictions on technology and military sales.’

‘The EU has argued in recent months that as a close ally of the US it should be exempt, and had threatened to impose a series of retaliatory measures including import duties on their products.’

‘The reprieve for the EU was only given a cautious welcome

by British steel makers. Gareth Stace, the director of UK Steel, warned that US protectionism would still have a heavy impact on European countries unless Brussels took its own measures to stem the flow of aluminium and steel into the EU.’

‘The EU does not want the president’s tariffs to create a spiral of retaliation. But Europe is a target – and a battle looks inevitable.’

Phillip Inman Saturday 10 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/10/war-over-steeltrump-tips-global-trade-turmoil-tariffs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Blast furnace B will fire up this summer in Granite City, Illinois, giving up to 500 steel workers a job and offering President Donald Trump a fitting emblem for his campaign to put America first.

Mothballed for several years by US Steel, the blast furnace sits next to the Missouri river, north of St Louis, where it will smelt iron made newly competitive

by Trump’s decision to slap a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminium, including from the UK and Europe.’

‘Within hours of Trump first propounding his protectionist move in a tweet, the European commission hit back with the threat of its own measures: extra tariffs on everything from orange juice to Harley-Davidson motorbikes.’

‘Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s trade commissioner, said she wanted to avoid a tit-for-tat battle that could turn into a full-blown trade war.’

‘When he signed the presidential order on Thursday, Trump made it clear Mexico and Canada would be excluded from the plan and suggested Australia and “other countries” might also be spared. However, a trade war now looks inevitable because Europe appeared to remain firmly in his sights when he added that any retaliation by the EU would be met with a tariff on European car imports.’

‘Brazil, unlike China, is a big exporter to the US and is accused of costing America thousands of steel jobs. Canada and Brazil account for around a third of US steel imports. China accounts for 3%.

The UK accounts for only a small pro-

portion of the EU’s exports, though this still means 25m tonnes of steel, worth £360m, need to find another home.’

‘Yet a booming US economy hardly needs the extra steel jobs. Over the last year, the US labour market has added jobs at an electric pace and wages have started to rise after decades of stagnation.’

‘If the impact on the employment figures of effectively raising the cost of steel was uppermost in Trump’s mind, analysts say he would have considered the potential net loss of jobs in the car industry, the aviation industry and the countless other manufacturers that depend on cheap steel as a raw material.

These companies are expected to pass on the extra cost to their customers and suffer the usual consequences – lower demand and a profit squeeze.’

‘Most analysts argue that Trump is ignoring economic realities to make gestures to his voter base of blue-collar, disenfranchised workers before midterm elections in November.’

‘Trump’s economic adviser Gary Cohn resigned after failing to persuade the president to drop his plan. Republican leaders, many on the libertarian and free-market wing of the party, have picked up the baton to argue that tariffs are a crude tool that will backfire on US businesses. Vice-president Mike Pence and Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin are known to have voiced misgivings in private.’

‘Navarro believes that closing the US trade deficit by restricting imports will help the economy grow. His critics point out that lower imports make no difference to GDP, which measures the production of US goods and services.

By contrast, a rise in exports propels GDP higher.’

‘Mainstream economists and much of the Republican party subscribe to the idea that openness to trade makes US companies more efficient and when they cannot compete, they should shift their efforts to making something with a comparative advantage. That said, figures from credit insurer Euler Hermes shows 467 new protectionist measures were implemented worldwide in 2017, led by the US with 90 new measures that included import duties on foreign-made solar panels and washing machines.’

‘The UK is one of the top 10 economies for those introducing protectionist measures over the past four years – though this mostly involves subsidising UK businesses rather than punishing foreign rivals’ ‘Germany and Switzerland are ranked fourth and sixth worldwide for the same reason – using trade finance and other subsidies to promote domestic firms against rivals.’

‘Those figures suggest that Trump’s claim of state-subsidised foreign firms abusing free trade has some validity.

The WTO should be the forum to settle these disputes, but Trump thinks the WTO is rigged against the US.’ ‘When it rules his tariffs are illegal under WTO rules – as it surely will – the president will say that justifies his view. And then the trade war will escalate.’

‘Threat of a trade war with China led investors to sell off US manufacturers including Caterpillar and Boeing’ Dominic Rushe and agencies, Friday 2 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/01/trumpto-impose-tariffs-on-steel-and-aluminum-imports-in-boldtrade-move ‘The threat of a trade war with China and higher goods prices led to a sharp sell-off in Wall Street on Thursday, causing Asian markets to take fright on Friday.’ ...’Asian steelmakers bore the brunt. South Korea’s Posco fell 3% and Japan’s Nippon Steel 4%.’

‘At a meeting with US industry officials at the White House, he vowed to rebuild American steel and aluminum industries, saying they had been treated unfairly by other countries for decades.’

“People have no idea how badly our country has been treated by other countries, by people representing us that didn’t have a clue,” Trump said at a White House press conference attended by executives from the steel and aluminum industries.’

‘His comments followed an early-morning tweet that said the steel and aluminum sectors needed protecting from unfair trade, which drove shares in domestic industries sharply higher.’

‘Although China only accounts for 2% of US steel imports, its massive industry expansion has helped produce a global glut of steel that has driven down prices.’

‘While American steelmakers lost three-quarters of their jobs between 1962 and 2005, a major study by the American Economic Association showed that much of this had been due to improved production technology as output per worker rose fivefold.’

“Thus, even if trade protection leads to increased domestic production, increases in employment may be far less than many hope,” a report from the highly regarded independent Econofact economist network said last week.

‘Consumers of steel and aluminum have lobbied hard against the tariffs. Econofact said in its report that 2 million jobs were in industries that use steel “intensively”, including auto parts, household appliances, farm machinery and oil equipment.’

“Across many states, the number of jobs adversely affected in these steel-using industries could far exceed any steel jobs saved,” Econofact warned.’

‘IMF joins China in warning of potential harm from 25% tariff imposed on metal imports but Trump insists ‘trade wars are good’ Dominic Rushe in New York and Benjamin Haas in Seoul, Saturday 3 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/02/chinaexpresses-grave-concerns-us-steel-tariff-plans ‘Europe has warned Donald Trump to expect retaliatory strikes against American icons like Harley-Davidson, Levi’s jeans and Kentucky bourbon, if he sparks a trade war by going ahead with punitive US tariffs on foreign steel.’

‘The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned there would be consequences for the US if Trump’s threat of a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminium imports takes effect.’

“If the Americans impose tariffs on steel and aluminium, then we must treat American products the same way,” Juncker told German television stations.’

“We must show that we can also take measures. This cannot be a unilateral transatlantic action by the Americans,” he said. “I’m not saying we have to shoot back, but we must take action.”

“The import restrictions announced by the US President are likely to cause damage not only outside the US, but also to the US economy itself, including to its manufacturing and construction sectors, which are major users of aluminium and steel,” the IMF said.’

‘Japan’s steel industry also urged Trump not to impose steep tariffs on imports, warning it would have “serious harmful effects” on trade worldwide.’

‘But Robert Scott, senior economist at the left-leaning Economics Policy Institute said tariffs were “long overdue”. “Trump promised quick action after announcing investigations of the national security threats imposed by steel and aluminum imports nearly a year ago. Delays worsened the import crisis for thousands of US steel and aluminum workers, many of whom are facing layoffs and plant closing announcements,” he said.’

‘Canada has the largest share of steel imports to the US at 16%, according to data from the Department of Commerce.

That is followed by Brazil and South Korea, with steel imports from China down 5% in the most recent period.’

‘Trump administration goes ahead with threatened tariffs on steel and aluminium as allies pledge to hit back’ Larry Elliott, Richard Partington, and Edward Helmore. Thu 31 May 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/31/usfires-opening-salvo-in-trade-war-with-eu-canada-and-mexico?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, promised immediate retaliation after the US commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said EU companies would face a 25% duty on steel and a 10% duty on aluminium from midnight on Thursday.’

‘The UK, which has hopes of agreeing a trade liberalisation deal with the US after Brexit, expressed alarm at Ross’s announcement.’

‘Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, said Britain would not rule out countermeasures or taking Washington to the WTO, which arbitrates on global trade disputes.’

‘Last week, the Trump administration launched a national security probe into car imports on national security grounds that could lead to tariffs on cars from Europe, Japan and South Korea, should trade tensions spiral further out of control.’

‘Representatives for the US metal industry also expressed disappointment. “Make no mistake: restricting the raw material supply in the U.S. and imposing tariffs on imports from our closest trading partners places American manufacturers directly in harm’s way,” said Paul Nathanson of The Coalition of American Metal Manufacturers and Users.’

‘Trump announced his tariffs in March as a way of protecting US firms from cheap imports but Digby said the problem was caused by global overproduction of the metals and needed to be tackled jointly by Brussels and Washington.’

“There are no winners in a trade war, which will damage prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. These tariffs could lead to a protectionist domino effect, damaging firms, employees and consumers in the US, UK and many other trading partners. Now is not the time for any disproportionate escalation, and we urge the EU to consider this when initiating its response.”

‘Emmanuel Macron may be known in the US for his close relationship to President Donald Trump, but in his address to Congress on Wednesday, the French President took aim at several key points of Trump’s agenda.’

By Daniella Diaz, April 26, 2018 https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/25/politics/france-president-emmanuel-macron-joint-address-congress/index.html ‘Speaking before US lawmakers from both the Senate and the House, Macron pressed the United States to engage more in global affairs, contrasting with the steps the Trump White House has taken toward isolationism since he came into office.’

‘Macron also pushed the US to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which Trump announced his country would leave last year, and made the case for supporting the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump has sharply condemned.’

“The 21st century has brought a series of new threats and new challenges that our ancestors might have never imagined,” Macron said. “We can build the 21st century world order based on a new breed of multilateralism, based on a more effective, accountable, and results-oriented multilateralism.”

He continued: “This requires more than ever the United States’ involvement, as your role was decisive for creating and safeguarding this free world. The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism. You are the one who has to help now to preserve and reinvent it.”

Macron also stressed the importance of taking care of the environment, a pointed remark given Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and his appointments of officials prioritizing deregulation over environmental concerns.

“I am sure one day, the US will come back and join the Paris agreement.” Macron said, adding simply, “Let us face it: There is no planet B.” “We must find a smoother transition to a lower carbon economy,” he said. “Because what is the meaning of our life, really, if we work and live destroying the planet while sacrificing the future of our children?”

‘Manufacturing ban means the tiny beads which harm marine life can no longer be used in cosmetics and personal care products.’

‘A study reveals highest microplastic pollution levels ever recorded in a river in Manchester, UK and shows that billions of particles flooded into the sea from rivers in the area in just one year’

Damian Carrington Tuesday 9 January 2018

Damian Carrington Monday 12 Mar 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/09/ plastic-microbeads-ban-enters-force-in-uk

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/12/ microplastic-pollution-in-oceans-is-far-greater-than-thoughtsay-scientists?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The UK has banned plastic microbeads in all products.

‘Plastic microbeads can no longer be used in cosmetics and personal care products in the UK, after a long-promised ban came into effect on Tuesday. The ban initially bars the manufacture of such products and a ban on sales will follow in July.’

‘The work reveals the highest microplastic pollution yet discovered anywhere in the world in a river near Manchester in the UK. It also shows that the major floods in the area in 2015-16 flushed more than 40bn pieces of microplastic into the sea.’

‘The huge problem of plastic pollution choking the oceans has gained a high profile with recent revelations that there are five trillion pieces of plastic floating in the world’s seas and that the debris has reached the most remote parts of the oceans, Microbeads are a small but significant part of this which campaigners argued was the easiest to prevent.’

‘They are known to harm marine life, which mistake them for food, and can be consumed by humans too via seafood, tap water or other food. The risk to people is still not known, but there are concerns that microplastics can accumulate toxic chemicals and that the tiniest could enter the bloodstream.’

‘Pressure is now mounting for action on plastic bottles – a million are bought every minute around the world and they make up a third of the plastic litter in the seas. In December, the UK’s environmental audit committee (EAC) of MPs called for a deposit return scheme, which has successfully increased recycling rates in other countries.’

‘About a third of microplastics found by the team before the flooding were microbeads, tiny spheres used in personal care products and banned in the UK in January. This high proportion surprised the scientists, who said the beads may well also derive from industrial uses, which are not covered by the ban.’

‘Mary Creagh MP, EAC chair, said: “The microbead ban is a step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done. Since we called for a ban, my committee has also recommended the deposit return scheme, a latte levy for plastic-lined coffee cups and reforms to make producers responsible for their packaging. We look forward to hearing the government’s response.”

Erik van Sebille, at Utrecht University in the Netherlands; ‘I’m not surprised by that conclusion. In 2015, we found that is not on the surface anymore. The problem is that we don’t know where that 99% of plastic is. Is it on beaches, the seafloor, in marine organisms? Before we can start thinking about cleaning up the plastic, we’ll first need to know how it’s distributed.’

‘The smallest particles that could be analysed in the new research were 63 microns, roughly the width of a human hair.

But much smaller plastic particles will exist, and Hurley said: “It is the really small stuff we get worried about, as they can get through the membranes in the gut and in the bloodstream – that is the real fear.”

‘The patch of detritus is more than twice the size of France and is up to 16 times larger than previously estimated’ Oliver Milman, Thursday 22 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/22/ great-pacific-garbage-patch-sprawling-with-far-more-debristhan-thought?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘The sprawling patch of detritus – spanning 1.6m sq km, (617,763 sq miles) more than twice the size of France – contains at least 79,000 tons of plastic, new research published in Scientific Reports has found.’

‘The analysis, conducted by boat and air surveys taken over two years, found that pollution in the so-called Great Pacific garbage patch is almost exclusively plastic and is “increasing exponentially”. Microplastics, measuring less than 0.5cm (0.2in), make up the bulk of the estimated 1.8tn pieces floating in the garbage patch, which is kept in rough formation by a swirling ocean gyre.’

‘Plastic has proven a usefully durable and versatile product but has become a major environmental blight, tainting drinking water and rivers. Around 8m tons of plastic ends up in the oceans every year, where it washes up on beaches or drifts out to sea where the pieces very slowly break down over hundreds of years.’

‘Larger pieces of plastic pollution can entangle and kill marine creatures, while tiny fragments are eaten by small fish and find their way up the food chain. Plastic often attracts toxic pollutants that are then ingested and spread by marine life.’

‘Much of the plastic waste accumulates in five circular ocean currents – known as gyres – found around the globe.

The Ocean Cleanup has pledged a “moonshot” effort to clean up half of the Great Pacific garbage patch within five years and mop up the other rubbish-strewn gyres by 2040.’

‘The project comes with caveats, however – its system will not catch the proliferation of microplastics measuring under 10 millimeters (0.39in) and the whole operation will require further funding from next year. Any successful clean-up may also be overwhelmed by a global surge in plastic production – a recent UK government report warned the amount of plastic in the ocean could treble within the next decade.’

‘The problem of plastic pollution is gaining traction in diplomatic circles, with nearly 200 countries signing on to a UN resolution last year that aims to stem the flood of plastic into the oceans. However, the agreement has no timetable and is not legally binding.’

‘Green Alliance calls for making retailers take back bottles and cans to significantly reduce plastic pollution in seas.’

Sandra Laville, Friday 4 Aug 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/04/ukneeds-bottle-deposit-scheme-to-cut-plastic-litter-in-oceanssays-thinktank ‘Plastic marine litter could be cut significantly if the government adopted a bottle deposit scheme as part of five key actions to tackle pollution of the oceans, a green thinktank has said.’

‘The thinktank says its own research – using data from Australian analysis – shows 33% of plastic marine pollution comes from littering of drinks bottles. They say a deposit scheme would capture about 95% of littered plastic bottles – reducing marine litter by almost a third.’

As well as a deposit scheme, they are calling for the government to: - Enforce Operation Clean Sweep – a voluntary industry initiative to reduce pollution from plastic pellets known as nurdles – responsible for 9% of marine plastic pollution.

- Enforce existing maritime dumping bans.

- Upgrade wastewater treatment plants with sand filters to catch microplastic fibres from synthetic clothes when they are washed.

‘The Guardian revealed new figures last month which show a million plastic bottles are bought every minute across the globe and that production will increase 20% by 2021. Fewer than half of the bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 7% of those collected were turned into new bottles. Instead most plastic bottles ended up in landfill or in the ocean.’

Dustin Benton, acting policy director of Green Alliance, said: “The popularity of the microbeads ban and plastic bag charge shows the public is up for tackling these problems.

The government should listen, introduce a bottle deposit scheme and enforce rules on sources of industrial waste.”

‘They compared the leakage into the marine environment of nurdles, used as raw material in industrial processes, as a clear case of industrial pollution.’

‘Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world’s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms, and by 2050 the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.’

‘Retailers in favour of setting up mandatory system in England and Wales after government sought views on idea.’

‘Cash-strapped councils would save money thanks to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as having less recycling bins to collect, says report’

Sandra Laville Thursday 30 Nov 2017

Matthew Taylor Wednesday 11 Oct 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/30/ co-op-iceland-bottle-deposit-scheme-uk-reduce-plastic-pollution

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/11/ plastic-bottle-deposit-return-scheme-could-save-englandscouncils-35m-a-year

‘Other leading supermarkets, in a survey carried out by Greenpeace, were non-committal over whether to support a deposit scheme, but none appeared openly hostile. Morrisons said: “With mixed views in the industry, it may be that the government will have to decide which way to go.”

‘Councils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new report.’

‘Richard Walker, the director of sustainability for Iceland Foods, responding to the Greenpeace survey, said the failure in Britain to recycle up to 16m single-use plastic bottles every day was causing untold damage to oceans and wildlife.’

“This cannot carry on … deposit return schemes work. In Norway theirs has led to 96% of all bottles being returned, with similar results in other countries that have adopted a DRS. Britain urgently needs to do the same.”

At the Co-op, Jo Whitfield, the retail chief executive, said; “The Co-op is in favour of creating a deposit return scheme which increases the overall recycling of packaging and significantly reduces litter and importantly helps tackle marine pollution.”

‘Louise Edge, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, welcomed the backing from the two supermarket chains.;’ “It is possible to prevent throwaway plastic polluting our rivers and oceans, but to do this we really need companies to step up to the plate,” she said.

In February, Coca-Cola in Europe came out in favour of a DRS and in evidence to MPs last month, Nick Brown, the company’s head of sustainability, said such a scheme needed to be UK-wide.

Prof Ian Owens, the director of science at the museum, said: “Our plan to stop selling single-use plastic water bottles is about becoming part of the movement towards a refillable culture and doing our part to encourage a mass lifestyle change that will help reduce the deluge of plastic into our seas.”

‘However, some cash-strapped local authorities have expressed concern that they would lose money as people would use the scheme rather than recycle through local authorities’ kerbside systems.’

‘But Wednesday’s report, based on an analysis of data across eight local authorities including some with high and low recycling rates, found that rather than losing income individual authorities could make savings of between £60,000 and £500,000 each, due to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as there being fewer recycling bins to process.’

Samantha Harding, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “There are no longer any valid arguments that DRS doesn’t work and the environmental case is crystal clear.

For our coasts and countryside, the cost of not taking action will be far greater than any incurred by the parts of industry that are trying to block this. Michael Gove can now build on the success of the government’s bag charge and the ban on microbeads by confirming England will have a deposit system.”

Hugo Tagholm, from Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Deposit refund schemes are a tried-and-tested way of dramatically increasing recycling rates while reducing plastic bottle and other container pollution on our beaches, in our streets and across the countryside.”

“This report now clearly shows that introducing a DRS for England would also benefit local economies and communities, saving councils money that could be redirected to vital frontline services.”

‘A deposit return scheme to tackle the billions of ‘Consumers to receive small cash sum for returning bottles not recycled every year is being kicked into plastic, glass and metal drinks containers’ the long grass, say MPs.’ Damian Carrington, Monday 26 Feb 2018

Damian Carrington, Tuesday 27 Mar 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/26/ government-dragging-its-feet-over-plastic-bottle-schemesay-mps

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/27/ bottle-and-can-deposit-return-scheme-gets-green-light-inengland?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The Environment Audit Committee (EAC) called for a deposit return scheme (DRS) in a report in December, in which a small deposit is paid when purchasing a bottle and then returned when the empty bottle is brought back. Environment secretary Michael Gove called a DRS a “great idea” in September.’

‘All drinks containers in England, whether plastic, glass or metal, will be covered by a deposit return scheme, the government has announced.’

“The government is dragging its feet on DRS,” said Mary Creagh MP, chair of the EAC. “This delay is unacceptable and the government needs to take decisive action on this important issue instead of kicking it into the long grass.”

‘The EAC report found that 5.5bn plastic bottles – 43% of the total – are not recycled every year in the UK and 700,000 are littered every day. In Germany and Denmark, which have DRS schemes, more than 90% of bottles are returned.’

‘Its call for evidence on a DRS ended in November, but the government said it had to consider how a DRS would fit in with other planned policies, such as plastic taxes, “in order to avoid producers or consumers being charged multiple times for the same products”

‘The forthcoming scheme is intended to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans.

Similar schemes operate in 38 countries, and campaigners have worked for a decade for its introduction in England.

Fees vary depending on the size of the bottle or can and many use “reverse vending machines” to automate the return.’

‘Once returned, retailers are responsible for properly recycling the containers. Deposit return schemes (DRS) have increased recycling rates to more than 90% in other countries.’

‘At present just 43% of the 13bn plastic bottles sold each year in the UK are recycled, and 700,000 are littered every day. In Germany, a DRS was introduced in 2003 and 99% of plastic bottles are recycled.’

‘The EAC report also called for supermarkets, retailers and drinks companies to be forced to pay significantly more towards the recycling of the plastic packaging. Currently 90% of the recycling costs are paid by the public, a much higher proportion than in most EU nations.’

‘The Green party’s co-leader Caroline Lucas, a member of the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs which backed a DRS in December, said: “After a long delay it is good to see the government moving forward on this issue. This scheme should have been introduced long ago – and it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reducing plastic waste.”

‘The government said it was committed to work towards eliminating all avoidable plastic waste by the end of 2042 and was “exploring changes to the packaging producer responsibility scheme”.

‘The number of single-use plastic bags used in England has fallen by 80% since a 5p charge was introduced, and the country has followed the US and others in banning plastic microbeads in personal hygiene products.’

Elena Polisano, at Greenpeace UK, said: “This [overall response] sounds like the government trying to manage expectations before doing significantly less than is necessary.

We hope this isn’t the case.”

‘Last year a Guardian investigation revealed that a million plastic bottles are made around the globe every minute – and that figure is only likely to increase after it emerged that fossil fuel companies are investing billions of pounds in new plastic production facilities in the US.’ ‘In the UK supermarkets are a major source of plastic pollution. This year the Guardian reported that the major chains create almost 1m tonnes of plastic packaging waste every year.’

‘Retailers in favour of setting up mandatory system in England and Wales after government sought views on idea.’

Sandra Laville Thursday 30 Nov 2017

‘Cash-strapped councils would save money thanks to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as having less recycling bins to collect, says report’ Matthew Taylor Wednesday 11 Oct 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/30/ co-op-iceland-bottle-deposit-scheme-uk-reduce-plastic-pollution

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/11/ plastic-bottle-deposit-return-scheme-could-save-englandscouncils-35m-a-year

‘Other leading supermarkets, in a survey carried out by Greenpeace, were non-committal over whether to support a deposit scheme, but none appeared openly hostile. Morrisons said: “With mixed views in the industry, it may be that the government will have to decide which way to go.”

‘Councils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new report.’

‘Richard Walker, the director of sustainability for Iceland Foods, responding to the Greenpeace survey, said the failure in Britain to recycle up to 16m single-use plastic bottles every day was causing untold damage to oceans and wildlife.’

“This cannot carry on … deposit return schemes work. In Norway theirs has led to 96% of all bottles being returned, with similar results in other countries that have adopted a DRS. Britain urgently needs to do the same.”

At the Co-op, Jo Whitfield, the retail chief executive, said; “The Co-op is in favour of creating a deposit return scheme which increases the overall recycling of packaging and significantly reduces litter and importantly helps tackle marine pollution.”

‘Louise Edge, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, welcomed the backing from the two supermarket chains.;’ “It is possible to prevent throwaway plastic polluting our rivers and oceans, but to do this we really need companies to step up to the plate,” she said.

In February, Coca-Cola in Europe came out in favour of a DRS and in evidence to MPs last month, Nick Brown, the company’s head of sustainability, said such a scheme needed to be UK-wide.

Prof Ian Owens, the director of science at the museum, said: “Our plan to stop selling single-use plastic water bottles is about becoming part of the movement towards a refillable culture and doing our part to encourage a mass lifestyle change that will help reduce the deluge of plastic into our seas.”

‘However, some cash-strapped local authorities have expressed concern that they would lose money as people would use the scheme rather than recycle through local authorities’ kerbside systems.’

‘But Wednesday’s report, based on an analysis of data across eight local authorities including some with high and low recycling rates, found that rather than losing income individual authorities could make savings of between £60,000 and £500,000 each, due to reduced littering and landfill charges as well as there being fewer recycling bins to process.’

Samantha Harding, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “There are no longer any valid arguments that DRS doesn’t work and the environmental case is crystal clear.

For our coasts and countryside, the cost of not taking action will be far greater than any incurred by the parts of industry that are trying to block this. Michael Gove can now build on the success of the government’s bag charge and the ban on microbeads by confirming England will have a deposit system.”

Hugo Tagholm, from Surfers Against Sewage, said: “Deposit refund schemes are a tried-and-tested way of dramatically increasing recycling rates while reducing plastic bottle and other container pollution on our beaches, in our streets and across the countryside.”

“This report now clearly shows that introducing a DRS for England would also benefit local economies and communities, saving councils money that could be redirected to vital frontline services.”

‘A deposit return scheme to tackle the billions of ‘Consumers to receive small cash sum for returning bottles not recycled every year is being kicked into plastic, glass and metal drinks containers’ the long grass, say MPs.’ Damian Carrington, Monday 26 Feb 2018

Damian Carrington, Tuesday 27 Mar 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/26/ government-dragging-its-feet-over-plastic-bottle-schemesay-mps

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/27/ bottle-and-can-deposit-return-scheme-gets-green-light-inengland?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The Environment Audit Committee (EAC) called for a deposit return scheme (DRS) in a report in December, in which a small deposit is paid when purchasing a bottle and then returned when the empty bottle is brought back. Environment secretary Michael Gove called a DRS a “great idea” in September.’

‘All drinks containers in England, whether plastic, glass or metal, will be covered by a deposit return scheme, the government has announced.’

“The government is dragging its feet on DRS,” said Mary Creagh MP, chair of the EAC. “This delay is unacceptable and the government needs to take decisive action on this important issue instead of kicking it into the long grass.”

‘The EAC report found that 5.5bn plastic bottles – 43% of the total – are not recycled every year in the UK and 700,000 are littered every day. In Germany and Denmark, which have DRS schemes, more than 90% of bottles are returned.’

‘Its call for evidence on a DRS ended in November, but the government said it had to consider how a DRS would fit in with other planned policies, such as plastic taxes, “in order to avoid producers or consumers being charged multiple times for the same products”

‘The forthcoming scheme is intended to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans.

Similar schemes operate in 38 countries, and campaigners have worked for a decade for its introduction in England.

Fees vary depending on the size of the bottle or can and many use “reverse vending machines” to automate the return.’

‘Once returned, retailers are responsible for properly recycling the containers. Deposit return schemes (DRS) have increased recycling rates to more than 90% in other countries.’

‘At present just 43% of the 13bn plastic bottles sold each year in the UK are recycled, and 700,000 are littered every day. In Germany, a DRS was introduced in 2003 and 99% of plastic bottles are recycled.’

‘The EAC report also called for supermarkets, retailers and drinks companies to be forced to pay significantly more towards the recycling of the plastic packaging. Currently 90% of the recycling costs are paid by the public, a much higher proportion than in most EU nations.’

‘The Green party’s co-leader Caroline Lucas, a member of the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs which backed a DRS in December, said: “After a long delay it is good to see the government moving forward on this issue. This scheme should have been introduced long ago – and it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reducing plastic waste.”

‘The government said it was committed to work towards eliminating all avoidable plastic waste by the end of 2042 and was “exploring changes to the packaging producer responsibility scheme”.

‘The number of single-use plastic bags used in England has fallen by 80% since a 5p charge was introduced, and the country has followed the US and others in banning plastic microbeads in personal hygiene products.’

Elena Polisano, at Greenpeace UK, said: “This [overall response] sounds like the government trying to manage expectations before doing significantly less than is necessary.

We hope this isn’t the case.”

‘Last year a Guardian investigation revealed that a million plastic bottles are made around the globe every minute – and that figure is only likely to increase after it emerged that fossil fuel companies are investing billions of pounds in new plastic production facilities in the US.’ ‘In the UK supermarkets are a major source of plastic pollution. This year the Guardian reported that the major chains create almost 1m tonnes of plastic packaging waste every year.’

‘Scientists find an estimated 30% drop in plastic bags on the seabed in the same timeframe as charges were introduced in European countries’

‘Critics say retailers can pick and choose whether to sign up to Plastics Pact, a series of pledges that have no enforcement mechanism’

Juliette Jowit, Thursday 5 Apr 2018

Sandra Laville and Rebecca Smithers, Thu 26 Apr 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/05/ drop-in-plastic-bags-littering-british-seas-linked-to-introduction-of-5p-charge?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/ uk-supermarkets-launch-voluntary-pledge-to-cut-plastic-packaging?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Ireland and Denmark were the first two countries to bring in levies for plastic bags from shops in 2003, followed by slew of other European countries. England was the last UK nation to introduce one, in 2015.’

‘Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl and Waitrose are among the 42 businesses so far supporting the new pledge, which includes an aspiration that by 2025 all plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted..’

“The fewer bags we use, the fewer we can lose, the fewer we can put into the environment,” said Thomas Maes of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, lead author of the paper.’

The environment secretary, Michael Gove, who is to address a launch event tonight, said: “Our ambition to eliminate avoidable plastic waste will only be realised if government, businesses and the public work together.”

“If we all work together towards a better environment, we can make changes. A lot of people live in doom, but … don’t give up yet.”

‘Gove has already announced a plan to encourage drinks containers to be recycled through a deposit return scheme; myriad retailers have announced their own plans to cut back on plastics and coffee shops have moved to cut back on disposable cups.’

‘The results could also be used by campaigners for other charges aimed at reducing public problems, such as pollution, obesity, smoking and congestion. The UK is already consulting on a refundable charge for bottles and cans.’

“These findings have reminded us of one of the fundamentals of policy – incentives matter,” said Robert Colvile of the Centre for Policy Studies, a rightwing thinktank.’

“When it comes to the environment in particular, pricing in external costs is better than heavy-handed regulation,” he said.’

‘A UK levy of 5p per bag introduced in 2015 has already reduced single-use plastic bags given out by major retailers by 85% – down from 140 to 25 bags for the average person each year.’

‘The policy applies only to major retailers, but government is consulting on extending it to almost all shops.’

‘The marine pollution study has been trawling the seabed for 25 years, recording the number of items of pollution found in each square kilometre. Two-thirds of all trawls have found at least one item of plastic, and while the number of plastic bags has fallen, other plastic pollution has increased, especially fishing gear.’

‘Supermarkets in the UK pay less towards collecting and recycling their plastic waste than in any other European country – leaving taxpayers to pick up 90% of the bill.’

‘Documents published this week under freedom of information laws revealed that the same supermarkets and their representative bodies have strongly lobbied government against increasing the amount they paid towards collection and recycling of their plastic and other waste, saying it would be a “significant and disruptive change” to business.’

‘Dr Dominic Hogg, from environmental consultants Eunomia, said the voluntary policy must not be used as an excuse not to regulate by the secretary of state.’

“If you want 70% of packaging to be recycled or composted don’t put it in a voluntary agreement that businesses can choose to adopt or not choose to, make it a policy, legislate to drive performance to that level. Plastic waste is a significant global problem and won’t be addressed by a voluntary pact.”

Returpack ‘Pantamera’ (Pawn-more) Pawn system (return scheme) for plastic bottles & aluminium cans in Sweden.

“2016 Sweden returned 1 767 169 437 cans and PET-bottles.

On average this means 177 cans and PET-bottles per person in 2016” Many times I have wondered why the UK has not adopted the pawn(return)-system we have had in Sweden for several decades now. The system has ensured that 84.9% of PET-bottles and aluminium cans gets recycled in the best possible way.

How it works: For every aluminium can or PET-bottle that gets sold in a store, there is an extra 10-20p charge on top of the price.

When the customer has finished the product, the container can be returned to the store’s Reverse Vending Machines.

The refund receipt can be used to shop in the store, or will reduce the bill at the register. In total the customer has not paid any extra cost at all.

If, for instance, the customer does not bother about the refund of the return, the can will likely be binned. In all societies there are less fortunate citizens, or homeless people who live off very little income. Each can and bottle that is spotted by many of these individuals will therefore be picked up and returned anyway, being used to buy food.

Newer public bins in Sweden even has a special compartment for cans and bottles, so that people who wishes to return them, does not need to run through the other litter in the bin.

“In accordance with Swedish regulation SFS 2005:220, all packaging sold in Sweden that contain drinks ready for consumption must be included in an approved return system.”

Recycling Rates 2016 84,9% total recycling rate, both aluminium cans and PET bottles 1,8 Billion cans and bottles recycled 177 packages per person in Sweden 16 361 tons of aluminium 20 645 ton som PET material “Since 2006, a regulation has been in force stating that all parties professionally serving or importing drinks ready for consumption in plastic bottles or metal cans must ensure that the product is included in an approved return system.”

I find it hard to understand that this system has yet not become practically global, and that the UK has not yet adopted the system, which has existed in Sweden for around 30 years is just embarrassing and quite frankly outrageous... http://pantamera.nu/

‘Unsustainable exploitation of the natural world threatens food and water security of billions of people, major UNbacked biodiversity study reveals’

‘We have to develop digital forecasts of species’ responses to climate change, design robust strategies to protect as many as possible, and help nature to adapt’

Jonathan Watts, Friday 23 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/23/ destruction-of-nature-as-dangerous-as-climate-change-scientists-warn?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mark Urban, Thursday 28 Dec 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/28/ ice-will-return-but-extinctions-cant-be-reversed-we-must-actclimate-change?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Such is the rate of decline that the risks posed by biodiversity loss should be considered on the same scale as those of climate change, noted the authors of the UN-backed report, which was released in Medellin, Colombia on Friday.’

‘Each day increasingly dangerous hurricanes, wildfires, and floods betray the influence of climate change. We are appalled at the accruing losses of life and property. The arguments to address climate change at the recent UN climate conference in Bonn focused most often on these more concrete risks. However, the worst effects of climate change will come not from severe weather but from the irreversible loss of species and ecosystems.’

“The time for action was yesterday or the day before,” said Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) which compiled the research. “Governments recognise we have a problem. Now we need action, but unfortunately the action we have now is not at the level we need.”

‘Divided into four regional reports, the study of studies has been written by more than 550 experts from over 100 countries and taken three years to complete. Approved by the governments of 129 members nations, the IPBES reports aim to provide a knowledge base for global action on biodiversity in much the same way that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is used by policymakers to set carbon emission targets.’

‘Although poaching often grabs the headlines for the demise of the rhino and other animals, worldwide the biggest threats to nature are from habitat loss, invasive species, chemicals, and climate change.’

“It will take fundamental change in how we live as individuals, communities and corporations,” he said. “We keep making choices to borrow from the future to live well today.

We need a different way of thinking about economics with a higher accountability of the costs in the future to the benefits we take today,” Rice said.’

‘The authors stressed the close connection between climate change and biodiversity loss, which are adversely affecting each other. By 2050, they believe climate change could replace land-conversion as the main driver of extinction.’

‘In many regions, the report says current biodiversity trends are jeopardising UN global development goals to provide food, water, clothing and housing. They also weaken natural defences against extreme weather events, which will become more common due to climate change.’

‘Moulded over millions of years by natural selection, the diversity of species on Earth does more than just inspire awe.

They are technical marvels and solutions to problems we do not yet know exist.’

‘Scientific evidence now suggests that the Earth has embarked on its sixth extinction crisis’... ‘climate change is now catching up and accelerating these risks.’ ...‘I found that species extinctions would not just increase with global warming, but speed up in a rising arc. If we continue emitting current levels of greenhouse gases, climate change could threaten 16% of species – more than a million – by 2100.’

‘As more and more species are threatened, we risk losing Earth’s greatest resource: the library of natural selection. By encoding millions of years of the answers to nature’s travails, biodiversity gives us the drugs in our medicine cabinet, the tools in our intellectual workshop, and solutions to the world’s present and future problems. We are burning the greatest books on Earth before we have read them.’ ...‘the US must recommit to the Paris climate agreement and keep the Earth from heating beyond 2C. Above this limit, extinction risks accelerate even faster.’ ...’ we need the equivalent of a biological Manhattan Project for predicting and preserving biodiversity.’ ...’ we need to harness the computing horsepower of the software industry to create next-generation forecasts of species’ responses to climate change.’ ...’ we need to design robust management strategies to protect the most species possible.

‘Scientists have been warning for decades that human actions are pushing life on our shared planet toward mass extinction. Such extinction events have occurred five times in the past, but a bold new paper finds that this time would be fundamentally different. Fortunately, there’s still time to stop it.’

Jeremy Hance, Tue 20 Oct 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction ‘Scientists count just five mass extinctions in an unimaginably long expanse of 450 million years, but they warn we may well be entering a sixth.’

‘According to a bold new paper in The Anthropocene Review, this time would be different from past mass extinctions in four crucial ways.’

“There is no point in apportioning blame for what is happening,” said lead author and geologist, Mark Williams, with the University of Leicester, since humans “didn’t deliberately engineer this situation.”

‘Basically, the technosphere is the vast, sprawling combination of humanity and its technology. Haff argues that in our thousands of years of harnessing technology – including the first technologies like stone tools, wheels and crops – the technology itself has basically begun to act practically independently, creating a new sphere (i.e., like the biosphere or atmosphere or lithosphere), but like nothing the planet has ever seen before.’

“If the changes made to the biosphere by humans continue to accelerate and are sustainable, and if our interaction with the technosphere becomes a major component of Earth’s future trajectory, then the changes can be argued to be really fundamental,” Williams added.’

“Rather we have to recognise that our impact is game-changing on this planet, that we are all responsible, and that we have to become stewards of nature – as a part of it, rather than behaving like children rampaging through a sweetshop,” Williams noted.’

‘The scientists argue then that the changes would be so extreme, and so unlike anything that the Earth has ever seen before, that it could represent a geological shift as big as the rise of microbes on the planet or the rise of multicellular organisms. For example, imagine a world where humans and their technology effectively control the global temperature through geo-engineering or a world where humans wholeheartedly and deliberately manipulate evolution for their own (or the technosphere’s) ends.’

‘The impacts of a still-avoidable sixth mass extinction would likely be so massive they’d be best described as science fiction. It would be catastrophic, widespread and, of course, irreversible. In the past, it has taken life ten to thirty million years to recover after such an extinction...’

“It’s about recognising that we are stewards of nature and that every action we make will have an effect on the biosphere somewhere,” said Williams. “If at a very basic level we could get people to make that connection then we would have fundamentally changed human behavior.”

‘The team of geologists and biologists say that our current extinction crisis is unique in Earth’s history due to four characteristics: the spread of non-native species around the world; a single species (us) taking over a significant percentage of the world’s primary production; human actions increasingly directing evolution; and the rise of something called the technosphere.’

“Humans are the problem, but they are also the solution.”

“We are directly manipulating genomes by artificial selection and molecular techniques, and indirectly by managing ecosystems and populations to conserve them,” said co-author Erle Ellis, an expert on the Anthropocene with the University of Maryland. He added that even conservation is impacting evolution.’

‘Peter Haff coined the term technosphere just last year. He defines the technosphere as “the global, energy consuming techno-social system that is comprised of humans, technological artifacts, and technological systems, together with the links, protocols and information that bind all these parts together.”

“We must recognize that there is no option to ‘leave the Earth alone,“ Ellis added. “The responsibility for the future of the planet is ours now.”

‘It’s a big responsibility – bigger than any other species on Earth has ever faced – and so far we’ve hardly proved ourselves up to it. But there is still time. And time means hope – but not without action.’

‘The air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all rely on biodiversity, but right now it is in crisis – because of us. What does this mean for our future and can we stop it?’

Damian Carrington, Monday 12 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/12/whatis-biodiversity-and-why-does-it-matter-to-us?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other ‘It is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions. If that sounds bewilderingly broad, that’s because it is. Biodiversity is the most complex feature of our planet and it is the most vital. “Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity,” says Prof David Macdonald, at Oxford University.’ ...‘the huge global biodiversity losses now becoming apparent represent a crisis equalling – or quite possibly surpassing – climate change.’

‘A more philosophical way of viewing biodiversity is this: it represents the knowledge learned by evolving species over millions of years about how to survive through the vastly varying environmental conditions Earth has experienced. Seen like that, experts warn, humanity is currently “burning the library of life”.’

tone of scientific papers, researchers call the massive loss of wildlife a “biological annihilation” representing a “frightening assault on the foundations of human civilisation”.’ ...’nothing on Earth is experiencing more dramatic change at the hands of human activity. Changes to the climate are reversible, even if that takes centuries or millennia. But once species become extinct, particularly those unknown to science, there’s no going back.’

‘At the moment, we don’t know how much biodiversity the planet can lose without prompting widespread ecological collapse. But one approach has assessed so-called “planetary boundaries”, thresholds in Earth systems that define a “safe operating space for humanity”. Of the nine considered, just biodiversity loss and nitrogen pollution are estimated to have been crossed, unlike CO2 levels, freshwater used and ozone losses.’ ‘the world currently protects 15% of land and 7% of the oceans. But some argue that half the land surface must be set aside for nature.’

...‘the reality is that the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all ultimately rely on biodiversity. Some examples are obvious: without plants there would be no oxygen and without bees to pollinate there would be no fruit or nuts.’

‘Over the last 20 years, New York has spent $2bn protecting the natural watershed that supplies the city with clean water.

It has worked so well that 90% of the water needs no further filtering: building a water treatment plant instead would have cost $10bn.’

