Climate | Jotup

Press release - Opening: 22-25 April plenary session

Retrieved on:

Mardi, avril 23, 2024

Freedom, Intelligence, Agriculture, Risk, Climate, Novel, CAP, Parliament, Commission, Council, Energy, Human

- Swedish nationals held in Iran

Key Points:

- Swedish nationals held in Iran
- Last plenary before the elections
President Metsola opened the 22-25 April plenary session in Strasbourg with the following announcements.
Parliament once again condemns their arrest by the Iranian regime in the strongest possible terms, and will continue to work to secure the release of all those held on trumped up-charges.
The vote on Simplification of certain CAP rules will take place during the second voting session on Wednesday afternoon.
Contacts:
Andreas KLEINEREditorial Coordinator / Press Officer (DE)
Estefanía NARRILLOSEditorial Coordinator / Press Officer (ES)
Natalie Kate KONTOULISPress Officer

Planting trees in grasslands won’t save the planet – rather protect and restore forests

Retrieved on:

Mardi, avril 23, 2024

Many of these tree planting projects target Africa’s rangelands (open grasslands or shrublands used by livestock and wild animals).

Key Points:

Many of these tree planting projects target Africa’s rangelands (open grasslands or shrublands used by livestock and wild animals).
Our goal is to protect and promote rangelands that combat desertification and support economic
growth, resilient livelihoods and the sustainable development of pastoralism.
In pursuit of this goal, we reviewed all the scientific studies we could find on the effects of planting trees in rangelands.

Why rangelands matter

Rangelands provide critical ecosystem services, but these are lost when open grassy vegetation is converted to forest or plantation.
Many rangelands are too dry, steep or rocky to grow crops but are suited for livestock grazing to produce meat, milk and fibres such as wool.
Read more:
When tree planting actually damages ecosystems
The ecosystem services provided by rangelands are generally overlooked while those provided by forests and trees are assumed to be far superior.

Afforestation in the wrong places often fails

This is a suitable form of land use for those environments, which would be harmed by planting trees.
Tree planting projects are commonly portrayed as reforestation, which implies that the target areas have lost their original forest cover.
In fact, planting trees in rangelands that naturally have low tree cover is afforestation.
This often fails because they don’t have enough rainfall throughout the year to support high tree cover.

Afforestation can be damaging to people, water and climate

Despite being portrayed as supporting local economic development and ecosystem restoration, afforestation projects often exclude existing land users and limit their access to land and resources.
Rangeland afforestation also reduces streamflow and lowers water tables as trees use much more water than grasses.

What is a better solution?

If these initiatives were focused on degraded forest instead, three-quarters of degraded forests could be restored.
In rangelands, the best approach is to protect and enhance their existing carbon stores rather than replacing them with forests or plantations.

Susanne Vetter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Young people in Britain aren’t bad at learning languages – but the school system doesn’t make it easy for them

Retrieved on:

Mardi, avril 23, 2024

Immersion, Multilingualism, Motivation, Learning, Environment, Climate, Research, University, Politico, Student, Brexit, Curriculum, Language, Linguistics, Government

But are the British really bad at learning foreign languages?

Key Points:

But are the British really bad at learning foreign languages?
This comparatively short period of formal language learning is likely to have a substantial impact on language attainment amongst school leavers.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have native languages which are taught both as second languages and through bilingual or immersion schooling.
UK students’ learning of these native languages shows that when given significant exposure to a language, they can achieve fluency.

Choosing to learn

Another factor to consider is why students learn languages, and how this affects their achievement.
There will certainly be young people who feel that language learning is something they have to do, rather than something they want to take part in.
However, other students are motivated to learn languages which they feel a personal connection to or see personal value in.

English has become a global lingua franca, and consequently Anglophones can feel like foreign language skills are less needed.
This also means that English language skills are a useful extra for many people around the world and allow them to get by in many countries – that’s a strong motivation to learn.
Read more:
The UK is poorer without Erasmus – it's time to rejoin the European exchange programme
There is no evidence that British young people have an inability to learn foreign languages.

