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Human Behavior

Have Pollution Levels Decreased Amid the Coronavirus Lockdown? – Earth911.com

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Does it take a pandemic to reduce pollution? The Earth is vibrating lessbecause of lockdowns, according to geoscientists, andIndias falling levelsof harmful microscopic particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide have given those citizens glimpses of blue skies.

Even though were all running from an infectious disease, the reality seems to be that we might be living on a healthier planet. So, what can a global shutdown teach us about how to change our lifestyle?

It feels like the whole world is in limbo. Everything we used to do is not happening the same way anymore, if its happening at all our commutes, shopping, eating out, traveling. Heavy industries and factories have shut down or significantly decreased their output. Traffic jams have all but disappeared.

Even though our normal behavior is stunted, weve found new ways to live, work, and play. And we still impact the environment, but now were impacting it differently. Are we making good decisions? Is COVID-19 our opportunity to reset? Maybe.

We are in the middle of an unintended experiment when it comes to the environmental impact of air pollution emissions, according to NASA. With so much of the world shut down because of coronavirus restrictions, we have been given an opportunity to really see how air quality is affected when communities and countries are not operating normally.

The air quality footprint around airports, for example, has lightened up less nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde. There is, quite simply, better air quality with less air traffic in the time of COVID-19. Though electric airplanes are still a long time in the future, these details are evidence that can help policymakers improve their understanding of the air we breathe and the necessity for greater intervention when it comes to making changes.

With fewer planes flying through the sky, there are certainly fewer exhaust trails behind them. However, the sharp decline in air travel has impacted meteorologists abilities to accurately forecast the weather.

Commercial aircraft take about 900,000 measurements of air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and direction per day. In the age of coronavirus, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the reports are only around 300,000 measurements a day. NOAA has announced it will conduct a systematic study of the impact of the coronavirus on the climate.

Climate and weather systems are very complex significant changes in these systems are undeniably valuable to researchers. Without the extensive daily reporting, its more difficult to see where the weather may be headed, make predictions, and allow people in danger zones to prepare.

There have been major drops in air pollution in areas hit hardest by COVID-19, according to worldwide satellite images. Millions of people are working from home instead of commuting every day. Millions of people are out of work and no longer have a commute. School buses are off the streets. Work trucks are parked. Roadways are hardly crowded anymore.

Whilelower emissions are real, experts say theyre temporary. This decrease in pollution is amazing, but life will eventually return to normal, and the pollution and greenhouse gases will return too. NASA studies and the like have made it clear humans are a major contributor to the incredible blights on Earth. When our behavior changes, so does our affect on the Earth.

Coronavirus has demanded a new normal, and we can learn from the environmental shifts that are happening around us. Changes in human behavior caused by the pandemic have given scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study how coronavirus and humans impact the environment.

We are trusting that we will one day rebound to our usual way of life, so the question is: What changes have you made to accommodate the coronavirus that helped the planet? What are you doing now that you can continue to do, pandemic or not?

Maybe you can:

Human behavior is a powerful thing. Wearing masks and staying home has saved millions of lives over the past few months and given Earth a reprieve in the process. If we can come together to do that, we can come together to save our planet too.

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Have Pollution Levels Decreased Amid the Coronavirus Lockdown? - Earth911.com

Human Behavior

COVID-19 recovery can benefit biodiversity – Science Magazine

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global crisis. Severe interruptions to international trade and travel are crippling economies and forcing reevaluation of economic, health, and environmental trajectories. Given that COVID-19 has triggered widespread changes in human behavior and reductions in pollution (1, 2), it presents opportunities for further positive change. Lockdowns have spurred households to rethink consumer needs, making now an opportune time to promote sustainable consumer choices that will become more engrained with prolonged exposure (1). How we emerge from the state of lockdowns will drive a new world economy with lasting effects on global biodiversity and supply chains (3, 4).

The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to trigger enormous effects on biodiversity and conservation outcomes. This virus emerged due to wildlife exploitation (5), and the risk of new diseases increases with environmental degradation (6). Past events such as pandemics, wars, and financial crises have also triggered quantifiable environmental changes (7, 8). We can learn from such events to guide effective conservation strategy. National governments and intergovernmental organizations should adopt clear strategies to safeguard both biodiversity and human health throughout the COVID-19 recovery.