...‘coral reefs and mangrove swamps provide invaluable protection from cyclones and tsunamis for those living on coasts, while trees can absorb air pollution in urban areas.’

‘There is even an initiative that aims to create an opensource genetic database for all plants, animals and single-cell organisms on the planet. It argues that by creating commercial opportunities – such as self-driving car algorithms inspired by Amazonian ants – it could provide the incentive to preserve Earth’s biodiversity.’

‘Many new medicines are harvested from nature, such as a fungi that grows on the fur of sloths and can fight cancer.

Wild varieties of domesticated animals and crops are also crucial as some will have already solved the challenge of, for example, coping with drought or salty soils.’

‘If money is a measure, the services provided by ecosystems are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars – double the world’s GDP. Biodiversity loss in Europe alone costs the continent about 3% of its GDP, or £400m, a year.’

‘From an aesthetic point of view, every one of the millions of species is unique, a natural work of art that cannot be recreated once lost.’

‘Billions of individual populations have been lost all over the planet, with the number of animals living on Earth having plunged by half since 1970. Abandoning the normally sober

‘However, some researchers say the dire state of biodiversity is already clear enough and that the missing ingredient is political will.’

‘Conservation scientists believe our current mass extinction crisis requires a far more ambitious agreement, in the style of the Paris Climate Accord. And they argue that the bill shouldn’t be handed just to nation states, but corporations too.’

Jeremy Hance, Thu 28 Jun 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jun/28/scientists-call-for-a-paris-style-agreement-to-save-life-on-earth?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Dr. Cristiana Pașca Palmer has a big job ahead of her: planning the 2020 UN Biodiversity Convention in Beijing.’

‘In 2016, E.O. Wilson — arguably the world’s most lauded living evolutionary biologist — published a book called Half Earth where he proposed that to save life on Earth (and ourselves) we must set aside around half the planet in various types of reserves.’

‘Last year, 49 scientists wrote a landmark paper exploring how feasible Half Earth might be across Earth’s different terrestrial ecosystems’; “We propose a Global Deal for Nature — a companion to the Paris Climate Deal — to promote increased habitat protection and restoration, national — and ecoregion — scale conservation strategies, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples to protect their sovereign lands.”

‘In less technical parlance, this is a ringing call for a massive, global agreement that would look at drastically increasing the amount of the world covered by parks — in some cases up to the Half Earth goal — and indigenous protected areas.

Indigenous people are now widely recognized as some of the best defenders of nature after decades of being sidelined.’

“A number of empirical studies are telling us that we need to set aside about half of the terrestrial and marine realms to avoid the worst of the two great environmental catastrophes — climate change and the sixth extinction crisis — looming on the horizon,“ ‘In 2010, the nations of the CBD agreed to something called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, these are 20 goals that nations are supposed to be working towards by 2020. We’ve pretty much failed to meet the majority the targets, including halving habitat loss and deforestation, sustainably managing fisheries, preventing the extinction of known endangered species, and minimizing the impact of climate change on coral reefs.’

‘The CBD has had a number of disadvantages. For one, much like the Paris Agreement, it’s non-binding and largely voluntary.’

‘For another it’s lacking a major signatory. Guess who? Yes, of course, the United States — that global black sheep. The non-binding treaty was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, but was never ratified by Congress. Every other nation in the world is a member of the agreement however.’

‘Arguably, the largest element holding back greater conservation action worldwide is funding. To date, the money is simply magnitudes less of what is actually required.’

‘In order to raise $100 billion a year — ten times more than is currently spent in the very least — Barbier argues we can’t just depend on governments but must turn to the private sector.’

‘The paper points to industries where biodiversity is vital to their bottom line such as fisheries, forestry, agriculture and insurance.’

‘Preserving and restoring forests and other habitats has long been touted as one of the quickest and cheapest ways of decreasing global carbon emissions. Around 15 percent of global CO2 emissions today are directly tied to forests being chopped down, peatlands drained or mangroves cleared.’

“Without [Half Earth] by 2050…the goal of Paris accord will not be achievable,” argues Dinerstein. “In essence, the two goals are mutually interdependent. You can’t succeed in one without success in the other.”

‘If all this sounds like utopian fiction, Dinerstein pointed to the fact that Chinese scientists have already published a paper on how they could hit 50 percent protected land in one of the most populous countries on Earth.’

“Nature Needs Half is the biggest idea out there,” Dinerstein said, “and the only one that could guarantee a future for all life on Earth.”

‘Dr Cristiana Pasca Palmer, UN assistant secretary general and executive secretary of the convention on biological diversity, discusses Half Earth, a future biodiversity agreement and where to find the money to save life on Earth’

Jeremy Hance, Thu 28 Jun 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jun/28/biodiversity-is-the-infrastructure-that-supports-all-life?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Dr. Cristiana Pașca Palmer has a big job ahead of her: planning the 2020 UN Biodiversity Convention in Beijing.’

“Half Earth”, a concept coined by the distinguished professor E.O Wilson advocates that we need to conserve half of the Earth’s lands and seas, in order to avoid species extinction.’’ ‘‘We can think of biological diversity as the “infrastructure” that supports all life on the planet. When we lose species through extinction the web of life is destroyed and this in turn affects the resilience of the ecosystems and nature’s capacity to provide the services that humans benefit from – ensuring our food, the air we breath, the water we drink, or the moments of peace and serenity we enjoy in nature.’’ ‘‘Conservation and protection of nature, ecosystems, and species is one essential pillar of any strategy to ensure fully functional natural systems in the long term. Ecological restoration of degraded lands through natural means should be another key component. Ultimately, the paradigm shift that perhaps is necessary is the wide-understanding that the Earth is one system of interconnected elements, and that humans’ social and economic systems are embedded in the larger nature’s system, and not the other way around.’’ ‘‘We expect both the governments and other relevant stakeholders from the business sector and civil society to make their specific and strong commitments towards implementing the post-2020 agenda and achieving the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature.’’ ‘‘The first major structural roadblock is the current global economic and development model which does not account for natural capital and does not consider the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity as a fundamental part of the economic system. We need to fundamentally change this paradigm and shift to an economic model that accounts for the fact that we operate within a closed system – planet Earth – and that our economic growth is limited by the ecological limits of the planet, also known as “planetary boundaries.” ‘‘The second roadblock is the ‘short-termism’ structurally embedded in the current political decision-making processes. Many environmental considerations and conservation

actions are of a long-term nature, going beyond the usual political and election cycles of few years. We need thus long-term planning for the way we use nature’s capital, rooted in the fundamental planetary and human needs and informed by the science on ‘planetary boundaries’.’’

‘‘And the third major roadblock, ticking at the intersection of the political reality and culture, is the dominant concept of human separation from and supremacy over nature. This misconception underpinning in large measure the modern views and attitudes towards nature is at the root of people’s disconnect from nature and the fragmentation we see in environmental governance and policy-making. Significant changes are required in our mentalities – as decision makers, producers, and consumers. Awareness and education are essential for building a common, widely internalised understanding that our planet’s resources for supporting life are finite.’’ ‘‘The cheapest way of doing conservation is investing in the prevention of harmful effects and in building safeguards against major adverse impacts. Switching to sustainable consumption and production, applying the principles of circular economy, eco-design and zero waste are modern approaches in this regard. The money could flow from simply redirecting the funding from ‘nature-ignorant’ decisions to ‘nature-savvy’ decisions and mainstreaming biodiversity in key economic sectors, such as agriculture, fisheries, tourism, forestry, infrastructure, health and manufacturing, as already proposed under the provisions of the Biodiversity Convention.’’ ‘‘Additionally, investing in biodiversity conservation is a cost-effective way to maintain ecosystems resilience and mitigate the impacts to climate change. Ultimately, investing in biodiversity is beneficial for social and economic development. Or, as some say, “green is the new gold.” ‘‘For the protection of very specific, sensitive, or in crisis ecosystems or species, the funds should be provided through a comprehensive, holistic mix of sources from public and private finance, philanthropy and even crowdsourcing.’’

‘Renowned biologist E O Wilson wants to set aside half of the planet as protected areas for nature. But is this possible? And, if so, how would it work?’

Jeremy Hance, Wed 15 Jun 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2016/jun/15/could-we-set-aside-half-the-earth-for-nature ‘...species on Earth are winking out at rates likely not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs. If we don’t change our ways, we will witness a mass extinction event that will not only leave our world a far more boring and lonely place, but will undercut the very survival of our species.’

‘E O Wilson, one of the world’s most respected biologists, has proposed a radical, wild and challenging idea to our species: set aside half of the planet as nature preserves.’

“People understand and prefer goals,” he writes. “They need a victory, not just news that progress is being made. It is human nature to yearn for finality, something achieved by which their anxieties and fears are put to rest … It is further our nature to choose large goals that while difficult are potentially game-changing and universal in benefit. To strive against odds on behalf of all life would be humanity at its most noble.”

‘By preserving half of the planet, we would theoretically protect 80% of the world’s species from extinction, according to the species-area curve. If protection efforts, however, focus on the most biodiverse areas (think tropical forests and coral reefs), we could potentially protect more than 80% of species without going beyond the half-Earth goal. In contrast, if we only protect 10% of the Earth, we are set to lose around half of the planet’s species over time. This is the track we are currently on.’

‘According to the World Database on Protected Areas, the world has protected 15.4% of terrestrial area, including inland waters, as of 2014. But protection of the oceans lags far behind with only 3.4% of marine environments under some form of protection. The Aichi Biodiversity Target has set a goal of protecting 17% of land areas and 10% of the oceans by 2020.’

‘But Wilson writes in his book that this is “in fact nowhere close to enough.” ‘...Wilson said that the half Earth goal would include indigenous territories, which have become increasingly common in Latin America and Australia and could play a big role in other parts of the allowed. Such areas are also increasingly seen by conservationists as key in the fight to protect nature. For

example, indigenous territories currently cover around 13% of Brazil, including massive chunks of the Amazon rainforest.’

‘Wilson said that indigenous people “are often the best protectors” of their own lands. In other words, the half-Earth goal would not simply mean banning people from half of the planet’s land area, but keeping these areas undeveloped.’

‘Protected areas today are increasingly diverse, including not just strictly protected areas but community conservation areas – which are set up by local communities – and sustainable-use reserves, which often allow a broad expanse of human activities under certain regulations.’

‘Wilson points to Gorongosa national park in Mozambique as an example of how protected areas, if managed well and funded, can actually benefit local people.’

‘Recent research has found that contrary to popular belief, protected areas may actually improve the conditions of local communities (at least in countries like Uganda, Thailand and Costa Rica) instead of impoverishing them.’ ‘... governments could use various incentives to support nature conservation on private property. Wilson pointed to the US’s National Nature Landmarks programme as an example, which encourages landowners to protect important biological and geologic sites. However, in order to protect half of the planet, incentive programmes like these would need to be drastically scaled up around the world and receive far more funding.’

‘In addition to protecting portions of their coastlines, nations would have to come together to agree to cordon off a significant percentage of the high seas to fishing – the main activity that takes place there today – and cut them off from any future attempts at mining or fossil fuel development among other potential extractive activities.’

‘And protecting more of the planet could also contribute to solving other environmental problems, including climate change. Today deforestation and degradation accounts for around 15% of the world’s annual carbon emissions.’

‘Writer and professor, Ashley Dawson, argues in his new book that capitalism is behind our current mass extinction crisis. But installing universal guaranteed income in biodiversity hotspots may be one remedy.’

Jeremy Hance, Tue 24 Jan 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2017/jan/24/what-if-we-gave-universal-income-to-people-in-biodiversity-hotpots ‘In his recent, slim, eye-opening book, Extinction: A Radical History, Dawson lays out the case that our current global economic system is pushing the Earth ever closer to a mass extinction event’ ...’ But he also argues there are potential solutions, including giving a universal guaranteed income to populations living in or near biodiversity hotspots to counter poaching, deforestation, and other harmful activities.’

“Capitalism is an economic system founded on ceaseless expansion,” Dawson, who specializes in Postcolonial studies, said. “It must grow at a compound rate or it will experience convulsive economic and social crises. The contradictions of this system are patently self-evident: an economic system based on infinite expansion must inevitably crash into the natural limits of finite ecosystems.”

‘Although capitalism has spread over the world in the last half millennium, Dawson argues it didn’t have to be this way.’

“The global expansion of capitalism was not a deepening of some inherent human drive to environmental destruction, but a complete transformation in the foundation of human societies, the substitution of an ecocidal and genocidal system for the relatively sustainable social forms that preceded it.”

‘With capitalism came an increasing exploitation and degradation of the environment – and an onset of our current biodiversity crisis.’

‘When species are viewed as resources under capitalism, they are relentlessly targeted until the resource – i.e. animal population – collapses.’

‘As populations vanish, new sources are sought: pangolins are now being hunted in Africa for consumption in China while freshwater turtles are being stolen from Latin America to feed Asian consumers.’

“Environmental destruction is primarily driven by large corporate interests, most often with economic ties to banks and markets in the global North,” said Dawson, adding that “capitalism’s omnivorous appetite was perhaps less apparent in the past, when only certain nations were thoroughly animated by its all-consuming spirit, but today capitalism is a global system.”

‘According to Dawson, overpopulation (human population now stands at 7.4 billion) is not responsible for our ecological crises.’

“The archeological record clearly suggests that Native Americans lived in relative harmony with their environments for thousands of years subsequently.”

‘We could start by supporting – with money – the human populations living in or near biodiversity hotspots. Such hotspots represent only 1.4 percent of land on Earth, but harbor almost 60 percent of known species.’

‘Many less-developed states have argued that they are owed a climate debt – i.e. money paid for the damage caused by climate change – from wealthier countries, like the US, the UK and Australia, who are primarily responsible for climate change. In the same way, Dawson argues, wealthy countries owe less-developed states a biodiversity debt. This could be paid, he contends, through a universal income.’

“Focusing such guaranteed income on the relatively limited number of biodiversity hotspots would remove the prime economic motive people living in such areas have for destroying their local environment: poverty.”

‘The income could come from a tax on financial transactions that have enriched the world’s wealthiest people and have been partially responsible for moving funds from developing countries to already-wealthy ones.’

‘Such a radical idea would likely attract much resistance – just as climate debt has.‘ ‘And it leads to many questions. How many people would receive these funds? How much would payouts be? Would recipients have to promise greater conservation efforts in order to secure them? And would giving universal income to certain areas lead to a send influx of immigrants leading to more stress on the environment?’

“We do not lack alternatives to capitalism today,” Dawson said. “What we lack is the political power to overcome capitalism domination and exploitation.”

‘Environmental groups criticise plan that will allow hunters to shoot up to 47 of an estimated 68 wolves living in wilderness’

‘Sixty-five animals died on railway track on Saturday while further 41 killed last week during winter migration’

Fiona Harvey, Friday 16 Sep 2016

Agence France-Presse in Oslo, Monday 27 Nov 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/16/ norway-wolf-cull-government-wwf-friends-earth-environment-protest?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/27/reindeerkilled-by-freight-trains-norway

‘The government has justified this year’s planned cull – the biggest in more than a century – on the basis of harm done to sheep flocks by the predators. Environmental groups dispute this, saying the real damage is minimal and the response out of all proportion.’

‘The government has taken action to prevent illegal wolf hunting. Wolves are also an attraction for some tourists to the country. But the new legal hunting limit is beyond anything that the wild population can withstand, according to Norway’s leading green groups’ ‘According to environmental groups, the number of wolves the government plans to kill this year is greater than in any year since 1911.’

‘Nina Jensen, chief executive of WWF in Norway, said: “This is mass slaughter. We have not seen anything like this in a hundred years, back when the policy was that all large carnivores were to be eradicated.’

“Shooting 70% of the wolf population is not worthy of a nation claiming to be championing environmental causes.

People all over the country, and outside its borders, are now reacting.”

‘She said the losses to farmers from wolves had been minimal, and pointed to settlements by the Norwegian parliament in 2004 and 2011 that stipulated populations of carnivores must be allowed to co-exist with livestock.’

“This decision must be stopped,” said Silje Ask Lundberg, chair of Friends of the Earth Norway. “With this decision, three out of six family groups of wolves might be shot. We are calling on the minister of environment to stop the butchering. Today, Norway should be ashamed.”

“I’m so angry that I’m dizzy,” the owner of the 65 dead reindeer, Ole Henrik Kappfjell, told NRK. “It’s a senseless animal tragedy … a psychological nightmare.”

‘Norway is home to about 250,000 semi-domestic reindeer and most of them live in the far north of the country. At this time of year, herders take the reindeer to the winter pastures in search of grazing grounds, a perilous journey as many animals are hit by cars and trains. Some also drown.’

‘Photos taken by the documentary filmmaker Jon Erling Utsi showed dead reindeer lying in the blood-stained snow.

Some were shot after they were left wounded in Saturday’s incident. “It was a nightmare to watch,” he told NRK.’ “The worst thing was the animals that were not killed in the accident. They were lying there, suffering. It was a bloodbath over several kilometres,” he added.’

‘More than 2,000 reindeer were hit along the same northern railway line between 2013 and 2016.’

‘The herders are demanding that the railway operator install a fence along the track but as yet there has been no funding.’

‘Sami herder claims cull is infringement of indigenous rights, but Oslo says policy is needed to prevent overgrazing of fragile tundra landscape’

‘Governor of the Yamal-Nenets region confirms cull after melting permafrost awakens ‘‘zombie infection’’

Jon Henley, Friday 22 Dec 2017

Alec Luhn, Sunday 9 Oct 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/norway-court-clears-way-for-controversial-reindeer-slaughter?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/09/reindeerto-be-culled-in-russias-far-north-due-to-anthrax-outbreak?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The supreme court in Oslo rejected an appeal by Jovsset Ante Sara, a small reindeer herder from the indigenous Sami community in the Norwegian Arctic, ruling he must comply with an earlier order to cull 41 of his 116-strong herd.’

‘Reindeer herding is an important industry and livelihood for indigenous peoples in the Yamal-Nenets region. Its governor, Dmitry Kobylkin, told state news agency RIA Novosti that about 100,000 reindeer would be culled this winter because overpopulation was straining a limited food supply and increasing the risk of anthrax infection.’

‘The court said the order did not violate Sara’s rights, ruling in a majority decision that the reduction policy was “in the interests of the whole reindeer husbandry industry” and regulation was “reasonable and objectively justifiable”.

‘But Sara’s lawyer, Trond Pedersen Biti, said the ruling did not take the rights of the Sami people into account. “It shows the court does not believe the Sami people can decide on their own destiny,” he said.’

‘The case, which has been running since 2014, has become something of a cause célèbre in Norway, setting indigenous and ancestral rights against broader environmental rights and the importance of ecological biodiversity.’

‘The government’s reduction policy was aimed at keeping the overall herd down to a level that was “ecologically, economically and culturally sustainable” while at the same time guaranteeing the animals’ welfare.’

‘An outbreak in Yamal-Nenets – the first since 1941 – killed a 12-year-old boy and more than 2,500 reindeer in July and August. Scientists and officials blamed the awakening of the “zombie infection” on abnormally hot temperatures caused by global climate change. Thawing of the permafrost soil can release the frozen bacteria.’

“For [lack of fodder], some herder families take their animals to graze in restricted areas where there’s a high risk of Siberian plague infection,” Kobylkin said, using the Russian name for anthrax, a bacterial infection often transmitted through contaminated food or water.’

‘Over-grazing reduces the plant cover, which serves as a buffer to protect the permafrost from thawing in the summer sun. In addition, reindeer grazing where plant cover is thin tend to eat soil along with lichen, becoming infected that way, Bogdanov said.’

‘But a professor of environmental sciences, Tor A Benjaminson, said in a comment for the NRK state broadcaster earlier this year that the policy was arrogant, knowledge-free and “bore no relation to the facts”. There was little evidence that constantly changing vegetation levels were affected by overgrazing, he said.’

‘Oil and gas exploration in the far north has led to increasing conflicts with indigenous peoples in recent years. Kobylkin said regional authorities are “working on the issue of job placement for the local population” after the planned cull.’

‘Sara’s case has roused strong feelings among Norway’s Sami community. Earlier this month his sister, Maret Anne Sara, drew attention to the case by hanging a curtain made of 400 bullet-holed reindeer skulls outside the parliament in Oslo.’

‘Bruce C Forbes, a research professor at the University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre with 25 years’ experience of studying Yamal tundra pasture, told the Guardian the current number of reindeer was “probably at or near a historic high”, and the increased competition for higher, drier ground during the warmer months could result in the erosion of the most vulnerable places.’

“Appropriate representation of the tundra nomads who have precious little time to spare in their annual calendar and for the most part operate far from the levers of regional decision is extremely challenging.”

‘An anthrax outbreak in Russia came from a 75-year-old caribou carcass thawing out. It’s a warning sign of worse to come’

- ‘Sea ice also melting at fastest pace in 1,500 years, US government scientists find’ - ‘The Arctic is a very different place than it was even a decade ago’

Mona Sarfaty, Wednesday 24 Aug 2016

Associated Press, Tuesday 12 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/24/ climate-change-thawing-deadly-diseases-anthrax

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/12/ arctic-permafrost-sea-ice-thaw-climate-change-report

‘These deadly spores – which had not been seen in the Arctic since 1941 – also spread to 2,300 caribou. Russian troops trained in biological warfare were dispatched to the Yamalo-Nenets region to evacuate hundreds of the indigenous, nomadic people and quarantine the disease.’

‘The annual report released on Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed slightly less warming in many measurements than a record hot 2016. But scientists remain concerned because the far northern region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe and has reached a level of warming that’s unprecedented in modern times.’

‘Record-high temperatures melted Arctic permafrost and released deadly anthrax spores from a thawing carcass of a caribou that had been infected 75 years ago and had stayed frozen in limbo until now. This all suggests that it may not be easy to predict which populations will be most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change.’

‘In 2013 Dr Jonathan Patz said; “Global warming’s greatest threat may also be the smallest.” The forum focused on many causes of disease, from fungi, bacteria, viruses and mold spores, to vectors like bats and mosquitoes. Climate change can exacerbate the spread of infectious disease by changing the behavior, lifespans and regions of diseases and their carriers.’

‘Looking way up north in the Arctic – where there are far fewer people, less travel and trade, and fewer infectious diseases – the signal that climate change is a source of disease outbreaks is clear.’

‘It is usually so cold in the tundra that the ground is perennially frozen in deep layers that can date back 3m years.

But the usual circumstances no longer apply at the top of the world. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe. In fact, the area of the anthrax outbreak was 18F (10C) hotter than average, with temperatures reaching 95F (35C). In addition to releasing ancient microbes, melting layers of permafrost also release methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide, that in turn causes further warming.’

‘It is not just animal carcasses that are thawing. Indigenous groups living in the tundra do not bury their dead deep underground, opting instead for wooden coffins arranged in above-ground cemeteries. This raises the potential for infections to spread from this source as well.’

‘Permafrost records show the frozen ground that many buildings, roads and pipelines are built on reached record warm temperatures last year nearing and sometimes exceeding the thawing point. That could make them vulnerable when the ground melts and shifts, the report said. Unlike other readings, permafrost data tend to lag a year.’

‘About 79% of the Arctic sea ice is thin and only a year old.

In 1985, 45% of the sea ice in the Arctic was thick, older ice, said NOAA Arctic scientist Emily Osborne’ ‘This isn’t just a concern for the few people who live north of the Arctic circle. Changes in the Arctic can alter fish supply.

And more ice-free Arctic summers can lead to countries competing to exploit new areas for resources. Research also shows changes in Arctic sea ice and temperature can alter the jet stream, which is a major factor in US weather.’

“The Arctic has traditionally been the refrigerator to the planet, but the door of the refrigerator has been left open,” Mathis said.’

‘Outside scientists praised the report card.’

“Overall, the new data fit with the long-term trends, showing the clear evidence of warming causing major changes,” in the Arctic, said Pennsylvania State University ice scientist Richard Alley.’

‘Indigenous Sami herders urge state to help mitigate impact of climate change in Arctic circle’ Jon Henley, Wed 22 Aug 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/22/sweden-reindeer-herders-risk-starvation-climate-change-arctic ‘Sweden’s indigenous Sami reindeer herders are demanding state aid to help them cope with the impact of this summer’s unprecedented drought and wildfires, saying their future is at risk as global warming changes the environment in the far north.’

‘The Swedish government this week announced five major investigations aimed at preparing the country for the kind of extreme heatwave it experienced in July, when temperatures exceeded 30C and forest fires raged inside the Arctic circle.’

‘But it has yet to come up with any concrete measures for the country’s 4,600 Sami reindeer owners – the only people authorised to herd reindeer in Sweden – and their 250,000 semi-domesticated animals, raised for their meat, pelts and antlers.’

“We are living with the effects of climate change,” Niila Inga, chair of the Swedish Sami Association, told the SVT news agency. “The alarm bells are ringing. We face droughts, heatwaves, fires. This is about the survival of the reindeer, and of Sami culture, which depends on them.”

‘The owners are warning that without help some of their herds may not survive the year. They are also concerned that some young reindeer calves may have become so weakened by the prolonged drought they would not be able to follow their mothers to new feeding grounds.’

‘They also want a longer-term government aid programme to help them manage and adapt to the effects of climate change.’

‘Since Sami owners do not own the land their reindeer graze on, Inga told the Local, they need laws allowing them to improve grazing land. Funding is also urgently needed to look into the growing difficulties reindeer have finding the lichen that form a key part of their diet.’

‘Although warmer summers help lichen grow, warmer and wetter winters are increasingly leading to rainfall rather than snow during the coldest Arctic months. When temperatures fall back to below freezing, impenetrable sheets of ice form on ground that would normally be covered by a much softer crust of snow.’

‘This leaves the reindeer, who habitually feed by digging into the snow and then grazing on the lichen beneath, unable to smell the vital food source or dig down to get to it, leading to some herds starving to death.’

‘Scientists have held out hope of finding ways to spread lichen more readily in forests where it would be more easily accessible to the animals, but more funding was urgently needed, Inga said.’

‘Climate change is being felt disproportionately hard in the Arctic, with temperatures climbing at double the rate of the global average.’

‘A spokeswoman said the government was supportive of the herders’ call for emergency winter aid but was waiting to receive the Sami administration’s full report on the consequences of the summer heatwave, expected in the next few weeks.’

‘A sleepy Lapland fire station is calling in help from all corners to fight the unprecedented wildfires sweeping the region’ Jonathan Watts, Mon 30 Jul 2018

would end up as a barbecue,” she said.’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/30/the-swedish-town-on-the-frontline-of-the-arctic-wildfires

‘Among them is Haben Okbazghi, a 20-year-old refugee from Eritrea, who has lived in Jokkmokk for a few years and has spent the past seven days helping in the forest. Despite the heat and smoke, he says he is glad to contribute. “I want to help. This is my home,” he says as he and other refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia head out to do another night shift channelling water on the embers.’

‘Until this month, nobody would have imagined that the bucolic Lapland town of Jokkmokk could be home to one of the world’s busiest fire brigades.’

‘Nestled beside a bank of pink willowherb and the start line of the Arctic 220km ski marathon, the fire station normally has just three full-time staff and a team of volunteers.’

‘But after two freakishly hot, dry months in Sweden and much of the Arctic and Europe, this station has found itself alarmingly overstretched. In just 12 days, they have had to tackle eight wildfires, the biggest of which tore across an area of boreal forest the size of 900 football pitches and sent smoke billowing through the Lule valley.’

‘To cope, they have called in reinforcements from neighbouring regions, army personnel, home guard members and volunteers from the small local community, including refugees.

They have hired helicopters, bulldozers and excavators. On some days, the team has swollen to 130 members.’

“It’s an extraordinary summer. We’ve hardly had rain in two months and it’s been very hot. We never used to get temperatures above 30C.” ‘It has been a similar story across much of the world this summer, as temperature records are broken in north Africa, California and Georgia, droughts threaten the UK and Europe, and deadly heatwaves have killed hundreds of people in Greece and Japan.’

‘The Arctic Circle and surrounding northern climes might once have been considered a refuge, but global warming is more pronounced in these regions than elsewhere. Satellites have recently tracked massive fires in Siberia that have sent clouds of smoke across the north pole to Greenland and Canada. Norwegian authorities have reported three times more wildfires already than are normal in an entire year.’

‘Among Jokkmokk’s population of 3,100, this has meant teachers, students, holidaymakers and asylum seekers taking up hoses to douse down the forest near the fires.’

‘Lundström’s wife Ana – a former firefighter – is among the volunteers. As she was dousing down one area of the forest last week, she saw a reindeer. “I told it to go away or it

‘In recent days, long-awaited rain has helped the firefighters extinguish the flames in all eight fire sites around Jokkmokk, which is just inside the Arctic Circle.’

‘Johan Edderbo, a doctor of philosophy, is among the volunteers hosing down the ashy forest floor and blackened tree stumps. “This is obviously connected to climate change. You just don’t see these kinds of droughts in Sweden and Scandinavia,” he says as a jet of water pumped from a nearby marsh cools the forest floor. “At least we have the resources to deal with it. Sweden has lost a lot of forest and fodder.

We will have to import a million extra tonnes of animal food this year. We have the money, but in other times in history or other countries this would be very serious.”

‘Nature reserves and commercial forests have been affected. While wildlife is likely to recover, the plantations – which supply timber mills, paper mills and furniture companies like Ikea – have taken a hit.’

‘Experience from the last big fire in 2006 suggests the biggest trees might survive, but many of the smaller ones will have to be cleared and the land replanted. The only possible market for the blackened wood is a power plant, says forest manager Christian Rimpi as he walks through one of the worst-affected areas.’

“We’ve lost 40 or 50 years in the younger forests that burned.

It’s very, very sad. It’s such a waste,” he said.’

“This will probably become more common because of the changing weather,” he says. “You can see that it is getting warmer because the tree line is moving higher up the mountains. Something is happening. We need to be prepared.

Humanity needs to take more care.”

‘A global temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels could see many regions facing an increased threat of drought and wildfires, study suggests’ Hannah Devlin, Tuesday 2 Jan 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/02/keepglobal-warming-under-15c-or-quarter-of-planet-could-become-arid ‘The study, which is one of the most detailed assessments to date of future aridity, suggests that many regions could face an increased threat of drought and wildfires.’

‘Limiting global warming to under 1.5C would avoid extreme changes for two-thirds of these areas, the study suggested.’

‘Chang-Eui Park, the first author from the Southern University of Science and Technology (Sustech) in Shenzhen China, said: “Aridification is a serious threat because it can critically impact areas such as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity. It can also lead to more droughts and wildfires similar to those seen raging across California.”

‘Aridity is a measure of the dryness of the land surface, which can be calculated by combining predictions of precipitation and evaporation.’

‘Manoj Joshi, a co-author of the study from the University of East Anglia (UEA), said: “Our research predicts that aridification would emerge over about 20 to 30% of the world’s land surface by the time the global mean temperature change reaches 2C. But two-thirds of the affected regions could avoid significant aridification if warming is limited to 1.5C.” ‘Drought severity has already increased across the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and the eastern coast of Australia during the 20th century, while semi-arid areas of Mexico, Brazil, southern Africa and Australia have started turning into desert as the world warms. The study suggested that equatorial regions and countries at high latitudes could get wetter.’

‘Prof Tim Osborn, also one of the study’s co-authors from UEA, said: “The areas of the world which would most benefit from keeping warming below 1.5C are parts of south-east Asia, southern Europe, southern Africa, Central America and southern Australia where more than 20% of the world’s population live today.”

‘Sea ice has hit record lows for time of year as experts say global warming probably fueled big storms in Europe and north-eastern US.’ Associated Press Tuesday 6 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/06/arctic-warmest-winter-record-climate-change?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other ‘The Arctic winter has ended with news that is worrying even the scientists who watch the effects of climate change closely.’

“It’s just crazy, crazy stuff,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, who has been studying the Arctic since 1982. “These heat waves – I’ve never seen anything like this.”

‘Experts say what’s happening is unprecedented, part of a global warming-driven cycle that probably played a role in the recent strong, icy storms in Europe and the north-eastern US.’ ‘The land weather station closest to the North Pole, at the tip of Greenland, spent more than 60 hours above freezing in February. Before this year, scientists had seen the temperature there rise above freezing in February only twice before, and then extremely briefly. Last month’s record-high temperatures have been more like those typical of May, said Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute.’

‘Of nearly three dozen different Arctic weather stations, 15 of them were at least 10F (5.6C) above normal for the winter.’

“Climate change is the overriding thing,” Meier said.’

‘Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented.’

‘Extent of ice over North pole has fallen to a new wintertime low, for the third year in a row, as climate change drives freakish weather.’

Jonathan Watts Tuesday 27 Feb 2018

Damian Carrington Wednesday 22 Mar 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/ arctic-warming-scientists-alarmed-by-crazy-temperature-rises

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/ arctic-ice-falls-record-winter-low-polar-heatwaves

‘An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.’

‘The ice cap grows during the winter months and usually reaches its maximum in early March. But the 2017 maximum was 14.4m sq km, lower than any year in the 38-year satellite record, according to researchers at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) and Nasa.’

‘Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.’

“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”

‘Although most of the media headlines in recent days have focused on Europe’s unusually cold weather in a jolly tone, the concern is that this is not so much a reassuring return to winters as normal, but rather a displacement of what ought to be happening farther north.‘ ‘At the world’s most northerly land weather station - Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland – recent temperatures have been, at times, warmer than London and Zurich, which are thousands of miles to the south.’

‘The question now is whether this signals a weakening or collapse of the polar vortex, the circle of strong winds that keep the Arctic cold by deflecting other air masses.’

‘Although it is too soon to know whether overall projections for Arctic warming should be changed, the recent temperatures add to uncertainty and raises the possibility of knock-on effects accelerating climate change.’

“I have been looking at Arctic weather patterns for 35 years and have never seen anything close to what we’ve experienced these past two winters,” said NSIDC’s director, Mark Serreze. 2017 is the third year in a row the Arctic’s winter ice has set a new low.’

‘The extreme low in winter Arctic ice follows a very warm autumn and winter, the NSIDC scientists said, with air temperatures 2.5C above average across the Arctic Ocean. Temperatures have soared even higher in places, creating polar “heatwaves”.’

‘The Arctic ice cap fell to its second lowest summer extent on record in September 2016, just ahead of the lowest ever mark set in 2012. “The long-term decline is a clear indicator of climate change,” said Nasa scientist Walt Meier.’

‘Rod Downie, WWF’s polar programme manager, said: “The annual freeze and thaw of sea ice in the polar regions is like the beating heart of our planet, driving ocean circulation and regulating our climate. But sea ice is in decline in a warming world and the records have been shattered this year.’

“We need to act now to lower our carbon emissions by improving energy efficiency, switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy and tackling climate change head on,” he said.’

-‘Water tower freezes in Iowa and New York ferry service halted’ -’Indianapolis schools closed and snow flurries seen in Texas’

‘IPCC says ‘rapid and far-reaching’ measures required to combat climate change’

Associated Press, Tueday 2 Jan 2018

Lisa Cox, Fri 15 Jun 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/02/us-coldweather-freeze-warnings

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/15/ leaked-un-draft-report-warns-of-urgent-need-to-cut-globalwarming?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

“We have a group of patients who are coming in off the street who are looking to escape the cold – we have dozens and dozens of those every day,” said Dr Brooks Moore, associate medical director in the emergency department of Grady Health System, which operates Georgia’s largest hospital in Atlanta.’

‘Police in St Louis said a homeless man was found dead inside a trash bin on Monday evening, apparently frozen to death as the temperature dropped to -21C.’ ‘Plunging overnight temperatures in Texas brought rare snow flurries as far south as Austin, and accidents racked up on icy roads across the state. In the central Texas city of Abilene, the local police chief said more than three dozen vehicle crashes were reported in 24 hours.’

‘In Savannah, Georgia – where the January’s average high is 6C – the temperature hovered at -1C at noon on Tuesday, cold enough for icicles to dangle from the ornate wroughtiron fountain in Forsyth Park at the edge of the city’s downtown historic district. The city could see up to 2in of snow and sleet on Wednesday, its first measureable snow since February 2010.’

“I’ve never seen icicles in Savannah, period,” said Sean Dempsey, a local restaurant manager who wore a hat, gloves and a thick coat to walk his dogs. “I’m pretty sure last year at New Year’s lots of families were in the park playing catch, Frisbee football and stuff like that.”

‘The world is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming unless countries rapidly implement “far-reaching” actions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a draft UN report leaked to Reuters.’

‘Human-induced warming would exceed 1.5C by about 2040 if emissions continued at their present rate, the report found, but countries could keep warming below that level if they made “rapid and far-reaching” changes.’

‘Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 countries signed up to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.’ ‘Economic modelling in the draft report showed that the dangers for economic growth, particularly in developing countries, were significantly greater at 2C than 1.5C.’ ‘The Greenpeace International executive director, Jennifer Morgan, said the moment of truth had come for leaders and the feasibility of achieving the Paris goals was a political choice.’

“This choice must be driven by a moral obligation that binds us together. Through international cooperation, real ambition and working with communities, our leaders still have the time to do what they must,” she said.’

“That means saying no to fossil fuels and standing up for forest and ocean protection with decisions that prove they understand the urgency. It means cutting down on meat and dairy consumption, and changing the way we produce our food.”

‘Every aspect of the indigenous Inuit culture grows from the land – but the unpredictable seasons are forcing the community to adjust their traditions’

‘Usually frozen waters open up twice this year in phenomenon scientists described as scary’

Greg Mercer, Wed 30 May 2018

Jonathan Watts, Tue 21 Aug 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/30/canada-inuits-climate-change-impact-global-warming-melting-ice?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/21/arctics-strongest-sea-ice-breaks-up-for-first-time-on-record?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Shiwak is an Inuit trapper and hunter who grew up relying on the wild bounty of Labrador. He takes his son out for trips like this every week, trying to pass on generations of knowledge around living off the land: how to collect firewood, hunt and fish, and travel safely in a place where the rhythm of life is still built upon ice and snow.’

‘The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere.’

‘Robert Way, a climatologist based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, said the region is a volatile place climatically, with extreme swings in the weather that can amplify – and sometimes mask – the changes that are happening. Compared to historical terms, winter is about six weeks shorter, while the region’s sea ice coverage is about a third smaller than it was a decade ago.’

‘Ice to the north of Greenland is usually particularly compacted due to the Transpolar Drift Stream, one of two major weather patterns that push ice from Siberia across the Arctic to the coastline, where it packs.’

‘Like generations of Inuit before him, Derrick Pottle is a trapper and hunter. His diet of wild game, salmon, berries, trout and seal would have been familiar to his ancestors who were living in Hamilton Inlet around 8,000 years ago.’

‘Pottle’s ancestors never experienced a time when their frozen world in northern Labrador was being altered so dramatically because of climate change. Shrinking ice packs and more severe weather has made travel increasingly difficult and dangerous, often cutting people off from other communities and traditional hunting lands’ ‘There are no roads connecting Rigolet to other communities, so people here long ago came to rely on trails over the ice as their lifelines. But those frozen lifelines are increasingly unreliable, prone to sudden thaws, weak ice and dangerous openings.’

‘Cunsolo is one of the leading researchers into the links between climate change and mental health. She says the rapid changes happening in coastal Labrador are causing the Inuit to feel increased feelings of anxiety, depression and grief. They sense something is being lost, she said.’

“Scary,” wrote Thomas Lavergne, a scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, in a retweet of a satellite-gif of the blue water penetrating white ice and exposing hundreds of miles of the Greenland coastline.’

‘The latest readings by the Norwegian Ice Service show that Arctic ice cover in the Svalbard area this week is 40% below the average for this time of year since 1981. In the past month, at least 14 days in the past month have hit record lows in this region. Although thinner ice elsewhere in the Arctic means this is unlikely to be a record low year overall, they are in line with predictions that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic Ocean at some point between 2030 and 2050.’

‘Freakish Arctic temperatures have alarmed climate scientists since the beginning of the year. During the sunless winter, a heatwave raised concerns that the polar vortex may be eroding.’

‘This includes the Gulf Stream, which is at its weakest level in 1,600 years due to melting Greenland ice and ocean warming. With lower circulation of water and air, weather systems tend to linger longer.’

‘A dormant hot front has been blamed for record temperatures in Lapland and forest fires in Siberia, much of Scandinavia and elsewhere in the Arctic circle.’

‘Rising arctic temperatures mean we face a future of ‘extreme extremes’ where sunny days become heatwaves and rain becomes floods, study says’

‘This year is set to be the third warmest on record in the US, as scientists say the fingerprints of climate change can be seen in numerous extreme weather events’

Jonathan Watts, Mon 20 Aug 2018

Oliver Milman, Thursday 28 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/20/ summer-weather-is-getting-stuck-due-to-arctic-warming?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/28/ climate-change-2017-warmest-year-extreme-weather?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the jet stream and other giant planetary winds, says the paper, which means high and low pressure fronts are getting stuck and weather is less able to moderate itself.’

“It’s been another really warm year for the contiguous US,” Crouch said. “The last time we saw a year with below-average temperatures was 1996. So this will be the 21st consecutive year that’s above average. And even though it’s not a record, we are seeing climate change manifest itself.”

‘The authors of the research, published in Nature Communications on Monday, warn this could lead to “very extreme extremes”, which occur when abnormally high temperatures linger for an unusually prolonged period, turning sunny days into heat waves, tinder-dry conditions into wildfires, and rains into floods.’

‘As a result, there is less relief in the form of mild and wet air from the sea when temperatures accumulate on land, and less relief from the land when storms build up in the ocean.

Last year, Hurricane Harvey had a devastating impact on Texas because it was parked an unusually long time on the coast, where it kept drawing up moisture from the sea and dumping it in the form of the greatest deluge ever recorded in the US. Scientists had previously noted that hurricanes are slowing and bringing more rain.’

‘A separate new paper in Scientific Reports indicated that the trapping of planetary airstreams – a phenomenon known as amplified quasi-stationary waves – also contributed to the 2016 wildfires in Alberta, which took two months to extinguish and ended as the costliest disaster in Canadian history with total damages reaching 4.7bn Canadian dollars.’

‘Scientists unconnected with the paper said it highlighted the risks of disturbing natural weather patterns.’

“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. By upsetting the energy balance of the planet we are changing the temperature gradient between the equator and the pole. This in turn sets in motion major reorganisations of the flow patterns of the atmosphere and ocean,” said Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at University College London.