Abigail Parrish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Gone in a puff of smoke: 52,000 sq km of ‘long unburnt’ Australian habitat has vanished in 40 years

Retrieved on:

Mardi, avril 23, 2024

Invertebrate, Incidence, Risk, Climate, Research, Reptile, Black, Mammal, Biodiversity, Fire, Ecosystem, Agriculture

The pattern of fire most commonly experienced within an ecosystem is known as the fire regime.

Key Points:

The pattern of fire most commonly experienced within an ecosystem is known as the fire regime.
We wanted to find out how Australian fire regimes are changing and what this means for biodiversity.
Read more:
Research reveals fire is pushing 88% of Australia's threatened land mammals closer to extinction

Uncovering long-term changes

However, evidence of how fire regimes are shifting within both threatened species’ ranges and protected areas is scarce, particularly at the national scale and over long periods.
To address this gap, we compiled maps of bushfires and prescribed burns in southern Australia from 1980 to 2021.

More fire putting wildlife at risk

Meanwhile, areas of recently burnt vegetation (5 years or less since the most recent fire) are growing.
On average, the percentage of long unburnt vegetation within reserves declined from 61% to 36% over the four decades we studied.
Going from about 42,000 sq km to about 64,000 sq km in total, which is an increase of 22,000 square kilometres.

Which areas have seen the biggest changes?

This pattern was most prominent in southeastern Australia, including the Kosciuszko and Alpine national parks.
Feral horses are finishing the job
In these locations, dry years with low rainfall can make abundant vegetation more flammable.
These conditions contribute to high fire risk across very large areas, as observed in the 2019–20 fire season.

What does this mean for Australia’s wildlife?

Indigenous land management, including cultural burning, is one approach that holds promise in reducing the incidence of large fires while providing fire for those species that need it.
We can also help wildlife become more resilient to shifting fire regimes by reducing other pressures such as invasive predators.
Our findings underscore the increased need for management strategies that conserve threatened species in an increasingly fiery future.

William Geary is affiliated with the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Dale Nimmo receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions, and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

Peter Higgs’ famous particle discovery is now at the heart of strategies to unlock the secrets of the universe

Retrieved on:

Vendredi, avril 19, 2024

His unparalleled legacy, epitomised by the discovery of the Higgs boson, continues to profoundly shape the future of particle physics like no other discovery before it.

Key Points:

His unparalleled legacy, epitomised by the discovery of the Higgs boson, continues to profoundly shape the future of particle physics like no other discovery before it.
When Higgs was born in 1929, our understanding of matter was completely different.
Physicists had developed a simple model of matter with three fundamental, or elementary, particles (those that can’t be broken down into smaller particles).
At the time Higgs began working on his ideas in the 1960s, the question of how elementary particles acquired mass was a central issue in physics.

However, for a theory that should explain mass, a viable solution couldn’t depend on a specific medium or material.
Later, Higgs and other theorists developed a model that overcame this difficulty.
On July 4 2012, images of Higgs, moved to tears by the announcement, went around the world.

In the decade since its discovery, many of these interactions have been observed at the LHC.
If current measurements of that particle are correct, the universe isn’t stable in its current state.
To answer these questions, Europe, the US and China have proposed plans for building new particle colliders focused on studying the Higgs boson.
It would be entirely fitting if Peter Higgs’ legacy, which transformed our understanding of particle physics, also transformed our approach to research.

Martin Bauer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Hateful graffiti blights communities and it’s something we need to tackle urgently

Retrieved on:

Vendredi, avril 19, 2024

Hateful graffiti and other imagery plague communities across the UK, spreading a toxic message of division.