Active promotion and implementation of certain strategies could tip the balance in favor of positive biodiversity outcomes. We can reboot economies while protecting humans and nature by redesigning trade networks and supply chains to localize and better support sustainable consumer options. We can also strengthen environmental protections, improve environmental monitoring through better use of automation, and ensure that conservation funding schemes remain active.

Environmental policy has already moved in both directions. Although in some places, environmental protections have weakened (9), in others, governments have banned animal trade (3, 10) and aim to localize supply chains to increase resource security (11). Blanket wildlife trade bans are not the answer (3), but appropriately nuanced strategies that incorporate such measures should be encouraged. As we progress into a postCOVID-19 world, recovery strategies can be optimized to benefit biodiversity conservation and protect human health.

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COVID-19 recovery can benefit biodiversity - Science Magazine

Human Behavior

Should you fly yet? An epidemiologist and an exposure scientist walk you through the decision process – Fairfield Citizen

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Kacey Ernst, University of Arizona and Paloma Beamer, University of Arizona

(THE CONVERSATION) We dont know about you, but were ready to travel. And that typically means flying.

We have been thinking through this issue as moms and as an exposure scientist and infectious disease epidemiologist. While weve decided personally that were not going to fly right now, we will walk you through our thought process on what to consider and how to minimize your risks.

Why the fear of flying?

The primary concern with flying or traveling by bus or train is sitting within six feet of an infected person. Remember: Even asymptomatic people can transmit. Your risk of infection directly corresponds to your dose of exposure, which is determined by your duration of time exposed and the amount of virus-contaminated droplets in the air.

A secondary concern is contact with contaminated surfaces. When an infected person contaminates a shared armrest, airport restroom handle, seat tray or other item, the virus can survive for hours though it degrades over time. If you touch that surface and then touch your mouth or nose, you put yourself at risk of infection.

Before you book, think

While there is no way to make air travel 100% safe, there are ways to make it safer. Its important to think through the particulars for each trip.

One approach to your decision-making is to use what occupational health experts call the hierarchy of controls. This approach does two things. It focuses on strategies to control exposures close to the source. Second, it minimizes how much you have to rely on individual human behavior to control exposure. Its important to remember you may be infectious and everyone around you may also be infectious.

The best way to control exposure is to eliminate the hazard. Since we cannot eliminate the new coronavirus, ask yourself if you can eliminate the trip. Think extra hard if you are older or have preexisting conditions, or if you are going to visit someone in that position.

If you are healthy and those you visit are healthy, think about ways to substitute the hazard. Is it possible to drive? This would allow you to have more control over minimizing your exposures, particularly if the distance is less than a day of travel.

Youre going, now what?

If you choose to fly, check out airlines policies on seating and boarding. Some are minimizing capacity and spacing passengers by not using middle seats and having empty rows. Others are boarding from the back of the plane. Some that were criticized for filling their planes to capacity have announced plans to allow customers to cancel their flights if the flight goes over 70% passenger seating capacity.

Federal and state guidance is changing constantly, so make sure you look up the most recent guidance from government agencies and the airlines and airport you are using for additional advice, and current policies or restrictions.

While this may sound counterintuitive, consider booking multiple, shorter flights. This will decrease the likelihood of having to use the lavatory and the duration of exposure to an infectious person on the plane.

After you book, select a window seat if possible. If you consider the six-foot radius circle around you, having a wall on one side would directly reduce the number of people you are exposed to during the flight in half, not to mention all the people going up and down the aisle.

Also, check out your airline to see their engineering controls that are designed or put into practice to isolate hazards. These include ventilation systems, on-board barriers and electrostatic disinfectant sprays on flights.

When the ventilation system on planes is operating, planes have a very high ratio of outside fresh air to recirculated air about 10 times higher than most commercial buildings. Plus, most planes ventilation systems have HEPA filters. These are at least 99.9% effective at removing particles that are 0.3 microns in diameter and more efficient at removing both smaller and larger particles.

How to be safe from shuttle to seat

From checking in, to going through security to boarding, you will be touching many surfaces. To minimize risk:

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Bring hand wipes to disinfect surfaces such as your seat belt and your personal belongings, like your passport. If you cannot find hand wipes, bring a small washcloth soaked in a bleach solution in a zip bag. This would probably freak TSA out less than your personal spray bottle, and viruses are not likely to grow on a cloth with a bleach solution. But remember: More bleach is not better and can be unsafe. You only need one tablespoon in four cups of water to be effective.