“The consequences are emerging and they are disruptive, and likely to become even more profoundly so. We are on a journey and the destination doesn’t look good.”

‘But the fingerprint of climate change extends beyond just temperature. California’s deepest drought on record was broken by intense rainfall at the start of the year, an example of the long dry spells interrupted by ferocious downpours that scientists say are becoming more frequent in a warming world.’

‘To the north, Arctic sea ice reached a record low wintertime maximum extent as, incredibly, temperature instruments in Alaska malfunctioned due to the surging warmth.’

‘Further south, there was a hurricane season that was unusually punishing. There were six major hurricanes, defined as category three or above, including the first two major hurricanes – Harvey and Irma – to hit the continental US in 12 years.’

‘While these hurricanes may well have formed without human-induced warming, the extra heat in the Atlantic and in the atmosphere helped fuel the storms. Harvey, which dumped around 25tn gallons of water on the Houston area in just a few days, derived perhaps a third of its strength from the extra heat added to the planet since industrialization, according to one estimate.’

‘Ultimately, 2017 may well be remembered more for the political response to climate change. The newly installed Trump administration set about tearing up policies designed to address global warming, such as Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, announced the US was to withdraw from the Paris Climate accord and repeatedly questioned the scientific basis of climate change.’

‘Meanwhile, specific regulations curbing planet-warming gases from vehicles and drilling operations were scaled back, with more federal land and water opened up for fossil fuel exploration.’

‘The base of the ice around the south pole shrank by 1,463 square kilometres between 2010 and 2016’

‘Warm current that has historically caused dramatic changes in climate is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown and may be less stable than thought - with potentially severe consequences’

Jonathan Watts, Monday 2 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/02/underwater-melting-of-antarctic-ice-far-greater-than-thoughtstudy-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Damian Carrington, Wed 11 Apr 2018

‘Warming waters have caused the base of ice near the ocean floor around the south pole to shrink by 1,463 square kilometres – an area the size of Greater London – between 2010 and 2016, according to the new study published in Nature Geoscience.’

‘The findings, based on multiple lines of scientific evidence, throw into question previous predictions that a catastrophic collapse of the Gulf Stream would take centuries to occur.’

‘The research by the UK Centre for Polar Observations and Modelling at the University of Leeds suggests climate change is affecting the Antarctic more than previously believed and is likely to prompt global projections of sea-level rise to be revised upward.’

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/critical-gulf-stream-current-weakest-for-1600-years-research-finds

‘Such a collapse would see western Europe suffer far more extreme winters, sea levels rise fast on the eastern seaboard of the US and would disrupt vital tropical rains.’

‘Until recently, the Antarctic was seen as relatively stable.

Viewed from above, the extent of land and sea ice in the far south has not changed as dramatically as in the far north.’

‘The current, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc), carries warm water northwards towards the north pole. There it cools, becomes denser and sinks, and then flows back southwards. But global warming hampers the cooling of the water, while melting ice in the Arctic, particularly from Greenland, floods the area with less dense freshwater, weakening the Amoc current.’

“What’s happening is that Antarctica is being melted away at its base. We can’t see it, because it’s happening below the sea surface,” said Professor Andrew Shepherd, one of the authors of the paper. “The changes mean that very soon the sea-level contribution from Antarctica could outstrip that from Greenland.”

‘Both studies found that Amoc today is about 15% weaker than 1,600 years ago, but there were also differences in their conclusions. The first study found significant Amoc weakening after the end of the little ice age in about 1850, the result of natural climate variability, with further weakening caused later by global warming.’

‘Even in east Antarctica, where some scientists – and many climate deniers – had previously believed ice might be increasing based on surface area, glaciers were at best stable and at worst in retreat when underwater ice was taken into account.’

‘The second study suggests most of the weakening came later, and can be squarely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels. Further research is now being undertaken to understand the reasons for the differences.’

“It should give people more cause for concern,” said Shepherd. “Now that we have mapped the whole edge of the ice sheet, it rules out any chance that parts of Antarctica are advancing. We see retreat in more places and stasis elsewhere. The net effect is that the ice sheet overall is retreating. People can’t say ‘you’ve left a stone unturned’. We’ve looked everywhere now.”

‘The results could prompt an upward revision of sea-level rise projections. 10 years ago, the main driver was Greenland. More recently, the Antarctic’s estimated contribution has been raised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.’

‘The study’s lead author, Hannes Konrad, said there was now clear evidence that the underwater glacial retreat is happening across the ice sheet.’

‘However, it is already clear that human-caused climate change will continue to slow Amoc, with potentially severe consequences. “If we do not rapidly stop global warming, we must expect a further long-term slowdown of the Atlantic overturning,” said Alexander Robinson, at the University of Madrid, and one of the team that conducted the second study. He warned: “We are only beginning to understand the consequences of this unprecedented process – but they might be disruptive.”

‘Research shows that pace of melting in Antarctica ‘Sea level rises are not some distant threat; for many Americans they are very real. In an extract from her chilling new and Greenland has accelerated’ book, Rising, Elizabeth Rush details how the US coastline will be radically transformed in the coming years’

Associated Press, Tuesday 13 Feb 2018

Elizabeth Rush, Tue 26 Jun 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/13/ melting-ice-sheets-are-hastening-sea-level-rise-satellite-dataconfirms?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/26/rising-seas-florida-climate-change-elizabeth-rush?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other

‘At the current rate, the world’s oceans will be on average at least 60cm higher by the end of the century, according to research published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.’

‘In 1890, just over six thousand people lived in the damp lowlands of south Florida.’

‘Based on 25 years of satellite data, however, the research shows that the pace has quickened. It confirms scientists’ computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the UN, which releases regular climate change reports.’

‘The process is accelerating, however, and more than three-quarters of the acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.’

‘Sea level rise rather than temperature is a better gauge of climate change in action, according to Anny Cazenave, the director of Earth science at the International Space Science Institute in France, who edited the study. Cazenave is one of the pioneers of space-based sea level research.’

‘Global sea levels were stable for about 3,000 years until the 20th century, when they rose increasingly quickly because of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels, said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute in Germany.’

‘Two feet of sea level rise by the end of the century “would have big effects on places like Miami and New Orleans, but I don’t still view that as catastrophic” because those cities can survive – at great expense, Nerem said.’

‘When a storm such as Superstorm Sandy in 2012 strikes, however, sea level rise on top of storm surge can lead to record damages, researchers said.’

‘About 60 of the region’s more than 6 million residents have gathered in the Cox Science Building at the University of Miami on a sunny Saturday morning in 2016 to hear Harold Wanless, or Hal, chair of the geology department, speak about sea level rise.’ “Only 7% of the heat being trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the atmosphere,” Hal begins.

“Do you know where the other 93% lives?” ... “In the ocean,” Hal continues.’

‘According to Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, rising sea levels are uncertain, their connection to human activity tenuous. And yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects roughly two feet of rise by century’s end. The United Nations predicts three feet. And the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates an upper limit of six and a half feet.’

“Greenland is currently calving chunks of ice so massive they produce earthquakes up to six and seven on the Richter scale,” Hal says as the city of ice breaks apart. “There was not much noticeable ice melt before the nineties. But now it accelerates every year, exceeding all predictions. It will likely cause a pulse of meltwater into the oceans.”

‘From 1900 to 2000 the glacier on the screen retreated inward eight miles. From 2001 to 2010 it pulled back nine more; over a single decade the Jakobshavn glacier lost more ice than it had during the previous century. And then there is this film clip, recorded over 70 minutes, in which the glacier retreats a full mile across a calving face three miles wide.

“This is why I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the largest meltwater pulse in modern human history,” Hal says.’

‘As the ice sheets above Hal’s head fall away and the snacks on the buffet disappear, topography is transformed from a backwater physical science into the single most important factor determining the longevity of the Sunshine State. The man seated next to me leans over. “If what he says is even half true,” he whispers, “Florida is about to be wiped off the map.”

‘The climate is warming and the water is rising. In his new book, Jeff Goodell argues that sea-level rise will reshape our world in ways we can only begin to imagine’

Jeff Goodell, Sunday 17 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/17/miami-hurricane-2037-climate-change ‘A year or so before Sandy hit, I had interviewed NASA scientist James Hansen, the godfather of climate change science, who told me that if nothing was done to slow the burning of fossil fuels, sea levels could be as much as ten feet higher by the end of the century. At the time, I didn’t grasp the full implications of this. After Sandy, I did.’

‘There’s a terrible irony in the fact that it’s the very infrastructure of the Fossil Fuel Age—the housing developments on the coasts, the roads, the railroads, the tunnels, the airports—that makes us most vulnerable.’

‘Today, seas are rising at more than twice the rate they did in the last century. As warming of the Earth increases and the ice sheets begin to feel the heat, the rate of sea-level rise is likely to increase rapidly.’

‘In the past, the seas have risen in dramatic pulses that coincide with the sudden collapse of ice sheets. After the end of the last ice age, there is evidence that the water rose about thirteen feet in a single century. If that were to occur again, it would be a catastrophe for coastal cities around the world, causing hundreds of millions of people to flee from the coastlines and submerging trillions of dollars’ worth of real estate and infrastructure.’

“The climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel CO2 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge,” scientist David Archer writes. “Longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste, far longer than the age of human civilization so far.”

‘Even if we replaced every SUV on the planet with a skateboard and every coal plant with a solar panel and could magically reduce global carbon pollution to zero by tomorrow, because of the heat that has already built up in the atmosphere and the oceans, the seas would not stop rising—at least until the Earth cooled off, which could take centuries.’

‘The long-term consequences are even more alarming. If we burn all the known reserves of coal, oil, and gas on the planet, seas will likely rise by more than two hundred feet in the coming centuries, submerging virtually every major coastal city in the world.’

‘It’s exactly the kind of threat that we humans are genetically ill equipped to deal with. We have evolved to defend ourselves from a guy with a knife or an animal with big teeth, but we are not wired to make decisions about barely perceptible threats that gradually accelerate over time.’

‘One recent study estimated that with six feet of sea-level rise, nearly $1 trillion worth of real estate in the United States will be underwater, including one in eight homes in Florida. If no significant action is taken, global damages from sea-level rise could reach $100 trillion a year by 2100.’

‘Globally, about 145 million people live three feet or less above the current sea level. As the waters rise, millions of these people will be displaced, many of them in poor countries, creating generations of climate refugees that will make today’s Syrian war refugee crisis look like a high school drama production.’

‘The real x factor here is not the vagaries of climate science, but the complexity of human psychology. At what point will we take dramatic action to cut CO2 pollution? Will we spend billions on adaptive infrastructure to prepare cities for rising waters—or will we do nothing until it is too late? Will we welcome people who flee submerged coastlines and sinking islands—or will we imprison them?’

‘No one knows how our economic and political system will deal with these challenges. The simple truth is, human beings have become a geological force on the planet, with the power to reshape the boundaries of the world in ways we didn’t intend and don’t entirely understand. Every day, little by little, the water is rising, washing away beaches, eroding coastlines, pushing into homes and shops and places of worship.’

‘As our world floods, it is likely to cause immense suffering and devastation. It is also likely to bring people together and inspire creativity and camaraderie in ways that no one can foresee. Either way, the water is coming. As Hal Wanless, a geologist at the University of Miami, told me in his deep Old Testament voice as we drove toward the beach one day, “If you’re not building a boat, then you don’t understand what’s happening here.”

Greenpeace

Becoming a sponsor of the guardian organisation Shortly after coming back to my home in London, a member of Greenpeace rang my doorbell. With Keith Larsson’s lecture fresh in mind I could not resist becoming a donor for this guardian organisation.

The research presented by Keith Larsson is somewhat intimidating, and I cannot see any other way than that we all need to start contributing to make our impact on nature less, even if I also did adopt Larsson’s call for binning the term ‘sustainable’, and get to terms with a more feasible word; resilience.

Jake Roseman, the member of Greenpeace UK, told me about how they had an active role in the UK banning law of plastic microbeads recently, and that they soon expect to put pressure on the government to adopt the pawn-system for plastic containers, that, for example, Sweden has had for decades.

Greenpeace’s strategy for putting pressure onto governments is momentum; once one ‘green’ idea gets spread enough on social media, Greenpeace use that attention to put further pressure on involved parties, until they, hopefully and a lot of the time, change their policies.

At the moment Greenpeace runs a campaign for saving the Arctic, and banning the extraction of fossil fules in Arctic regions; “The fragile Arctic is under threat from both climate change and oil drilling. As climate change melts the Arctic ice, oil companies are moving in to extract more of the fossil fuels that caused the melt in the first place.”

“But above the Arctic circle, freezing temperatures, a narrow drilling window and a remote location mean that an oil spill would be almost impossible to deal with. It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. Greenpeace is working to halt climate change and to stop this new oil rush at the top of the world.” https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/what-we-do/arctic/

‘The unexpected decision by the Republican-controlled body is a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling US coal industry’

‘Kemper power plant promised to be a world leader in ‘clean coal’ technology but Guardian reporting found evidence top executives knew of construction problems and design flaws years before the scheme collapsed’

Joanna Walters, 9 January 2018

Sharon Kelly, 2 Mars 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/08/ donald-trump-coal-industry-plan-rejected-rick-perry

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/ clean-coal-america-kemper-power-plant?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other

‘An independent energy agency on Monday rejected a Trump administration plan to bolster coal-fired and nuclear power plants with subsidies, dealing a blow to the president’s high-profile mission to revive the struggling coal industry.’

‘The decision by the Republican-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was unexpected and comes amid repeated promises by Trump to rejuvenate coal as the nation’s top power source. The industry has been besieged by multiple bankruptcies and a steady loss of market share as natural gas and renewable energy have flourished.’

‘And in rejecting the proposal on Monday afternoon, the FERC declared that despite claims by the administration to the contrary, there is no evidence that any past or planned retirements of coal-fired power plants pose a threat to reliability of the nation’s electricity grid.’

‘The administration’s plan was opposed by an unusual coalition of business and environmental groups that frequently disagree with each other. Critics said the plan would distort energy markets and raise prices for customers, especially in the north-eastern and midwestern US.’ ‘Tech giant Apple weighed in on Monday against the proposal, saying it would inhibit innovation and competition and interfere with plans to increase use of “clean energy” such as wind and solar power.’

Donald Trump was elected on the slogan - ‘Make America great again’, and part of his agenda has been to get the coal industry back to its glory days. This article is examining the intended showcase power plant Kemper.

Kemper power plant is situated in Mississippi, and construction began around 2010. During the construction process it has recieveing visitors from Saudi Arabia, Japan, Norway, and even the UN who was interested in the potential of ‘clean coal’ as a future energy source.

However, the pressure on the construction teams, the engineers and the developer was too heavy to bear, and the response to the issues occuring during the construction process was very poorly handled. They were being conceled.

Originally the budget for building the plant was $2,4bn, with a hard cap maximum cost of $2.88bn. Kemper powerplant produced electricity for only about100h before the idea of ‘clean coal’ was scrapped. The final cost of the plant is estimated to have become $7,5bn.

‘The abandonment of clean coal at Kemper this summer may have long-running ramifications for the international response to climate change. It was slated to be the world’s largest coal carbon capture plant, touted as potentially the first of many similar projects around the world, and the only built-from-the-ground-up coal plant with carbon capture included right from the drawing board.’

‘Instead of delivering the promise of clean coal Kemper has shattered them, in the meantime leaving locals out of work and shareholders out of pocket.’

‘Environmentalists decry ‘embarrassing’ order to review Obama’s clean power plan and other regulations, as White House claims victory for coal industry’ David Smith, Tuesday 28 Mar 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/28/ trump-clean-power-plan-executive-order-coal-industry ‘Watched by coalminers at a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, the president signed an order to trigger a review of the clean power plan, Obama’s flagship policy to curb carbon emissions, and rescind a moratorium on the sale of coalmining leases on federal lands.’

‘But the move was swiftly condemned by environmentalists as a “dangerous” and “embarrassing” attempt to turn back the clock that would do little to revive the US coal industry while threatening cooperation with major polluters such as China and India.’

‘The president has previously condemned the clean power rule and other regulations as placing an unnecessary burden on American workers and the struggling US coal industry, which faces growing competition from natural gas, wind and solar.’

‘But the order was condemned by climate change activists, including Al Gore, the former vice-president, who describe it as “a misguided step away from a sustainable, carbon-free future for ourselves and generations to come”.

‘Lease applications blocked by the Obama moratorium included more than 1.8bn tons of coal from two dozen mines, the Associated Press reported. Burning that coal would unleash an estimated 3.4bn tons of carbon dioxide – equivalent to a year of emissions from 700m cars, it said.’

‘Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, said: “No matter what any elected official says, rescinding commonsense climate change regulations and popular public health protections will not revive the coal industry or put thousands of miners back to work.’

“Market forces, including consumer preferences and technological advancement, are the primary reason for the surge in cleaner forms of energy. In fact, even without the clean power plan, we are likely to hit its emissions targets ahead of schedule – because consumers, cities and businesses will continue leading on public health and climate change even when Washington won’t.”

‘The failure to get to grips with our crises, by all mainstream political parties, is likely to lead to a war between the major powers in my lifetime’ George Monbiot, Wednesday 23 Nov 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/23/ donald-trump-climate-change-war ‘However slavishly governments grovel to corporate Luddism, they will not bring the smog economy back.’

‘What jumps out’... ‘ is that jobs in the rust belts and rural towns that voted for Trump are at high risk of automation, while the professions of many Hillary Clinton supporters are at low risk.’

‘The jobs most likely to be destroyed are in mining, raw materials, manufacturing, transport and logistics, cargo handling, warehousing and retailing, construction (prefabricated buildings will be assembled by robots in factories), office support, administration and telemarketing’ ‘Yes, there will be jobs in the green economy: more and better than any that could be revived in the fossil economy.

But they won’t be enough to fill the gaps, and many will be in the wrong places for those losing their professions.’

‘At lower risk is work that requires negotiation, persuasion, originality and creativity. The management and business jobs that demand these skills are comparatively safe from automation; so are those of lawyers, teachers, researchers, doctors, journalists, actors and artists. The jobs that demand the highest educational attainment are the least susceptible to computerisation. The divisions tearing America apart will only widen.’

‘As Paul Mason argues in PostCapitalism, the impacts of information technology go way beyond simple automation: they are likely to destroy the very basis of the market economy, and the relationship between work and wages.’

‘Eventually the anger that cannot be assuaged through policy will be turned outwards, towards other nations. Faced with a choice between hard truths and easy lies, politicians and their supporters in the media will discover that foreign aggression is among the few options for political survival. I now believe that we will see war between the major powers within my lifetime.’

A complete reframing of economic life is needed not just to suppress the existential risk that climate change presents (a risk marked by a 20°C anomaly reported in the Arctic Ocean while I was writing this article), but other existential threats as well – including war. Today’s governments, whether they are run by Trump or Obama or May or Merkel, lack the courage and imagination even to open this conversation.’

‘The damage caused by our addiction to burning fossil fuels will be so widespread that nobody stands to gain’

‘Study by economists say achievement by world’s biggest polluter may be a significant milestone, rather than a blip’

Phil McDuff, Tue 31 Jul 2018

Damian Carrington, Mon 25 Jul 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/31/ climate-change-denial-oil-companies-fossil-fuels

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/25/china-coal-peak-hailed-turning-point-climate-change-battle

‘The year 2018 is on track to be the fourth warmest on record, beaten only by 2016, 2015 and 2017. In other words, we have had the warmest four-year run since we started measuring.’

‘China is the world’s biggest polluter and more than tripled its coal burning from 2000 to 2013, emitting billions of tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide. But its coal consumption peaked in 2014, much earlier than expected, and then began falling.’

‘However, we have been unable and unwilling to do anything about it. To pull that carbon out of the ground we created giant corporations whose sole role was to find it, mine it and sell it. Our demand led to vast profits for these companies, and unfathomable riches for the people running them. This meant that when the research showed that our insatiable carbon demand needed to be curbed for the good of the planet, there was a very powerful interest group in place with a vested interest in keeping it going.’

‘We know now that the fossil fuel extraction industry has known about climate change since at least 1977, when James L Black, a scientist at Exxon, gave a presentation to the company’s board detailing his research into global warming.’

‘The fossil fuel lobby managed to convince lawmakers and huge swaths of the broader public that this was a battle between “business” on the one hand, and a coalition of corrupt scientists and hippies on the other.’

‘The fossil fuel industry told us that we could take out an interest-only mortgage against the future of the planet and prices would always go up, interest rates would always go down and there would never be a reckoning. We now find ourselves facing repayments on the scale of trillions of dollars.’

‘If a CEO tells us that it would be bad for business if they weren’t allowed to pump poison into the air and water, then that’s too bad for them: one business is not an economy, and it certainly isn’t a biosphere. We’d have survived the crisis of an oil CEO missing out on his fifth yacht, but many won’t survive the consequences of letting them lead us by the nose into disaster.’

“I think it is a real turning point,” said Lord Nicholas Stern, an eminent climate economist at the London School of Economics...’

‘Stern said that China’s progress indicates its total carbon emissions will start falling before 2025, well ahead of its official target date of 2030. Prof John Schellnhuber, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a former adviser to German premier Angela Merkel and Pope Francis, said it could even happen by 2020, which would represent stunning progress.’

“If we take the 2C target seriously, coal really has to disappear,” he said. “I think coal will have to be phased out completely in all countries of the world by about 2035.”

“It is partly the sense of responsibility that China really does feel” as a global power, he said. “But it is also climate change itself. Water has dominated Chinese thinking for millennia and its major rivers come off the Himalayas. What happens to the Himalayas and its ice caps is absolutely crucial to China, and of course climate change is mostly a water phenomenon.”

‘As coal declines, clean electricity in China is increasing rapidly with solar power up 28% in the first half of 2016, nuclear up 25% and wind and hydropower both up 13%. But challenges remain, including connecting new windfarms to the grid. China’s Renewable Energy Industries Association says that 15% of the wind power produced in the country in 2015 was wasted.’

Letter asking the president to prevent future hunting for oil in the waters follows a series of new heat and melting records in the Arctic, which stunned researchers’ Suzanne Goldenberg Wednesday 15 Jun 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/14/climatechange-barack-obama-arctic-oil-gas-drilling ‘Nearly 400 international scientists called on Barack Obama to rule out further expansion of oil and gas exploration in Arctic waters under US control.’

‘The letter, signed by prominent Arctic, marine and climate specialists – including a former member of Obama’s administration, urges the president to rule out any future hunting for oil in the waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.’

‘In addition to putting the entire Beaufort and Chukchi seas off-limits for the next oil and gas leasing offer, from 2017 to 2022, the letter urged the administration to consult native Alaskan groups on any further Arctic developments.’

‘The scientists said in the letter that expanding Arctic marine protection would help counter the effects of climate change.’

‘The letter commended Obama for putting 9.8m acres of Arctic waters off-limits to future drilling last year, and for entering into a joint initiative to protect the Arctic with Canada’s Justin Trudeau. But the scientists called for further protections to areas important to native Alaskan fishing and hunting – including migration routes for whales and seabirds.’

“I’ve witnessed some of the unprecedented changes underway in the Arctic,” Jane Lubchenco, who headed Noaa during Obama’s first term, said in a statement. “Conserving important marine areas is an essential step in sustaining the region’s resilience.”

Article by Alec Luhn, Fri 14 Oct 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/14/thawing-permafrost-destroying-arctic-cities-norilsk-russia ...‘one corner of their five-storey building at 59 Talnakhskaya Street in the northern Russian city of Norilsk was sinking as the permafrost underneath it thawed and the foundation slowly disintegrated. In March 2015, local authorities posted notices in the stairwells that the building was condemned.’

‘Cracking and collapsing structures are a growing problem in cities like Norilsk – a nickel-producing centre of 177,000 people located 180 miles above the Arctic Circle – as climate change thaws the perennially frozen soil and increases precipitation. Valery Tereshkov, deputy head of the emergencies ministry in the Krasnoyarsk region, wrote in an article this year that almost 60% of all buildings in Norilsk have been deformed as a result of climate change shrinking the permafrost zone. Local engineers said more than 100 residential buildings, or one-tenth of the housing fund, have been vacated here due to damage from thawing permafrost.’

‘In most cases, these are slow-motion wrecks that can be patched up or prevented by engineering solutions. But if a foundation shifts suddenly it can put lives at risk: cement slabs broke a doctor’s legs when the front steps and overhanging roof of a Norilsk blood bank collapsed in June 2015.

Building and maintenance costs will have to be ramped up to keep cities in Russia’s resource-rich north running.’

‘Engineers and geologists are careful to note that “technogenic factors” like sewer and building heat and chemical pollution are also warming the permafrost in places like Norilsk, the most polluted city in Russia. But climate change is deepening the thaw and speeding up the destruction, at the very same time that Russia is establishing new military bases and oil-drilling infrastructure across the Arctic. Greenpeace has warned that permafrost thawing has caused thousands of oil and gas pipeline breaks.’

‘Global warming has been tied to more frequent forest fires and flooding across Russia, but its impact on permafrost, which covers two-thirds of the country’s territory, is also beginning to be felt. At least seven giant craters have been discovered in Siberia – reportedly caused by thawing permafrost allowing methane to explode out of the ground – and a 12-year-old boy in Salekhard died from anthrax in August after thawing released bacteria.’

‘Arctic islands and the northern coastline – and scientific outposts there – are disappearing into the sea as perma-

‘Cracking and collapsing homes are a growing problem in cities such as Norilsk in northern Russia. As climate change accelerates the problem, what can be done to maintain the resource-rich hubs the country relies on?’ frost thaws, sea ice melts and wave action increases. Valery Grebenets of Moscow State University’s department of cryolithology and glaciology teaches his students 13 “horror stories” about thawing permafrost, including buckling roads and railways, soil runoff killing fish and the release of toxic and radioactive pollutants contained by frozen dams.’

‘But average annual temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else – more than 2C since 1900, and a 2015 study found increases in soil temperatures across Russia’s permafrost regions over the last 50 years. Soil temperatures in Norilsk increased by almost 1C between 1999 and 2013.’

‘The term permafrost is somewhat a misnomer: while deeper soil remains frozen year-round, the “active layer” of soil extending several feet below the surface thaws each summer. It thaws unevenly, contorting and warping buildings. To avoid this, in the 1960s builders of apartment blocks in Norilsk began drilling holes up to 100-ft deep and pouring reinforced concrete piles that stuck into the permanently frozen soil below. The piles also lifted each building off the ground, allowing air circulation to cool the soil and preventing further thawing.’

‘Engineers didn’t think the soil could start warming so much, however. Data from a Norilsk monitoring station showed the active layer has been thawing earlier and its thickness has increased from three feet to five feet. In addition, climate change has increased precipitation, adding more moisture to the soil that freezes and expands, gradually crumbling the concrete piles. More snow covers the ground and further warms the permafrost.’

‘The problem also threatens Alaska, Canada and other northern territories, but only Russia has cities so far north. Forty percent of buildings in the coal mining city Vorkuta have been damaged, the emergencies ministry’s Tereshkov says.

Salekhard, Nadym and Dudinka, the port on the Yenisei River through which Norilsk Nickel ships its products, have also seen deformations, among others. More than 100,000 people are living in buildings in “critical condition” across Russia’s far north, Streletskiy estimates.’

“I think the problem is exaggerated. Our icebreakers won’t be out of work for the next 100 years,” says Alexei Novakov, director of the port in Dudinka, when asked about climate change, which he argues is part of a “natural cycle”. Although Grebenets warns that as permafrost retreats from the river bank, piers and other structures there could be compromised, Novakov says he didn’t “see any trend that piers have suddenly started to be destroyed”.

‘This skepticism goes all the way to the top: president Vladimir Putin has in the past voiced doubt that human activity is behind climate change and suggested warmer temperatures will benefit the country. Russian media rarely mentions the issue.’

‘Adapting northern cities to climate change is also a difficult sell due to the price tag: costs typically increase by 30 to 40% to build a structure able to withstand more volatile permafrost conditions, Kerimov says. Residents of 59 Talnakhskaya have already called for the city to spend more money on keeping up buildings and monitoring soil conditions – but recession and sanctions make funds hard to find.’

“Many climate change problems are solved by investment, spending on engineering. Where will we get this investment?

Will local budgets find this money?” asks Oleg Anisimov, head of the climatology department at the State Hydrological Institute in St Petersburg. “With the dollar at 70 roubles, the budget in the north won’t be enough.”

“The peasant won’t cross himself until the thunder crashes,” Kerimov says, using a Russian folk saying. “As long as there’s no catastrophe with human casualties, nobody will do anything.”

‘With the ice in retreat, those resources will come increasingly within reach.’

Clay Dillow Tuesday, 6 February 2018

also establishing a string of seaports along its northern coastline.’

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/06/ russia-and-china-battle-us-in-race-tocontrol-arctic.html

‘Russia isn’t alone. Finland, the United States and Canada have also proposed significant infrastructure investment within their respective Arctic zones. Norway’s state energy company is pursuing exploration activities in the far reaches of the Barents Sea even as its sovereign wealth fund considers divesting from fossil fuels. In January the Trump administration announced plans to open up much of the U.S. outer continental shelf to offshore drilling, including areas off the north shore of Alaska.’

In the article Dillow has a closer look at how nations respond to the fact that the polar ice keeps retracting as global warming continues.

‘With more than half of all Arctic coastline along its northern shores, Russia has long sought economic and military dominance in part of the world where as much as $35 trillion worth of untapped oil and natural gas could be lurking. Now China is pushing its way into the Arctic, announcing last month its ambitions to develop a “Polar Silk Road” through the region as warming global temperatures open up new sea lanes and economic opportunities at the top of the world.’

‘At play is between one-fifth and a quarter of the world’s untapped fossil-fuel resources, not to mention a range of mineable minerals, including gold, silver, diamond, copper, titanium, graphite, uranium and other valuable rare earth elements. With the ice in retreat, those resources will come increasingly within reach.’

‘At a December meeting of climate scientists in New Orleans, a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that the Arctic as we’ve known it is now a thing of the past.’

‘With $300 billion in potential projects either completed, in motion or proposed, Russia is the clear leader in Arctic infrastructure development. The world’s largest country has moved to reopen some abandoned Soviet-era military installations and place new facilities and airfields in its northern territory, while

‘But it’s the emergence of China — a nation with no territorial claim to the Arctic — as a rising polar power that has the potential to shake up the competition for resources and influence in the region.’

‘A look at Russia’s icebreaker inventory underscores its commitment to the region; Russia has nearly 40 icebreaker ships in service, with five more under construction and six more planned. Finland, owner of the world’s second-largest icebreaker fleet has seven, followed

by Canada and Sweden at six apiece.’

‘Energy resources will likely remain the driver of major investments in the Arctic for the foreseeable future, but for all the fanfare around them highly visible energy projects like Yamal LNG only paint a fraction of the economic picture in the Arctic, Pass says. Guggenheim’s Arctic project inventory includes a data center in Norway, a Finnish biomass-to-ethanol plant, and a Swedish lithium-ion battery factory, among many other projects that fall outside the more conventional categories of fossil fuels, mining, roads and railways.’

‘Climatological concerns aside — and there are many — one ancillary consequence of a melting Arctic is a rise in human activity there. This includes

an uptick in commercial and scientific traffic and also in military presence and activity.’

‘The growing Russian military presence in the region has stoked old feelings of mistrust, she said, producing antibodies within NATO that are now pushing for an increased Western military presence in the region as well.’

‘The region has long proved a place of international cooperation, where Arctic states settle boundary disputes and other conflicts amicably at the negotiating table (as Russia and Norway did as recently as 2010). But as military activity in the region trends upward alongside commercial activity, the chance of accidents, misunderstandings and miscommunications heightens as well.’

‘Wary of what geopolitical realities the New Arctic may hold, military planners are already taking such factors into consideration. At a Surface Navy Association event near the Pentagon earlier this month, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft noted that the Coast Guard’s new heavy icebreaker will be unarmed when it enters service in 2023.

But the ship will have the space, weight and electrical power built in to ensure it can carry offensive weapons in the future.’

‘Vast network of rivers, lakes and mountains in Finland, Sweden and Norway at risk from being exploited for rare earth and other minerals’ John Vidal, Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/03/ mining-threat-northern-europe-wilderness-finland-sweden-norway ‘Great stretches of Europe’s last wildernesses risk being damaged and polluted as the international mining industry gears up to develop northern Finland, Sweden, and Norway in search of uranium, iron ore, nickel, phosphorus, and valuable rare earth minerals, according to environmentalists.’

‘The prize for British, Australian, Canadian and other companies is billion-dollar mega mines in Lapland, a region which covers all three countries and Russia, able to supply burgeoning industry in Asia.’

‘But conservationists say the rush could bring permanent damage to the vast network of rivers, lakes and mountains which are home to many of Europe’s largest mammals, such as the lynx, wolf, bear and wolverine.’

‘In addition, human rights groups argue that Lapland and Sami indigenous commuities who live by reindeer herding and fishing will be hit, along with the region’s tourist industry, which depends on pristine nature.’

‘The polar mining boom, which mirrors the oil industry’s search for oil and gas, is heating up as climate change makes new areas and sea routes accessible and world prices of iron ore continue to soar.’

‘Some of the biggest developments could be in sparsely populated Finnish Lapland where government is encouraging industrial development with tax breaks and state help. If, as expected, Finland contributes £200m to a railway linking the mining region with northern Norway and the the Barents Sea, dozens of giant mines are expected to open in one of Europe’s most ecologically fragile regions. Many would be close to skiing areas, national parks and wilderness areas.’

“Lapland has a very vulnerable Arctic nature. Mining will cause damage which would last at least thousands of years or not fixed at least until next ice age,” says Finnish biochemist Jari Natunen.’

‘Mining in Finland is governed by EU pollution laws but conservationists warn that supervision and control of the industry is poor and government has often failed to monitor or act because the industry and the authorities are closely and intimately linked.’

‘Existing mines have been found to be contaminating the feeding grounds of reindeer, with heavy metals such as an-

timony, copper, cobalt, nickel and chromium in dust measured in moss.’

“The number of mining permits in Lapland is now so big that we are approaching a tipping point, a point of no return,” he said. “If and when the current mining exploration and development plans lead to actual mines we will be in a situation where most of the fragile, sub-Arctic catchment areas, animal and plantlife and terrestrial ecosystems, adapted to the Arctic conditions, cannot withstand the impacts.”

‘Further west, work to relocate Sweden’s most northerly town Kiruna to make way for what will be one of the world’s biggest underground iron ore mines is expected to start next year. Last year the Swedish government said it planned to treble the number of mines in the country.’

‘Australian, American and other mining giants have descended on the Kiruna region where several mega mines are planned. One, by British mining company Boewulf, hopes to mine 10m tonnes of iron ore a year for 25 years, providing hundreds of jobs.’

‘Opinions are polarised, with Sami communities protesting strongly, and others saying the region urgently needs investment. “The [Boewulf] mine and its infrastructure threatens to devastate the conditions for reindeer herding in the area, says Jonas Vannar, a spokesman for the Sami community.

“This project endangers our entire existence.”

“It’s better for the company to abandon this project immediately in order to avoid additional costs and stress among the reindeer herders,” said Mattias Åhrén, head lawyer, human rights unit, Sami Council.’

‘Marine scientists, environmental groups, fishermen and reindeer herders all complained strongly when Norway earlier this year allowed one mining company to dump millions of tonnes of waste a year from a copper mine into the Arctic fjord of Repparfjord where fish stocks spawn.’

“Norway is one of only four countries in the world where the mining industry is still allowed to use submarine tailings, the cheapest available and environmentally harmful technology of waste handling,” says Lars Haltbrekken, chair of Friends of the Earth, Norway.’

...‘climate change and natural resources are the current buzzwords in Arctic politics. Moreover, the Arctic has become a new “hotspot” in international politics.’

Temuu Palosaari, May 3, 2017 Teemu Palosaari is a researcher at Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Finland, working on conflicts and climate change, especially in the Arctic. https://www.twai.it/magazines/climate-change-and-naturalresources-in-the-arctic/ ‘Despite the vast untapped oil and gas reserves in its seabed, the Arctic has remained peaceful. The notions of “race to resources”, “cold rush” and “new Cold War” make catchy headlines in newsfeeds, and have appeared in them frequently in recent years. Yet, among the academic community of Arctic scholars, the mainstream view has been that international cooperation is working well, and that the Arctic is likely to remain a stable region in the near future.’

‘Indeed, the Arctic can be presented as a prime example of a region where international legislation appears to be effectively working. The coastal states of the Arctic Ocean – Canada, Iceland, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark/Greenland – have jointly declared that they will follow the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and have been mapping their seabed to provide scientific evidence of their territorial claims to the United Nations.’

‘Why have the Arctic states agreed to do this, instead of engaging in land-grabbing activities? An explanation comes from looking at the world map and locating traditional areas of oil production: it is not exceptional for political, socio-economic tensions, and even violence to arise in such places. By contrast, the Arctic is a stable, peaceful region.’

‘There is also a rather advanced system of Arctic governance already in place. Since the end of the Cold War, all the eight Arctic states – the above-mentioned coastal states plus Finland and Sweden – have built a multi-layered web of cross-border cooperation in, for instance, science, economy, culture, environmental protection and tourism. This includes cooperation from grassroots to intergovernmental level, between municipalities, research institutes, indigenous peoples, universities, sub-regions, national governments and so on.’

‘Yet climate change is hitting the Arctic hard. With that, inevitably, come human security issues. What happens, for instance, to the traditional livelihoods of the Inuits when Arctic ice melts? Should they participate in Arctic oil and gas development, notwithstanding the environmental risks? What would these initiatives affect the indigenous relationship between land, nature and man? Furthermore, do local populations have a say in Arctic issues, especially at a time when

the Arctic is becoming a hotspot in global resource politics?’

‘So far, environmental NGOs’ calls for a drilling ban on Arctic oil and gas have been rejected based on the argument that Arctic peoples, too, have the right to extract natural resources from the region to ensure their own economic development.’

Consequently, such issues raise new ethical questions that relate to the exploitation of Arctic oil and gas. They concern a so-called ‘Arctic Paradox’: the faster we use fossil fuels, the sooner we get access to new oil and gas resources. Fossil fuel use contributes to climate warming, which in turn makes the Arctic sea ice melt, so that new oil and gas resources become available. Using those resources then further accelerates climate warming. The question thus becomes: is it acceptable to explore and exploit new oil and gas in the Arctic, at a time when mankind needs to reduce its carbon emissions?

‘Global attention toward the Arctic is growing, especially as it affects the rise of sea levels worldwide. In Bangladesh, for instance, rising sea levels (combined with the melting of Himalayan glaciers) are causing erosion, flooding, and saltwater intrusion into freshwater habitats. In search for new arable land, local populations are recurrently forced to move into the natural habitat of Bengal tigers, threatening to alter their ecosystem. It is thus likely that in the future, non-Arctic states will too question the sustainability and ethics of Arctic oil and gas exploration. Overall, the way in which climate change threatens both Arctic polar bears and Bengal tigers is indicative of the global implications of current Arctic issues.’

‘The largest city in the Russian Arctic expects global warming to change its trading fortunes with the revival of the northern sea route’ Shaun Walker, Thursday 22 Dec 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/22/ murmansks-silver-lining-arctic-city-banks-on-ice-melt-for-itsrenaissance ‘When the Soviet Union collapsed, this city – by far the world’s largest settlement within the Arctic Circle – went into steep decline, its population tumbling from nearly half a million to barely 300,000.’

‘Now, however, many here are anticipating a renaissance, driven by the Kremlin’s belief in the strategic importance of the Arctic, and melting Arctic ice caused by global warming.’

‘The principal hope revolves around the northern sea route, a passage through the Russian Arctic from Murmansk in the west to Kamchatka in the east. West to east journeys are one-third shorter via this transit route than through the Suez Canal. It will also be used to transport the vast oil and gas resources in the Russian Arctic to internal and international markets. Currently a nuclear icebreaker is needed to accompany vessels travelling along the route, but as the ice melts – and it’s melting fast – that could change.’

“We have all the conditions here to become a major international hub,” said Vasily Osin, the region’s acting transport minister. He said a major project to renovate Murmansk’s port would be completed in the coming years, and Moscow has announced a programme to construct or renovate 10 ports in the Russian Arctic in order to facilitate a revival of the northern sea route.’

‘Murmansk was founded in 1916 in the twilight of the tsarist empire, and was developed as the Soviet gateway to the Arctic, mainly due to the year-round ice-free port. The frigid temperatures that would be expected at this latitude are tempered somewhat by the last whispers of the Gulf Stream, and the city has always experienced unpredictable weather – it can rain in January and snow in July. This had led many locals to be sceptical of global warming as a phenomenon – indeed many dismiss it as a western myth.’

‘Putin has also stepped up Russian military activity in the Arctic, renovating a series of Soviet-era military bases in the region.’

Now Russia is building new icebreakers, the first of which, the Arktika, will come online next year and at 173 metres long will be the biggest in the world and capable of tackling ice up to three metres thick.’

‘The warming Arctic should also theoretically improve conditions for oil and gas exploration, though here both the economics and ethics are on shakier ground. In the short term, with falling oil prices and US sanctions on Russia, many of the difficult-to-access Arctic resources have begun to look less attractive in the past few years.’ ...‘ice melt has prompted warnings from environmentalists about the perils of prospecting for hydrocarbons in the Arctic. Vadim Krasnopolsky, oil and gas projects coordinator at WWF, says that global warming and reduced polar ice may not be entirely positive news for shipping in the area.’

‘During the oil boom of the first Putin decade wealthtrickled down to cities such as Murmansk. While much of the city’s housing stock has been battered by time and climate, there are new shopping malls and multiplex cinemas, and a brand new philharmonic hall opened in November. High-concept restaurants serve Arctic treats including grilled reindeer tongue and ice-cream made with local seaweed.’

‘The odds might be stacked against Murmansk, but Russia has an almost visceral attraction to the Arctic and a desire to resurrect the area economically and militarily, whatever the costs. A monument to “the conquerors of the Arctic” in central Murmansk takes in a range of dates, from Vitus Bering’s great northern expedition from 1733-1742, through Valery Chkalov’s solo flight over the north pole in 1937, to Artur Chilingarov’s 2007 north pole mission, during which the Russian flag was demonstratively placed on the seabed under the pole.’