Key Points:

Hateful graffiti and other imagery plague communities across the UK, spreading a toxic message of division.
Such graffiti targets people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity.
This is why we’ve developed an app called StreetSnap to record instances of hateful graffiti and other visuals.
The Weiner Holocaust Library and several other locations around London have been targeted by a spate of far-right racist graffiti.

Under-reporting

Issues such as war, immigration, people seeking asylum and the rising costs of living are changing and challenging communities.
As a result, it is now more important than ever that hateful graffiti and symbols are better understood.
But one Australian study showed that hateful graffiti can heighten people’s perceptions of insecurity and fear of crime.
Hateful graffiti, whether fuelled by malicious intent or simply ignorance, may have the same destructive effect on individuals, groups and communities.

StreetSnap

Our intention is that this will allow for easier communication between various authorities, as well as identification and removal by councils.
More importantly, though, the data gathered can be used to identify and understand patterns and help monitor community tensions.

Melanie Morgan is affiliated with Swansea University and is employed through SMART Partnership Grant Funding from Welsh Government. Lella Nouri receives funding from Welsh Government, Bridgend & Swansea Council. She is affiliated with Swansea University and is the Founder of StreetSnap. She also consults Welsh Government on the Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan.

Don’t blame Dubai’s freak rain on cloud seeding – the storm was far too big to be human-made

Retrieved on:

Vendredi, avril 19, 2024

Cloud, Atmosphere, Taste, Growth, Humidity, University, Climate, Nature, Human, Carbon, Dry ice, Congo, Radar, Aircraft, Ant, Weather, Silviculture

Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be threading through the storm downdrafts measuring the rain.

Key Points:

Thousands of meters below, a smaller plane would be threading through the storm downdrafts measuring the rain.
The project I was part of, neatly named Rain (Rain Augmentation in Nelspruit), was a cloud seeding experiment several years in the making.
Cloud seeding involves adding tiny particles into a cloud in order to give moisture something to attach to and form droplets.
There is no identical cloud with which to compare the outcome of having seeded a particular cloud.

A perfect storm

Parts of the Arabian Peninsula received 18 months of rainfall in 24 hours that Tuesday.
Being the weather-man in the chat group, I looked at the satellite and the forecast model data.
What I saw were the ingredients of a perfect storm.
Under these conditions, thunderstorms develop very readily and in this case a special kind of storm, a mesoscale convective system, built and sustained itself for many hours.

Cloud seeding not to blame

What surprised me, though, was not the majesty of nature, but an emerging set of reports blaming the ensuing rains on cloud seeding.
It turns out the UAE has been running a cloud seeding project, UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, for several years.
The idea, similar to the Rain project I once worked on, is to promote the growth of cloud droplets and thereby rainfall.

Richard Washington receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council to study climate processes.

Press release - Soil health: Parliament sets out measures to achieve healthy soils by 2050

Retrieved on:

Jeudi, avril 18, 2024

Health, Climate change, Conference, Environment, Agriculture, Climate, Classification, Food, Parliament, Biodiversity, Commission, Ecosystem, Legislation, Environmental remediation

The new law will oblige EU countries to first monitor and then assess the health of all soils on their territory.

Key Points:

The new law will oblige EU countries to first monitor and then assess the health of all soils on their territory.
National authorities may apply the soil descriptors that best illustrate the soil characteristics of each soil type at national level.
MEPs propose a five-level classification to assess soil health (high, good, moderate ecological status, degraded, and critically degraded soils).
That is why it is our responsibility to adopt the first piece of EU-wide legislation to monitor and improve soil health."

Visualising the 1800s or designing wedding invitations: 6 ways you can use AI beyond generating text

Retrieved on:

Jeudi, avril 18, 2024

Many people are now using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to get advice, find information or summarise longer passages of text.

Key Points:

Many people are now using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to get advice, find information or summarise longer passages of text.
But our recent research demonstrates how generative AI can be used for much more than this, returning results in different formats.
On the one hand, AI tools are neutral – they can be used for good or ill depending on one’s intent.