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Bring plastic zip bags for personal items that others may handle, such as your ID. Bring extra bags so you can put these things in a new bag after you get the chance to disinfect them.

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Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer as often as you can. While soap and water is most effective, hand sanitizer is helpful after you wash to get any parts you may have missed.

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Once you get to your window seat, stay put.

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Wear a mask. If you already have an N95 respirator, consider using it but others can also provide protection. We do not recommend purchasing N95 until health care workers have an adequate supply. Technically, it should also be tested to make sure you have a good fit. We do not recommend the use of gloves, as that can lead to a false sense of security and has been associated with reduced hand hygiene practices.

If you are thinking about flying with kids, there are special considerations. Getting a young child to adhere to wearing a mask and maintaining good hygiene behaviors at home is hard enough; it may be impossible to do so when flying. Children under 2 should not wear a mask.

Each day, we are all constantly faced with decisions about our own personal comfort with risk. Arming yourself with specific knowledge about your airport and airline, and maximizing your use of protective measures that you have control over, can reduce your risk. A good analogy might be that every time you get in the car to drive somewhere there is risk of an accident, but there is a big difference between driving the speed limit with your seat belt on and driving blindfolded, 60 miles an hour through the middle of town.

You might also be interested in other parts of this series:

- How do you stay safe now that states are reopening? An expert explains how to assess risk when reconnecting with friends and family

- Heres how to stay safe while buying groceries amid the coronavirus pandemic

- How can you be safe at pools, beaches or parks? A doctor offers guidance as coronavirus distancing measures lifted

- How to lower your coronavirus risk while eating out: Restaurant advice from an infectious disease expert

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/should-you-fly-yet-an-epidemiologist-and-an-exposure-scientist-walk-you-through-the-decision-process-138782.

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Should you fly yet? An epidemiologist and an exposure scientist walk you through the decision process - Fairfield Citizen

Human Behavior

Mechanicsburg girl, 10, develops a board game to help her little sister understand the coronavirus – PennLive

Rosslyn Gingrich, 10, started out looking for a solution to a basic problem: How to explain the coronavirus to her 4-year-old sister, Evelyn, in terms she would understand.

What she found was a two-month creative journey to teach the basics of the virus while also taking aim at the human behaviors that came with it.

A fifth-grader in the Mechanicsburg Area School District, Gingrich combined what she learned from her nurse practitioner grandmother, Marge, with everything she saw in the news and her own acts of service to develop a COVID-19 board game.

My mom and I were on a walk and my sister kept asking why her school was closed, Rosslyn said. We wanted to make a fun and easy way to explain the coronavirus, so we just made a game of it.

The game features two paths with their own pitfalls and positive outcomes. It comes with cards that can send players forward or backward or make them lose their turns. There are also spaces where players contract the coronavirus and lose a turn while they are in quarantine.

Didnt practice social distancing? Go back two spaces. Lent a roll of toilet paper to a neighbor in need? Advance one space. Wash your hands for only 10 seconds instead of 20? Go back a space. Sanitize your countertops after putting all your groceries away? Move ahead two spaces.

The game has 20 total cards, all of which highlight good, bad, greedy or selfless behavior. The end goal is to reach the finish line and find a cure first.

When we started making the game, thats when it was crazy with toilet paper, Rosslyns mother, Jaclyn, said. Shes gotten a lot of ideas from the news about how greedy and selfish people are, but then shes also seen the good people are doing.

The game sets out to explain a virus, but also cuts into deeper themes such as the panic and fear that can drive me-first behavior. It underscores the idea that little eyes are watching all of these adult stress responses. Theyre taking mental notes when they see someone clean out a shelf of toilet paper or ignore social distancing.

At the very beginning of putting this game together, I was just really impressed, Marge Gingrich said. Shes a very creative kid.

In Rosslyns case, she managed to find an outlet during a time when kids are missing their friends or feeling lonely or struggling to process it all. She said she felt some of that, too, but she turned her focus to a project that she could share with her mother, grandmother and sister.

Its very difficult because I just want to see my friends and have a sleepover and hug them and I cant, Rosslyn said.