‘Thaw in temperatures brought by climate change could bring benefits for Siberian city of Nadym as global trade patterns shift’ John Vidal, Saturday 1 Feb 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/arctic-citynew-route-china ‘Over the next 30 years climate change is likely to open up a polar shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, cutting travel time to Asia by 40% and allowing Russia’s vast oil and gas resources to be exported to China, Japan and south Asia much faster.’

‘Nadym stands to benefit from a warmer climate more than any other Arctic city – the Russian government plans to connect it by road and rail to other oil and gas centres; Gazprom, the world’s largest gas company, is building a port nearby with French oil major Total; and if the new northern sea route is open for even six months of the year, Nadym will find itself on the 21st-century equivalent of the ancient silk route.’

“The Arctic is our home and our future. We will make full use of the northern sea route. We are building infrastructure, we are making history. We have ambitious plans,” said Anton Vasiliev, Russian ambassador for the Arctic.’

‘Confidence that the Arctic will become economically important is seen in the rush of countries and companies to claim a stake. Eleven countries, including Poland and Singapore, have appointed Arctic ambassadors to promote their national interests.’

‘Oil giant Rosneft and ExxonMobile will start drilling for oil in the Kara Sea this year.’

‘Norway and the other Nordic countries have all made Arctic development a priority. “The Arctic is changing rapidly. It will be our most important foreign policy area. Climate change is putting Norway under pressure,” said its prime minister, Erna Solberg.’

‘Finland, which has no access to the northern sea route, has proposed a railway linking its mines to the Russian coast.

“Finland needs a new Nokia. The Arctic could be it,” said its Arctic affairs ambassador, Hannu Halinen.’

‘American, Canadian, Japanese, South Korean and British companies all intend to use the sea route to mine across the region, but no country hopes to gain more than China, according to Wang Chuanxing, polar researcher at Tongji University, Shanghai. “China’s economy is 50% dependent on trade. The development of the northern sea route would

have a major impact on its economy. One-third of China’s trade is with the EU and the US. The opening of the northern sea route is vital for China,” he said. Japan also hopes to benefit.’

“A great chess game is being played with countries staking claims to the Arctic to make sure they are not left out.

Climate change is taking place at twice the global average speed in the Arctic. Some countries, like China, are looking 50 years ahead,” said Malte Humpert, director of the Washington-based thinktank the Arctic Institute.’

“We think future shipping in the polar region will mostly consist of seasonal activity and transporting the region’s natural resources to markets in east Asia. Climate change will transform the frozen north into a seasonally navigable ocean, but Arctic shipping routes will not become a new silk road for China.” says Humpert.’

“In 30 years, more than two-thirds of the volume of Arctic summer ice has disappeared. Our children will be the first generation in modern history to experience an entirely new ocean opening up. The Arctic has now become a true strategic hot spot at the centre of global interest. The high north embodies high stakes. A paradigm shift in international politics is taking place,” said Henriksen.’

UN Report - ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ’ https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1758GSDR%202015%20Advance%20Unedited%20 Version.pdf Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development In the introduction to this document we are presented to five key-points; People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.

The goals for these topics/points are formulated:

So what does this mean in the context of the Unit 04 projects, 2018?

People; With the new town plan of White, we must critically analyse, first and foremost, if it responds to the needs, and culture of the indigenous people of the Arctic region of Sweden, the Sami. Secondly we need to make sure that the rights of the ihabitants of Kiruna are being acknowledged, and considered.

Regarding People, the report initially talks about how the UN is determined to erase poverty and hunger, and that people have the right to an environment where they can ‘fulfil their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment.’

Planet; We need to make sure the new town plan, and the coming constructions are compatible with environmental goals. That they prevent further climatic changes as far as possible, and that new buildings, throughout their lifetime, will not cause more damage to the global climate than necessary.

About the Planet, the report speaks about protecting it from degredation, and sustainable consumption & production, and ‘sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change’.

Prosperity; A humane and disirable social climate must also be achieved in the new Kiruna townplan. Economic, cultural and technological issues must be accurately addressed, to allow people to thrive.

Prosperity; People have the right to fulfilling lives, and ‘that economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature.’

Peace; There is no risk for war in this part of the world, but inclusiveness must be considered. Integration of the Samis, as well as people’s rights towards large employers and companies, such as LKAB, must be investigated properly.

The UN definition of Peace means here, to foster justice and inclusiveness, and sustainable development.

With Partnership, UN means to persue a ‘revitalised Global partnership for sustainable development’, that strengthen solidarity and participation.

Precisely what one would expect from a UN report, but nevertheless very important. These keywords make up the foundation for a world that will not end in dispair and dystopia.

The report states that the UN is determined to reach all these goals and targets by the year 2030.

Partnership; This point very much links to the previous one there must be a mutural understanding, and social & economical contracts between the people of Kiruna and the main employers, but also between Kiruna and the rest of the world.

This must be addressed by all practicing architects as it relate to our continued existance of the planet.

‘Researchers plotted temperature rises against the number of asylum applications and are predicting that as the southern hemisphere heats up the number of people migrating to the EU each year will triple’

‘Unchecked global warming is greatest threat to 21st-century security where mass migration could be ‘new normal’, say senior military’

Fiona Harvey, Thursday 21 Dec 2017

Damian Carrington, Thursday 1 Dec 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/21/ devastating-climate-change-could-see-one-million-migrantsa-year-entering-eu-by-2100?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/01/ climate-change-trigger-unimaginable-refugee-crisis-senior-military

‘Wolfram Schlenker, professor at the school of international and public affairs at Columbia University in New York, and lead author of the study, said: “Europe will see increasing numbers of desperate people fleeing their home countries.”

‘The generals said the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist insurgency.’

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said: “This study shows how Europe will be impacted by one of the most serious impacts of climate change. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of people will be exposed to coastal sea level rise and shifts in extreme weather that will cause mass migrations away from the most vulnerable locations. We know from human history that such migrations often lead to conflict and war, with devastating consequences. The huge potential costs of migration-related conflict are usually omitted from economic models of climate change impacts in the future.”

“Climate change is the greatest security threat of the 21st century,” said Maj Gen Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation.

“We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people.”

‘These effects will also be felt in Europe, but its lower base temperatures, relative prosperity and advanced infrastructure mean the damage could be contained, and make it an attractive destination for migrants.’

‘Migration, or attempted migration, to Europe has increased markedly in the last decade, with leading causes including the war in Syria, turmoil in north Africa and the middle East, and a burgeoning young population with few economic prospects in many regions of Africa and the middle East.’

‘The data showed that the more temperatures in a country’s key agricultural regions rose above 20C in the growing season, the more people left their homes for another country.’

“Europe is already conflicted about how many refugees to admit. Though poorer countries in hotter regions are most vulnerable to climate change, our findings highlight the extent to which countries are interlinked”, said Schlenker.

‘In September, a coalition of 25 US military and national security experts, including former advisers to Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, warned that climate change poses a “significant risk to US national security and international security” that requires more attention from the US federal government.’

‘In 2015, a UK foreign office report made a stark assessment of the dangers posed by unchecked global warming, including very large risks to global food security, increased risk of terrorism as states fail, and unprecedented migration that would overwhelm international assistance.’

“Countries are going to pay for climate change one way or another,” said Cheney. “The best way to pay for it is by tackling the root causes of climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. If we do not, the national security impacts will be increasingly costly and challenging.”

‘Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate Change’

‘High in the Swedish mountains, a hotel had opened its doors to refugees – but now it is time for them to leave.’

Henry Fountain, March 2, 2015

Cajsa Wikstrom, 2016

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/studylinks-syria-conflict-to-drought-caused-by-climate-change.html

https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2016/arctic-refugees/

‘Drawing one of the strongest links yet between global warming and human conflict, researchers said Monday that an extreme drought in Syria between 2006 and 2009 was most likely due to climate change, and that the drought was a factor in the violent uprising that began there in 2011.’

‘The drought was the worst in the country in modern times, and in a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists laid the blame for it on a century-long trend toward warmer and drier conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean, rather than on natural climate variability.’

‘The researchers said this trend matched computer simulations of how the region responds to increases in greenhouse-gas emissions, and appeared to be due to two factors: a weakening of winds that bring moisture-laden air from the Mediterranean and hotter temperatures that cause more evaporation.’

“The paper makes a strong case for the first link in their causal chain,” Dr. Hoerling said in an email, “namely the human interference with the climate so as to increase drought likelihood in Syria.” ...‘studies showed that the extreme dryness, combined with other factors, including misguided agricultural and water-use policies of the Syrian government, caused crop failures that led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.’

‘The United States military has described climate change as a “threat multiplier” that may lead to greater instability in parts of the world.’

‘Thomas Bernauer, a professor of political science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who has been critical of some earlier studies, said he was skeptical about this one as well. “The evidence for the claim that this drought contributed to the outbreak of civil war in Syria is very speculative and not backed up by robust scientific evidence,” he wrote in an email.’

‘As you climb above the Arctic Circle the forests grow sparser, the mountains balder and the towns and villages smaller.’

‘Riksgransen is surrounded by snow-capped peaks and some of Sweden’s best ski slopes. But, besides a supermarket and a handful of private holiday cabins, there is little else around. The nearest city, Kiruna, is a two-hour bus ride away.’

‘The plan to send refugees here was formulated as a record number entered Sweden last year. When 140,000 people arrived in just four months, authorities cast the net far and wide to find housing.

Nursing homes and shuttered military quarters were turned into asylum centres, and the Migration Agency struck deals with hotels and camp sites.’

‘The facility is normally closed during the peak winter period, when temperatures dip below -30 degrees Celsius and the sun refuses to rise for a month of what is known as polar night.’

‘In the early days, the subjects of their pictures were dark. One child painted his family home being set on fire, with his mother still inside. But as time progressed, they started to draw mountains and snowmobiles.’

‘But it is not only the psychological scars of war that the refugees carry with them. They also come with bitter political divisions, echoing those that have torn their countries apart. This sometimes led to problems at Riksgransen, as well as in other asylum centres across Sweden.’

‘Aside from some hateful anonymous emails, Kuldkepp says the decision to take in refugees has been positively received.’

‘But Forssell, the Swedish teacher, sounds a note of caution. While the refugees were welcomed here, she is worried about the atmosphere elsewhere in the country as the far-right Sweden Democrats party makes gains. It garnered 13 percent of the votes in the 2014 election and a January poll suggested it is now Sweden’s second most popular party, at 22 percent.’

‘Hakim recalls the time Taliban fighters opened fire on him and his brother. He did not get hurt, but his brother was hit in the face.’

“I’m worried that our papers will take so long to be processed that when there’s finally a decision, the Sweden Democrats will be in charge and kick us out,” he says.’

‘For those waiting in Riksgransen, time has come to move on. The skiing season is about to start and the hotel will, once again, begin to accommodate tourists.’

‘As Britain faced a heatwave, the Observer’s architecture critic found himself between Norway and the north pole, exploring icy Svalbard on an epic trip for artists and writers’ Rowan Moore, Sat 28 Jul 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/28/ svalbard-expedition-arctic-trip-artists-and-writers-rowan-moore?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘When Nobile went missing in 1928 the great Norwegian Roald Amundsen, although he didn’t care for fascism, would die in the internationally publicised race to find him.’

‘The Arctic can have this effect on people: its function in the imagination of the world is as a place to test or define, to look for some truth about existence by viewing it from its limit.’

‘Now the significance of the Arctic is above all about climate change, its effects there being particularly visible, significant and dangerous.’

‘There is an element of the mythical about Svalbard.’ ...’ It wasn’t until the 20th century that people started living there permanently, and such life has been extreme, framed by tales of endurance and danger.’ ...’ Animal and plant life, too, looks like something that could easily be scraped off the surface of the land.’ ...’ There are no butterflies or bees. Whereas the polar sea is abundant in life, vertebrate species on land are few, if memorable: polar bears, arctic fox, reindeer, ptarmigan.’

‘Instead there is naked geology, exemplary sedimentary mountains whose layers were formed by hundreds of millions of years of shifting land and sea, back to a time when what is now Svalbard was located south of the equator.’

‘Along with rock and light, the landscape is made of four other elements – ice, snow, cloud and water – all, of course, variants of the same substance. Their changes and interactions are infinite.’

‘The sun’s 24-hour, 360-degree path messes with time and orientation. It is otherworldly. It is a sketch of another planet. It is not greatly bothered about human presence, even though human presence has the potential to be devastating: whatever the poltroons who deny it might say, this ice is indeed retreating and, quite apart from its effects when it turns up in melted form in a town or field near you, a world of beauty will be destroyed.’

‘As a writer on architecture, I had imagined that the appeal of the Arctic would include its lack of my usual subject matter, but there are buildings there too, all the more poignant

for their survival in hostile places. There are the structures of coalmining, mineheads perched on near-cliffs and long-legged conveyor systems that recall the inventions of HG Wells or the Walking Cities of the 1960s architectural group Archigram. There are trappers’ huts, researchers’ cabins and tiny refuges for travellers, all solitary specks in the vast landscape.

There is the steel mast from which in 1926 Raoul Amundsen and Umberto Nobile, at that point collaborating with each other, flew in an airship to the north pole.’

‘These structures are to the point. They waste no energy. They combine flimsy-looking tarpaper with oversized driftwood because that is what is to hand. It would be lost effort to cut up the wood into more proportionate pieces. Decorated at most with reindeer antlers or a bear’s jawbone, they have the striking aesthetic of buildings that don’t have time for aesthetics, their unusual asymmetries of lightness and mass being responses to unusual conditions.’

‘The same cannot be said of Pyramiden, a piece of the Soviet Union on foreign soil, made possible by international treaty that gives certain countries additional to Norway rights to Svalbard. It is now a frigid modern Pompeii, where guided tours can visit the dead 1990s house plants, the idle kitchen equipment, the northernmost grand piano and the increasingly quaint office machines that were left behind when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the withdrawal of the town’s state support, Pyramiden was abandoned. The black coal fields, striking after all that pure ice, are apocalyptic.’

‘Svalbard architecture exposes with special lucidity the heroism and foibles of human life, which is what the Arctic does more generally. It doesn’t give a damn about us. If it could have a preference, it would want us dead. But its very implacability makes us want to read ourselves in it and enables us to do so. The message of those sedimentary mountains is that, over a scale of tens of millions of years, nature will probably shrug off whatever monstrosities we inflict on it, as it has previous catastrophes like meteorites and volcanic explosions, but that will be much too late for us. This realisation makes climate change more urgent, not less. We made this problem and it is down to us to fix it. There is no one and nothing else to help us.’

‘Anglo-Saxon capitalism’s drive to maximise profits in the short term won’t save the planet. Perhaps the Chinese model can?’

‘Wind farms are key to tackling climate change but warming will significantly cut wind power across US and UK, though Australia will see winds strengthen.’

Larry Elliott, Thu 16 Aug 2018

Damian Carrington, Monday 11 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/16/ capitalism-climate-change-risks-profits-china?CMP=Share_ iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/ global-warming-will-weaken-wind-power-study-predicts?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The struggle to combat climate change brings out the best and worst of capitalism. Decarbonisation of the economy requires alternatives for coal and cars that run on diesel, and that plays to capitalism’s strengths. Innovation is what capitalism is all about, and there has been staggeringly rapid progress in developing clean alternatives to coal, oil and gas.

The cost of producing solar- and wind-powered electricity has collapsed. Great advances are also being made in battery technology, which is vital for the new generation of electricity-powered vehicles. Humans are endlessly creative. In the end, they will crack climate change.’

‘The research is the first global study to project the impact of temperature rises on wind energy and found big changes by the end of the century in many of the places hosting large numbers of turbines.’

‘Capitalism – especially the dominant Anglo-Saxon variant of capitalism – has trouble thinking beyond the here and now.

People running big corporations see their job as maximising profits in the short term, even if that means causing irreparable damage to the world’s ecosystem.’

‘When policymakers have other things to worry about, tackling climate change drops down the list of things to do. The Paris agreement in 2015, which committed the international community to restricting global warming to well below two degrees centigrade, shows that the issue is taken more seriously than it was two or three decades ago, but that doesn’t mean that it is a top priority.’

‘When times are tough, politicians are suckers for the argument that there is a trade-off between growth and greening the economy. There isn’t. Companies account for capital depreciation when they draw up their profit and loss accounts.’

‘The good news is that in Beijing and New Delhi, policymakers have woken up to the idea that green growth is better growth.

China is committed to phasing out coal, in part because it is worried about climate change and in part because it sees an opportunity to be a world leader in green technology. India, although slower to act, is also starting to take advantage of collapsing prices for electricity generated by solar and wind, and has set itself demanding renewables targets.’

‘A massive scaling up of investment in clean technology is needed, because the $300bn spent on decarbonisation worldwide last year merely matched the cost of the losses in the US from climate and weather-related events.’

‘Wind farms have grown more than fivefold in the last decade and plunging costs have made them a key way of reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning. But in the central US, for example, the power of the wind could fall by nearly a fifth.’

‘The research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, used the same climate models and projected future emissions as the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Losses of wind energy stretched from the central US to the UK, Russia and Japan for both medium and high emissions scenarios. If emissions remain high in the future, wind energy increases were also seen a smaller number of regions.’

‘The biggest fall was in Japan, where wind farm building is just beginning to accelerate, with wind energy projected to fall by 58kW, or about 10%. The central US was second with 49kW but because the average current winds are generally weaker than in Japan, this represents a larger 17% drop. The UK is anticipated to fall by 36kW, or 5%.’

‘In the northern mid-latitudes, however, the major driver of wind is the temperature difference between the Arctic and the tropics, and the Arctic is warming very rapidly, reducing that difference.’

‘The scientists had to convert the wind speeds predicted by the climate models into wind energy, because temperature, pressure and humidity all affect the power of the wind. “More dense air is going to blow harder on a wind turbine,” said Karnauskas.’

‘Karnauskas acknowledges the uncertainties and said the work provides a starting point for more focused work: “It points to places that need detailed studies. Until now, we were really missing a consistent global view of the issue.”

‘One company is trying to measure exactly how much urban trees are worth. But some things defy calculation’ David Ferguson, Sunday 24 Apr 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/ trees-make-our-lives-better-in-unquantifiable-ways ‘Scientists say that that when human beings see the color green and interact with nature, our bodies manifest chemical and psychological signs of reduced stress.’

‘According to an article published on Thursday by CityLab, one Texas company is trying to quantify for cities the dollar amounts that trees are worth in their combined capacities as air-scrubbers, noise-pollution reducers, neighborhood beautifiers and natural stress relievers.’

“Lower cortisol is given off when you see green,” said i-Tree founder David Nowak. “We want to develop an index of how much green you can see from any given point in a city, how your body reacts to it, and what the economic value is.”

‘Satellite imaging shows that cities with more trees are cooler on average, have less air pollution and – as a result – fewer instances of respiratory-related illnesses. Cooler temperatures mean less energy used in the summer and more trees means higher property values.’

‘The assumption is that planting trees and avoiding further deforestation provides a convenient carbon capture and storage facility on the land. That is the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is wrong.’

Nadine Unger assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at Yale, Sept. 19, 2014 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/to-save-theplanet-dont-plant-trees.html ‘Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide.’

‘In reality, the cycling of carbon, energy and water between the land and the atmosphere is much more complex. Considering all the interactions, large-scale increases in forest cover can actually make global warming worse.’

‘Of course, this is counterintuitive. We all learn in school how trees effortlessly perform the marvel of photosynthesis: They take up carbon dioxide from the air and make oxygen. This process provides us with life, food, water, shelter, fiber and soil. The earth’s forests generously mop up about a quarter of the world’s fossil-fuel carbon emissions every year.’

‘Besides the amount of greenhouse gases in the air, another important switch on the planetary thermostat is how much of the sun’s energy is taken up by the earth’s surface, compared to how much is reflected back to space. The dark color of trees means that they absorb more of the sun’s energy and raise the planet’s surface temperature.’

‘Climate scientists have calculated the effect of increasing forest cover on surface temperature. Their conclusion is that planting trees in the tropics would lead to cooling, but in colder regions, it would cause warming.’

‘In order to grow food, humans have changed about 50 percent of the earth’s surface area from native forests and grasslands to crops, pasture and wood harvest. Unfortunately, there is no scientific consensus on whether this land use has caused overall global warming or cooling.’

‘Planting trees and avoiding deforestation do offer unambiguous benefits to biodiversity and many forms of life. But relying on forestry to slow or reverse global warming is another matter entirely.’

‘The science says that spending precious dollars for climate change mitigation on forestry is high-risk: We don’t know that it would cool the planet, and we have good reason to fear it might have precisely the opposite effect.’

‘After centuries of bad stewardship, communities are at last starting to see the benefits of forests’ John Vidal, Tuesday 13 Feb 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/13/ worlds-lost-forests-returning-trees?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘China plans to plant forests the size of Ireland. Latin American countries have pledged to restore 20m hectares of degraded forest and African countries more than 100m hectares. India is to plant 13m hectares, and on a single day last year 1.5 million people planted 66m trees in Madhya Pradesh alone.’

‘England is to plant 50m trees in a new coast-to-coast forest and newly planted saplings now cover tens of thousands of hectares of former farmland in Ireland, Norway and France.

From Costa Rica to Nepal and Peru to Mongolia, tree planting has become a political, economic and ecological cause, and a universal symbol of restoration, regrowth and faith in the future.’

‘In this new ecological age, we have learned that trees have far more value than providing timber: they keep soils moist, prevent floods and provide shelter, store carbon, beautify landscapes, protect water sources, increase biodiversity, improve conservation and induce human wellbeing.’

‘We are seeing a great global attempt to plant and restore forest land but paradoxically we are still losing tree cover.

The rate of global deforestation has slowed by more than half in 25 years but tree loss jumped 50% in 2016, and 2017 is likely to have been worse.’

‘In two years, many millions of hectares of forest have burned across North America, South America, Australia and Europe.

Some of the wild fires were deliberately set, but the spike reflects the warming of the land and is just one of the many consequences of climate change. Equally, tree diseases are now rampant and forests are succumbing to drought, disease and insects – much of it driven by climate change.’

‘Increasingly a system known as agro-forestry is proving itself.

Here, trees and shrubs are being grown around or among crops, often on degraded forest land. There are around 2bn hectares of this land around the world and restoring it with agro-forestry can not only put food on tables, but create hundreds of thousands of jobs and address climate change.’

‘Agro-forestry is changing farming and addressing climate change in many countries as surely as the “green revolution” swept through the world promising higher yields with chemicals in the 1960s and 70s. It depends for its success on

changes in attitudes, shifts in behaviour and improved management practices. It requires communities to work together, local knowledge and governments to reform land laws and help to educate. But it does not need large amounts of money.’

‘Great areas of Indonesian, Congolese and Latin American forests are still being lost to the loggers and the palm oil companies, but we are seeing a heartening response to the linked climate and food crises. It is too early to think that we are ecologically more literate, but there is a real sense that governments are beginning to understand that change best comes from the grassroots and is both needed and possible.’

‘Following in the footsteps of norman foster, OMA, and frank gehry — among others — is london-based firm dRMM. Described by the architects as ‘less about form and more about content’, the design is much more than the simple wooden box presented to the passing street.’

Philip Steven, Jun 26, 2017 https://www.designboom.com/architecture/drmm-maggiesoldham-centre-hardwood-clt-england-06-26-2017/ ‘Built on the grounds of existing NHS hospitals, maggie’s centres provide emotional and social support for people affected by cancer. The ongoing initiative tasks acclaimed architecture firms with creating welcoming, comforting, and uplifting healthcare environments.’

‘Believed to be the world’s first building made from hardwood cross-laminated timber (CLT), the dRMM-designed maggie’s centre was developed alongside the american hardwood export council. ‘In wood there is hope, humanity, scale, warmth, and nature’s clever plan to absorb carbon,’ says alex de rijke, founding partner of dRMM. ‘Wood is a non-toxic, versatile, benign, anti-carcinogenic material.

People like wood, but steel and concrete are the industry default.’

‘Constructed from American tulipwood, the building is supported on slender columns and hovers above a lower level garden. This secluded setting offers ‘open air rooms’ framed by trees and other vegetation. A centrally positioned asymmetrical hole allows a single birch tree to pierce the structure, guaranteeing scenic views from upstairs.’

‘In developing the project, dRMM paid close attention to the needs of patients: from the psychological effect of spaces and views, to the effect of light levels and color on skin made sensitive from radiotherapy. ‘As those undergoing chemotherapy sometimes feel pain on touching cold objects, oak rather than metal door handles have been used,’ explain the architects. ‘Wood fibre insulation ensures a breathable, healthy environment whilst the huge window frames are american white oak.’

‘Although the wood technology is popular in Europe for building, it has only recently begun to gain acceptance in Britain’ Gordon Miller, Fri 13 Jan 2012 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/ cross-laminated-timber-built-environment ‘Bridport House is the first to use CLT, supplied by Stora Enso, for the whole multi-storey structure, including the ground floor and the lift shaft, which is traditionally constructed from concrete. The new buildings replace an existing 1950s block that sits above a storm relief sewer.’

‘Karen Alcock, the deputy mayor of Hackney, says CLT’s lighter frame and reduced weight (the structure’s height is double that of the previous building, but the weight increased by only 10%) was a significant factor in the council’s decision to approve planning of Bridport House.’

“Sustainability is core to the council’s strategy across all services,” she said. “Using CLT enabled the buildings’ carbon footprint to be reduced. The quicker construction time [12 weeks] over traditional methods was important because the HCA imposed time constraints as part of its funding provision.”

‘Lambe said: “There is a requirement and government commitment to decarbonise the national grid by 2050, and to reduce the operational energy required for heating and lighting, when considering the whole life carbon of buildings, the embodied energy forms a significant part. Reducing the levels of embodied carbon – which constructing using CLT does – is critical [to achieve the needs].”

‘Analysis undertaken by the company, working with the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge, calculated had the building been of conventional reinforced concrete frame, the materials required would have incurred an additional 892 tonnes of carbon.’

‘When the sequestered carbon locked up in the 1,576m3 timber structure is added to the carbon avoided, the total figure is 2,113 tonnes of carbon – equivalent to 29 years of operational energy; with 20 per cent renewable energy, it would take 144 years to save the same amount of carbon.’

‘Timber has many design benefits. It lends itself to offsite construction, less waste and a shorter build programme. It offers accuracy and long spans and, aesthetically, timber will improve the look and feel of a building. Also there are the lifecycle benefits of a renewable resource.’

‘Now it’s official: Stora Enso is building a third CLT factory in Gruvön, Sweden’

‘CLT can be designed to accommodate substantial fire resistance and unlike steel remains structurally stable when subjected to high temperatures.’

Article by Günther Jauk, translated by Susanne Höfler 05 July 2017

http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/crosslam-timber-fire-resistance-and-rating/

https://www.timber-online.net/holzprodukte/2017/07/storaenso-baut-bsp-werk-in-schweden.html

‘One of the major advantages of Cross Laminated Timber is its inherent fire resistance. CLT can be designed to accommodate substantial fire resistance and unlike steel remains structurally stable when subjected to high temperatures. CLT panels can be produced with fire resistances of 30, 60 and 90 minutes.’

‘With 45 million Euros as the amount to be invested, the company will build a greenfield site with an annual production capacity of 100,000 m3. Start of construction is planned for the 4Q of 2017, and the production start is scheduled for the 1Q of 2019. Stora Enso anticipates a turnover of 50 million Euros/yr in full operation mode. Moreover, the factory is expected to increase the ROCC of the Wood Products division by 18%.’

‘In total, the company will then be producing 230,000 m3/yr of CLT at three sites: Bad St. Leonhard, Ybbs and Gruvön.’

‘It’s easy to see why any form of timber construction can pick-up a reputation for fire risk, but for solid wood and Cross Laminated Timber, performance in a fire is a long way from their timber frame cousins.’

‘To understand how efficient CLT is in a fire, we should start with the understanding that fire resistance is the ability of a material to confine a fire or to continue to provide a structural function or both.’

‘The measure of fire resistance is the time elapsed from the start of the fire up until the point where the material fails to function. Typically resistance is expressed in minutes eg FR 30, 45, 60 or 120.’

‘CLT’s fire resistance is provided through ‘charring’. As the face of the timber panel is exposed to a fire that ramps up to a temperature in excess of 400 degrees C, the surface of the timber ignites and burns at a steady rate. As the timber burns it loses its strength and becomes a black layer of ‘char’. The char becomes an insulating layer preventing an excessive rise in temperature within the unburnt core of the panel. It is this unaffected core which continues to function for the period of the fire resistance.’

‘To achieve the designed fire resistance period there must be sufficient virgin solid timber remaining behind the char layer to sustain the loads applied. Therefore each CLT panel within the building must be designed for the fire resistance period and the specific loadings applied to that panel.’

‘Fire resistance testing of CLT panels is to ISO 834 – the same standard used for doorsets which most of us are familiar with.’

‘Strong, clean and versatile, engineered timber is the ‘new concrete’. With wooden skyscrapers in the offing, could it be the answer to the global housing crisis?’

Rowan Moore, Sun 28 Jan 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/28/ wood-engineered-timber-housing-needs ‘There is a miracle building material – one so environmentally friendly that it extracts carbon from the atmosphere rather than adding to it; a stuff with which structures can go up at lightning speeds, that reduces the noise and disruption of building sites, that can be as strong as steel and much lighter, that makes both construction workers and a building’s users happier, and that, with the help of technology, is getting ever more efficient and adaptable. “It’s the material of the future,” an architect tells me. Its most ardent proselytisers think it could fix the overcrowding of the world’s cities. At the same time, this stuff – wood – is so ancient that 18th-century theorists believed that Adam built the first house out of it in the Garden of Eden. Mild-mannered, unassuming timber has gone into a phone box and come out as a super-substance.’

‘In the 1990s, because digital technology was already causing the world to use less paper than expected, the Austrian government funded a search for alternative uses for the timber grown in its forests. Gerhard Schickhofer, a professor of engineering, came up with an idea, which was to build up layers of planks, each one at right angles to its neighbours, bond them with glue and press them. This makes a sort of ultra-plywood, called cross-laminated timber (CLT). It’s strong, rigid and durable, insulates both heat and sound, and can be prefabricated in factories to high levels of quality and precision. You can make floors, walls, stairs and lift shafts out of it, stacking up panels like an unusually stable tower of dominos.’

‘One British early adopter, Alex de Rijke of dRMM architects, who won the 2017 Stirling prize with the company’s part-CLT rebuilding of Hastings Pier, called engineered timber the “new concrete”. He means that it’s a material where the surface you see is also the stuff that holds a building up, which is the stuff that keeps out the weather too. “There can be something very visceral about that,” De Rijke says. “We all like stone cathedrals for that reason.”

‘Another enthusiast, Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistleton, points out the ways in which it is better than concrete. You can put up the structure of a nine-storey block, as he did in Murray Grove, north London, with a team of four carpenters in 27 working days. Engineered timber makes for quieter, calmer, cleaner building sites, without the noise and dust of hammer drills and grinders. It requires a fifth of the deliveries by truck that concrete does. It creates minimal waste (which, as a high percentage of the rubbish that goes to landfill comes from construction, is no small matter).’

‘Whereas a tonne of cement emits nearly a tonne of carbon in its making, a tonne of timber will, through the trees from which it is made, remove up to two tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. “If you had to invent a machine,” says Waugh, “which gives you a renewable supply of building materials while also reducing carbon levels, it would be a tree.” Of course, to achieve these gains, building timber has to come from trees that are replaced, but here too it can be beneficent.’

‘The environmental benefits aside, the practical arguments are still strong – both Waugh and De Rijke have hard-headed commercial clients who use engineered timber because its speed of construction saves them money. For all these compelling reasons, the world is expected to use a million cubic metres of CLT this year, compared with 2,000 cubic metres in 2003. Its existence is hardly news in the architectural world, but it is now at the point where it’s going mainstream.’

‘Michael Green, an architect based in Vancouver, has proposed a 35-storey tower, called Baobab, that would straddle the Périphérique in Paris. With the engineer Eric Karsh, he has worked out that it would now be possible, if not very sensible, to build the Empire State Building out of wood.’

‘Timber, he says, is “the most technologically advanced” form of construction, offering “the first new way to build a skyscraper in 100 years”, but one to which “mother nature holds the patent”.

‘The main obstacle, he believes, to the conquest of the building world by engineered timber is “education”. There are not enough professionals who understand it, and those who do are too busy to explain it to others. Building regulations in many cities are still wary of it. Timber, he says, needs “its Eiffel Tower moment” that will make everyone realise its possibilities.’

‘Everyone I talk to about timber tells me that, although more research on the subject is needed, wooden buildings make people feel better. They reduce stress, lower heart rates, calm children in classrooms, improve recovery in hospitals – all of which seems intuitively likely.’

‘Quite a lot look much like steel or concrete buildings that happen to be made of wood. They tend to be a bit boxy.

Often the timber gets covered with other materials. If engineered timber is truly the material of the future, its architectural possibilities are only just beginning to be discovered.’

‘The case for wood to challenge concrete and steel’s dominance of tall structures is set out at Timber Rising, a new exhibition in London’

Pamela Buxton, 23 February 2018 https://www.ribaj.com/culture/timber-rising-vertical-visions-for-the-cities-of-tomorrow-roca-gallery

‘Vertical Visions for the Cities of Tomorrow, a new exhibition at the Roca London Gallery.’ ... ‘Faced with climate change, high-density cities, housing shortages and mental health issues, could building high in wood become mainstream and eventually eclipse heavier, more energy-hungry constructions?’ ‘‘Things do have to change,’’ says Clare Farrow, who co-curated the exhibition with Studio Woode. ‘‘We’re exploring a future in which wood will challenge the soaring, dominant structures of concrete and steel.’’

‘With the recent emergence of a number of pioneeringly large wood buildings, it’s a good time to consider such issues.’ ... ‘This show also features a number of high-rise timber proposals and Sweden’s Kulturhus Skellefteå, a 19-storey hotel and cultural centre by White Arkitekter already under construction that will, when realised, be the tallest wooden building in the Nordic countries.’

‘The exhibition pays attention to timber’s credentials – not just its strength, lightness and ability to sequester CO2 but its biophiliac contribution to wellness in the built environment, particularly in hospitals, care homes and schools but also in homes and the workplace. Some research suggests that children learn faster in schools with timber environments, while the smell of wood is found to lower the heart rate and blood pressure.’

By Jenni Marsh, 20th February 2018 https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/wooden-skyscrapers-timber-trend-catching-fire-duplicate-2/index.html ‘Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry says its 1,148-feet-tall timber tower will be completed in 2041, to mark the 350th anniversary of the business that year.’ ... ‘The 70-story tower will be a hybrid structure made from 90% wooden materials. A steel vibration-control framework will underpin the design -- an important feature in a city where earthquakes are frequent.’

‘Green balconies will populate the skyscraper’s exterior, connecting the building to its environment. “The aim is to create environmentally-friendly and timber-utilizing cities where (cities) become forests through increased use of wooden architecture for high-rise buildings,” the company said in a press release. The Japanese government is trying to encourage more developers to use wood. In 2010, it passed the Promotion of Use of Wood in Public Buildings Act, which required all government buildings up to three stories high to be constructed with wood, or to utilize wood.’

‘New types of ultra-strong timber are partly driving the trend for wooden buildings. “There’s a whole bunch of new materials made out of wood that are structurally able to build big buildings,” says Dr Michael Ramage, of the Center for Natural Material Innovation at Cambridge University.’

‘But it’s bamboo -- a material that has been used in Asian construction for centuries -- that most interests Ramage. With a five-times higher growth rate than wood, but similar mechanical properties’...

“We’re working on engineered bamboo,” says Ramage. “We can take the walls of bamboo tubes, cut them up into rectangles and glue them into big slabs. You get large pieces of what looks like lumber.

But it’s stronger than timber.”

Kevin Flanagan, a partner at PLP architects, adds that in the future he can imagine the industry genetically modifying wood to make it even more conducive to high-rise construction.’

‘The exhibition suggests that while high-rise wood buildings are obviously achievable, that doesn’t mean they have to be as tall as possible. Waugh suggests that people are generally most comfortable with lower rise buildings of 10-15 storeys.

Timber architecture could also assist in the need for urban density by providing lightweight rooftop extensions.’

“There is a huge perception problem,” says Ramage. “Timber doesn’t burn in the way the public imagines. The great fires of London and Chicago were both sparked by very small pieces of wood. Very big pieces of wood are quite hard to set on fire -- they aren’t kindling material.” ... “All buildings over a certain size need to have sprinklers and active fire suppression systems -- irrelevant of whether it’s wood, concrete or steel,” he adds.

A series of blazes at Dubai skyscrapers in recent years have highlighted that it isn’t just timber buildings at risk of catching fire.’

‘But while there’s obviously plenty of research and project activity, the exhibition makes it clear that more needs to be done to change people’s perceptions so that they trust timber’s suitability for high rises, in particular its ability to withstand fire. Historical disasters, from the 1666 Great Fire of London to the Chicago Fire of 1871, and the more recent Grenfell Tower disaster, cast a long shadow.’

‘Forests cover approximately two thirds of Japan, but Sumitomo Forestry says many of the cedar and cypress trees planted after the Second World War, which are now ready for harvesting, are “being left in an unmaintained state.” The company argues that increased timber demand will promote better maintenance of forests and encourage communities to ensure their sustainability.’

‘‘We are so familiar with wood and have such an intimate relationship with it and yet it’s surrounded by prejudices,’ says Farrow. She hopes the show will further debate and inspire young architects and designers to find out more about building high with timber: ‘It’s a revolution that is still very much in its infancy.’

‘Ramage adds that “Russia has huge timber reserves, largely because we’re finally using less paper.” Furthermore, he says, wood is, on average, four times lighter than concrete, so transporting it uses less energy.’

“We know from a very long history of building in wood it can last -we have 600, 700-year-old buildings in the UK which are fine,” says Ramage. “The one constant they have is that they have all been well looked after.”

‘Cross-laminated timber towers are becoming more popular thanks to benefits for the environment and occupants – but are they safe and strong enough?’

‘London’s first timber skyscraper could be a step closer to reality this week after researchers presented Mayor of London Boris Johnson with conceptual plans for an 80-storey, 300m high wooden building integrated within the Barbican.’

Max Opray, Wed 21 Jun 2017

08 Apr 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jun/21/tall-timber-the-worlds-tallest-wooden-office-buildingto-open-in-brisbane

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/timber-skyscrapers-could-transform-londons-skyline

“Using timber as the primary structural load-bearing element creates interesting questions during the design process of any building,” Chris Ammundsen, the Aurecon lead structural engineer behind the project, says. “For example; how might we minimise the risk of chainsaw attack?”

‘The GBCA (Green Building Council of Australia) last year updated its Green Star accreditation to incentivise CLT, which chief executive Romilly Madew says: “provides great thermal performance, which means they are efficient to heat and cool and save considerable amounts on utility bills.”

‘An RMIT Lifecycle Assessment study conducted on Australia’s first timber high-rise completed in 2013, Lend Lease’s 10-storey Forte building in Melbourne, concluded it would generate 22% lower global warming emissions over its lifespan than a traditional concrete build.’

‘That’s because they are assembled like supersized flatpack furniture, says Nick Hewson, a technical manager with engineered wood suppliers XLam. “There’s a speed and simplicity in construction,” he says. “Think of assembling a big piece of furniture – there are even oversized screws and slats.”

‘Anyone who has assembled an Ikea bookshelf can attest that a single piece missing from a flatpack can result in construction delays, structural deficiencies, and even desperate attempts to decipher oblique Swedish instruction manuals.

Just like Ikea products, CLT components need to be shipped in all the way from Europe, where modern engineered timber techniques were first developed and are far more widely used.’ “[With thick wood] you can subject it to long periods of fire exposure, it starts to char which insulates the material inside.

It can burn through slowly but maintain its strength,” he says.

Ken Slattery, the chief executive of Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia, has a simple observation to make in response to the new competition: “concrete doesn’t burn”.

He says that concrete remains the most-used building material on earth as it is flexible, durable and long-lasting.’

‘Researchers from Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture are working with PLP Architecture and engineers Smith and Wallwork on the future development of tall timber buildings in central London.’

‘The use of timber as a structural material in tall buildings is an area of emerging interest for its variety of potential benefits; the most obvious being that it is a renewable resource, unlike prevailing construction methods which use concrete and steel. The research is also investigating other potential benefits, such as reduced costs and improved construction timescales, increased fire resistance, and significant reduction in the overall weight of buildings.’

‘Dr Michael Ramage, Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation, said: “The Barbican was designed in the middle of the last century to bring residential living into the city of London – and it was successful. We’ve put our proposals on the Barbican as a way to imagine what the future of construction could look like in the 21st century.’

‘The tall timber buildings research also looks towards creating new design potentials with timber buildings, rather than simply copying the forms of steel and concrete construction. The transition to timber construction may have a wider positive impact on urban environments and built form, and offers opportunities not only to rethink the aesthetics of buildings, but also the structural methodologies informing their design as well.’

‘Just as major innovations in steel, glass and concrete revolutionised buildings in the 19th and 20th centuries, creating Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace and the Parisian arcades described by Walter Benjamin, innovations in timber construction could lead to entirely new experiences of the city in the 21st century.’

‘The type of wood these new buildings would use is regarded as a ‘crop’. The amount of crop forest in the world is currently expanding.

Canada alone could produce more than 15billion m3 of crop forest in the next 70 years, enough to house around a billion people.’

‘The proposals presented to Johnson included concepts for a timber tower nearly 300m high, which would make it the second tallest building in London after The Shard.

Dr Ramage added: “We’ve designed the architecture and engineering and demonstrated it will stand, but this is at a scale no one has attempted to build before. We are developing a new understanding of primary challenges in structure and construction. There is a lot of work ahead, but we are confident of meeting all the challenges before us.”

Sweden at the 2018 Venice Biennale

A Contemporary Advocacy

Timber and Digital Design is the focus of union’s own exhibition

‘To digitalize can support the creative work of the architect’

Article 20 February 2018 in the union’s weekly newspaper; Arkitekten. By Nina Gunne Translations when needed by me. https://arkitekten.se/nyheter/digitalt-och-tra-blir-svenskt-tema-pa-venedigbiennalen/ The union’s own weekly paper report the theme of the Swedish architectural union’s exhibition in the latest weekly paper.