1. Imagining what lies beyond the frame

Adobe’s recently developed “generative expand” tool allows users to expand the canvas of their photos and have Photoshop “imagine” what is happening beyond the frame.
You might do this when trying to edit a square Instagram photo to fit a 4x6 inch photo frame.

2. Visualising the past or the future

Photography was only invented within the past 200 years, and camera-equipped smartphones within the last 25.
That leaves us with plenty of things that existed before cameras were common, yet we might want to visualise them.
NASA currently works with artists to illustrate concepts we can’t see, but artists could also draw on AI to help create these renderings.

3. Brainstorming how to visualise difficult concepts

As one of the deepest places on Earth, few people have ever seen it firsthand.
Or creating a layered illustration that shows the flora and fauna that live at each of the ocean’s five zones above the trench.

4. Visualising data

For example, you might upload a spreadsheet to ChatGPT 4 and ask it to visualise the results.
Or, if the data is already publicly available (such as Earth’s population over time), you might ask a chatbot to visualise it without even having to supply a spreadsheet.

5. Creating simple moving images

You can create a simple yet effective animation by uploading a photo to an AI tool like Runway and giving it an animation command, such as zooming in, zooming out or tracking from left to right. That’s what I’ve done with this historical photo preserved by the State Library of Western Australia.

I used this description to create the following video:
Tracking shot from left to right of the snowy mountains of Nagano, Japan.
Tracking shot from left to right of the snowy mountains of Nagano, Japan.

6. Generating a colour palette or simple graphics

In these cases, having a consistent colour palette can help unify your design.
You can ask generative AI services like Midjourney or Gemini to create a colour palette for you based on the event or its vibe.
This is true for both browser-based generators like Adobe Firefly, as well as desktop apps with built-in AI, like Adobe Illustrator.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

AI chatbots refuse to produce ‘controversial’ output − why that’s a free speech problem

Retrieved on:

Jeudi, avril 18, 2024

Still, the conversation on AI ignores another crucial issue: What is the AI industry’s approach to free speech, and does it embrace international free speech standards?

Key Points:

Still, the conversation on AI ignores another crucial issue: What is the AI industry’s approach to free speech, and does it embrace international free speech standards?
In practice, this means that AI chatbots often censor output when dealing with issues the companies deem controversial.
Without a solid culture of free speech, the companies producing generative AI tools are likely to continue to face backlash in these increasingly polarized times.

Vague and broad use policies

Companies issue policies to set the rules for how people can use their models.
With international human rights law as a benchmark, we found that companies’ misinformation and hate speech policies are too vague and expansive.
Our analysis found that companies’ hate speech policies contain extremely broad prohibitions.
To show how vague and broad use policies can affect users, we tested a range of prompts on controversial topics.
More recently, India confronted Google after Gemini noted that some experts consider the policies of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to be fascist.

Free speech culture

If they serve a global audience, they may want to avoid content that is offensive in any region.
This means society has an interest in ensuring such policies adequately protect free speech.
Even where a similar legal obligation does not apply to AI providers, we believe that the companies’ influence should require them to adopt a free speech culture.
At least two of the companies we focused on – Google and Anthropic – have recognized as much.

Outright refusals

Therefore, users’ exposure to hate speech and misinformation from generative AI will typically be limited unless they specifically seek it.
This is unlike social media, where people have much less control over their own feeds.
Stricter controls, including on AI-generated content, may be justified at the level of social media since they distribute content publicly.
Refusals to generate content not only affect fundamental rights to free speech and access to information.

The Future of Free Speech is a non-partisan, independent think tank that has received limited financial support from Google for specific projects.
In all cases, The Future of Free Speech retains full independence and final authority for its work, including research pursuits, methodology, analysis, conclusions, and presentation.
The Future of Free Speech is a non-partisan, independent think tank that has received limited financial support from Google for specific projects.