The hope with the board game was to answer questions in a fun way while encouraging a focus on the greater good. Thats a valuable lesson to people of all ages.

To her, its like, OK, theres this virus but its not really going to do much to me, but it could hurt my grandparents, Jaclyn Gingrich said. So, she understands the idea of keeping her distance from older people and the more high-risk people. She has a pretty good concept of it for a 10-year-old.

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Mechanicsburg girl, 10, develops a board game to help her little sister understand the coronavirus - PennLive

Human Behavior

Appinium Announces Major Update to the Most Effective Way for Salesforce Users to Leverage Video, Multimedia, and Learning – WFMZ Allentown

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While there are currently multiple sales-enablement and video marketing options on the Salesforce platform, Appinium is the only one that offers comprehensive marketing, sales enablement, customer-success, and learning data build natively on Salesforce.

Their ViewTrac app allows Salesforce users to view a wide range of data for video, podcasts, interactive video, and multimedia assets, including; who is watching those videos, who is interacting with the video, who is listening, how much of those videos they watched, where they watched them and at what point they engaged with them. With ViewTrac, Salesforce users can ensure that their multimedia assets are always being viewed by the right people at the right time to drive behavior.

With Appinium's LearnTrac app, Salesforce users can engage customers, employees and partners like never before. Now, users can deliver contextual, targeted eLearning as part of a larger Salesforce strategy, seamlessly and effortlessly. LearnTrac also allows Salesforce users to obtain relevant and unique data regarding the efficacy of sales-training efforts, customer-support costs, employee performance and much more.

"No one brings together data on human behavior as it relates to business the way we do."- says Appinium CEO and Founder, Steven Jacobson, "Think of Appinium as a river that picks up vital information regarding marketing, sales-enablement, learning and customer-service along the way. That data ensures connectivity, and it's connectivity that drives behavior."

Appinium recognizes that the future is driven by data. Which is why their team of engineers, sales professionals and entrepreneurs have gone to great lengths to build a product that acquires, compiles and delivers an unprecedented level of marketing, sales learning and customer-success data on the platform where it can be used most effectively Salesforce.

User acceptance testing of the updated app (version 4.1) is scheduled to begin May 30, 2020, with an official release planned for June 23, 2020.

http://www.appinium.com

Media Inquiries:Jody Green917 292 7070240327@email4pr.com

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Appinium Announces Major Update to the Most Effective Way for Salesforce Users to Leverage Video, Multimedia, and Learning - WFMZ Allentown

Human Behavior

Humanizing the coronavirus as an invisible enemy is human nature – The Conversation US

President Donald Trump has called the coronavirus an invisible enemy thats brilliant and tough and smart, adding that we are tougher and smarter.

CNN host Chris Cuomo, recovering from the virus, attributed malicious intent to it, saying it wants us to lay down. He warned his audience not to cooperate.

Other people called the coronavirus sneaky, tricky, merciless, cruel and vicious. One reporter wrote that in a nursing home, the virus found the people who were most frail.

Speaking of the coronavirus as if it were a person, then, is common. But why do we all do it, despite knowing that the virus is just a tiny bundle of inanimate genetic material?

As cognitive scientists who study the human mind we suggest that this tendency to see human features everywhere is an innate human characteristic, one that automatically alerts you to signs of other people and helps you make sense of a confusing world.

Attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things and events is called anthropomorphism or personification. Philosophers and psychologists suggest that it is a human universal, found among all of us, regardless of culture or upbringing. For instance, philosopher David Hume wrote in the 18th century that We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us. Most recently, people find enemies in viruses.

They do so, Hume wrote, because the world is complex and unpredictable, and often threatens you with unexpected calamities such as earthquakes, floods and plagues. In order to predict and control these dangers, he said, people want to understand their causes, but often cannot. Baffled, they resort to the most familiar explanations, those based on their own experiences and those of other people.

This habit often results in the mistake of thinking you see persons, or features of persons, where they dont exist, as with the new virus. But having a human-like modelindeed, having any modelto apply to such a mysterious, invisible and dangerous entity as the coronavirus provides some measure of apparent control, and thus comfort.

And although people may not consciously believe that the coronavirus is like a person, their language and behavior suggest that they do so unconsciously.