‘It has now been decided that Sveriges Arkitekter (the union for Swedish architects) will have it’s own exhibition at the Venice Biennale. The conjuncture of the architects representation and new techniques for building in timber will be highlighted in the exhibition and the program.’

‘The exhibition’s title, Plots, prints, projections, is a play with words between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, and between the technical, the representative, and the narrative.’ - Ulrika Karlsson, curator of the event Plot; a printed drawing, a story/narrative, or a site.

Print; plotting, 2D print, and 3D print.

Projections; architectural drawings, or to propose - to project your visions.

The origin of this exhibition derives from the UN document Agenda 2030, which outlines UN’s ambition for sustainable development, Transforming Our World. Sveriges Arkitekter’s ambitions is to engage discussions with focus on the forest as a resource and timber as a construction material, and how it affects architecture, and our societies.

‘We want to show how we can work in different scales to reach the climate goals. Timber cannot do everything, but it is the only structural material we can grow.’ - Tove Dumon Wallsten, project manager for the exhibition

Article 30 January 2018 in the union’s weekly newspaper; Arkitekten. By Jonas Runberger, Frans Magnusson, Malgorzata Zboinska Och Vladimir Ondejcik Translations when needed by me. https://arkitekten.se/kultur/digitalisering-kan-stodja-arkitektens-kreativa-arbete/ ‘The architects must evolve from being consumers to become developers of digital techniques, says four architects and scientists who specialise in the field’ This article argues that new digital tools can liberate the architect in creative design processes. The authors underline that this is not about standardising, but about customising.

‘If the manufacturing industry’s rational would be applied to architecture, we risk an overly-standardised design process.’

Instead, they argue, the forming of the building is what should be supported by available contemporary digital tools.

‘When this type of method is integrated fully in the design process, creative possibilities unveil, geometrical control and simulation. This is the moment we refer to as an informed design process. We want to underline that we do not mean a general automation, where static parameters dictates the conditions and the forming, but instead the possibilities to consolidate the creative process of the architect.’

The authors advocates more programming in architecture, and that we should embrace the inevitable paradigm shift in design professions, rather than to resist it. The authors points to the many online forums where students, programmers, and practicing architects meet, discuss, and together evolve new tools that often are free to use.

Gabriela Celani, 9 January, 2018 https://www.archdaily.com/886741/7-myths-in-architecturaldetailing-that-are-changing-in-the-digital-age ‘The recent availability of automated design and production techniques is changing the development of building details.

With parametric and algorithmic design methods and the use of digital fabrication, new abilities are required from architects for the design of details, at the same time as new players are beginning to take part in their development.’

‘Although not always given the necessary attention, architectural details are of extreme importance for many aspects of a building. They can define its theoretical expression and technical character, and impact its production process, its assembly method and even its ecological footprint. Contemporary architecture shows a new interest in detailing, which should not be confused with a return to the appreciation of artisanal work. This new interest is related to the recent re-involvement of the architect with the physical making of buildings, as a result of the use of digital technologies. The new “digital master builder” counts on file-to-factory processes, in which the morphology of construction details is directly related to the knowledge of the available production processes.’

‘In the design process of the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, for example, the geometric principles of the structural elements and of the façade parts were present in the parametric model from the very beginning. During the design process, the contractors’ suggestions and requirements, based on fabrication constraints, were incorporated in this model, which was later used as a basis for the fabrication of parts:’ “The subcontractors chose to use the parametric architectural geometry issued by Populous as the basis for their detailed model of the facade system, thus eliminating any possible discrepancies between desired and as-built geometry” ‘The production information for the cladding system was extracted from a fully detailed fabrication model by the subcontractor, and all the parts could be manufactured in the factory and assembled on site with precision. The mullion and structural subcontractors also extracted drawings directly from the fabrication model for numbering, sequencing and bar-coding parts, and for defining the position and rotation of drill points. This allowed the offsite fabrication of all structural elements.’

‘The non-standard canopy designed by a3lab for the Westend Gate Tower in Frankfurt upon Main is another good example of how the use of digital fabrication can transform architectural detailing. Since the conceptual phase, the

design was optimized for structural performance and fabrication. According to the authors:’ “It was not designed in a conventional top-down design process, where the architect determines design and passes it on to engineers and fabricators for further processing. It was developed in a bottom-up interactive process, where all different team members agreed on a negotiated co-decision process through which they could enrich the procedure with their expertise. Architects, engineers and manufacturers were linked together in a constantly updated common flow of information.”

‘Decisions about drainage, cladding and the structural joints were taken together between designers and manufacturers.

The dimension of the branches, for example, was defined by the size of the galvanizing pools in which they had to be coated. This example illustrates what Deamer means when she asserts that “contemporary practice revitalizes, through the new detail, the interest in ‘those who build them’ and offers the opportunity to readjust the psychologically diminishing roles that all players in the design-to-build continuum have come to know,” referring to the participation of digital fabrication manufacturers in the design process.’

‘What has changed in architectural detailing with the present availability of parametric software and digital fabrication? I believe the introduction of these techniques to the architectural design process is challenging 7 myths:’ Myth 1: Detailing happens after conceptual design is defined ‘When we consider the possibility of digitally fabricating custom parts for a building we need to predict from the very beginning how these parts will be produced and how they will be put together. We cannot risk developing a concept that cannot be fabricated, therefore detailing must be developed in parallel with conceptual design, which is easier to do in an integrated digital design process. Parametric modeling allows designers to use provisional dimensions and change them later, without having to remodel everything from scratch.’

Myth 2: The authorship of a detail belongs to the architect ‘It is an illusion to think that an architect can develop a good detail alone. Good details can only be developed in conjunction with manufacturers and materials or mechanical engineers. Digital fabrication instructions are now an important part of the detail documentation, because the specification of tools and machine parameters can interfere in the final product.’

This article is based on a paper by Gabriela Celani published in A+C Arquitectura y Cultura #5, p. 50-60, 2014.

Gabriela Celani is an Associate Professor at the School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Campinas, Brazil. She is the founder of LAPAC, the Laboratory for Automation and Prototyping for Architecture and Construction.

Myth 3: Detail design is less important and less interesting than conceptual design ‘Architectural design studios have often valued creativity more than technical issues, leaving the development of details to technicians. Nowadays, synergy between conceptual and detail design is vital to a successful building. Recent examples show how building details are being developed from the early stages of design, in an intellectually challenging process.’

Myth 4: Details are represented through orthogonal drawings ‘The typical 2D drawings that architects used to represent details are becoming outdated. Although we still need traditional construction drawings for the construction site, detail documentation now includes fabrication instructions, such as nesting layouts and gcode files that are sent to the manufacturer. Building Information Models now allow designers to represent different levels of detail and to generate 2D drawings dynamically from 3D models. Architectural details can also be generated by scripts, and can be presented to the construction team through animations that show the assembly steps.’

Myth 5: There is always a standard solution for a detail design problem ‘The detail is gaining a new status in contemporary practices, and becoming an important part of design. Although standard details are still used for most parts of a building, specially produced details can add value to a building and define its personality, for example creating surface effects.’

Myth 6: Details exist to disguise material imperfections ‘Details should be developed to communicate something, not to disguise anything. With digital fabrication there are no imperfections; we are approaching zero tolerance, as discussed in a special issue of AD.’ Myth 7: With digital technologies there is no more need for detailing ‘On the contrary, with parametric modeling and digital fabrication there are new opportunities for designing ever more complex and interesting building details, which require a new set of skills from designers.’

‘Based on the recent literature on the topic it is possible to conclude that architectural detailing must take into account not just theoretical and building technology aspects, but also mass personalization issues, including parameterization and scripting in the design process, and the use of digital fabrication techniques in the manufacturing of parts. When details of a very complex building are generated by scripts there is less probability of mistakes, but they can only be written after a clear understanding of the underlying logic of the design.

Scripts were used, for example, to generate most of the details of the Swiss RE building. Hugh Whitehead, from the “Specialist Modeling Group” at Foster + Partners, says that this building forced them “to address the problem of how to design and produce details that are programmed rather than drawn. At each floor, the rules are always the same, but the results are always different.” The automation and parameterization of detail-drafting makes concurrent engineering possible, where advanced details can start being developed while initial definitions, such as floor to ceiling height, are still being decided.’

‘At the same time, with the availability of cheaper 3D printing machines, rapid prototyping can be used from the very beginning of the process. Considered too expensive and time-consuming not long ago, the use of 3D-printed models during the design of details can have a huge impact on the result.’

‘Finally, it is extremely important to deeply understand new production processes. Ford points out the difference between conception and reality among modernist architects whose ideas came from the way “they believed cars and planes were built.” He affirms that in the early 20th century “few ideas were drawn from an analysis of the building industry as it actually existed.” Mass production resulted in the separation of design and production and between designers and factory workers. To avoid repeating the modernist misconception of the integration between design and production, we need to understand digital fabrication processes deeply, so we can design details that are appropriate for the automated production techniques that are available.’

‘As Robert and Rivka Oxman assert, Architecture is reformulating itself as a profession. They point to the fabrication of material systems as a new area of design practice and research for architects and structural engineers together.

New abilities are required for the development of architectural details with the use of digital fabrication techniques. This can evolve into a new field of specialization for architects.

We now need to start thinking about strategies to develop the required skills in the academic environment, increasing opportunities for interdisciplinary work.’

Second Turn Exhibition The Building Centre, London

by ZHCODE (Zaha Hadid Computation and Design Research Group)

Exhibition: The Impact of Buildings Works from the Hampstead School of Art There are many quite nice illustrations in this exhibition that is displayed at Allies and Morrison Southwark Street gallery. The illustrations are responses of this part of the city that is undergoing a lot of change, especially architecturally.

But I do feel that I miss better explaination of the art pieces.

The about two sentences that explains the different pieces is in many cases not enough for me to see what, and how they are responding. Never the less, the exhibtion is small, but quite nice.

There are also plenty of nice architectural models on permanent display, which makes the experience ever better.

Lola Sheppard and Mason White, January 10, 2017 http://www.metropolismag.com/cities/planning-cities/untapped-promise-arctic-urbanism/

Ralph Erskine & Arctic Cities Frei Otto, Arup & Erskine’s Resolute Bay town planning in Canada Analysis of Northern Architecture Ralph Erskine was not just active on the architectural scene in Sweden but also in Italy, UK and Canada for example.

He did master plan for a new town in Canada in 1972-1973; Resolute Bay. In the 70’s there were several master-planning projects in the undertaking, aiming to ‘integrate’ indigenous people of the Arctic region into the southern society. This was often done to ease the conscience of guilty states waning to extract valuable minerals in Inuit country. This has happened in Sweden too where the Sami people has been treated really poor during decades and even centruaries, many times because their land holds valuable minerals; in Sweden it is the state owned LKAB who runs the worlds largest iron ore mine in the middle of Sami country, and the town of Kiruna, who would not exist if it weren’t for the mine.

During the 1900’s the debate was formed around the discussion if not a transition from traditional temporary settlements to permanent ones were more appropriate for the inuits.

Thoughts of real care merged with ones of making use of the inuits country and several architects and planners started sketching on modern day towns in the Arctic circle, where commodities of modern day life would be accessible for both southerners moving north and indigenous inuits, who had never experienced this progressive but static society.

The first permanent settlements in this part of Canada (and Sweden for that matter) fundamentally altered the very physical and spatial realities of daily life for the indigenous people of the Arctic. This sometimes involved displacement and gave access to schools and ‘useful amenities’, not needed in this part of the world. In other words new towns like Inuvik in Canada, brought to the inuits; ...“delivery of services, not architecture or urban form. The state required basic accounting—the construction of so many schools or hospital beds or housing units-rather than addressing questions of the quality of design, especially in the early days of northern nation-building.”

Many architects of the 60’s had started to speculate and dream of mega structures, and saw the north as a perfect place for these Big speculative projects. In a somewhat nonchalant, or disrespectful way perhaps, since none seemed to really appreciate that the inuits had lived there for thousands of years in close harmony with the land and understanding of this nature. Rather many of these architects seemed to think the inuits could be saved from the harsh environment via mega structures that could provide services and more ‘normal’ human conditions.

At the same time these proposals can be interpreted as the first signs of acknowledgements of emerging environmental issues in the ‘civilized world’; It seemed as if some proposals were aiming to provide an escape from something, that can now later on most probably be considered harsh environments in the south, desertification, pollution, deforestation and lack of fresh water perhaps?

“Prepared by the chief architect’s branch of public works, the project envisioned a dozen clusters of three 12-story towers radiating from a large central dome containing two schools, two churches, a community centre, a fire hall, government offices, shops, restaurants, and a hotel. In their ambition for total metabolic and programmatic self-sufficiency, the designers also included an atomic heating plant, a hydroponic vegetable garden, and a battery-powered internal monorail.

Tower clusters were linked by a series of enclosed elevated walkways and in turn connected directly to the dome, providing an interior environment protected from the harsh climate.”

A few designers and engineers started to draw up plans for domed cities in specified and unspecified locations in the Arctic. One was American office Adrian Wilson Associates in California. Another one was Frei Otto in collaboration with Arup. ...“both designs assumed that the climate was incompatible with conventional citybuilding and could be circumvented only by manufacturing an interior habitat.”

Although these projects stemmed from an modernist viewpoint, others had different take on a town in the Arctic. Ralph Erskine had long been analysing and building in the Arctic region in Sweden. He thought of a vernacular urbanity that was more rooted in the Arctic.

Erskine was hired by the Canadian government in 1970 to develop a proposal for Resolute Bay, the country’s northern-most community and one of the coldest inhabited places in the world.

Although this town was aimed at housing 1200 people to begin with, the scheme did not include any type of mega structure, but instead a long crescent house body was sketched out as a windscreen towards the north, which would enable a micro climate towards the south. On top of this micro climate zone, which included housing for inuits, library, shops and leisure, a “bubble roof” were drawn to further protect from the cold winter.

However, Erskine’s ideas clashed with local traditions and the fact that inuits preferred to set up their mobile homes close to the waterfront, for fishing & hunting purposes. Some other difficulties were also established with the design and the project were slightly relocated. After just a few fragments were built, the project was abandoned due to lack of funding in 1978.

This article conclude that these projects failed due to their totalitarian approach. In the north it has never been custom to live in dense housing, or shelters but rather singular homes on large plots. This seems to make little sense in terms of social aspects and of energy conserving purposes, but culture and tradition simply cannot be disregarded.

“Both houses and cities must unfold itselves as flowers do in the summer sun, but also like flowers should turn away from shadows and cold northern winds, providing the warmth of the sun and wind protection to the terraces, gardens and streets. They should be totalley different from those buildings with colums, cities with porticos and sunny streets from Arab villages and southern Europe, although very close considering their main goal: help people keeping their body tempereture at comfortable 350. We would not be interested in forms wile studying these southern villages, but surely about their inventiveness and art by which the solved different problmes, the beauty they achieved.”

Jem Bartholomew, Saturday 14 Apr 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/apr/14/laplands-changing-seasons-by-drone-in-pictures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Between the late 19th century and 1980, Kotisaari Island was a meeting point for the lumberjacks of Rovaniemi in Lapland, Finland. Now a tourist attraction, it can be reached by a daily boat and one of the lumberjack buildings has been turned into a tavern. In 2015, local nature photographer Jani Ylinampa took an aerial photograph of the island using a drone, and when the photo went viral on social media he decided to document the island’s changing seasons. “The seasonal changes in Lapland are drastic and this little island is the perfect way to display them,” says Ylinampa, who also works as a tourist guide. Just four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the island ranges from an average temperature of -8.2C in January to 19.7C in July, presenting a challenge for the photographer. “Especially in winter, I need the weather to be dry so the propellers don’t freeze.”

10 April, 2018 by Kaley Overstreet https://www.archdaily.com/892031/explore-this-1-250-model-of-ancient-rome-which-took-38-years-to-construct ...’after many years of tedious construction, visitors will be able to see the city as it has never been seen before, through a 1:250 model of imperial Rome, known as the Plastico di Roma Imperiale. The plaster model, which was commissioned by Mussolini in 1933 and completed in 1971, depicts Rome as it stood in the 4th century under the reign of Constantine I.’

‘Now located at the Museum of Roman Civilization, the model was constructed by archaeologist Italo Gismondi who spent many years replicating the city exactly as it once stood. Although Mussolini commissioned the model to be built, the lack of available and accurate references to use in the initial design was due to his order to destroy many of Rome’s ancient houses to construct large roadways.’

‘Using Rodolfo Lanciani’s 1901 map Forma Urbis Romae, Gismondi was able to complete the main core of the model by 1950, in time for the 2,00th anniversary of the death of Augustus.’

‘The model is considered to be one of the key references in understanding how ancient Rome once looked by visitors and academics alike. Measuring in at an impressive 55 feet by 55 feet’...

Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma Piranesi & the imaginary old Rome Speculative design exercise commons.wikimedia.org, wikipedia.ac.uk Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in 1720 near Venice. In 1740 he had made his way to Rome where he studied the art of etching. Between 1743 to 1747 he was in Venice, where 1 a fellow craftsman expanded his views on etching, saying there was more to it than just reproducing and documenting reality.

Piranesi then moved back to Rome where he started to re-imagine the old city, that had long been transformed. As new emperors came to power throughout the many hundred of years, they had all more or less tried to put their own monuments in Campo Marzio, which had led to that many monuments had to be destroyed to make place for the new once.

Piranesi tried to collage together images of what Campo Marzio could have looked like once, or how it could have looked if some monuments were saved. This was a purely speculative exercise, but the result of his many etchings was like no one before him could have imagined the city.

His speculations also took the form of describing views of buildings no one really knew how they could actually have been built - in Piranesis mind gravity and construction techniques did not apply. This is why, for instance, his Carcere XIV - The Prison1, has triggered peoples imagination, and speculations about where all these ramps, stairs and bridges led, not to mension how they were built.

He also constructed a detail plan over Campo Marzio2. Because it is not a rooftop-masterplan there is no way of knowing how he imagined the roof-scape or what the buildings looked like, but there is rhythm and order in the pattern, but they also seem to change character slightly.

Our task in Assignment 2 in Unit 4 is to imagine one of the tiles of Piranesis Campo Marzio each and make them become a whole.

2 3. Carceri by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Article by Karissa Rosenfield, 31 August, 2012 https://www.archdaily.com/268507/venice-biennale-2012-the-piranesi-variations-peter-eisenman

Peter Eisenman interprets Piranesis map of ancient Rome. Speculative design exercise In the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale - Common Ground in 2012 Piranesis imaginary town plan Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma was reinterpreted by Peter Eisenman along with Yale students, Jeffrey Kipnis with his colleagues and students of the Ohio State University, and Belgian architecture practice, Dogma.

Each group had to come up with a response of contemporary architecture to Piranesis work. The work consisted of models and architectural drawings that engaged with a social, political and philosophical discourse.

Disappear Here

1.

- On perspective and other kinds of space Exhibition at RIBA, 66 Portland Place

by Sam Jacob This exhibition is interesting as we (in Unit 04) this year have embarked on a speculative journey of what the techniques of design and communication could look like in the near-future. We have reflected upon Mario Carpos recent book The Second Digital Turn, in which he explains that architectural drawings have always been about data compression (they seek to describe what is not yet made). Carpo explains that Alberti is the father of these types of 2D drawings, but now at last we can (and start to prefer) for the first time in history, 3D-drawings instead. And indeed Alberti was mentioned in this exhibition.

1-2. And the desire of communicating in 3D has always been there it seems: Thomas Malton the Elder made a book in 1783 - “regarded as the first ever commercial pop-up book, with a sophisticated system of three-dimensional flaps.”

2.

3. Moreover it was interesting to see Joseph Potter’s unsuccessful (yet nice!) perspective drawing of open doors in a wall. Apparently Potter had no formal architectural education - he was originally a builder (like myself). With today’s 3D software the perspective comes built-in, and should thus be considered as a more inclusive tool, having the ability of encouraging participation from people outside the profession. On the other hand many 3D softwares are perhaps not so easily operated by untrained people.

3.

4.

4. Another drawing that caught my eye was a top-view perspective by Raymond Loewy (from between 1969-75), who was employed by NASA to “improve spatial conditions in mannered spacecraft.”

RIBA | Europa 3: Nordic Countries Lecture at RIBA, 66 Portland Place Connecting Ideas Across Borders talks series

Participating architectural practices: Tham & Videgård Arkitekter (Sweden), Gjøde & Povlsgaard Arkitekter (Denmak), Transborder Studio (Norway) and Hollmén Reuter Sandman Architects (Finland).

This talk was mainly about these architects presenting their work, rather than discussing contemporary architectural discourse. Nor was it just about the work undertaken in local context of Scandinavia and Finland. Hollmén Reuter Sandman have mainly worked on the African continent, trying to make life better for poor and underpriviliged communities, and especially women subject to oppression. They have truley done some amazing work, making amazing spaces for poor people with local material and workforces.

Apart from the Finnish contribution it was inspiring to hear the Norwegian and Danish contributions - young architects who has taken a long route via self-initiated projects, and that, in some cases, at first was disregarded by authorities just to be handed a design price for the same work just a few years later.

It was also interesting to see the Swedish contribution and how they show profound awareness of vernacular and how that can translate into contemporary interpretations. At the same time I’m a bit sceptic about Swedish architecture at large, as I find it too generic, too ‘trying-to-please-all’, although I appreciate the moderation, and almost minimalistic features that is often present.

I do believe this feature is part of our legacy and a consequence of living in sometimes quite harsh conditions. It all comes down to the society at large (this goes for Finland and Norway too); it is tidy, organised and structured because you did not used to be able to survive the long winter without these proficiencies. Basically keep it simple, keep it organised, be efficient in your work.

The Woodland Cemetery, Stockholm UNESCO World Heritage burial site since 1994; chapels & crematories.

“The Woodland Cemetery is a cemetery located in the Enskededalen district south of central Stockholm, Sweden.

Its design, by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, reflects the development of architecture from Nordic Classicism to mature functionalism.” http://skogskyrkogarden.stockholm.se/in-english/architecture/.

I have been to the cemetery many times in my life and my grandfather is buried here. It is a truly peaceful place to visit, in a beautiful setting.

On Halloween the cemetery is being lit up by thousands of lanterns. The pines in the Woodland Cemetery creates a elevated roof, while the trunks gives the impression of being the columns. During Halloween the cemetery feels like a Grand Hall.

After the passage that is the entrance to the cemetery from the north, a wide landscape expands straight ahead and to the right (west). On the left-hand side the original buildings are located, along with graves and a wandering wall-scape.

This eventually lead up to the abstract portico of the crematorium and the chapels of the Holy Cross, Faith, and Hope.

“Essential models for the design of the cemetery were the German forest cemeteries of Friedhof Ohlsdorf at Hamburg and Waldfriedhof in Munich but also the neoclassical paintings of Caspar David Friedrich.”

The Elm Hill presents nice views of the first parts of the cemetery, its landscape, the crematorium along with the semi-attached pastoral landscape and the large pond, and the entrance to the premises.

In the centre of the portio that in front of the original crematorium, a ressurection sculpure is placed under bare sky.

A large granit cross is placed in the landscape, that makes it feel detached from the buildingscape to the east; ‘The giant dark granite cross at the focus of the vista from the main entrance has also been described has having been based on a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, titled “Cross on the Baltic Sea” (1815), signifying hope in an abandoned world; yet Asplund and Lewerentz insisted that the cross was open to non-Christian interpretations, even quoting Friedrich: “To those who see it as such, a consolation, to those who do not, simply a cross.”

Some famous people are buried here, such as Greta Garbo, but the cemetery is not known, nor visited by tourists in the hunt for seeing famous peoples graves. It is also so very large that even duing busy hours it feels holistic and still.

In an architectural competition for a new crematorium Johan Celsing, won with his proposal; the brick building was called “A Stone in the Forest” and it is well suited to the forest landscape. The facility opened in May 2014 and was awarded Sweden’s most prestigious architectural prize: the Kasper Salin Prize.

“The new crematorium is located in an undulating terrain in a wild wood section of the Woodland Cemetery.

Surrounding the building is an area of massive, century old, pines. The building is a compact brick structure about 150 meters away from the major chapel complex by Eric Gunnar Asplund of 1940.”

After the field trip to Kiruna, I got to act guide to a few of my peers, who decided to stay a few extra days in Stockholm. We visited the Cemetary

https://www.archdaily.com/547748/ the-new-crematorium-the-woodland-cemetery-johan-celsing-arkitektkontor

Here Ash takes a photo of Rosa at the new crematorium

‘The northernmost city in Sweden, Kiruna, was back in the news this week with reports that it would be moving — yes, moving — about two miles east.’

Jonah Bromwich, May 20, 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/world/europe/kiruna-sweden-move-arctic-circle.html ‘And, for once, an unusual story from the Arctic Circle had nothing to do with climate change.’

‘Kiruna’s plan to move has been in the works for a few years now. The city, comfortably within the borders of the Arctic Circle and home to a little more than 18,000 people, is built on a hill above a vast iron ore mine. Founded in 1900 and midwifed by a state-owned mining company, Kiruna has been an industry town for over a century.’

‘Now that industry is simultaneously endangering the city and paying for its relocation. As the mine on Kiruna’s western border has expanded deeper into the ground, ore is being removed from beneath the city’s foundations — literally undermining the ground it sits on.’

‘If the move does not take place, much of the city would collapse into the earth over the next century as the ground subsides, part of a process called ground deformation. Luckily, the mining company, Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (usually abbreviated as LKAB), has dedicated over a billion dollars to relocate Kiruna’s residents.’

‘In a situation reminiscent of Kiruna’s, Hibbing moved to make way for a mining company that was hoping to unearth the iron ore believed to be underneath it. Hibbing was founded within 10 years of Kiruna.’

‘Other cities — including Hill Village, N.H., and Tallangatta, Australia — have been moved to avoid flooding caused by the construction of new dams. A suburb of Louisville relocated after residents were tormented by noise from a nearby airport and, of course, towns around the world are considering moving in response to climate change.’

‘Because the project will continue for much of the next century, it’s difficult to predict total costs. But, Ms. Lindblad, the LKAB spokeswoman, said the company had dedicated about 12 billion kronor to the project, or well over $1 billion.’

‘Sweden’s most northerly town is being relocated to avoid being swallowed up by the world’s largest ironore mine’ Oliver Wainwright, Wednesday 22 Oct 2014 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2014/oct/22/kiruna-sweden-town-movedeast-iron-ore-mine “Either the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move – or else face certain destruction. It’s an existential predicament”, says Krister Lindstedt of White architects.

“We are symbiotic: the town is here because of the mine,” says deputy mayor Niklas Siren. “Otherwise no devil would have built a city here.”

‘Located 145km inside the Arctic circle, Kiruna is subject to a brutal climate, enduring winters with no sunlight and average temperatures below -15C. But the deep deposit of magnetite has proved a strong enough magnet to keep people here. Driven by the insatiable global appetite for construction, the mine has become the world’s largest iron ore extraction site, producing 90% of all the iron in Europe, enough to build more than six Eiffel Towers a day. And demand continues to rise.’

‘20 key buildings have been identified to be dismantled and resurrected piece by piece in their new home – like an Ikea flatpack on a grand scale.’

“People are used to very low rents and very high incomes, but in future this will have to change.” LK has agreed to compensate residents to the value of their homes plus 25%, but many locals say this is not enough to afford a new-build house at market rates.’

‘They have also proposed a “Kiruna Portal”, a kind of mass salvage yard, where materials from the doomed homes can be brought and hopefully recycled in the construction of the new buildings – although given that Sweden has no tradition of self-build, it’s hard to see this taking off.’

‘A closer look at the plan shows the new town bears little relation to the original Kiruna at all. The current town is a sprawling suburban network of winding streets, home to detached houses with gardens.

White’s plan incorporates a much higher-density arrangement of multistorey apartment blocks around shared courtyards, lining straight axial boulevards, down which the icy winds will surge.’

‘It is an opportunity, say the architects, for Kiruna to “reinvent itself” into a model of sustainable development, attracting young people who wouldn’t have stayed in the town before, with new cultural facilities and “visionary” things such as a cable car bobbing above the high street. But it is a vision that many of the existing residents seem unlikely to be able to afford.’

‘The citizens of Kiruna, Sweden, always knew they’d have to move to accommodate the local iron-ore mine. They just didn’t expect it to happen so soon, or so all at once.’

Josh Dean, September 5, 2017 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-05/ the-audacious-complicated-plan-to-move-a-swedish-miningtown ‘Kiruna sits on top of Kirunavaara, the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine and the source of a rare, high-quality magnetite processed into blueberry-size pellets and used in BMWs and iPhones.

The mine is the reason Kiruna exists, employing 12 percent of its 18,000 residents, including, at various times, Stralberg’s grandfather, father, and six uncles.’

‘Kiruna’s magnetite seam is “shaped like a piece of toast,” says Fredrik Bjorkenwall, spokesman for LKAB, a state-owned mining company founded in 1890 to harvest the rich iron deposits of Swedish Lapland. At nearly 2,000 feet wide, it’s the largest known iron-ore body in the world, descending at least 6,500 feet on a slant that begins outside the town and angles underneath. It may actually continue far deeper than that—perhaps up to a mile more, Bjorkenwall says. To find out, he’d have to keep digging.’

‘When LKAB started the mine in the late 19th century, it was an open pit. Eventually, ore near the surface was exhausted, and the company shifted to underground mining. The longer it continues, the further down the miners must go. Every time LKAB cuts deeper, another section of Kiruna becomes unstable. Stralberg isn’t the last who’ll have to move.’

‘For years the “deformation,” as it’s known, affected only LKAB territory. Vast tracts of the old mining camps are already gone. Kiruna’s Luossajarvi lake would be gone by now, too, if the company hadn’t built a dam and reduced its size many years ago to make room for the mine’s sprawling headquarters. From now on, though, when the mine grows, more of civilian Kiruna must vacate, or sink. A few blocks from downtown, the beautiful historic train station, which disgorged thousands of tourists a week during peak hiking season, has shut. It waits to be razed.’

‘Every resident of Kiruna has been aware of the possibility that he or she might, at some point, have to move to accommodate the mine’s gradual expansion. But in 2004, LKAB told the municipal government that to reach the next level of the ore body, the mine would need to be dug a couple thousand feet deeper, rendering an enormous section of the town unstable, including the city center.

Thus began an audacious, complicated, still very much in-progress attempt to move the heart of Kiruna, including 5,000 homes and a quarter-mile square of residential and commercial space, about 2 miles southeast. Most structures will be bulldozed and rebuilt, but in some cases—with the most historically significant homes, for instance, or the town’s famous wooden church, once voted Sweden’s most beautiful building—they’ll be taken apart and reassembled or trucked, whole, to Kiruna 2.0.’

‘Stralberg has had to move because of the mine every so often throughout his life, including three times in his childhood. Having to relocate his shop, though, came as more of a shock. It had been the company store into the 1970s and was the only business in a residential area right on the edge of the deformation zone. As such, LKAB was also his landlord, and in 2011, the company wrote to tell him he had two years to leave. By then, the town was holding open meetings about the future relocation, so Stralberg stood up and faced the LKAB representative. “I’m the first store in history that has to move,” he said. Where should he go? What if he was alone in an area with no traffic? “I’ll be the only store. Who’s gonna come to me and buy something?”

‘They searched for more than a year. Kiruna has boomed over the past decade, thanks to the mine and adventure tourists seeking a gateway to Lapland’s national parks and ski slopes. There’s little commercial or residential space available, and growth is constrained by the peculiar laws of Lapland, which protect reindeer herding routes for the indigenous Sami people. Finally, Stralberg found a large space in a speculative new commercial park. His shop is now topped with the world’s largest dogsled, at roughly 43 feet long and 375 pounds, so as to be visible from the nearby E10 highway—at least until that road, too, is moved, routed around the area where the new Kiruna is finally beginning to rise.’

“I know we have to move the town,” he says. “We need the mine.

Without the mine, there is no Kiruna.”

‘Because of the menace of climate change and rising sea levels, the world is watching Kiruna closely.’ ...’A study published this year in the scientific journal Nature stated that, according to some projections, most of Miami could be underwater in the next century, turning 2.5 million residents into refugees. An average of 21.5 million people are displaced by weather-related events each year, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.’

‘White’s blueprint, titled “Kiruna 4-ever,” was more than a simple move from point A to point B. It was a reimagination of what the city could be, taking advantage of the opportunity to correct the mistakes of organic municipal growth. The new city would be more walkable, with better transportation and greater urban density. It would also have a more direct connection to the vast, unspoiled nature of Lapland, which attracts the tourists driving Kiruna’s second-largest industry.’

‘Last year, LKAB bought out all the real estate in the center of Kiruna to smooth the process of closing the old town. While a few people took the opportunity to retire, leaving vacant stores, most took the money and stayed. Now they await some official decision on when to relocate. That date was once 2020 but could now be as late as 2023—it will be a while before they know for sure. The uncertainty is hard on shops, says Johanna Ringholt, who with her father co-owns Centrum House, an 84-year-old clothing store in the current city center.’

‘To avoid falling into the mine it grew up around, Sweden’s northernmost city is knocking down 3,000 homes, schools and a hospital, and starting a redesigned centre a safe distance away. How do citizens feel about the transformation?’

Francesca Perry, Thursday 30 Jul 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/30/kiruna-thearctic-city-being-knocked-down-and-relocated-two-milesaway

‘A remote arctic settlement, with a centre dominated by a car park, Kiruna feels like the sort of city that might be forgotten about.’

‘This is Sweden’s northernmost city, situated 90 miles into the Arctic Circle and a 75-mile drive away from the nearest town, Gällivare.

Home to about 23,000 people and 11,000 snowmobiles, Kiruna has gained an unlikely fame over the past year, as the world hears of its plans.’

‘Kiruna’s current location hinges on the reason for its very existence, as well as its potential demise: this particular patch of Lapland – usually bright-white snow and reindeer – is, in fact, home to one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. After the Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) mining company was established in 1890 and a railway to the area built, the city was founded in 1900. Kiruna grew quickly, and so did the mine.’

school, college, hospital, public swimming pool and a cultural centre with a library are also planned. Designed by White architects following a competition, this first phase of the new city centre (which the firm calls “Kiruna 4-ever”) should be ready by 2019.’

‘Kiruna is shrouded in darkness and snow for much of the year. My visit falls in summer, but there is a bizarre atmosphere in a snow town without its snow. Look for a bustling centre of the city, a public space where people come together, and you will be left searching.

The town hall sits on a motorway. A hotel overlooks a large car park dotted with vehicles. A parade of shops – seemingly unchanged in the last 20 years – leads you to yet another car park without bumping into a single person. Considering this, it is no wonder that the plans take on a completely new design. “We want to build something that’s more special than what we have today: a more attractive town,” says Peter. “Today the town centre is a parking lot.

It won’t be like that in the new city.”

“One person refused to sell their house and is going to court,” Eva says. “But most citizens are very positive.”

‘But now the extent of the mining is threatening the city itself. The expansion of LKAB’s mining activity is leading to ground subsidence that is causing buildings to crack and collapse – and it will only get worse.’

“I’m concerned that the iron ore prices are going down, which implies LKAB are running out of money. I’m worried that they will destroy the buildings in the city and not have enough money to rebuild them”, says Mikael, a local teacher.’

‘In a highly unusual case of urbanism, the whole town centre and its surrounding neighbourhoods are to be demolished – and rebuilt at LKAB’s expense two miles away, leaving behind some unaffected areas which will now become the western edge of the new city.’

“A couple of years ago we ran a project to ask citizens what they liked about the city today and what they want in the new city,” Eva says. What the respondents wanted, apparently, was a new central square with shops and meeting places and a cultural centre. “Citizens felt they don’t really have that today. Right now it’s spread out.”

‘It’s not the first time that Kiruna has had to demolish buildings for the mining to increase. “But never on this scale and never the city centre,” Peter Niemi, Kiruna’s municipal chief executive, tells me at the event. If the mining is set to continue, I wonder, is a move of only two miles enough to keep the town safe? “As far as we know,” Eva Ekelund, head of the department of land and development, replies, “but iron is under the new town centre, too.” So could the city move again in another 100 years? “It will be too expensive for LKAB to move the city again,” Peter says simply.’

‘Kiruna is not the only place LKAB is having to spend money in order to move neighbourhoods away from a mine. Roughly three miles away from Gällivare, Kiruna’s closest neighbour, is Malmberget.

LKAB has another major iron ore mine there, and its impact on the environment is forcing a similar process of relocation. Buildings have been moved in a piecemeal way for 50 years as a result of a huge hole opening up in the centre of the town. But the plan is for Malmberget to be relocated “almost completely” to neighbouring Gällivare, explains Anders Lundgren, development manager for LKAB. Unlike Kiruna, which just has to move down the road, Malmberget and its community will be assimilated into another town entirely.’

‘The first stage of Kiruna’s move will be the building of the new central area: a town hall named “the Crystal”, with 10 surrounding blocks of shops, homes, offices, hotels and public space. A high

“There might be some concerns, but the mine has to keep operating, so the city needs to move” Annette, a local resident, says brightly. This, it seems, is the general mood of the town’s residents.

The mine defines, dominates and sustains the city: what the mine wants, the mine gets. The continuance of its operations is vital both to the local economy as well as community.’

“Most know that the town relies on the mine, so if the mine needs the town to move, then that’s just what will need to happen,” says Kostas, who works in Kiruna’s tourist office. “Other people have concerns, but they’re not trying to stop it.” Those working in Kiruna’s local tourism industry, Kostas explains, are largely pleased about the move as it gives the city an opportunity to shape a new identity that isn’t solely based on the mine.

Andrea Lo, Eoghan Macguire, CNN, September 5, 2017 https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/sweden-kiruna-relocation/index.html ‘Kiruna, a town in northern Sweden, is on the move. Located in Lapland, within the Arctic Circle, the town and many of its 18,000 residents are being relocated to New Kiruna, two miles (3.2 kilometers) to the east over the next 20 years.’

‘The incremental nature of the move, with its buildings and people gradually crawling east, has led to Kiruna being dubbed the “millipede town.”

‘One option was to simply close the 120-year-old mine, but the 4,000 townspeople who work there would lose their jobs. Instead, LKAB reached an agreement with the municipality to relocate the 6,000 people who, according to its projections, live in areas that will be affected by cracks in the next two decades.’

‘LKAB will purchase their properties in old Kiruna, and residents can then choose between buying a home in the new town or upping sticks for pastures new. About 95% of those given the option have chosen to stay. Those who do fly the nest often cite personal reasons, such as the elderly couple who wanted to move closer to their grown-up children in southern Sweden.’

‘The remaining 12,000 residents of Kiruna get to stay put -- for the time being, says Josefine Ejemalm, LKAB’s communications officer.

But if mining continues after 2035, then “other parts of the town will most likely be affected” by further cracks, says Goran Cars, head of development at the Kiruna municipality.

Does that mean that one day the problems will spread further afield, and New Kiruna might have to be relocated? Cars thinks not.’

“If we continue mining for 100 more years,” he says, “we would be so deep in the ground that the cracks won’t affect the surface.”

‘Preparations for the $1 billion dollar move, paid for by LKAB, began in 2014. Today, about 300 housing units have been constructed in New Kiruna and nearly 400 residents have moved in. Those living nearest to areas most at risk were relocated first.

“Let’s say that your house ... will be affected in 2019, that means we will come to you well in advance and say: ‘In 2019, we know that the cracks are coming,’” Cars explains. “We will say: ‘To be on the safe side, we would like you to move in 2018.’

“We always want to have a safety buffer of at least a year.”

‘That staggered approach eases the financial pressure on LKAB. “The mining company, of course, doesn’t want to pay money in advance for something that won’t happen until 10, 20 years from now,” Cars adds.’

“And if you live in a house, and that house would remain (safe) for the next 15 years, you don’t want to move now -- you want to stay in your house.”

‘In the latter stages, however, residents in affected areas will be moved in bulk to prevent anyone feeling “left behind.”

“As some areas vacate it will become a bit depressing,” Cars concedes. “No one has to live in an area that is obviously about to be abandoned and demolished.”

“We move all important stuff -- in terms of commercial services, public services -- to the new city center,” Cars explains. “And then we will provide very good public transport connecting the old town with the new town.”

‘Länsmansbostaden, a historic property built in 1906 as a residence for the town’s first official policeman, is the most recent building to move. It was moved whole to the center of New Kiruna.’

‘Others to have changed address this year include Kiruna’s police station; a clock tower that was previously attached to the old town hall, and is now a centerpiece in the new town square; the local church, voted the most beautiful building in Sweden in 2001; and Hjalmar Lundbohmsgården -- home to LKAB’s first manager Hjalmar Lundbohm, who lived there in the early 20th century.’

‘The cost of each move has not been disclosed, but Cars says it is “approximately the same cost as the construction of a similar building.”

‘Architecture firm White Arkitekter AB has been tasked with designing the new Kiruna. Co-lead architect Krister Lindstedt has envisioned a modern, people-friendly development that embellishes the spectacular landscape of the region.’

“There will be more social meeting places, more cafes and more scope for cultural activities than are currently available,” he says.’

‘The old town does not have a proper center, and very few areas for gathering or hosting events. It also has a problem retaining its female residents, many of whom move elsewhere for work. It is hoped that New Kiruna’s design will solve all these problems.’

‘Yet officials have realized the importance of retaining the familiar, too. A “Kiruna Portal” has allowed people to identify items they would like to see moved to the new town, ranging from a clock tower to a particular street name.’

‘The construction of New Kiruna doesn’t mean that the old town will turn into an eerie, abandoned space. “We don’t want a ghost town,” says Cars.’

‘Despite the effort involved in establishing New Kiruna, officials acknowledge that the mine might not keep the town economically afloat forever, as modern technology gradually replaces human miners.’

“The number of employees today is half of what is used to be in the 1970s,” says Cars. “The real challenge is trying to develop other sectors of the economy. Right now, we are making huge efforts to improve the tourism industry.”

Article in Östersunds-Posten (ÖP) translated by me

‘The whole of Sweden cant live - we cannot afford all the subsidy-eating areas in need of support.’

Katarina Östholm 15 October 2016

a self-destructive and elitist trickle-up economy.

because of its unique supply - here you can choose time instead of money, silence instead of noise, space instead of congestion, clean air in instead of filtered exhaust gas, a higher degree of self-sufficiency instead of commercial drainage.

Katarina Ostholm is fiercely advocating investment in rural areas to revive these areas in the name of community and sustainability. Kiruna has a history of young people, mostly women, moving to more urban areas and cities. This should be addressed in my design proposal.

“A crucial political question is which municipal and state service everyone in the future should have the right to claim, no matter where you live... It is obvious that not all of Sweden can live - we can no longer afford subsidiary support areas that suck all the power from the rest of the country.”

It takes a lot to acknowlede.

But the bill is just getting longer and longer - every year, billions of swedish Krona are paid to maintain the destructive urban lifestyle in resource and energy-saving metropolitan areas, these giant camps of country side refugees that require daily deliveries of hundreds of thousands of tons of food and other supplies.

As if that’s not enough. Politics continues to inflict joint taxation on an unsustainable, increasingly exclusive urban infrastructure - 12 billion SEK to a traffic project in Stockholm, 230 billion SEK to high-speed rail between Stockholm and Gothenburg, nine new cities with a price tag that is probably cosmic.

In addition: Malmö is at a loss. The forecast for Gothenburg is that the deficit will rise to several billion SEK. The Fernissan in the well-polished capital cracks open and reveals a not very nice interior. Even old city scouts like Richard Florida turns around and talk about the new urban crisis.

Urban structures have been transformed into subsidized drainage holes that absorb power from across the country, while the social and economic gaps in cities deepen and reveal

The cities are slowly impending, a result of life itself being turned into a capital position, a socioeconomic trap that strikes the jaws around all those people who once sought happiness, but now dream of their own green hill, a little time and silence, a bit less work, and easier logistics in everyday life.

A weekday where you do not have to open your wallet as soon as you step outside the door. Weekdays that does not turn man into a profit machine, who are meant to work as much as possible to create as much capital as possible.

For what? The right to be burned out?

The right to be put in a queing system for a decade, to get a flat. Or to pay several million SEK for a rubbish concrete one-bed flat? The right to own lots of expensive pointless junk? The right to be in serious debt?

Yes, Sweden is too big. The country is so rich and has so much space that everyone should have the opportunity to live, work and live wherever they want. We simply have to reinvest in our resourceful rural areas that create so many values, we can no longer afford to keep the urban middle class under the arms with all these contributions.

It’s time to start listening to everyone who is advocating for another Sweden.

It is time to look at municipalities like Sollefteå, which was the first municipality in the country to invest in a cooperative farm, who is about to build the modern and resilient broadband city villages, who have bought back their own hydropower plant.

A calmer, freeer, more independent life attracts. Not only because a sprawling rural country side is the foundation of the only sustainable society, but also

Wealth when it’s greatest.

In the countryside you can find wonderful farms for half a million SEK or nice cottages for a few hundred thousand SEK. Go figure.

A real investment in rural areas would be to hear the exploding interest in small-scale cultivation and self-sufficiency. Launch the farm schools again - education where you learn to manage a farm from scratch with your own hands. Cultivation and planting, animal husbandry, slaughter and cutting, preservation and salting, baking from ax to loaf.

Life skills at its best.

Educations that would be completed faster than Sven-Erik Bucht can say “oh well” and soon would be the basis for growing local economies in yesterday’s dying villages. Support the change that comes from below - what begins with a spruce seed ends with a forest.

The food is more important than the first one can believe. Almost all of the sustainability challenges can be boiled down to restore living local communities and local food production.

Power over food is power over man. Mc Donalds, Monsanto and Nestlé knows that.

‘As automation and digitisation undermine employment and increase inequality, established political systems will need to adapt – fast’ Jeff Sparrow, 11 January 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/ jan/11/can-democracy-survive-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-should-it “Democracy is on its way,” concluded Dick Morris in 2001, in an article entitled “Direct democracy and the internet”. Five years earlier, John Perry Barlow, the founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation, published a “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”. It began with suitably grandiloquent flourish: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us.

You have no sovereignty where we gather.”

‘The early years of the online revolution inspired considerable overt utopianism.’

‘Today Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, says we’re at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. He explains: “The first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production. The second used electric power to create mass production. The third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a fourth industrial revolution is building on the third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.” ...’in his recent book Against Democracy, the libertarian economist Jason Brennan rejects the basic assumption underlying any democratic system: the legitimacy of the electorate.

On the contrary, he suggests many – perhaps most – voters don’t possess the competence necessary for sensible decision making. “A large percentage of people have no clue what’s going on at all,” he says, “and for them, their votes are almost random.” In place of universal suffrage, Brennan argues for something he calls “epistocracy” – a system in which only the well-informed may vote. Brennan’s position might be extreme. But throughout 2016, versions of that argument were voiced with increasing regularity.’

‘In Foreign Policy, James Traub, the magazine’s contributing editor, published an article entitled It’s time for the elites to rise up against the ignorant masses; prolific blogger Andrew Sullivan explained that “elites” were “the critical ingredient to save democracy from itself”. In Australia, billionaire retailer Gerry Harvey threw niceties aside and flatly called for a dic-

tator: someone who would not have “to bother with parliament and elections”.

‘Trump’s unexpected victory in November only intensified the sentiment, with many pundits declaring the system fundamentally broken.’

‘But it’s not just that the digital revolution hasn’t rejuvenated democracy (in the way that Morris predicted). It’s also that the critiques of the system often identify as particularly broken precisely those aspects of democratic practice that the internet was supposed to foster.’

‘In fact, almost everywhere in 2016, polls registered an upsurge in nationalism, xenophobia and overt racism, as well as a growing hostility to global institutions and supranational blocs such as the European Union.’

‘Peter Lewis argues that “the fundamentals of capitalism (the rules of market power, patents, contracts, bankruptcy and monopolies) have been rewritten over the past 30 years for the benefit of the very, very rich.”

‘Crucially, Lewis links that process to the decline of collective organisation. He provides statistics showing declining density in a wide range of bodies: trade unions, political parties, sports clubs, religious congregations, parents’ groups and so on.’

‘Lewis, however, spells out the consequences for the traditional model of public life: “Half of all respondents say they don’t have the time to spare outside home and work duties.

More than one third say irregular hours mean they can’t commit to organisations. These inhibiters – reduced job security and longer workers’ hours – are part of the vicious cycle of the reduced power of working people to actively pursue their interests.”

‘Meanwhile, we’ve seen a significant transfer of wealth and power to those at the top of society.’ ...‘the internet facilitates instantaneous worldwide communication and provides almost universal access to a vast compendium of human knowledge. As Morris says, it provides a technical solution to all the traditional difficulties of democracy, allowing ordinary people the means and information to express their preferences with an ease unimaginable to earlier generations.’

‘But democracy isn’t simply a matter of choice. It’s also a matter of power – and, at the moment, voters have very little of that.’

‘If most adults get their news from Facebook we need laws to make the social networks accountable’

‘Tempting as it is to legislate against manipulated ‘facts’, it both misguided and dangerous’

Andrew Smith, Friday 25 Nov 2016

Kenan Malik, Sunday 11 Feb 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/ pedlars-fake-news-corroding-democracy-social-networks

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/11/ fake-news-long-history-beware-state-involvement

‘The most interesting question about 2016 is not why the Brexit result and Trump happened, but whether historians will regard both as incidental; whether this will go down as the year democracy revealed itself unworkable in the age of the internet – in which reality, already engaged in a life-or-death struggle with inverted commas, finally gave way to “alt-reality”.’

‘Before Facebook, there was the coffee house. In the 17th-century, panic gripped British royal circles that these newly established drinking salons had become forums for political dissent.’

‘The rules of capitalism have been gamed by the ruling kleptocracy and a lot of working people are angry.’

‘In the past week, however, the collective postmortem – on the left and right of politics – has focused on a concern with far greater long-term impact: the accidental or deliberate propagation of misinformation via social media. If democracy is predicated on reliable information, it’s in serious trouble right now.’

‘Nazi Germany shows that this is not new, but the internet-driven efficiency with which it can be manipulated is.’

‘Back in July, post-Brexit vote, this paper’s editor, Katharine Viner, detailed the ways in which net organisations such as Facebook and Google have undermined traditional journalism.’ ‘in fact, false, sensationalist stories that bolster existing prejudices are more likely to draw clicks than sober analyses that challenge assumption.’ ...’a recent study by the Pew Research Centre found a majority of American adults using Facebook as a source of news (which means Britain is sure to follow).’ ...’it would be easy for us to decide as a society and legislate accordingly that Facebook et al should be treated as media organisations, and held accountable for the information from which they profit.’

‘Last week, the House of Commons digital culture, media and sport committee flew to Washington DC to grill representatives of big tech companies, including Facebook, Twitter and Google. The title of their session echoed Charles II: “How can social media platforms help stop the spread of fake news?”

‘Lies masquerading as news are as old as news itself. What is new today is not fake news but the purveyors of such news.

In the past, only governments and powerful figures could manipulate public opinion. Today, it’s anyone with internet access. Just as elite institutions have lost their grip over the electorate, so their ability to act as gatekeepers to news, defining what is and is not true, has also been eroded.’ ...’we should be wary of many of the solutions to fake news proposed by European politicians. Such solutions do little to challenge the culture of fragmented truths. They seek, rather, to restore more acceptable gatekeepers – for Facebook or governments to define what is and isn’t true.’

‘Do we really want to rid ourselves of today’s fake news by returning to the days when the only fake news was official fake news?’

‘Seventeenth-century coffee-house owners were forced eventually to accept that only “loyal men” should be licensed to run coffee houses and to promise to inform the king of anything “they know or hear said prejudicial to the government”. We should be careful what we wish for.’

‘Volume of data suggests trusted partnership with Aleksandr Kogan, says analyst’ Julia Carrie Wong and Paul Lewis, Thursday 22 Mar 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/22/facebook-gave-data-about-57bn-friendships-to-academic-aleksandr-kogan?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting “scam” at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships.’

‘Facebook downplayed the significance of the dataset, which it said was shared with Kogan in 2013. “The data that was shared was literally numbers – numbers of how many friendships were made between pairs of countries – ie x number of friendships made between the US and UK,” Facebook spokeswoman Christine Chen said by email. “There was no personally identifiable information included in this data.”

“We started to take steps to end the relationship right after the Guardian report, and after investigation we ended the relationship soon after, in 2016,” Chen said.’

‘But Facebook has not explained how it came to have such a close relationship with Kogan that it was co-authoring research papers with him, nor why it took until this week – more than two years after the Guardian initially reported on Kogan’s data harvesting activities – for it to inform the users whose personal information was improperly shared.’

‘The data collection that resulted in Kogan’s suspension by Facebook was undertaken by Global Science Research (GSR), a company he founded in May 2014 with another Cambridge researcher, Joseph Chancellor. Chancellor is currently employed by Facebook.’

‘After he founded GSR, Kogan wrote, he transferred the app to the company and changed its name, logo, description, and terms and conditions. CNN first reported on the Cambridge email. Kogan did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on this article.’

“We made clear the app was for commercial use – we never mentioned academic research nor the University of Cambridge,” Kogan wrote. “We clearly stated that the users were granting us the right to use the data in broad scope, including selling and licensing the data. These changes were all made on the Facebook app platform and thus they had full ability to review the nature of the app and raise issues.

Facebook at no point raised any concerns at all about any of these changes.”

‘The collaboration between Kogan and Facebook researchers which resulted in the report published in 2015 also used data harvested by a Facebook app. The study analysed two datasets, the anonymous macro-level national set of 57bn friend pairs provided by Facebook and a smaller dataset collected by the Cambridge academics.’

‘The paper was published in late August 2015. In September 2015, Chancellor left GSR, according to company records. In November 2015, Chancellor was hired to work at Facebook as a user experience researcher.’

‘Neither Facebook nor Chancellor has responded to numerous queries about his knowledge of Kogan’s and GSR’s activities.’

Wired Staff Gear, 25 April 2008

Ian Burrell, Saturday 27 July 2013

https://www.wired.com/2008/04/swedish-city-ge/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/spaceport-sweden-lapland-centre-to-rival-virgin-galactics-commercial-space-programme-8730957.html

‘Next time your travel plans take you to Northern Sweden, you should try swinging by Kiruna, the future European base for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic passenger space program. Officials there are busy whipping the town into shape for Virgin’s arrival – evaluating their infrastructure, researching weather issues, and working out potential regulatory hurdles with Sweden and the European Union. Kiruna will join Spaceport America in New Mexico as a Virgin Galactic operating base, and hopes to see flights begin in 2010 or 2011.’

‘Why did Virgin choose Kiruna, a town of 18,000 located 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle? For one thing, Kiruna has a well-oiled marketing machine. Spaceport Sweden, a consortium of organizations that includes the Esrange Space Center, the ICEHOTEL, and the local airport, is a sort of tourism board charged with making Kiruna the European hub for commercial spaceflight.’

‘One of the town’s major selling points is its stunning views of the Aurora Borealis, which could be viewed up close by passengers on board a spacecraft such as Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.’ ‘But Spacesport Sweden officials say Virgin Galactic is just one part of the town’s appeal, and are marketing Kiruna as a full-service space-themed vacation destination. The discriminating visitor can tour Kiruna’s space center, enjoy dog sled rides and helicopter tours of Sweden’s highest mountain, and book a room at the hip ICEHOTEL, which is built out of snow and ice.’

‘To lure Virgin to Kiruna, last year the Swedish government signed a deal agreeing to do the regulatory legwork that would allow the company to operate passenger flights there.

And because the local space center already launches three to five rockets a year, much of the necessary infrastructure is already in place.’

‘So far, more than 250 people from 30 different countries have made firm reservations to catch a ride with Virgin Galactic, and 80 have already begun training. The company has banked $30 million in deposits, and says that another 85,000 people have expressed interest. Have 200 grand to spare? The company is taking reservations now.’

‘The Virgin voyage will take off from New Mexico in 2014, but future space tourists will also have the option of jetting off from a little-known place in Lapland. Visiting Kiruna, there is definitely something of the final frontier about this Swedish city, situated as it is at 67 degrees latitude, north of the Arctic Circle. For more than 100 years, this Lapland community has been associated with going down rather than up. The terraces of the vast Kiirunavaara mine dominate Kiruna like a medieval fortress. Its shafts descend 1,365 metres, making it the biggest underground iron ore mine in the world. This subterranean treasure chest is so destabilising the urban foundations that the whole city centre will have to be knocked down and relocated.’

‘Despite all this, Kiruna is positioning itself as the city for space travel. When future waves of British astronauts lift off from Earth, they might do so not from the United States desert but from the land of the reindeer. “Our vision is to become Europe’s foremost gateway to space,” says Karin Nilsdotter, CEO of Spaceport Sweden.’

‘The aim to become Europe’s premier space hub is based on nearly 60 years of scientific expertise, much of it derived from studying the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. Kiruna’s isolated location is its great strength. The proximity to the Northern Lights inspired a Geophysical Observatory in 1957, a facility that has grown into a full-blown ‘space campus’ under the auspices of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics.

The limited air traffic in Lapland, combined with the sparse population, makes it an ideal launchpad – the Swedish Space Corporation’s Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in 1964 and has launched more than 400 rockets and 500 high-altitude balloons.’

‘Spaceport Sweden already partners with the Institute to offer flights above the clouds to give close-up views of the Northern Lights in the company of scientific experts. It has built a relationship with Virgin Galactic and the cheaper but less advanced XCOR Lynx project. Nilsdotter believes Kiruna will be hosting commercial space travel within three to five years.’

‘In the meantime, she is determined to build a wider space tourism industry in the town that will offer a breadth of experiences to please everyone from Star Trek enthusiasts to dedicated amateur astronomers and professional scientists.’

‘The Virgin voyage will take off from New Mexico in 2014, but future space tourists will also have the option of jetting off

‘As celebrities count down to Virgin’s first commercial galactic flight next year, Ian Burrell visits a rival space station in Lapland’ from a little-known place in Lapland. Visiting Kiruna, there is definitely something of the final frontier about this Swedish city, situated as it is at 67 degrees latitude, north of the Arctic Circle. For more than 100 years, this Lapland community has been associated with going down rather than up. The terraces of the vast Kiirunavaara mine dominate Kiruna like a medieval fortress. Its shafts descend 1,365 metres, making it the biggest underground iron ore mine in the world. This subterranean treasure chest is so destabilising the urban foundations that the whole city centre will have to be knocked down and relocated.’

‘Despite all this, Kiruna is positioning itself as the city for space travel. When future waves of British astronauts lift off from Earth, they might do so not from the United States desert but from the land of the reindeer. “Our vision is to become Europe’s foremost gateway to space,” says Karin Nilsdotter, CEO of Spaceport Sweden.’

‘The aim to become Europe’s premier space hub is based on nearly 60 years of scientific expertise, much of it derived from studying the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. Kiruna’s isolated location is its great strength. The proximity to the Northern Lights inspired a Geophysical Observatory in 1957, a facility that has grown into a full-blown ‘space campus’ under the auspices of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics.

The limited air traffic in Lapland, combined with the sparse population, makes it an ideal launchpad – the Swedish Space Corporation’s Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in 1964 and has launched more than 400 rockets and 500 high-altitude balloons.’

‘Spaceport Sweden already partners with the Institute to offer flights above the clouds to give close-up views of the Northern Lights in the company of scientific experts. It has built a relationship with Virgin Galactic and the cheaper but less advanced XCOR Lynx project. Nilsdotter believes Kiruna will be hosting commercial space travel within three to five years.’

‘In the meantime, she is determined to build a wider space tourism industry in the town that will offer a breadth of experiences to please everyone from Star Trek enthusiasts to dedicated amateur astronomers and professional scientists.’

‘The first stage of the plan is to create the Kiruna Science Center at the city’s airport, including spaceflight preparation programmes for would-be astronauts. Spaceport is hoping to be able to provide parabolic flights that simulate weightlessness (the French space agency CNES this year opened such a facility in Bordeaux). A centrifuge which creates the effect of the g-force felt by space astronauts has been built by British firm QinetiQ at Linkoping. Deep and pitch-black caves at Bjorkliden are to be used to further physically test those

planning a trip to space by forcing them to find their way in the cold and dark.’

‘On the roof of the Institute of Space Physics, six kilometres out of town, Rick McGregor, the organisation’s Research & Development Officer, looks out over the taiga landscape of pine forests towards the Esrange rocket launch site and the enormous toadstool of the EISCAT satellite dish, which is sending up signals 100 kilometres to collect data on the ionosphere. The Institute is one of the world’s leading organisations for building space satellite instruments, and has sent them on missions to Venus, Mars and Saturn. It also helps facilitate the flights to see the Northern Lights. “A lot of the tourists are well-educated and interested. They don’t just want to see the Aurora – they want to know more about it,” says McGregor, a New Zealander and one of the many expatriates in Kiruna’s space science community.’

‘On this space campus, international students – including young women in saris and hijabs – are celebrating the end of their postgraduate Space Masters course.’

‘Sidhom works at AMV BBDO, London’s largest advertising agency, where he runs the Forge innovation division, which encourages specialists from different sectors to work together collaboratively. He was recently invited to Kiruna to help spread these ideas among Swedish scientists and business leaders at a TEDx conference organised by Nilsdotter. One of his messages was that data acquired in space travel exploration must be made widely available. “Everything we learn from space travel should be given free to the technologists and developers here on Earth so that they can be inspired by it,” he said.’

‘He showed them an innovative computer game he had helped develop, called Night Jar, which replicates the conditions of a space ship and requires users to navigate the vessel with only sound effects and the voice of Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch to guide them. The hit iStore app was developed from an advertising campaign for Wrigley’s chewing gum under the strapline ‘Stimulate Your Senses’.’

‘Neil Armstrong was a more private man than Buzz and died last year without seeing commercial space travel take off.

But the notion of the Man on the Moon now seems close once again.’

‘Whether it’s from the United States or Lapland or another spaceport not so very far, far away, private individuals will be queuing up to leave the planet. Finally, for the public at large, the space suit is no longer just an item of fancy dress.’

‘Psychologists and computer scientists are testing to see whether virtual reality could be used to treat mental health conditions.’

Jean Mackenzie, BBC News, Friday 25 Nov 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7tY07QY66A Jean Mackenzie is reporting from a therapist office where new techniques are tested in order to help patients with phsychological problems; ‘Designed not only to induce the fear of heights but also to help concoure it.’

Jean: ‘I’m now right on top of the building, I can see the roof just above me, and it is very high up’, says Jean, testing the VR treatment programme.

Liz: “I feel ver very tense, when confronted with heights”, says interviewee Liz to BBC. Liz: “And certain heights situations made me feel, not just that I would fall over the edge, but that I might actually volontarily go over the edge, which is a really really unnerving feeling. I didn’t trust myself with heights anymore” Liz: “Even though you know its not a real world, you do feel the symptoms of fear that you would do, but you’re braver because you know you’re safe.”

Jean: ‘Liz has completed this course, and to her amazement it’s had a powerful effect.’s Liz: “After that session I did go out and put myself in some positions where you are facing heights, and I was really really surprised about how differently I felt about it.”

Dr Daniel Freeman: “There is something beautiful about VR in the fact that people know its not real and they can try things that they’ve not done before, or not done for a long time, yet mind and body does behhave as in real world”, says Dr Daniel Freeman, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford.

Dr Daniel Freeman: “Some people, I think, are nevous about therapists being replaced by VR, but we dont see it like that.

We think VR can aid therapists, but more importantly, can aid so many more people getting the phsychological advice they need.”

‘There is a desperate shortage of skilled clinicians to treat mental health disorders. Our study shows how virtual reality could fill the gap’ Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman, Wed 11 Jul 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/11/dont-dismiss-tech-solutions-to-mental-health-problems ‘About a quarter of us will suffer from a clinical psychological disorder over the next year, but most people will receive no help at all.

The question is no longer about whether we have a problem, but what we are going to do about it.’

‘We don’t lack high-quality, evidence-based psychological treatments for many mental health problems. These treatments have been verified by dozens of clinical trials. What we are short of is the skilled clinicians to deliver them.’

‘Instead of people delivering treatment, could we use technology to make the best interventions available to the millions of people who so urgently need them? Imagine: on-demand therapy, accessed when and where you want it. Wouldn’t that be an extraordinary breakthrough?’

‘Not everyone agrees. For many professionals, the therapist-patient relationship is the essence of treatment.’ ... ‘For counselling pioneer Carl Rogers, the therapist’s empathy for their patient is enough to bring positive change. No therapist, no therapy.’ ‘... the fact that psychological interventions delivered by human beings can be effective doesn’t mean that other approaches can’t also be helpful. Mental health care isn’t a zero-sum game.’

‘We believe that with appropriate investment one can produce engaging, interactive and effective interventions. They’re low in cost when provided at scale, but in all other respects are top-of-therange treatments.’

‘And technology has the potential to be more effective than faceto-face therapy for some disorders.’ ... ‘What works best is a therapist taking people into the situations they find difficult and coaching them. However, very few of the people who actually get to see a therapist receive this help. With powerful immersive technologies such as virtual reality, however, patients can experience simulations of those challenging situations repeatedly and safely. Second, we can do things with technology that simply aren’t possible with standard therapies. In VR, for example, we can create innovative scenarios that are both therapeutically powerful and engaging for users.’

‘We randomised 100 people with a significant fear of heights to either our VR application or to no treatment. Those people had lived with their fear for, on average, 30 years. Yet after four or five 30-minute VR sessions, their fear had reduced on average by twothirds. This is at least as good as one would expect from top-notch face-to-face therapy, and actually a lot better.’

‘Skilled and compassionate practitioners delivering evidence-based treatments will always be needed. Some patients will prefer this; the complexity and severity of their problems will sometimes demand it.’

‘Daniel Kraft says healthcare will be radically transformed by big data, constant connectivity and machine learning’ Oliver Balch, Tuesday 1 Nov 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/ nov/01/the-future-of-healthcare-ai-augmented-reality-and-drug-delivering-drones?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ...‘meet Dr Daniel Kraft, a Harvard-trained oncologist-cum-entrepreneur-cum-healthcare futurologist. The faculty chair for medicine and founder of Exponential Medicine at the Silicon Valley-based Singularity University, no one could be more serious – or ambitious – about the revolutionary impact that technology will have on the future of healthcare.’

‘The internet of things, constant connectivity, ever cheaper hardware, big data, machine learning: Kraft’s list of converging “meta-trends” goes on. “This set of technologies, especially when meshed together, offers a real opportunity to reshape and reinvent healthcare around the planet,” he says.’

‘Big pharma is one of the first in line for a shake-up, Kraft warns. Today drug firms’ profits are based on blockbuster drugs for pervasive diseases. But what if medical science reveals (as it is doing) that there are really hundreds of sub-types of diabetes, say, or lung cancer? And what if a patient’s full genome sequence can show the likelihood of a blockbuster treatment not working?’

“There’s a spectrum of diseases with different molecular pathways and pharma is going to have to adapt to smaller markets in terms of individual drugs,” Kraft says.’

‘Digital device manufacturers are already experimenting with so-called “implantables” that use bioelectric sensors to track patients’ vital signs and release a drug dose as and when required. At the other end of the spectrum, drones are now being used to deliver drugs to remote areas or disaster zones.’

‘Expect a new age of “value-based medical care”, he says.

Consider hospitals. Instead of being paid on how many beds they fill or how many surgeries they perform, as now, market incentives will exist to do the opposite – that is, keep people from ever coming to hospital by anticipating their illnesses and providing them with preventative solutions. “Hospitals in the US are now starting to send patients home with an app, a set of [WiFi] connected scales and a blood pressure cuff, so they can better manage their medications and their diet,” says Kraft, who claims the approach “stops them bouncing back to hospital”.

‘Looking ahead, Kraft’s smart money is squarely on medical software innovators, digital device manufacturers and “precision medicine” providers. This isn’t a startling revelation.

Analysts have estimated that the already huge US$55bn global digital health market will grow at a staggering 21.4% per year.’

‘Few have as clear vision of what the future could look like as Kraft, however. He pictures doctors being held medically negligent for not using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer; surgeons having CT scans layered over a patient’s body via augmented reality; medical students using Oculus Rift to explore the inside of the heart; burn victims being virtually transported to a snow-coated mountain top as a pain therapy. It’s dizzying stuff.’

‘The idea of convergence (or “super-convergence”; Kraft is keen on superlatives) is critical to his thinking. Bespoke business opportunities abound, but the radical overhaul of tomorrow’s healthcare will only happen when technologies start interweaving. And that will only happen when the worlds of business and medicine start talking.’

“We need to let doctors and nurses and patients and technologists and pharma and biotech understand where technology is and where it’s going,” he says. He points to clinicians having access to technology such as IBM Watson, the self-learning artificial intelligence tool that can “read” 100,000s of academic papers in seconds, among other things. “If you know IBM Watson will available on your smartphone or in the cloud, what could you as a clinician do with that?”

‘The exponential medicine programme that Kraft founded at Singularity five years ago sets out to achieve precisely this kind of cross-fertilisation between technologists, business folk and clinicians. To date, the initiative has spawned around 50 start-ups.’

“The future is coming faster than you might think,” he says, with characteristic optimism. “Soon we won’t wait for disease to happen. We’ll care for ourselves before we get sick.”

James & Karla Murray, July, 2018 https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2018/07/inside-architecture-office-future/?mbid=email_onsiteshare ‘Sarah Kay, A lead project manager at Woods Bagot architecture firm, walks through every building she designs — before ground is even broken. “Virtual reality lets us truly engage with our designs,” Kay says. “It’s a fantastic way to check a model. If something’s missing or the ceiling’s too high, you put on the goggles and immediately recognize it — and then go back to the drawing board.”

‘Kay uses a range of technologies to align the firm’s experts from offices across the globe.’

“We can start a design on a digital whiteboard and then send it to a client on their smartphone, allowing them to make their own changes,” Kay says. “Using technology, we remain connected all the time — it’s a very seamless experience.”

‘In their newly-built Manhattan office, the firm has a dedicated 10×15-foot VR room’...

‘Walking the virtual space, Kay can see and feel the dimensions of a room, calling out comments to coworkers who are following her line of vision on their screens, everyone taking notes to rework the layouts, moving doors or opening hallways as needed. Overall, the VR designs are realistic but simple, white scenes with line and shadowing that allow the architects to experience the most essential elements of the space, its layout and flow. “It’s not about creating perfect photo-realistic VR environments,” says Shane Burger, the company’s global leader of technical innovation. “It’s about the spatial experience — how you transition from one room to another.”

‘Ultimately, Kay and Burger envision a future in which collaborative tools and VR become merged — allowing international teams of architects and their clients to walk VR designs all together in real time, everyone touring a building before it is even built. “We’ve recently started to look at collaborative walk throughs in VR, even bringing in clients,” Burger says. “So I could be here in New York, the client is in Singapore and a designer is in Sydney, yet we are all simultaneously walking a building in VR and having a conversation — everything driven by collaboration.”

Timothy Brittain-Catlin, 13 November, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/883570/space-popular-architecture-is-moving-into-a-realm-where-history-plays-as-much-apart-as-medium Fredrik Hellberg & Lara Lesmes, 25 September, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/880305/towards-an-architectureof-light-color-and-virtual-experience-space-popular-glasschain ‘In the earliest days of fly-throughs we all realised that we could show our work to clients in a way that even the least plan-literate could understand. We could develop details three-dimensionally and from different angles, even representing different times of day. But what next?’

‘This was the question that launched Space Popular, a London-based practice established by Architectural Association (AA) graduates Fredrik Hellberg and Lara Lesmes in 2013.’ ...’what has marked out their work so far is the remarkable way in which they have confronted the challenges and potential of virtual reality in architecture head on – to make something new from it that represents the layering of experiences that many architects seek.’

‘Virtual reality to date has tended to follow a simple pattern: you design the building in one form or another, according to the parameters thrown up by the situation, and then you create the virtual reality to demonstrate, perhaps refine, the results. But, Lesmes says, you can also start from the experience and work backwards to the building. This is the one thing you couldn’t really do before, at any rate not to the same extent; and this is the aspect of it that Space Popular is now developing.’

‘As virtual reality looms over architectural practice, architects stand before an enormous demand for experience-focused design’, says Hellberg & Lesmes.

Hellberg & Lesmes: ‘Virtual reality poses a question of purpose and skill: it asks for an architecture that does not solve immediate problems but that stimulates, communicates, and inspires. It asks for a designer whose skill goes beyond construction and into the understanding of human cognition: grounded, embodied, and situated. With the mind as site, design languages and criteria would be applicable across realities, and practicing in virtual worlds would not necessarily mean a departure from their physical counterparts. With experience as purpose, the aesthetic qualities of architecture will be appreciated as purposeful in their own right.’

‘Finnish start-up Varjo has developed a prototype virtual reality (VR) headset that its makers claim gives an image 50 times sharper than most other headsets currently on the market.’

Matthew Wall, 23 March 2018 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42963408 ‘Image quality outside this area, simulating standard VR headsets, was noticeably fuzzier.’

‘Founder and chief executive Urho Konttori says the firm has managed to achieve this by mimicking how the eye sees’; “The human eye only focuses on a thumbnail-sized area of vision - the brain fills in the rest,” he says. “Our peripheral vision is less detailed, at a much lower resolution.”

‘So Varjo’s headset provides very high definition images only of the objects our eyes are focusing on at any particular moment, the rest of the scene is at lower resolution. It uses eye-tracking technology to tell which parts of the image it needs to render in high definition.’

‘This technique is known as foveated rendering within the industry - chipmaker Nvidia has been working on it for a few years. This selective approach uses a lot less computing power, says Mr Kontorri - roughly 25% less than current VR headsets.’

‘But this level of detail doesn’t come cheap’ - ‘so the Helsinki-based firm is targeting corporate customers, such as aircraft manufacturers, carmakers, architects, construction firms and the entertainment industry.’

‘Varjo, which has attracted more than $15m (£11m) in funding so far, is aiming to bring a final version to market by the end of 2018. And rivals are exploring a similar approach.

Chipmaker Qualcomm, for example, has teamed up with eye-tracking firm Tobii to develop headsets that concentrate graphical processing power to where the user is looking. The image quality of the peripheral vision is reduced without the user noticing.’

‘HTC is releasing its Vive Pro headset in April, which features a much higher-resolution screen, high-performance headphones with noise cancellation facility, and a more comfortable strap. Users will also be able to unplug the headset from the computer and move freely thanks to a wireless dongle accessory.’

‘Pimax has even produced a headset with ultra high-definition 8K image resolution and a 200 degree field of view (humans can see 220 degrees without having to move our heads).’

Jimmy Rotella , 7 February, 2018 https://www.archdaily.com/888583/3-ways-multi-user-vr-willenhance-the-design-work-of-the-future ‘2018 should prove to be a pivotal moment in how the design community uses virtual reality to deliver work. With leading firms exploring the introduction of mult capabilities, the technology will experience a breakthrough shift from purely enabling new modes of consumption to one that empowers design.’ ...‘with multi-user VR being rapidly developed, VR will do more than just ensure dynamic consumption. If successfully leveraged, multi-user VR will allow multiple people from around the world to all enter the same virtual spaces together at the same time. In these multi-user environments, users will not be limited to just viewing models and asking questions. They won’t have to take off the goggles, remember their thoughts, and then go sketch new ideas elsewhere. Instead, multi-user VR environments enable true collaborative design; people can discuss, draw, scale, break sections apart and advance the design project in real time. This should allow enhanced communication and increased time for design exploration, ultimately leading to more successful built products.’

‘If a designer in Boston needs the opinion of a designer in Shanghai, multi-user VR can enable them to connect for an hour without a single cab or flight.’ ... ‘This makes talent constantly accessible, ensures the best ideas are consistently elevated, and can reduce internal costs for design firms.

Essentially, the geographic barriers that sometimes delay design work can be erased.’

‘Multi-user VR will also enhance the virtual artifacts designers can pull from these digital environments.’

‘VR has already proved a powerful new client engagement tool for designers.’ ... ‘Even under the consumption model, VR allows to clients to see and experience their future environments in a way our 2D paper files simply can’t empower.’

‘If they desire, they’ll be able to virtually step into models with the design team and hear their ideas and strategies as they develop. Even if they lack VR goggles or aren’t in the same location, clients can watch and communicate with the design team in the multi-user VR space on their laptops or mobile devices as their project develops.’

Rene, 11 June, 2018 https://www.archdaily.com/895761/a-game-changer-for-architectural-visualization ‘REinVR, Real Estate in Virtual Reality, is a Canadian company that uses advanced video game technology to create photo-realistic visuals and animation to beautifully showcase real estate projects that have not yet been built.’

‘Using cutting-edge technology developed for the video game industry, REinVR develops life-like photo experiences and immersive visual environments that help architects with permit approvals, design, marketing, and sales. REinVR’s team consists of many talented designers who have spent their careers making some of the most innovative video games ever created.’

‘Nasseri’s talented team of designers has enabled REinVR to offer a wide-range of visual experiences and has attracted a diverse client base of architects, marketing agencies, governments and real estate developers.’

“Our approach to creating visuals is very different from the traditional rendering market. For example, when we create an apartment or home, we make the entire floor plan, floor plate or the entire building. Once we have created this holistic environment, we can do whatever we want with it, including creating high quality, photo-realistic renders, videos, Virtual Reality experiences, and 3D walk-through tours.”

“Aaryn Flynn, who worked at BioWare for 17 years and was the General Manager for nine years, joined REinVR as my business partner. For those who don’t know, BioWare is arguably the best video game studio in the world.”

“Based on my experience, we set out to create a system that saves architects time and money. This is the biggest difference between us and our competition. Typically, our competitors make traditional static renders, not critically-acclaimed video games.” ... “The technology we use has existed for years in the video game industry. It’s called Real Time Rendering (RTR), and it’s radically different from how traditional rendering companies create their work. The old way is called offline rendering, and it can take days, weeks or even months to render a video or photo, and these become very expensive, very quickly. RTR, however, can reduce rendering time from months down to mere minutes. Our competitors have to charge for rendering time – we don’t. We can do it almost instantly.”

Rene, 15 May, 2018 https://www.archdaily.com/893965/this-simple-vr-tool-instantly-communicates-your-design-intent-in-1-1-scale ‘Communicating design intent and conveying space to non-technical clients has always been a challenge for architects.’ ... ‘The most immersive and effective solutions are ones that empower you to fully navigate 3D models, like Prospect

by IrisVR. Created by architects, Prospect enables designers to easily jump into a 1:1, true to scale VR version of their 3D model. This instantly communicates design intent to everyone and can save hours during a design review. Additionally, VR provides on-the-spot feedback to designers as they iterate through spatial ideas’ ‘Simply drag and drop your 3D model into Prospect to launch yourself, your colleagues, or your clients into a virtual walkthrough instantly. All of the VR features were built for presentations, collaborative sessions, and design review meaning you can quickly create effective markups, toggle between different design options, and measure distances with accuracy.’

‘Prospect works seamlessly with 3D models from Sketchup, Revit, and Rhino, and also supports OBJ and FBX file formats.

Additional integrations with other file types are currently in development.’

‘DeForest Architects, a 12-person firm based in Seattle, is using Multiuser Meetings in Prospect to design a home in the Pacific Northwest for a client currently living in the UK, and the technology enables them to meet ‘on-site’ and perform walkthroughs as the project progresses. Not only can they meet in the model together, but they can flag individual elements for review, make annotations, measure distances, view design options, and more.’

‘Large firms are also embracing VR. Barton Malow Company has deployed VR across a wide variety of projects, including a recent renovation for Romeo High School. They used VR to help school administrators access multiple viewpoints of the unbuilt space, even pointing out areas where they wanted to install security cameras in the building.’

Lindsey Leardi, 27 November, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/884286/collaborative-virtual-reality-allows-design-professionals-to-meet-inside-the-model ‘Successful communication is fundamental to the success of any project, especially in architecture and construction. The industry has moved from 2D drawings to 3D BIM with programs like SketchUp and Revit. At times, there is still a struggle to communicate in and through these 3D models. From InsiteVR comes a solution.’

‘The newest innovation by InsiteVR is like screen sharing but for 3D. As virtual reality gets more affordable and portable, collaborative VR has the potential to be as common as a screen share meeting. Together or in separate parts of the world, InsiteVR meetings allow architecture and construction professionals to review their models in virtual reality. Features include a designated lead presenter, built in voice, collaborative markups, synchronized cloud models, scale and mute controls.’

‘To keep meetings on task, a lead presenter can control certain features within the VR meeting such as views, scale or sketching. 3D models can be viewed at full (1:1) scale or in “dollhouse” mode which allows seamless transitioning between viewing a scaled version and full scale. The free-form drawing feature allows participants to mark-up and sketch in 3D space.’

‘InsiteVR Meetings are compatible with Revit, Sketchup, FBXs, OBJs and other CAD software. Anyone can set up an InsiteVR meeting by using a GearVR ($129), Oculus Rift ($349), HTC Vive ($599), or even a desktop.’

Marcello Sgambelluri, 13 December, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/885181/soon-architects-will-beable-to-create-3d-models-from-inside-their-vr-headset ‘The architecture and manufacturing industries are about to undergo a radical shift in how they make things. In the near future, designers and engineers will be able to create products, buildings, and cities in real time, in virtual reality (VR).’ ...

‘VR technology is already available, and it’s only a matter of time before it is used to its full potential.’

‘What’s Here Now: Visualization’ ‘VR has made great strides as a visualization tool—its dominant use in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries—both within firms and for use with clients.’ ... ‘Design visualizations can also help firms sell ideas to stakeholders.

By deploying 3D building models as playable “games” with VR-capable software such as Revit Live, 3ds Max, and Enscape, designers can invite clients and owners into immersive showcases of their prospective projects.’

‘What’s Coming: Creation’ ‘The next big opportunity for designers and engineers will move beyond visualization to actually creating structures and products from scratch in VR.’ ... ‘Programs like Google Tilt Brush, which lets you paint in a 3D VR environment, could signal what’s coming for creating design projects in VR. Simply by rotating your wrist in the painting tool, you can color an object in a VR environment.’

‘There are 3D mesh and surface modelers that allow designers to form smoothly curved, organic shapes—car bodies, canopies, and the like—but they are made on a 2D screen using tedious mouse movements and keyboard commands.

To manipulate nodes and lines, users pull and drag cursors—a clumsy way of doing things in an age of VR.’ ‘If designers could create directly in VR, rather than using external desktop software, they could peer around rear walls and teleport to tight spots, such as joints and moldings. By working at a closer, more maneuverable range to objects, designers could create more organic shapes with a higher level of granular detail.’

‘What Needs to Change: Interactivity’ ‘Before VR will see widespread adoption as a creation tool in the architecture and manufacturing industries, the software must make a significant leap forward. As it stands, most game-engine technology allows users to only look around, not touch objects or edit on the fly.’

‘The future of VR needs to move beyond taking the VR headset off and relying on mouse-and-keyboard clicks to make changes. Architecture and manufacturing design software should take full advantage of VR’s handheld controllers and immersive environment, as well as provide tools within the experience to interact with and make changes to 3D models.’

‘Another stumbling block is the lack of automated interactivity inside VR. Any action a user might take in VR—move a beam, open a window, or turn on a light—must be preprogrammed by an experienced game-engine programmer to make it interactive. A better solution could be to automate this process. For example, the Revit 3D model could automatically be converted into a game-engine environment that is VR capable, with interactivity already programmed in, so anytime a user wants to move a wall, open a door, or flex any type of component within the VR environment, it’s possible.’

‘Information modeling is like a living, breathing thing: A building, door, window, table, or piece of medical equipment all have flexibility in their parameters. In most game-engine based technologies used today, these elements are static— for now. VR is about evolve. Are you ready?’

Manuel Albornoz, 5 November, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/882557/googles-tilt-brush-transforms-your-room-into-a-3d-modeling-workshop ‘Google has launched ‘Tilt Brush’, a powerful tool for designers available for Oculus and HTC Vive that allows artists to create 3D objects while fully embedded in Virtual Reality (VR).’

‘Being immersed in a virtual reality permits architects to take advantage of their spatial perception to create a three-dimensional design development stage from the beginning of a project.’

‘Launched in 2016 and available in the Steam virtual store for $15 dollars, Google’s tool can be used with Oculus virtual reality helmets or the HTC Vive.’

‘Tilt Brush has a virtual palette with which you can work with “ink” to create incredible effects such as snow, smoke and fire. You can even walk around your model. And thanks to a recent update, Tilt Brush now allows you to export your creations to Blocks, the latest Google application designed to work in virtual reality.’

Amanda Dixon, 31 October, 2017 https://www.archdaily.com/882627/9-cutting-edge-technologies-for-architects ‘Which of the many tech developments are merely gimmicks that will disappear as fast as they arrived, and which are here to stay, becoming permanent fixtures within professional practice? We’ve compiled a list of 9 pieces of technology for architects that will differentiate your firm from the competition in the studio and on the construction site.’

‘Creating An Experience’ ‘Imagine, your architectural firm has been asked to come present your services to a prospective client. Your nerves are high with excitement, anxiety, and pure belief that this meeting will propel your architectural firm into the future. This client could drive your firm’s growth for years to come.’

‘You show up with a statement of qualifications, CAD drawings, and pictures of the tricked out projects your firm is so dearly proud of completing. You also arrive with the industry’s cutting-edge technology to give your prospective client the experience of a lifetime.’

1. Musion Holograms ‘MUSION can immerse your clients through a 3D model and holographic setting. This gives stakeholders an opportunity to visualize a project before it is constructed. This cutting-edge technology for architects creates spectacular multi-media presentations using 3D holographic images. These images are so real they can hardly be distinguished from the presenters and live performers appearing next to them.’

2. Fuzor ‘FUZOR is software that takes your project from conceptual design through construction. FUZOR is perfect for architects because it greatly speeds up the process to get designs into virtual reality. The software allows users to iterate and improve on their designs. Use this in your next client presentation and mesmerize them with your 3D approach to a streamlined construction process.’

3. CURV ‘Bringing virtual reality full circle, literally. CURV technology captures the user’s peripheral vision and offers a full sense of the VR experience. Give this to your potential client and conduct a full-scale walkthrough of your proposed design.

CURV technology brings a collaboration amongst the group and further separates your firm from the crowd.’

4. Touchable Holograms ‘Developers expect them to hit the shelves in Q3 of 2017.

Touchable holograms are technology for architects to keep their eyes on, as there is nothing quite like this on the market yet. Imagine being able to not only see the project, but feel it as well. Sifting through spec books, samples, and any other materials will become an experience of the past.’

5. Jaunt VR ‘Jaunt Virtual Reality Technology uses a camera system that simultaneously records 3D stereoscopic video in all directions.

The video is coupled with 3D sound-field microphones to record sound. The Jaunt technology gives you the ability to reconstruct a complete visual and auditory experience.’

6. Shapespark ‘Shapespark Technology is a technology for architects that creates real-time web-based visualizations with physically accurate lighting. The visualizations can be shared via links.’

‘Shapespark supports the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, providing users with a stereoscopic 3D view. Offering this technology as a collaborative tool between your architectural firm and your clients gives clients the sense of ownership and involvement they yearn for.’

7. Google Cardboard ‘Through pairing Google Cardboard with a compatible smartphone, one can experience “3D models” in a similar way to the Oculus Headset. This technology for architects is an inexpensive way to provide a virtual reality experience to your clients.’

8. The Cube ‘Client meetings don’t always happen in an office or conference room. Be prepared to go digital and display your ideas and works on the go with The Cube. The Cube is a miniature, mobile projector that transforms any screen into a ‘cinematic experience’ at the touch of a button. This item is fantastic to take on job sites or for presentations in a clients office rather than your own.’

9. Roto ‘Winner of the best product at the VR & AR World Expo in London, Roto is an interactive Virtual Reality chair that allows individuals to explore in various directions in a VR environment. Have your design concepts built in before sending your client for the ride of a lifetime through their new environment, or their upcoming project.’

Short Film - World Builder A story of unrestricted construction possibilities in VR A 2007 short sci-fi film by Bruce Branit BranitFX and Lucamax Pictures Published on Aug 14, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP3YywgRx5A ‘The entire film (except for two characters) is computer generated.’

‘The film begins with the words “Program Start.” In a green room, a young man is lying on his back and looking at holographic pictures of himself and a young woman, presumably his wife (as we see a wedding ring on his hand). All of a sudden, a holographic timer appears on his arm, letting him know that something will happen in one hour. Closing the pictures, he stands up and gets to work.’

‘Using a computer program, he begins to make a row of tall boxes. Once the first row is made, he makes a copy and puts the copy of the row of boxes across from the first. He then gets to work on adding details to each box. He adds columns, doors, and windows. Once done, he works on the appearances of the boxes to make them look like buildings.

He adds color and then some nature. He pays particular attention to a yellow flower. Soon, with time running out, he hastily finishes the details and hide in a doorway when the timer stops.’

Although this is a beautiful short film about love and loss, what we’re interested in here are the very interesting ideas about how to interact with designing softwares from within VR. Branit skillfully speculates on how this could work and look - overcoming many of todays issues with moving between VR and the conventional 2D monitor when designing 3D.

The character in the film scales, mirrors, copies, pulls, pushes, and sculpts his blocks by choosing options of the flexible ‘augmented’ tools palette, where he also can choose colours and textures, level of reflection and transparency.

He decides size of tree-trunk, amount of branches, density of leaves - ultimately he decides time of day and weather including wind conditions, and sound.

The world comes alive (apart from the absence of human presence). How much longer before we will be able to design to this level from within a 3D software, from within a virtual reality?

Ben Hobson, 26 October 2014

Dan Howarth, 2 March 2016

https://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/26/movie-city-future-both-physical-digital-scanlab-william-trossell/

https://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/02/rock-house-pbwccornwall-3d-laser-lidar-scan-technology/

‘Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: cities in the future will exist in both a physical and digital form says William Trossell of 3D-scanning company ScanLAB, who claims the lines between the two “will become increasingly blurred”

‘Cornish firm PBWC Architects has utilised 3D laser-scanning technology to create an accurate model of the rocky site and listed surroundings of a house for St Ives, which has just received planning permission’

“Uses of augmented reality will allow us to walk around the physical city whilst also visiting the digital,” Trossell says.’

‘The local studio used the technology when designing the Rock House, a two-and-a-half storey replacement dwelling for a site on Carncrows Rock within the St Ives Conservation Area.’

“We really believe that the city of the future will be both physical and digital and the lines between those will become increasingly blurred.”

‘ScanLAB specialises in producing extremely high-resolution 3D scans of the built environment. As the technology proliferates, more and more of our cities will be captured this way, Trossell believes.’

‘To obtain a digital model of the existing building and complex site, which includes a granite outcrop and adjacent Grade-II listed properties, PBWC architect Jacob Down asked CESurveys to take a lidar scan of the area.’

“More conventional surveying techniques would have proved problematic with limited use and accuracy,” said Down.’

‘Advances in immersive interfaces such as Oculus Rift will enable people to explore these virtual spaces like a real city, so the “crossover [between the physical and the digital] will increase.”

“The high level of contextual information helped foresee many planning-related issues resulting in smooth and successful planning outcome,” added Down.’

‘Trossell believes it is an area where designers and developers will focus on creating new virtual and augmented-reality experiences in the coming years.’

‘The lidar scanner fires tens of thousands of laser beams per second in almost all directions and records a point each time a beam hits a surface.’

“I think this will be a really important area of development in the next three to five years,” he says.’

‘Multiple scans are usually taken from different viewpoints and stitched together, forming a 3D map made up of coordinate points with accuracies of up to 0.01 millimetres.’

‘The map of the site, known as a pointcloud, was then combined with building information modelling (BIM) software to be used throughout the design process.’

“This provided an unprecedented amount of information of the site and existing building eliminating the need for many additional site visits,” said Down.’

‘PBWC used the scan to help maintain existing sea views from the property, as well as plan new ones from a mezzanine viewing platform.’

Cornwall Rock House, by PBWC Architects. Context was laser-scanned.

‘Construction of Rock House is due to start in Autumn 2016.

PBWC Architects is also utilising 3D lidar scanning technology on many of its other projects.’

‘millions of lasers project 3D scan allowing ensamble studio’s contemporary intervention of abandoned quarry’ Kieron Marchese, May 29, 2018

Sarosh Mulla, 22 Apr 2016

https://www.designboom.com/architecture/can-terra-ensamble-studio-3d-laser-technology-05-29-2018/

http://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/future-thinking-iv-3dscanning/

‘Spain and boston-based architectural firm ensamble studio expands its vision in the dark, using laser scanning technology to explore and breathe new life into an abandoned quarry. guided by their interpretation of history, ca’n terra transforms the near-century old site considering it as a new work, destined this time to become a room to contemplate nature.’

‘Modern surveying equipment has, for the most part, taken out much of the guesswork of the capturing contours of a building on a complex site, or documenting as-built dimensions, or for that matter ensuring regulatory compliance. But laser scanning and point cloud processing technology is beginning to render traditional forms of surveying redundant.’

‘Located on the balearic island of menorca the quarry dates back to the 1930s, spanning a life which saw it taken over by military forces and used as a fortress before being abandoned. Taken by its beauty, ensamble was careful to make contact with the architecture, throwing millions of laser points on the wrinkles of the continuous stone surface to realise a scan of the solid structure. From this they were able to direct their own intervention, writing a new story to rescue the quarry from its abandonment.’

‘In an effort to maintain what the studio felt to be ‘essential layers of time’ they casted the space with a mineral of sodium silicate, a material porous enough to clean and coat the stone without erasing its stains. It’s original arrangement has also been kept intact, proposing only to incorporate the bare necessities. A hot and cold water system satisfies comfort needs, meanwhile a kitchen, dining area and bedroom make the quarry inhabitable. Occupying the rest of the space as well as areas for lounging throughout.’

‘Three dimensional point cloud scanning technology has been the subject of much research and development for the past decade and has made many forays into the public consciousness including music videos for the likes of Radiohead and the 3D scanned and rendered objects in Google Earth.’

‘The technology can be applied to capture the intricacies of architecture that we have previously struggled to document efficiently.’ ... ‘Pieces of ancient architecture, such as those listed as world heritage sites by UNESCO, are now being scanned and digitally modelled. Capturing these spaces, before they either fall into disrepair, or are destroyed by war, does not only aid academics, but also opens the door for a collective, three-dimensional archive of the world’s architectural history.’

‘Similarly, special landscape ecologies are now also being scanned using small drones. At some ecosanctuaries work is already underway to scan the form of the recovering bush from above using drones. This data will then be used to track the recovery of the landscape. It is hoped that in time the data will become so high resolution that it will allow ecologists to pick out individual species within a digital model of the ecosanctuary, aiding them in the fight against invasive weeds.’

‘But point cloud scanning technology could also have other uses too. If we apply the principles of mass-customization to 3D scanning technology, we could create products that are specific to each individual. For instance, customized running shoes are already being produced from 3D scans of a customers feet.’

‘Could we move beyond using a client’s favourite colours and instead look at creating space based on anthropomorphic scans of their bodies? Could a house be parametrically tuned based on the detailed scanning of its occupants?’

http://ma.smartplanes.se/acton/attachment/25722/f-0014/1/-/-/-/-/ White%20paper%20-%20High%20precision%20survey%20at%20 LKAB%20mine.pdf

1.

‘The UAS-survey demonstration was part of the conference program of the Nordic Mining Surveyor’s meeting held in Kiruna sept. 16–18, 2014.

The objective of the demonstration was to show the complete workflow from initial flight planning and flight operations to data processing and accuracy assessment. The goal was to produce the following products’: - Dense point cloud - Surface mode - Orthophoto mosaic - Textured 3D-model Site ‘The demonstration area was at the top of the Kirunavaara Mountain which is the site of the LKAB company´s iron-ore mine. The topography was varying with both horizontal surfaces and steep slopes made up of waste rock to near-vertical walls of exposed bedrock. Parts of the area were covered with alpine vegetation types mainly consisting of low shrubs and scattered deciduous trees.’ (1) Reference data ‘The conference organisers had initially prepared for the UAS demonstration by establishing a set of five signalled ground control targets. The target coordinates were measured with a high-grade RTK-GPS system.

The size of the surveying area was kept relatively small (about 150 x 100 m) in order to be practical for mapping with a helicopter-type UAS that was also scheduled for the demonstration. After the initial flight it was decided to increase the number of points to provide a more comprehensive dataset for accuracy assessment. The final set consisted of 16 points. Each one was marked with white spray paint. The initial set were large double triangle patterns (100 x 70 cm) whereas the additional 11 points were marked with small circular dots, 10 cm in diameter.’ (2) The SmartOne UAS ‘The aerial survey was performed with a Smartplanes SmartOne-C aircraft. A rugged tablet computer was used as ground control station running the Smartplanes GCS ground control station and Aerial Mapper quick-look mosaicking software.’

‘The Smartplanes SmartOne-C unmanned aircraft has a wingspan of 120 cm, a take-off weight of 1.2 kg (including camera) and a flight endurance of 45 minutes. The Aircraft is hand launched and recovered by skid landing.’

Camera ‘The camera used was a Ricoh GR which is the current standard camera provided with the SmartOne UAS. It has a large APS-C size sensor (24 x 16 mm) with 16 Mpix resolution and a wide-angle fixed focal length lens (F=18.3). The high quality lens in combination with a large sensor and a relatively moderate Mpix count provides for both low noise levels and adequate resolution. It also dramatically improves the photo quality in poor light conditions compared to other cameras with smaller sensors. Another important feature is that the camera does not have an antialiasing filter which results in sharper and more distinct textures which in turn improves the accuracy in the photogrammetric processing.’

Flight ‘The flight conditions were favourable with low wind speed (2-5 m/s) on both days. The sky was clear on the first day. On the second day thin clouds were present. The photo altitude was set to 150 meters above

2.

‘An Iron-ore mining site in Kiruna, Northern Sweden was repeatedly surveyed with a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) on two different dates. Results show that the point measurement accuracy was 0.8, 0.8 and 1.3 cm (RMS) in Easting, Northing and Height. The height accuracy (RMS) of individual grid points in the surface model (DSM) was 3 to 4 cm for smooth and vegetated horizontal surfaces and 5 to 8 cm for steep smooth and rough surfaces.’ ground level which corresponds to a ground sampling distance (GSD) of 4.5 cm. The photo overlap (both along and across track) was set to 80 percent which is the standard setting for high accuracy surveying.

The focus was fixed to infinite distance. The target exposure time was set to 1/1000 of a second to minimise blur effects and the aperture was set to widest opening (1:2.8) to capture as much light as possible.’

3.

‘The photo-block size was specified to 440 x 310 m, primarily in order provide a full multiple-view coverage of the point targets but also to cover a bit more of the steep slopes and near-vertical rock surfaces directly east of the survey area. It was also slightly extended to the west so that it would cover an area with some interesting buildings and electric power installations.’

‘After completing the take-off checklist the aircraft was hand-launched into the wind (3). After climb-out the aircraft was “parked” in circular holding pattern at 100 m above the take-off point. After performing the normal in-flight checking of the aircraft status using the ground station the aircraft was commanded to proceed with the photo block. Once the photo-block had been completed after 14 minutes the aircraft returned to the parking holding pattern and was subsequently brought in for a precision landing in assisted flight mode where the pilot can guide the plane using a RC-control unit.’

‘Immediately after landing the photos (154 in total) were uploaded to the ground station computer and a quick look photo mosaic was generated within a few minutes to validate the quality of the collected dataset before leaving the site.’

Processing ‘The datasets from both dates were processed with Agisoft Photoscan photogrammetric software (and later also using the Pix4D Mapper software with equivalent results). When processing the dataset from the first flight (2014-09-16) the 4 points in the corners of the survey area ere used for georeferencing and the one in the centre was used for evaluation. When processing the second flight dataset (2014-09-17) the points were split into two sets. 9 of them were used for geo-referencing and the remaining 7 as check-points for evaluation.’

‘The photogrammetric processing generated dense point clouds with 68 points per square meter, gridded surface models (DSM) with 18 cm ground sampling distance (GSD), orthophoto mosaics with a GSD of 4 cm and textured 3D-models (triangular mesh draped with photo textures)’ Point accuracy ‘The accuracy of point target measurements was evaluated as the differences observed between predicted and actual coordinates for the check-point targets. The error of the single point evaluated for the first flight was 1.0, 0.3 and -1.4 centimetres in Easting, Northing and Height.

The second flight with 7 check points showed RMS-errors of 0.8, 0.8 and 1.3 centimetres in Easting, Northing and Height. The largest errors were 1.1, 1.7 and 2.6 cm and the systematic errors (bias) were 0.5, 0.6 and 0.8 cm.’

DSM accuracy ‘The DSM accuracy was evaluated by differentiating the surface models of the two dates (4) and analyse the statistical differences within regions of different slope and surface types (5). Assuming that the errors are independent and of equivalent magnitude for the two dates the precision of an individual DSM can be estimated by dividing the observed variance in half.’

‘Some systematic difference trends can be noted outside of the area with GCPs. There is an increasing bias up to around 10 centimetres in the north-east corner (area b in figure 5). This is probably because the models can tilt slightly around the minor axis of the ground control.’

Conclusions ‘This study demonstrates that the Smartplanes SmartOne UAS equipped with the Ricoh GR camera can be used to efficiently survey a typical mining site and produce high resolution surface models with an accuracy in the order of 3 to 8 cm. Point target height measurements with centimetre-level accuracy can be achieved.’

4.

5.

‘The new Leica Pegasus:Two Ultimate brings higher quality digital reality capture to the market.’

February 12, 2018 https://www.pobonline.com/articles/101278-leica-geosystems-releases-leica-pegasustwo-ultimate PRODUCT ‘Users can service new market segments (including Smart City applications) by digitizing road and rail infrastructures, while expanding into new markets in support of autonomous vehicles, with seamless 360-degree and higher resolution imagery and increased expansion ports for additional sensors.

To enable faster processing back at the office, a removable SSD drive has been added.’

‘The Pegasus:Two Ultimate removes the need for complicated six camera stitching by incorporating two back-to-back cameras creating a 24-megapixels 360-degree image calibrated to the LiDAR profiler - enabling digital reality captures forward and backward from automobile, train or boat. A high dynamic range is made possible by a large sensor-to-pixel ratio, allowing capture in a variety of lighting conditions and vehicle speeds.’

September 14th, 2015 http://www.ee.co.za/article/mobile-mapping-backpack-wearable-reality-capture.html PRODUCT ‘Combining five high-dynamic cameras and lidar with an ultra-light and ergonomic carbon fibre chassis, Leica Geosystems’ Pegasus:Backpack mobile mapping solution creates 3D indoors or outdoors models for engineering or professional documentation creation at the highest level of authority.’

Ellie Fry, Saturday 14 April 2018 https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/3d-printing-buildings-architecture-design-futuristic-restoration-a8297911.html ‘New technology exists that can bring the forgotten craft of ornate architecture into the modern age, and at a cost that could save buildings from demolition.’ ... ‘Bringing restoration into a cost-effective reality is the brainchild of New York architecture and engineering firm EDG.’ ‘Although the technology already existed, the main pitfall in restoration was the cost. Solid 3D-printed parts were not an option, as current printing costs – even the cheapest plastic pieces that are neither aesthetically pleasing nor durable – remained expensive. Instead, EDG narrowed in on plastic moulds that can produce intricate copies on site, within a day – a major game changer by industry standards. Laser scanning software allows the company to recreate virtually anything with ease, from colonnades and cornices to a whole building, and their digital catalogue of parts means architects anywhere could reprint the same mould.’

‘As buildings increasingly become value engineered, they are stripped of any non-essentials, which also serve to make them unique. With our method of construction, even on a project where cost governs, ornamentation can be designed and incorporated into the facade without exceeding the budget.”

‘The notion of technology as a vehicle for human expression is becoming an increasingly important trend in modern architecture. With all these innovative ways in which the industry is utilising 3D printing, we now have a way to embrace the best of our past.’

Roca London Gallery, by ZHA Showroom for bathroom design by Roca At Imperial Wharf Exhibition visit http://www.rocalondongallery.com/en/project ‘The complex free-form architectural language reflecting fluidity and nature is driven by the new digital design tools and the constant evolution of digitally controlled manufacturing, fabrication and contemporary construction mechanisms, processes and methods.’

‘In order to achieve the complexity of the design and do justice to the original concept, it was essential for the project to start the conversation with the engineers, consultants and fabricators at an early design stage. GRC (glass reinforced concrete) and GRG (glass reinforced gypsum) were approved as the materials to respond and meet best the challenge of translating the fluid forms into built environment.

The GRC and GRG fabricator input specified the constraints and rules of manufacturing and installation which in turn informed and developed the architectural concept. Rationalisation techniques were naturally applied and embedded as logical part of the design language.

Straight vertical joints and a horizontal joint at 2.20m were adequately implemented to answer the challenge. The maximum size of the interior GRC panels is 3x5m and the full height facade panels are 2x4m. The two materials were applied with respect to their natural qualities as continuous white surface of the GRG curved gallery walls and exposed natural concrete GRC panels within the product display environments and the facade.’

ABB - Robotics: the Role of AI in Architecture and Fabrication RIBA North London Lecture Just like the Digital Construction Week exhibition at ExCeL, this was a very corporate presentation. The only problem is architects often are more humanitarian, than corporate. The response was also as could be expected by such crowd - they were very sceptical. To a certain degree I can understand and sympathise, but on the other hand - these emerging techniques are coming, weather we like it or not, and the sooner we engage with them, the larger the chance we can actually have a say in it. ‘Robotics and artificial intelligence represent the next cutting edge technology to transform the fields of architecture and design. The past decade’s surge towards more computationally defined building systems and highly adaptable opensource design software has left the field ripe for the integration of robotics either through large-scale building fabrication or through more intelligent/adaptive building systems. This talk presented by Mike Wilson from ABB Robotics will outline the current innovations relating to the use of industrial robot automation in architecture and construction to provoke discussion on other opportunities that could be of benefit to the architecture sector. This will be followed by an opportunity to network.’

https://iaac.net/research-projects/large-scale-3d-printing/ on-site-robotics/ ‘On Site Robotics is a collaborative project of IAAC and TECNALIA, which demonstrates the potentials of additive manufacturing technology and robotics in the production of sustainable low-cost buildings that can be built on site with 100% natural materials.’

‘Combining technological advances in robotics (cable robot and drones), natural materials and CAD/CAM software, the aim of the project, which has been presented at Construmat 2017, is to bring automation to the construction site, as well as allowing the production of high-performance buildings and their monitoring in real-time during the construction.’

‘The 3D Printing System presented in On Site Robotics, is introduced to 3D print large-scale construction parts, and even small-scale buildings, made from 100% natural materials. This system includes the cable robot Cogiro with an integrated CNC control, which is able to automate the movement of the 3D extruder with precision.’

‘The system also integrates an extruder and a natural, biodegradable, recyclable and local clay-based extrusion material, based on the Pylos project. In addition, a custom script integrated into the CAD software allows to easily translate the complex forms of 3D design in the robotic trajectories.’

‘In addition, the On Site Robotics scenario integrates the use of drones programmed to fly autonomously. Its objective is to participate in the workflow, monitoring the development through multispectral cameras, which, thanks to computational processes, offer thermal information of the drying state of the structure.’

‘The Construction sector, which has traditionally been slow in integrating technology, is now opening up to digital manufacturing, 3D printing, and robotics. The possibility of printing anything that has been previously modelled in our computer lays the groundwork for a true change in the conception architectural production, and in the possibilities of personalising the final product.’

‘The possible futures that open up thanks to this technology are many; from the printing material and the design of its shapes to the conception and production of the printing machine itself. CAD software used by architects and used for 3D printing allows the design of complex geometries, with the possibility of optimizing shapes, material distribution, and building behaviour, as well as manufacturing them in a quick and accurate way.’

‘The tendency of 3D printing to print ever-larger pieces involves the use of machines or robots capable of accessing the construction site or large workspaces at accessible costs and with needed rigidity to guarantee the accuracy of the parts to be manufactured.’

‘Additionally, the process of 3D printing in situ requires a continuous monitoring of the state of the deposited material, the three-dimensional structure, as well as the environmental conditions that might influence its behaviour.’

‘The system developed in On-Site Robotics aims to revolutionize the construction sector, reducing production costs and offering the inviting possibility to customize the final product, that can be built on site or close to the site of construction.’

‘So far an extruder for clay material has been developed, and in the near future, an extruder for the cementitious material will also be available. Thanks to the system presented, the automatic 3D printing of large architectural elements and small buildings is close to being a reality.’

‘From wardrobe tidying to divorce, here are other tasks robots can achieve to win over the human race’

‘Academics around the world voice ‘huge concern’ over KAIST’s collaboration with defence company on autonomous weapons’

Stuart Heritage, Mon 23 Apr 2018

Benjamin Haas in Seoul, Thursday 5 Apr 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/23/ robots-ikea-clean-toilets?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/ apr/05/scientists-suggest-giant-sunshade-in-sky-could-solveglobal-warming?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘...you know what? I’m actually coming around to the idea.’

‘Engineers at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, have built two robots that can put together an Ikea Stefan chair in 20 minutes...’ ‘The robots didn’t get halfway through the job before realising that a key piece had been fitted upside down.’

‘No piece of housework is quite as disgusting as cleaning the loo. To do it properly requires chemicals, a strong scrubbing arm and the tacit understanding that you’re probably inhaling all manner of faecal molecules. So instead, let’s install a team of nanobots under the rim to clean our toilets day and night until they crack from the pressure and kill us in our sleep.’

‘Like almost everyone else, the one thing stopping me from moving is my crushing fear that the removal team will mock my extensive collection of realistic Japanese sex dolls.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were a small squad of robots to pack up your belongings and install them in your new property, without fear of ridicule? True, the robots would see all your filthy paraphernalia as they lugged it in and out of the van. But it’s not like Google doesn’t already have an extensive, permanent, undeletable log of all your depravity anyway, is it?’

‘Artificial intelligence researchers from nearly 30 countries are boycotting a South Korean university over concerns a new lab in partnership with a leading defence company could lead to “killer robots”.’

‘More than 50 leading academics signed the letter calling for a boycott of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and its partner, defence manufacturer Hanwha Systems. The researchers said they would not collaborate with the university or host visitors from KAIST over fears it sought to “accelerate the arms race to develop” autonomous weapons.’

“There are plenty of great things you can do with AI that save lives, including in a military context, but to openly declare the goal is to develop autonomous weapons and have a partner like this sparks huge concern,” said Toby Walsh, the organiser of the boycott and a professor at the University of New South Wales. “This is a very respected university partnering with a very ethically dubious partner that continues to violate international norms.”

‘Walsh was initially concerned when a Korea Times article described KAIST as “joining the global competition to develop autonomous arms” and promptly wrote to the university asking questions but did not receive a response.’

‘KAIST’s president, Sung-Chul Shin, said he was saddened to hear of the boycott. “I would like to reaffirm that KAIST does not have any intention to engage in development of lethal autonomous weapons systems and killer robots,” Shin said in a statement.’

“As an academic institution, we value human rights and ethical standards to a very high degree,” he added. “I reaffirm once again that KAIST will not conduct any research activities counter to human dignity including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control.”

‘Tempe police said car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman who later died at a hospital’

‘Concerns raised about future testing as footage suggests fatal collision in Arizona was failing of system’s most basic functions’

Sam Levin and Julia Carrie Wong, Monday 19 Mar 2018

Sam Levin, Thursday 22 Mar 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/ uber-self-driving-car-kills-woman-arizona-tempe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/22/selfdriving-car-uber-death-woman-failure-fatal-crash-arizona?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital. There was a vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash.’

“This is exactly the type of situation that Lidar and radar are supposed to pick up,” said David King, an Arizona State University professor and transportation planning expert. “This is a catastrophic failure that happened with Uber’s technology.”

‘The 2017 Volvo SUV was traveling at roughly 40 miles an hour, and it did not appear that the car slowed down as it approached the woman, said Tempe sergeant Ronald Elcock.’

‘The videos of the car hitting Elaine Herzberg also demonstrated that the “safety driver” inside the car did not seem to be monitoring the road, raising concerns about the testing systems Uber and other self-driving car companies have deployed in cities across the US.’

‘Uber has been testing its self-driving cars in numerous states and temporarily suspended its vehicles in Arizona last year after a crash involving one of its vehicles, a Volvo SUV. When the company first began testing its self-driving cars in California in 2016, the vehicles were caught running red lights, leading to a high-profile dispute between state regulators and the San Francisco-based corporation.’

“This safety driver was not doing any safety monitoring,” said Missy Cummings, a Duke University engineering professor who has testified about the dangers of self-driving technology.

Research has shown that humans monitoring an automated system are likely to become bored and disengaged, she said, which makes this current phase of semi-autonomous testing particularly dangerous.’

‘John M Simpson, privacy and technology project director with Consumer Watchdog, said the collision highlighted the need for tighter regulations of the nascent technology.’

‘The footage “strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver”, Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law school professor and autonomous vehicle expert, said in an email.

He noted that the victim is visible about two seconds before the collision, saying: “This is similar to the average reaction time for a driver. That means an alert driver may have at least attempted to swerve or brake.”

“The robot cars cannot accurately predict human behavior, and the real problem comes in the interaction between humans and the robot vehicles,” said Simpson.’

‘Tesla Motors was the first to disclose a death involving a self-driving car in 2016 when the sensors of a Model S driving in autopilot mode failed to detect a large white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway. The car drove full speed under the trailer, causing the collision that killed the 40-year-old behind the wheel in the Tesla.’

‘The fatal collision could spark significant calls for reform and reflections within the industry, he said.’

“It may be problematic for the industry, because one of their central arguments for the value of the technology is that it is superior to human drivers,” said Bennett, adding that autonomous cars should be able to detect pedestrians and avoid hitting them, even if they aren’t in crosswalks: “Every day, pedestrians in cities around the world step outside of the crosswalk.”

“I really don’t understand why Lidar didn’t pick this up,” said Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor and self-driving expert. “This video does not absolve Uber.”

‘Even though the video appeared dark, King said there was likely more visibility than the footage suggested and noted that the darkness should not affect the car’s detection abilities.’

“Uber appears to be a company that has been rushing and taking shortcuts to get these things on the road,” said Simpson, noting that Arizona leaders lured the corporation to its state with promises of fewer regulations, after Uber fought with California over its vehicles running red lights. “It’s inexcusable.”

Andrew Smith, Thu 30 Aug 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/29/coding-algorithms-frankenalgos-program-danger “In some ways we’ve lost agency. When programs pass into code and code passes into algorithms and then algorithms start to create new algorithms, it gets farther and farther from human agency. Software is released into a code universe which no one can fully understand.”

“People say, ‘Well, what about Facebook – they create and use algorithms and they can change them.’ But that’s not how it works. They set the algorithms off and they learn and change and run themselves. Facebook intervene in their running periodically, but they really don’t control them. And particular programs don’t just run on their own, they call on libraries, deep operating systems and so on ...”, says Ellen Ullman.

again”, they are nonetheless starting to learn from their environments. And once an algorithm is learning, we no longer know to any degree of certainty what its rules and parameters are. At which point we can’t be certain of how it will interact with other algorithms, the physical world, or us. Where the “dumb” fixed algorithms – complex, opaque and inured to real time monitoring as they can be – are in principle predictable and interrogable, these ones are not. After a time in the wild, we no longer know what they are: they have the potential to become erratic.’

‘Neil Johnson, a physicist specializing in complexity at the University of Miami, made a study of stock market volatility. “It’s fascinating,” he told me. “I mean, people have talked about the ecology of computer systems for years in a vague sense, in terms of worm viruses and so on. But here’s a real working system that we can study. The bigger issue is that we don’t know how it’s working or what it could give rise to. And the attitude seems to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’.”

‘At root, an algorithm is a small, simple thing; a rule used to automate the treatment of a piece of data. If a happens, then do b; if not, then do c.

This is the “if/then/else” logic of classical computing.’ ... ‘At core, computer programs are bundles of such algorithms. Recipes for treating data. On the micro level, nothing could be simpler. If computers appear to be performing magic, it’s because they are fast, not intelligent.’

‘The scenario was complicated, according to the science historian George Dyson, by the fact that some HFT firms were allowing the algos to learn – “just letting the black box try different things, with small amounts of money, and if it works, reinforce those rules. We know that’s been done. Then you actually have rules where nobody knows what the rules are: the algorithms create their own rules – you let them evolve the same way nature evolves organisms.”

‘Recent years have seen a more portentous and ambiguous meaning emerge, with the word “algorithm” taken to mean any large, complex decision-making software system; any means of taking an array of input – of data – and assessing it quickly, according to a given set of criteria (or “rules”). This has revolutionized areas of medicine, science, transport, communication, making it easy to understand the utopian view of computing that held sway for many years. Algorithms have made our lives better in myriad ways.’

“You’re right on point,” he told me: a new form of algorithm is moving into the world, which has “the capability to rewrite bits of its own code”, at which point it becomes like “a genetic algorithm”. He thinks he saw evidence of them on fact-finding forays into Facebook (“I’ve had my accounts attacked four times,” he adds). If so, algorithms are jousting there, and adapting, as on the stock market. “After all, Facebook is just one big algorithm,” Johnson says.’

‘Only since 2016 has a more nuanced consideration of our new algorithmic reality begun to take shape.’ ... ‘Corporations like Facebook and Google have sold and defended their algorithms on the promise of objectivity, an ability to weigh a set of conditions with mathematical detachment and absence of fuzzy emotion. No wonder such algorithmic decision-making has spread to the granting of loans/ bail/benefits/college places/job interviews and almost anything requiring choice.’

‘In her 2016 book Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil’ ... ‘called for “algorithmic audits” of any systems directly affecting the public, a sensible idea that the tech industry will fight tooth and nail, because algorithms are what the companies sell; the last thing they will volunteer is transparency.’ ...’almost no one has noticed us moving into a new phase of the algorithmic revolution that could be just as fraught and disorienting – with barely a question asked.’ ... ‘We might call these algorithms “dumb”, in the sense that they’re doing their jobs according to parameters defined by humans.

The quality of result depends on the thought and skill with which they were programmed. At the other end of the spectrum is the more or less distant dream of human-like artificial general intelligence, or AGI. To put this into perspective, Google’s DeepMind division has been justly lauded for creating a program capable of mastering arcade games, starting with nothing more than an instruction to aim for the highest possible score.’ ... ‘Because the machine has no context for what it’s doing and can’t do anything else. Neither, crucially, can it transfer knowledge from one game to the next (so-called “transfer learning”), which makes it less generally intelligent than a toddler, or even a cuttlefish.’ ... ‘Human beings may not be best at much, but we’re second-best at an impressive range of things.’

‘If the algorithms around us are not yet intelligent, meaning able to independently say “that calculation/course of action doesn’t look right: I’ll do it

‘The problem, again, is how to apportion responsibility in a chaotic algorithmic environment where simple cause and effect either doesn’t apply or is nearly impossible to trace. As in finance, deniability is baked into the system.’

‘Where safety is at stake, this really matters. When a driver ran off the road and was killed in a Toyota Camry after appearing to accelerate wildly for no obvious reason, Nasa experts spent six months examining the millions of lines of code in its operating system, without finding evidence for what the driver’s family believed had occurred, but the manufacturer steadfastly denied – that the car had accelerated of its own accord. Only when a pair of embedded software experts spent 20 months digging into the code were they able to prove the family’s case, revealing a twisted mass of what programmers call “spaghetti code”, full of algorithms that jostled and fought, generating anomalous, unpredictable output. The autonomous cars currently being tested may contain 100m lines of code and, given that no programmer can anticipate all possible circumstances on a real-world road, they have to learn and receive constant updates. How do we avoid clashes in such a fluid code milieu, not least when the algorithms may also have to defend themselves from hackers?’

‘Dyson questions whether we will ever have self-driving cars roaming freely through city streets, while Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales who wrote his first program at age 13 and ran a tyro computing business by his late teens, explains from a technical perspective why this is.’

“No one knows how to write a piece of code to recognize a stop sign. We spent years trying to do that kind of thing in AI – and failed!” ... “You discover when you program that you have to learn how to break the problem down into simple enough parts that each can correspond to a computer instruction [to the machine]. We just don’t know how to do that for a very complex

‘The death of a woman hit by a self-driving car highlights an unfolding technological crisis, as code piled on code creates ‘a universe no one fully understands’’ problem like identifying a stop sign or translating a sentence from English to Russian – it’s beyond our capability. All we know is how to write a more general purpose algorithm that can learn how to do that given enough examples.”

‘Hence the current emphasis on machine learning. We now know that Herzberg, the pedestrian killed by an automated Uber car in Arizona, died because the algorithms wavered in correctly categorizing her. Was this a result of poor programming, insufficient algorithmic training or a hubristic refusal to appreciate the limits of our technology? The real problem is that we may never know.’

“And we will eventually give up writing algorithms altogether,” Walsh continues, “because the machines will be able to do it far better than we ever could. Software engineering is in that sense perhaps a dying profession. It’s going to be taken over by machines that will be far better at doing it than we are.”

‘Walsh believes this makes it more, not less, important that the public learn about programming, because the more alienated we become from it, the more it seems like magic beyond our ability to affect.’ ... ‘A chilling thought indeed. Accordingly, he believes ethics to be the new frontier in tech, foreseeing “a golden age for philosophy” – a view with which Eugene Spafford of Purdue University, a cybersecurity expert, concurs.’

“Where there are choices to be made, that’s where ethics comes in. And we tend to want to have an agency that we can interrogate or blame, which is very difficult to do with an algorithm...”

“The counter-argument is that, once a program has slipped up, the entire population of programs can be rewritten or updated so it doesn’t happen again – unlike humans, whose propensity to repeat mistakes will doubtless fascinate intelligent machines of the future. Nonetheless, while automation should be safer in the long run, our existing system of tort law, which requires proof of intention or negligence, will need to be rethought. A dog is not held legally responsible for biting you; its owner might be, but only if the dog’s action is thought foreseeable. In an algorithmic environment, many unexpected outcomes may not have been foreseeable to humans – a feature with the potential to become a scoundrel’s charter, in which deliberate obfuscation becomes at once easier and more rewarding.”

‘Commerce, social media, finance and transport may come to look like small beer in future, however. If the military no longer drives innovation as it once did, it remains tech’s most consequential adopter. No surprise, then, that an outpouring of concern among scientists and tech workers has accompanied revelations that autonomous weapons are ghosting toward the battlefield in what amounts to an algorithmic arms race. A robotic sharpshooter currently polices the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, and while its manufacturer, Samsung, denies it to be capable of autonomy, this claim is widely disbelieved. Russia, China and the US all claim to be at various stages of developing swarms of coordinated, weaponized drones , while the latter plans missiles able to hover over a battlefield for days, observing, before selecting their own targets. A group of Google employees resigned over and thousands more questioned the tech monolith’s provision of machine learning software to the Pentagon’s Project Maven “algorithmic warfare” program – concerns to which management eventually responded, agreeing not to renew the Maven contract and to publish a code of ethics for the use of its algorithms. At time of writing, competitors including Amazon and Microsoft have resisted following suit.’

‘In common with other tech firms, Google had claimed moral virtue for its Maven software: that it would help choose targets more efficiently and thereby save lives. The question is how tech managers can presume to know what their algorithms will do or be directed to do in situ – especially given the certainty that all sides will develop adaptive algorithmic coun-

ter-systems designed to confuse enemy weapons. As in the stock market, unpredictability is likely to be seen as an asset rather than handicap, giving weapons a better chance of resisting attempts to subvert them. In this and other ways we risk in effect turning our machines inside out, wrapping our everyday corporeal world in spaghetti code.’

‘Lucy Suchman of Lancaster University in the UK co-authored an open letter from technology researchers to Google, asking them to reflect on the rush to militarize their work.’ ...’ Suchman also offers statistics that shed chilling light on Maven. According to analysis carried out on drone attacks in Pakistan from 2003-13, fewer than 2% of people killed in this way are confirmable as “high value” targets presenting a clear threat to the United States.’

“So here we have this very crude technology of identification and what Project Maven proposes to do is automate that. At which point it becomes even less accountable and open to questioning.”

‘Solutions exist or can be found for most of the problems described here, but not without incentivizing big tech to place the health of society on a par with their bottom lines.’

‘Model-based programming may not be the panacea some hope for, however. Not only does it push humans yet further from the process, but Johnson, the physicist, conducted a study for the Department of Defense that found “extreme behaviors that couldn’t be deduced from the code itself” even in large, complex systems built using this technique. A new programming language called TLA+ allows for mathematical proof that a software system contains no bugs, but this requires programmers with advanced math skills. Much energy is being directed at finding ways to trace unexpected algorithmic behavior back to the specific lines of code that caused it. No one knows if a solution (or solutions) will be found, but none are likely to work where aggressive algos are designed to clash and/or adapt.’

‘More practically, Spafford, the software security expert, advises making tech companies responsible for the actions of their products, whether specific lines of rogue code – or proof of negligence in relation to them – can be identified or not. He notes that the venerable Association for Computing Machinery has updated its code of ethics along the lines of medicine’s Hippocratic oath, to instruct computing professionals to do no harm and consider the wider impacts of their work.’

‘Johnson, for his part, considers our algorithmic discomfort to be at least partly conceptual; growing pains in a new realm of human experience.’ ...”it’s even affecting elections. I mean, what the heck is going on? I think the deep scientific thing is that software engineers are trained to write programs to do things that optimize – and with good reason, because you’re often optimizing in relation to things like the weight distribution in a plane, or a most fuel-efficient speed: in the usual, anticipated circumstances optimizing makes sense. But in unusual circumstances it doesn’t, and we need to ask: ‘What’s the worst thing that could happen in this algorithm once it starts interacting with others?’ The problem is we don’t even have a word for this concept, much less a science to study it.”

‘He pauses for moment, trying to wrap his brain around the problem.’

“The thing is, optimizing is all about either maximizing or minimizing something, which in computer terms are the same. So what is the opposite of an optimization, ie the least optimal case, and how do we identify and measure it? The question we need to ask, which we never do, is: ‘What’s the most extreme possible behavior in a system I thought I was optimizing?”

‘Another brief silence ends with a hint of surprise in his voice.’

“Basically, we need a new science,” he says.’

‘What is most easily called artificial intelligence is based not on an accumulation of raw inputs but on patterned impressions drawn from that data, but any functional intelligence is defined by its ability to act upon its world, and its ability to act is construed by what and how it can sense that world and itself within it.’

Benjamin Bratton, 2017 http://www.glass-bead.org/article/ city-wears-us-notes-scope-distributed-sensing-sensation/?lang=enview ‘There is a particular and perhaps peculiar affect theory for machines to be unwound over the coming years.’

‘But the sensing and thinking systems are located not just in the valuable subjects and objects rolling around, they are built into the fabric of the city in various mosaics. Because how a sentient city thinks is inextricable from how a sentient city senses, a good catalog is less a litany of objects in a flat ontology, or the feature set in a new model technology, than an anatomical index of the interlocking capacities and limitations of an incipient machinic sensate world.

The distributed body includes not only automotive sensors, but also digital component sensors, flow sensors, humidity sensors, position sensors, rate and inertial sensors, temperature sensors, relative motion sensors, visible light sensors and recording “cameras,” position sensors, local area and wide area scanners, vibration sensors, force sensors, torque sensors, water and moisture sensors, piezo film sensors, fluid property sensors, ultrasonic sensors, pressure sensors, liquid level sensors, and so on.’

‘Any surface is potentially also a skin and its sensitivity is open to design. The sensor arrays that outfit those drivers’ cars, for example, will evolve, combine and specialize further.

Descendants of these arrays may cover other machines, in motion or at rest, familiar or unfamiliar. Wearability then is not just for human users, or even only bodies in motion, but for any “user” that has a surface.’

‘Clothing is already a synthetic skin, and its functions are not only thermal regulation or protection against abrasion, but to communicate to other people significant subcultural information about who we are, not only what we are.’

‘As skin and brain are bound up into direct circuits, we may say that the membrane’s incredible animations are as much a nervous reaction as a cognitive one. The lesson from cuttlefish for how we should imagine a rich ecology of urban-scale AI is profound.’

‘Long before modern computing, or even the appearance of humanlike creatures, evolution has drifted away from primordial entropy and toward biochemical heterogeneity and nested diversity. “Information” has been understood as the calculus of that world-ordering, as seen in patterns of

genetic encoding and transmission, organism morphologies, transversal contamination and symbiosis, intraspecies sexual selection, interspecies niche dynamics, displays and camouflages, and various sorts of signaling across shifting boundaries. Information, in this sense, may be less the message itself than the measure of the space of possibility by which mediation is possible in a given context.’

‘Environmental monitoring and sensing systems can describe and predict the state of living systems over time but usually cannot act back upon them. They are sensor-rich and effector-poor. By way of a provisional conclusion, I advocate that technologies that augment the capacities of exposed surfaces, whole organisms, or relations between them should extend deeply into the ecological cacophony. Yes: not only training data from plants, but augmented reality for crows, and artificial intelligence for insects. Far from command and control, altering how different species sense, index, calculate and act upon their world may introduce chaotic results (if some people are concerned about the cascading effects of merely modifying rice to make it rich in Vitamin A, we can assume there will also be pushback on TensorFlow-compatible ants, trees, and octopi.) The picture I draw is less one in which the AI supervises those creatures than one in which they themselves inform and pilot diverse forms of AI on their own behalf and in their own inscrutable ways. We should crave to learn what would ensue. The insights of synthetic biology as a genre of AI, and AI as a genre of inorganic chemistry, mean little if the cycles of cybernetics are monopolized by humans’ own errands. The city will also wear us.’

Black Mirror

Black Mirror

Black Mirror

Season 1, Episode 3

Season 2, Episode 1

Season 2, Episode 2

Should we have to mind our manners at any given moment, is that freedom?

But what if you don’t fit the mould? The mould is the norm, right? How many people fit the norm in every aspect?

The answer is none.

Here we are again faced with existential questions. IA today is capable of reading your personality via social media and can recreate a good guess of your responses towards actions. Again we have to ask ourselves, what is the ‘I’? Am I a physical being, or is the actions I make, the reactions I have more like the ‘I’? No doubt will it be both, but to what degree? If we die in real life, do we/can we still be alive online today? How do you define consciousness?

What will the future bring in terms of publicly hated persons? How much can you humiliate and mentally terrorise someone in the name of Justice? In this episode we are pushed to think about casting the first stone. We are not all innocent, and if we claim to be; to what degree? How much are you allowed to torture someone that has committed a crime? How do you rate crimes? This episode brings forth memories of The Running Man, with Arnold Schwarzenegger where torturing convicts has become entertainment.

Where do we draw the line for what is an appropriate punishment? In a virtual world, and in the realm of eternal life, a verdict like this becomes disturbingly close to Dante’s visions of Hell, where you are forever trapped.

This episode elaborates on the idea that you could be filmed, and recorded at any given point, and you could be held responsible for the slightest slip of your established behaviour pattern.

Even if you do not literary break any laws, you will still be held accountable to friends and family, and there will not be any freedom of white lies. Do you need this integrity, or are you constantly honest, are you like and open book?

What if the freedom of integrity was taken from you? What if you knew you had to be an open book at all times, even though that is what you prefer anyway? What will that knowledge do to your mind? Will it make you want to challenge it as a statement, or will you just accept it as a natural extension or your already existing intentional contract? Is it always best to trust in technology over the flaws of mankind? If not, when would you prefer to apply it?

This episode also takes this one step further – what if the recordings of you can be put in a robot, or a cyborg?

Does that make it more you, less you or does it matter? Do you matter as it is today, or are you just an artefact to the people who holds you dear?

Black Mirror

Black Mirror

Black Mirror

Season 2, Episode 3

Season 3, Episode 2

Season 3, Episode 3

This episode that deals with the incredibly powerful cartoon character Waldo, poses question about our use of social media, and what impact social media have. It tells the story of how we take so much pleasure in dragging politicians and authoritarian persons in the dirt, while actually not posing one single constructive idea ourselves. It is easy to condemn, but harder to be constructive – it is easier to destroy than to create. But does it make us happier, and does it make the world a better place? And who do we really serve when shaming people that try to make a difference and actually stand for something? Is our way of using social media really constructive, or do we just use it as a tool to destroy?

Again we face the question of what VR and AR will bring. In this episode the question is if we are ready to face ourselves; if we are ready to see our own weaknesses and fears, and what impact that can have on the human mind in a virtual world. They say your own mind is your biggest enemy, and in this episode this is put to its edge. But what is perhaps more interesting with this episode is; how will the transition to a virtual reality be, and how will we handle it? What if we can’t, or if we have second thoughts? Can we go back? Can we even trust that we are back in the real physical world if we chose to? Were we even there when we begun our lives, and how could we tell? What if we found our original, physical reality, absolute shit? Could Neo even trust that the ‘real’ world, that Morpheus showed him, was the actual real world, or was this just another alternative of virtual reality?

These are questions that the film eXistenZ also asked at the very end of the 20th century.

This episode deals with the question of anonymity, and how powerful it can actually be, but also what responsibilities comes with it. Since the boom of social media and the opportunity of being anonymous, we have seen how insults and ‘public’ shaming has boomed, and trolling found its way into our dictionaries. It also discusses how easily hackers can get into your home via digital cameras incorporated in pretty much all technical devices, that are in turn all connected to the internet. What happens when you can no longer hide the skeleton in your wardrobe even if it’s a physical one in your actual wardrobe in your physical home? How do we deal with the fact that anyone can track your every move via satellite data at any given moment? How will you hide your social abnormalities? What I am wondering is if this in a longer perspective will lead to a more tolerant world, or will it force us to be ‘perfect robots’, doing anything not to be ashamed?

Will it make us avoid going outside our houses, or will it foster an attitude of the opposite; ‘since everyone know anyway, why even bother about what people think’?

Black Mirror

Black Mirror

Season 3, Episode 4

Season 3, Episode 5

This is one of the most positive episodes in the Black Mirror series. Two gay women are ultimately allowed to engage in a relationship, something at least one of them has not been able to do during their physical lifetime, due to outside preconceptions.

What I find fascinating with this episode is its relation to what we try to approach in Unit 4, and what the film The Matrix was trying to convey – that in the near future, we will be able to recreate reality in Virtual Reality. In this episode we are not really sure if the place was entirely fictional to begin with, or if it is a recreation of a real place. What matters is that it is believable, interactive, and filled with avatars of real people.

There is also another aspect of this episode that is very a’ jour; namely the feature of eternal life in an artificial world.

This concept askes existential and metaphysical questions such as what is the ‘I’. Does ‘I’ live in ‘reality’, or does it live in a perception of a fictional ‘reality’? What is real, what is reality?

I have long been of the opinion that the ‘I’ is not our physical human body; the body is merely the vehicle we are assigned to, but the ‘I’ is something intangible, something that sits inside our physical ‘hut’. I do have a sense that there is a collective intelligence, which is, since it is not acknowledged, neglected, and therefore not functional. I do somehow believe we are all part of one big energy, that we are all connected, but we just don’t know how to approach the concept. Full stop.

The terminator is here envisioned in a slightly different take.

In this episode bio machinery, or cyborg, is discussed and debated. On signing-up each soldier approve getting a computer chip implanted in their head. This chip will allegedly help them make faster, and better decisions in pressed situations. Furthermore, it allows for using augmented reality to ease reconnaissance while in the field. In this episode we also learn that via long, and complex contracts, recruits are being tricked into approving this procedure. We learn that this augmented reality tricks the perception of the soldiers, as they see heinous monsters, instead of poor people, while out on mission. We learn that the human mind can be tricked into committing hideous crimes against humanity with the help of technology, but also that a conscious mind can choose such unthinkable thoughts, when pushed to the edge, over facing reality and a lifetime of pain, be it physical or mental. If the option of being able to forget your own actions is presented, a human being might just take the chance, just like Cypher did in the first Matrix film. Especially if he can save his loved ones with his actions, or if he is presented with the option of being able to forget that he chose to terminated them.

Black Mirror Season 3, Episode 6 Bees. Robotic bees have been created and are autonomous. These bees have been created to help polonaise the earth because biological/natural bees are dying out. This is caused by climate change. These robotic bees are run by AI but as humans wants to be in control of everything we possibly can, a loophole was created. This loophole was detected by an ideological hacker and via social media and trolling these robotic bees was turned into a weapon.

The storyline in this episode is a devastating critique against our modern day society, but the message is very neatly baked into the story. It is the paradox of being too righteous while being too passive; It is easy to hate upon popularity, and to condemn it. But it is also a biblical sin to hate upon even the ignorant.

In this episode both gets punished according to the deadly sins. First passive Wrath causes death to the ones that suffer social media contempt, which mostly is exercised by trolling what is popular to hate upon. This is obviously driven by media, and actually Sloth might be the most appropriate sin in this case, since it has now become so easy to have a very strong condemning opinion without actually put an effort in to come up with a better alternative.

In a second wave the tables are turned by this ideologist, and the social media haters are sentenced to death because of their own Wrath, or Sloth. One seven deadly sins is to act in wrath, which is essentially what the trolling people have been doing, and they are punished accordingly.

This all became possible because even of the pollinizing bees, that are autonomous machines. But although these machines and run on AI, they, in this episode, allow for being overrun by a hijacking script created by the ideological hacker. Much like in the move Se7en; by creating this deadly script, the ideological hacker commits a deadly sin himself. The story hints of his own condemnation at the very end of the episode, although here the ideologist is trying to escape his own sin, in opposition to the story in Se7en, where the protagonist rather embrace his own guilt.

This episode also talks about strong and gifted women, which is not too common in this genre of films, or any other genre of films for that matter, apart from perhaps some dramas.

This episode is multifaceted, and what gets almost forgotten at the end is the disturbing ‘fact’ that robotic bees are needed in the first place.

Apart from my own review I can’t help thinking of the anti-commercial short film, seemingly made as a pro-autonomous weapon advocating TED-talk.

In fact, this short film is trying to do the opposite, we learn towards the end.

It tells us why we must prevent, and protest against using machines in warfare. And in fact this also relate back to another Black Mirror episode in this season; more specifically the episode before this. Please see my extract from Black Mirror, season 3, episode 5 for more info.

Sebastian Jordahn, 13 April 2018 https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/13/video-interview-anne-asensio-dassault-systemes-air-pollution-exhibition-milan-movie/ ‘A Milan design week exhibition by Dassault Systèmes will showcase concepts to reduce air pollution by designers including Kengo Kuma, as revealed in this movie Dezeen produced for the 3D software brand.’

‘Called Design in the Age of Experience, the exhibition will explore how design and technology can be used to create sustainable solutions for air pollution. “We want to share the perspective of great designers – how can we solve this issue?” says Dassault Systèmes vice president of design experience Anne Asensio in the movie.’

‘The exhibition will feature an air-purifying installation designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma called Breath/ng, which is made from large suspended coils of a special pollution-neutralising fabric.’

‘Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde’s Smog Free Project will also be on display. The project comprises a series of concepts for reducing air pollution, including designs for an air-filtering tower, bicycles that clean the air for the cyclists riding them, as well as a ring made from highly compressed smog particles.’

‘The exhibition is motivated by the 3D software company’s Design For Life ethos, a belief that design and technology can combine to solve some of the world’s biggest issues.’

‘Dassault Systèmes offers a suite of 3D software for designers, architects and engineers called 3DExperience, which includes well known CAD products such as Solidworks, as well as virtual-reality tools that are used in a wide range of industries.

“We’re not only providing solutions or tools for designers when it comes to designing their ideas, we actually offer them a virtual universe,” Asensio says.’

‘Cities are already up to 10C hotter than surrounding areas. As temperatures rise, here are four ways to cool cities down – saving both lives and energy’ Philip Oldfield, Wed 15 Aug 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/15/whatheat-proof-city-look-like?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other ‘Vehicles stuck in traffic emitting heat. Airconditioners pumping waste heat into the air. Concrete and asphalt across almost every surface, absorbing and radiating the sun’s rays. Urban canyons formed between tall buildings, trapping heat at the street level.’

‘In the US heatwaves kill more people on average than any other natural disaster, while in the UK heat-related deaths are set to increase 257% by 2050 and 535% by 2080. And it is not just an issue in hot countries – in Moscow an estimated 11,000 people died due to a heatwave in 2010.’

‘Fortunately, there are many ways in which we can mitigate the urban heat island effect – while also creating more attractive places to live, work and play.’

‘Today Singapore accommodates 100 hectares (240 acres) of skyrise greenery, with plans to increase this to 200 ha by 2030 – an area equivalent to Regent’s Park. This growth is fuelled by building regulations such as the Landscaping for Urban Spaces and High-Rises (Lush) policy. Lush requires any new building to include areas of greenery equivalent to the size of the development site. These can be at ground level or at height, and often include luxuriantly planted balconies, shaded skygardens and vertical green walls – which can help cause temperatures to drop by 2-3C.’ “We’ve almost created, in some ways, the notion of a huge tree in the city,” says Wong Mun Summ, Founding Director at WOHA. “[It’s] a device in the city that really supports a thriving eco-system three-dimensionally in a very dense environment.” The result is a building that accommodates greenery equivalent to 11 times its own footprint. As well as cooling, such abundant vegetation contributes many other benefits too – absorbing pollutants from the air, producing oxygen and creating a calming, natural setting within the hyper-dense city.’

‘If we are to make cities cooler we must also change the materials they’re built from. Urban areas are dominated by dark and hard materials – concrete, asphalt, paving – most of which absorb, rather than reflect, solar radiation.’

‘The New York Cools Roofs initiative, for example, has seen more than 500,000m2 of roof space covered in a white reflective coating, saving an estimated 2,282 tonnes of CO2 per year from cooling emissions. Cool roofs are installed at no cost in public buildings, for non-profit organisations and in affordable housing. In other buildings free labour for installation is offered by the city with the owner just paying for the materials.’

‘It may sound simple, but the results can be significant – research

by Nasa has suggested a white roof could be 23C cooler than a typical black one on the hottest day of the New York summer.’

‘In Los Angeles, it’s roads, not roofs, that are the challenge. More than 10% of the city’s land area is black asphalt, which absorbs up to 95% of the sun’s energy, contributing to the urban heat island.

The city is responding by painting roads in a white-coloured sealant with a high reflectivity, at a cost of $40,000 per mile.’

‘Water has been used as a tool to cool cities for centuries. The 14th century palace of Alhambra, for example, housed courtyards with pools and arching fountains, stimulating the evaporation of water and cooling the hot, dry Andalusian air.’

‘Chongqing is known as one of the “three furnaces” of the Yangtze River Delta, given its long hot summers. To provide moments of relief, the city is experimenting by using water misters at local bus stops.

These spray clouds of water chilled to 5-7C, cooling the air as well as the waiting passengers.’

‘The University of New South Wales, the CRCLCL and Sydney Water studied the urban heat island effect in western Sydney, where temperatures can often be 6–10C hotter than the coastal regions of the city little more than 15 miles away and found that adding water features and cool coatings would reduce cooling requirements by 29–43% and lower the overall average air temperature by 1.5C.’ ‘One of the challenges in keeping the built environment cool is over-reliance on fully-glazed facades. Many windows permit desirable natural light and views but can mean buildings trap unwanted heat in summer and don’t retain it in winter. We can easily design shading systems to protect buildings from the sun, but for the best possible results, these shading systems need to move in tune with the local weather and the path of the sun.’

‘A radical example is in Abu Dhabi, where summer temperatures rise as high as 48C and buildings need to be shielded from the harsh desert sun. The Al Bahr Towers take inspiration from a Middle Eastern shading device known as a mashrabiya. Historically, these are wooden screens, patterned with Islamic geometry to allow for filtered light and views while protecting inhabitants from the intensity of the sun. But the modern mashrabiya in the Al Bahr Towers move to create a dramatic, adaptable façade, estimated to reduce the building’s CO2 emissions by 20%.’

‘A building management system operates 1,049 hexagon-shaped shades, opening and closing them like flowers. Their movements follow the sun, shading the parts of the building in direct sunlight but opening up to allow for natural light as the sun moves by.’

‘The result is a constantly changing and adapting façade, one that reflects daily and seasonal patterns of weather, climate and occupation and responds to changing needs of heat and light. Adaptable buildings and infrastructure like this one, which can morph to respond to different seasons and weather events, will be crucial in the future battle to keep cool and comfortable in a warming climate.’

‘Case Study NYC CoolRoofs’ Amy Furman at NYC Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, January 14, 2015 https://www.c40.org/case_studies/nyc-coolroofs ‘The NYC °CoolRoofs program, launched in 2009, has coated over 529,547 square meters of rooftop (626 buildings) with a white, reflective coating, offsetting the warming effect of greenhouse gases (GHG) and also directly cooling the city.

The program provides benefits and savings directly to the building owner by reducing cooling costs by 10-30%, and has proved to be an effective way to help tackle the Urban Heat Island effect and reduce GHG emissions. The program encourages and facilitates the cooling of New York City’s rooftops through its “Cool It Yourself” program for private installations and through volunteer and green workforce programs for public buildings and properties that may not otherwise have access to energy-saving benefits.’

‘Cool roofs reflect the sun’s thermal energy, creating a cooling effect. In order to be a cool roof, the specialized coating must have high solar reflectivity and high infrared emissivity.

Solar reflectivity expresses the degree to which a roof reflects the visible, infrared and ultraviolet rays that comprise solar energy, according to the NYC CoolRoofs website.’

‘In 2011, New York City updated 2007 legislation to require that 75% of the roof area or setback surface on all new or substantially renovated low-slope roofs permitted on or after July 1, 2009, have minimum initial solar reflectance of 0.7 and minimum thermal emittance of 0.75. Because a roof’s lifespan is generally 20 years, NYC will see an increasing number of rooftops being converted to highly reflective standards by 2030. NYC °CoolRoofs will help to accelerate this conversion by providing resources and technical assistance for private properties through Cool It Yourself while also providing white roof installations for low-income, non-profit, and public establishments citywide (through private sponsorship, a volunteer engagement program, and green workforce training).’

‘By 2025, this is expected to reduce citywide GHG emissions by 3,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, generate US$1 million in annual energy cost savings, and help train 500 New Yorkers who will be prepared for jobs promoting energy efficiency in buildings.’

‘A complex sunshading system makes the lack of air conditioning possible in the glazed structures.’

Katie Gerfen, October 06, 2010 https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/thyssenkrupp-quarter_o ‘Designed by the team of JSWD Architekten in Cologne, Germany, and Chaix & Morel et Associés in Paris—who together beat out more than 100 submissions in an international competition—the campus had to answer the need for not only a cornerstone for the larger development, but a signature identity for the company.’

‘One thing employees do not need to go outside for is fresh air. All of the buildings on the campus follow stringent German sustainability standards and, as such, are naturally ventilated. This is particularly notable in the headquarters building, where offices surround a vast 10-story atrium that is not air-conditioned. “The idea was not to heat or cool the whole atrium, which is a huge volume of air,” Steffens says. “It would cost a lot of money, and not be sustainable.” Exceptions are made for employee comfort in targeted zones, which the team refers to as “microclimatic interventions.” In these spaces, radiant heating is employed and reflected off of canopies to create a zone of warmer air.’

‘A complex sunshading system makes the lack of air conditioning possible in the glazed structures. Stainless steel louvers and fins open and close based on the sun’s path to maximize views out, while reducing glare and cutting down on heat gain. But the sunshading system—with its triangular, square, and trapezoidal fins—also serves to give the campus buildings their signature appearance.’

“The detail of the sunshading system is the character of the whole,” Steffens says. “When you look at the building in the evening when the sun is going down, it is absolutely amazing to see what the stainless steel does with this red light.”

Daniel Boffey, Thursday 12 Apr 2018

‘A technique has been devised that allows electricity to flow directly from solar panels to electrified train tracks to the trains themselves making solar powered trains more feasible than ever before’ Alice Bell, Thursday 14 Dec 2017

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/ worlds-first-electrified-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-insweden?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2017/dec/14/in-10-years-time-trains-could-solar-powered?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘About 2km (1.2 miles) of electric rail has been embedded in a public road near Stockholm, but the government’s roads agency has already drafted a national map for future expansion.’

‘We think solar could power 20% of the Merseyrail network in Liverpool, as well as 15% of commuter routes in Kent, Sussex and Wessex. There’s scope for solar trams in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham, London and Manchester too, and there’s no reason it should just be a British thing either.’

‘Stretch of road outside Stockholm transfers energy from two tracks of rail in the road, recharging the batteries of electric cars and trucks’

‘Sweden’s target of achieving independence from fossil fuel by 2030 requires a 70% reduction in the transport sector.’

‘When a vehicle stops, the current is disconnected. The system is able to calculate the vehicle’s energy consumption, which enables electricity costs to be debited per vehicle and user.’

‘The “dynamic charging” – as opposed to the use of roadside charging posts – means the vehicle’s batteries can be smaller, along with their manufacturing costs.’

“If we electrify 20,000km of highways that will definitely be be enough,” he added. “The distance between two highways is never more than 45km and electric cars can already travel that distance without needing to be recharged. Some believe it would be enough to electrify 5,000km.”

‘National grids are increasingly moving away from coal and oil and battery storage is seen as crucial to a changing the source of the energy used in transportation.’

‘The Swedish government, represented by a minister at the formal inauguration of the electrified road on Wednesday, is in talks with Berlin about a future network.’

‘The idea came from a community solar group in Balcombe, West Sussex, formed in response to the first anti-fracking protests in the UK, in the summer of 2013.’

‘Looking ahead, it will be a few years yet before we’re able to deploy the tech necessary to plug solar into trains. It needs building, and it needs testing, but I’d be shocked if it doesn’t happen. What’s less clear is whether community groups will be involved as solar railways roll out. As they’ve been part of this from the get-go, they’re super-keen. But it’s all too easy for the public to be shunted to the sidelines when the big budgets and complexity of infrastructure projects get going.’

‘It’s common for public involvement to be seen as an inefficiency – in science, politics, finance, technology and more – a “nice to have” that takes too much time and effort when we’re in the serious business of things like climate change, economics and keeping the trains running on time.’

‘But the opposite is true, especially when it comes to climate action. It’s the public who are driving change, often despite the actions of policy-makers.’

‘Community energy offers a particularly powerful way to give members of the public a role in decarbonisation. Moreover, by tapping into their energy, enthusiasm and ability to bring other members of the public with them, we’ll get it done faster, as well as fairer. If it wasn’t for community energy groups coming up with this idea, pushing it forward and scoping out the places it could be utilised, solar trains would still be far more than a few years away.’

‘Underwater sea walls and artificial islands among projects urgently required to avoid devastation of global flooding, say scientists’

‘Scholars from developing countries call for greater say in solar geoengineering research, arguing poor nations have most at stake’

Robin McKie, Sun 18 Mar 2018

Peter Beaumont, Thursday 5 Apr 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/18/ billion-dollar-polar-geoengineering-to-slow-melting-glaciers-global-flooding

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/ apr/05/scientists-suggest-giant-sunshade-in-sky-could-solveglobal-warming?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

‘The researchers say the work – costing tens of billions of dollars a time – is urgently needed to prevent polar glaciers melting and raising sea levels. That would lead to major inundations of low-lying, densely populated areas, such as parts of Bangladesh, Japan and the Netherlands.’

‘But amid mounting interest in “solar geoengineering” – not least among western universities – a group of scientists from developing countries has issued a forceful call to have a greater say in the direction of research into climate change, arguing that their countries are the ones with most at stake.’

‘Flooding in these areas is likely to cost tens of trillions of dollars a year if global warming continues at its present rate, and vast sea-wall defences will need to be built to limit the devastation. Such costs make glacier engineering in polar regions a competitive alternative, according to the team, which is led by John Moore, professor of climate change at the University of Lapland.’

‘That has led scientists at Harvard University to propose their own experiment, which they call “stratospheric controlled perturbation effect”, or SCoPEx for short. It involves using a balloon to test the controversial proposition that aerosols released at a height of 20km in the Earth’s atmosphere can alter the reflective properties of cloud cover.’

“We think that geoengineering of glaciers could delay much of Greenland and Antarctica’s grounded ice from reaching the sea for centuries, buying time to address global warming,” the scientists write in the current issue of Nature.

“Geoengineering of glaciers has received little attention in journals. Most people assume that it is unfeasible and environmentally undesirable. We disagree.”

‘In each case, the team – which includes scientists in Finland and the US – acknowledges that costs would be in the billions. Construction is also likely to cause considerable disruption.’

‘However, the team insists that such projects should be carefully assessed now as the likely costs appear to be compatible with those of other large energy and civil engineering works being planned across the globe. The issue is simple, they state: should we spend vast sums to wall off all the world’s coasts, or can we address the problem at its source?’

“Potential risks, especially to local ecosystems, need careful analysis,” they conclude. “In our view, however, the greatest risk is doing nothing.”

‘The cooling effect has long been known in phenomena such as “ship tracks” – narrow artificial clouds of pollution, created by emissions from ships, that contain more and smaller water droplets than typical clouds, making them brighter and more reflective of sunlight.’

“Solar geoengineering – injecting aerosol particles into the stratosphere to reflect away a little inbound sunlight – is being discussed as a way to cool the planet, fast,” the scientists write in Nature.’

“Solar geoengineering is outlandish and unsettling. It invokes technologies that are redolent of science fiction – jets lacing the stratosphere with sunlight-blocking particles, and fleets of ships spraying seawater into low-lying clouds to make them whiter and brighter to reflect sunlight.’

‘The solar geoengineering studies may be helped by a new $400,000 (£284,100) research project, the solar radiation management governance initiative (SRMGI), which is issuing a first call for scientists to apply for finance this week.’

‘In a leaked draft of a report about global warming due for publication in October, a UN panel of climate experts express scepticism about solar geoengineering, suggesting it may be “economically, socially and institutionally infeasible”.

The Future Starts - Here Exhibition at V&A, The Sainsbury Gallery The Sainsbury Gallery Designed by Amanda Levete Architects (AL_A) ‘With this document I’m trying to tell the story of us humans at this very exciting, and to a degree scary, period in time. A massive paradigm shift that the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and The Second Digital Turn undoubtedly brings needs to be understood better, in order for architects to design for this new time in human history. Urban environments, more than anything, must respond to new demands.

This exhibition enhanced my own research, and added more insight into the near future. It is also a confirmation that the collection, that is this document and what I have a real interest in, is very much relevant.

C J Lim Book Release Lecture At the Architectural Association, AA Inhabitable Infrastructures: Science fiction or urban future?

CJ Lim is an amazing storyteller, and he is turning this to an art within the realm of architecture. This lecture was a book release, where he advocates the importance of a strong narrative. Narrative and fiction is often left out of architectural proposals, but in fact they are more than just stories according to Lim; they are progressive visions of what could be. In Lims work they also exist as “shouldn’t be”; he says that a lot of his work is stories that hopefully will never come true, because they are sarcastic comments on real issues. In this way they become a weapon to fight dystopia, in an ironic way.

I share my flat with Damien Assini, who graduated from CJ’s unit at the Bartlett in the spring 2017. Having seated next to him while he’s been working on his project, I have gained a very good insight into both Damien’s and CJ’s work, and their take on architectural discourse. It has been a true privilige and very inspirational. I am very attracted by strong narratives, and amazing stories.

Lim, in this lecture, meantioned several authors, and their books & films, that has inspired him in his work. For example: -

George Orwell, 1984 George Orwell, Animal Farm JG Ballard, The Drowned World JG Ballard, Fictions of Every Kind Hugo Gernsback, Wonder Stories (Magazine) Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Andrew Niccol, In Time Rem Koolhaas, Dilerious New York William Morris, New from Nowhere Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism

He finishes his talk by citing Brandon Sanderson, from his work The Way of Kings; ‘The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.’

What happens if you replace ‘the storyteller’ with ‘the architect’?

Wes Anderson - Isle of Dogs Exhibition 180 The Strand At The Store X Model Set-design ‘Curated by Anderson himself, the exhibition presents the intricate sets that make up the city of Megasaki where the film is based, alongside the original puppets of the canine characters who live there. It also features a life-size recreation of the film’s noodle bar, serving ramen by Akira Shimizu, executive chef at Soho’s Engawa restaurant, set against a background of the original score by Alexandre Desplat (who worked with Anderson on The Grand Budapest Hotel), classic Kurosawa scores and the The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, who all feature on the film’s soundtrack. To mark the advent of the film, The Vinyl Factory also releases a special, limited edition four-track EP from the soundtrack, which will be available exclusively at The Store X from Tuesday 27th March for the duration of the show.’

Peter Cook - Architecture Can Be Weird Lecture at the Bartlett 2017 Lecture series, lecture 1 of 6: Creative Cynicism and the Cheerful Response In his lecture Sir Peter Cook advocates the humorous unexpected in architecture. This architecture obviously have to respond to the context, local culture and environment aspects too. It needs to fill its functions, it needs to do its job. But that doesn’t necessarily means it must look efficient. It should contribute with delight and humour according to Cook.

He has adopted, what he calls “a creative cynical view” of everyday life and architecture. By this he means that he is sceptical about the boring reality, and actually there is plenty of humours things going on around us all the time. It is this side of people that he wants to promote and encourage so that we don’t have to spend our lives searching for humour, but it should be easily accessed and enjoyed.

He also promotes the notion that sometimes great architecture is emerging by chance. In order to be lucky one has to try weird things, or look at the ordinary in a weird way, or perhaps seize that moment when the weird occurs and hold on to it. Include it in the design!

His opinion of the importance of (his own) delight in architecture comes from silliness & jokes, that is translated into physical form, or events in the spaces he design.

He mentions William Heath Robinson’s crazy drawings as a great source of inspiration. Robinson’s drawings tell amazing stories of unlikely devices and characters.

Peter Cook - Architecture Can Be Weird Lecture at UCL, JZ lecture hall Lecture series, lecture 2 of 6: In Defence of Big Personality In this second lecture in the series Sir Cook takes us through some of the biggest names in architecture in the last 100, or so, years. Their legacy is presented and their impact on their apprentices, and other, at the time, future architects were made clear. Later on in the lecture, he also spoke of the relation between architects and their heir, but also the relation between contemporary architects. Cook also managed to sneak in a few ‘fun-facts’ and speculations (mostly of expected, and unexpected romances between architects, and ‘womenizing’).

He spoke dearly of many of the biggest names in history and in contemporary architecture. As an example he calls Frank Lloyd Wright “a great bullshitter”.

Cook has met many of the great architects of the 20th century and has worked with many of them in academia. He talks dearly of Cedric Price and his ability to disappear. Especially from parties in which he was often a extremely present participant; “you always knew when Cedric was in the room”, not because he was extra loud, but he had an energetic aura that left no one unaware of him.

The message here was basically that great architecture often comes from great personalities, whether they are perceived as pompous, pretentious or just admirable.

What I take with me from this lecture is his call for a better parametric architecture. He says; “I want the parametrics to have activities in them. Nevermind the shape, I like the shape”. He then moved on saying that since Mr Schumacher is very often away from the ZHA office (mostly out lecturing), he’s been informed the office is doing good, it rolls on, but in the eyes of Cook they mostly produce “commercial parametric mainstream” these days.

The end of the lecture is stressed; he has gone over time, and the next lecturer and students wait outside impatiently. He briefly declares his admiration for Eric Miralles, and the misfortune of his (way to early) death. Eric Miralles is an interesting architect that I have not thought of in a long time - but I think I will revisit his practices projects in a near future.

Peter Cook - Architecture Can Be Weird Lecture at UCL, JZ lecture hall Lecture series, lecture 5 of 6: Provinciality - Energy zones & comfort zones I’m still not entirly sure about what Cook was saying in this lecture, but it is clear that part of the message was that architects often tend to work where they feel at home, and in their own comfort zone. Cook also says that this in many ways make a lot of architects ignorant before the diverse qualities that exist in less ‘acknowledged’ places. He illustrates this with a quote from Peter Eisenman where he, according to Cook, quite brutally questioned the city of Zagreb by saying; Is there a scene in Zagreb?

He also speaks about the confidence of cities such as London and New York. But here he more praise the confidence of ‘this is what it is - take it or leave it’ of small businesses rather than famous designers. This is also something that permeates Japan, and especially Tokyo, according to Cook.

Tokyo is also Cook’s favourite city because of its playfulness and sillyness, which is of course Cook’s trademark.

LKAB Mine - Kiirunavaara Photos

Book - Astrid and the mine ship Children’s Book about Kirunas Mine

By Author Sara S Andersson

Sara S Andersson - 15 augusti, 2018 http://kiruna.gratistidning.com/2018/08/15/astrid-and-themine-ship/ ‘It’s a magical polar night and Kiruna, the wintry mining town in northernmost Sweden, is on the move. Buildings and people escape to the east since the mine ship approaches.

Homes are torn down. The Ship Lord has no mercy.’

‘Astrid is new in town and struggles to fit in, but she makes friends with a gray-tobbler girl called Fedora, and crazy adventures are about to begin.’

“My name is Sara S Andersson and I write children’s books that takes place in Kiruna. Inspiration was brought by the beautiful subarctic mining town, which will also be moved. I am now working on writing five short stories about Kiruna for an international company / publisher in Vienna.”

Same Blod (Sami Blood) Film by writer & director Amanda Kernell Release 2016

Sami people have long been exposed to racial discrimination and have been stripped of land they have lived off for many thousands of years. In the north of Sweden the LKAB mine is situated in the middle of traditional Sami country.

This land has been exploit and populated by Swedes without any consultation with the indigenous Sami people. This film tells a story that many know, but few wants to be confronted with.

This cultural context must not be disregarded, but is an important part of the history of Lapland.

Plot: “Elle Marja, 14, is a reindeer-breeding Sámi girl. Exposed to the racism of the 1930’s and race biology examinations at her boarding school, she starts dreaming of another life. To achieve this other life, she has to become someone else and break all ties with her family and culture.”

Elle-Marja and her younger sister is sent to Swedish boarding school when they are young teenagers, sometime around 1910-1930. They are separated from Swedish children; their school is only for “Lappar” (“Lapps”, indigenous Lapland people). They wear their traditional colourful blue and red clothes, as they have done for generations and can be spotted from afar, which puts them in awkward situations; they are not normally seen in more urban areas in large groups of only children and/or teenagers.

She looks up to the tall, blond, elegant and smart teacher who knows all there is to know. We soon realise that Elle-Marja is attracted by the Swedish “progressive culture”, while her sister is not. She wants to become a part of the Swedish society, and become equal with the Swedes, even though she realise this means to reject her family, culture and history.

Even when ‘scientists’, or ‘surveyors’ come to measure and record their naked bodies for the ‘scientific record’ is she determined that becoming Swedish is the ‘right thing to do’ because ‘they are superior’.

Note to self: This remind me a lot of the poor people of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro that anthropologist Janice Perlman has written extensively about. Especially her book ‘Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro’ tells about the favela residents strive to become ‘gente’; to become part of the civilized society - to reach an unofficial state of citizenship that gives pride; to leave the outcast behind, and to leave the unrecognised social structure of the favelas behind.

She runs off to the south, to the ‘Cambridge’ of Sweden; the city of Uppsala. She has nothing but the dress she stole on the train with her and she know nobody. She seeks up the young boy she kissed during a dance she sneaked off to from school while still in up North. She gets to stay with him and falls in love, but somehow she still understand that she is less worth than him and his educated, smart and wealthy family. After a while the boys parents persuade him to tell her to leave their house and the rest is left to the viewer to figure out, even though we know she manages to sell a family artefact to pay for her education.

The film begins with Elle-Marja as an old woman being back in Lapland for her sisters funeral. She avoids speaking to folks, and she officially denies being from Lapland. She has a son who comes with her and although he seems to know little about the Sami culture he is curious and seems somewhat proud to have sami-blood in his veins, unlike his mother.

In the end we see Elle-Marja break in to the church in the evening after the funeral, to open her sisters coffin and whisper “forgive me”. It is clear, and it has been throughout the film, that she doesn’t feel like she belongs among the Swedes, nor does she want to be a part of the Sami culture.

I can only draw the conclusion that she has felt both guilty for ‘betraying’ her legacy, and inferior the Swedes her whole life.

I see many resemblances between this and the situation many American Indians have experienced. Somehow the ‘intruders’ has convinced the indigenous people their way of life is ‘the right way’, but at the same time underlined ‘you can never be a part of us’.

The film is heartbreaking because it tells the story of lost culture and guilt, about family bonds broken, and about racism. It tells the story of always feeling insufficient and inferior, whichever choice you make.

Sami people in Sweden has had to live through disrespectful and offensive circumstances for many years, and have only recently been given some restiturion. A new Sami Parliament building is included in the new Kiruna Town Plan.

Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5287168/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Ofelas (Sami, meaning; ‘Pathfinder’) Film by writer & director Nils Gaup Release 1987

Film maker and director Nils Gaup comes from the north of Norway and is an indigeous Sami herrtige. He has made several films, won several awards, been nominated for an Oscar twice, and is widly praised.

This film is a thousand year old Sami legend, filmed with Sami language, and with mostly Sami people in the cast. Gaup has several relatives in leading roles, for example Mikkel Gaup as the central figure; the young boy Aigin. He sees his family murdered by a roaming pack of bandits of the Tsuudi tribe (a Slavic or Russian tribe described as “beautiful” and is thought to have had lightly colored eyes) and seeks revenge.

I am not so much going to review the movie or story as much as I will look at the traditions and culture that Gaup has staged. Because of Gaup’s hertige I regard him, and this film, as a good source of knowledge of the Sami tradions, life style and culture. Although I realise that as a film director you might tweak, or exaggerate some bits to make it more spectacular, which is why further research could be useful.

Never the less this film can be useful to see people in action in these extreme conditions, with sofisticated but yet primitive tools and means.

For example; Skies are useful when travelling longer distances, since they prevent you from sinking in the deep snow and allow you to slide on top of it. Traditional Sami shoes, Gállohat or Nuvttohat, has a bent top - like a hook - which is useful when wearing skies. Skies simply had one string which was put over the top/wrist of the foot and kept from sliding away by the little “hook” at the toes.

The drum is used in ceremonies as a meaningful part of the religion - mostly used around the fire where the Sami gather to discuss, debate, and socialise. It often hold symblols, much like the ones found in cave paintings.

The temporary Lavvu, Sami huts, are mostly used inland. And as Sami people have traditionally followed the reindeers natural cycles, these have been used because they are easy to erect, deconstruct, and move. As can be seen in the image, only small birches grows this far north, which also histoically have prevented larger dwellings. But as we also can see in the film, there are more robust, permanent dwellings by the coast, called Goathi, which can be regarded as the ‘home base’, even though a lot of the year is spent on the move, following the reindeers. Because of the gulf-stream, temperatures are higher, and larger trees grow here, that allows for the construction of larger dwellings.

Lager, more permanent Sami-huts are called Goathi, but even Lavvu’s can be permanent, and more robust. Some are also covered in moss, or half buried in the ground.

The Sauna has been used by the Sami for centuries, perhaps even millenniums, or as long as humans had mastered the art of fire.

eXistenZ Film by David Cronenburg Release 1999 Although a real ‘B-move’ in Hollywood standards, the story here is just as intriguing as its same-aged sibling Matrix.

Unit 04 has been interested in designing from within VR this year. Part of the software used was a game-engine called Unity. The gaming industry is at the very forefront in terms of developing technology which allows new ways of perceiving space and atmosphere that is not real (has not yet been built).

What happens in a few decades from now when we are able to create virtual realities that are so real you cannot tell the difference from reality?

This film explores storytelling in conjuncture with virtual reality in the format of a game. You enter a game which you have no idea what it is about. There are people and places, but you are not briefed on what you should do. Your own character is somewhat pre-progeammed so you won’t be able to resist certain urges - but apart from that you do not know how to ‘win’ the game. Apart from that, the world is yours to explore.

Now comes the really intriguing/disturbing part; what happens if you play a game within the game? ...And a game within that game? ...and so on. Some might laugh at this thought, but in fact Rockstar Games in GTA (for instance) already let players play games within their extensive world.

Sure simple games, within a non-vr game. But would game makers resist the temptation of realising this once they can offer it? Hardly, unless there is some sort of law that prevents it. If virtual reality becomes so real that we cant tell the difference from reality - where does it end? eXistenZ also speculates on biology-merging-with-machine, and the other way around; machine-merging-with-biology, which is another closely linked topic, namely bioengineering.

Will machines of the future really be made from steel, metal, and plastics? Or will they be made from flesh and blood?

Some scientists already believe we are not more than a few decades from being able to stop aging and cure any decease before the foetus has started to evolve.

What happens when bioengineering, and biological machines meet virtual reality?