The assumption that persons and features of persons may be present is spontaneous and irrepressible. For example, 16th-century Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted a series of faces composed of various objects. In one work, Winter, you cant help seeing a face in a tree stump, perhaps reflecting a face that the artist had imagined in a real stump. It is virtually impossible not to see the face emerging from Arcimboldos assemblage of objects.

Interpreting many phenomena as human in origin is the safest bet, while dismissing them as irrelevant may be dangerous if youre wrong.

When you find possible traces of humans faces in stumps, voices in the wind or footsteps in a houses creaks it opens a wide repertoire of important possibilities. Is it an enemy who might harm me? A friend who will comfort me?

Thus, a high sensitivity to human-like features and a low threshold for deciding they are present have evolutionary advantages. Their disadvantage is that youre often mistaken, when no human feature is really there. But most such mistakes are less consequential than missing someone you need to see, whether friend or foe.

Humans, then, are a special stimulus for us, and cognitive neuroscience provides further evidence of it. For example, infants are born ready to recognize a face or anything resembling one and by a few months of age, infants prefer a block that helps another block up a slope to one that hinders it. So babies are born ready to see shapes as human anatomy, and quickly see even inanimate objects as having social relationships. People never outgrow this tendency, and throughout life see aspects of ourselves in cliff faces, river mouths and mountain majesties, and purpose and meaning everywhere.

Scanning for human features in the environment and ending up anthropomorphizing appears built into human beings. It is supported by what neuroscientists call the social brain, an evolved person network.

This brain network is activated by any stimulus that even suggests a person, such as a stick figure or emoji. For instance, part of this network, the fusiform face area, responds both to a human face and to anthropomorphized car headlights, grill and bumper.

No wonder its so easy to talk about the coronavirus as human-like. Anthropomorphic narratives provide models of the virus and its behavior that feel familiar and accessible. Theyre a way to grasp these unseen beings, and this grasp, illusory or not, provides a bit of the confidence and sense of control so crucial to mental well-being.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversations newsletter.]

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Humanizing the coronavirus as an invisible enemy is human nature - The Conversation US

Human Behavior

The outdoors is a good getaway amid pandemic. Just not the Grand Canyon. Don’t reopen it yet – AZCentral

Rob Arnberger, Opinion contributor Published 7:00 a.m. MT May 22, 2020

Opinion: While some national parks have wide-open spaces and plenty of room for visitors to spread out, the Canyon have spaces where people congregate. That's risky.

Visitors take in the view at Grand Canyon National Park from Mather Point, where railings mark the edge of the canyon's rim.(Photo: Michael Chow/The Republic)

Grand Canyon National Park is an icon. It attracts visitors from all over the worldwho flock to the South Rim and other viewpoints within the park that offer a glimpse of the famous Canyon.

As the pandemic continues to impact our lives, when social distancing is still the name of the game, reopening this national park right now represents a grave threat to health and safety.

While some parks have wide-open spaces and plenty of room for visitors to spread out, most of them have standard, iconic destinations within their boundaries where visitors naturally congregate.

At the Grand Canyon, for example, it simply defies logic and human behavior to think that people who have traveled long distances to see the Canyon will not park and stand in clusters at popular overlooks, or traverse the same trails, bringing them in close contact to each other.

In addition, park partners are calling on the park to remain closed. The Navajo Nation, which borders the park, is still dealing withthe highest COVID-19 infection rate in the country. They haveurged the national park to remain closed until their positive COVID-19 numbers have flattened.These calls seem to have been ignored.

It is too soon to open Grand Canyon National Park. Visitors from states across the country are already traveling to the parkand this places NPS employees, concession workers, volunteers, residents in gateway communities, and visitors at risk of exposure.

We can hope that people will assume responsibility for their own safety by following CDC guidelines and reading up on local opinions surrounding the reopening.

But there are no guarantees that this will happen. And it is possible that national parks will become a flashpoint for COVID-19.

The inconsistencies among national parks as they undertake the ill-advised process of reopening is utterly mind-boggling and defies rational explanation. There is obviously a lack of clear guidance and leadership emanating from the Department of the Interior and National Park Service in this life-threatening crisis.

Where is the national guidance? Where is the concern for human health and safety?

In this time of crisis, we believe that the absolute priority of the state of Arizona, the Department of the Interiorand the National Park Service should be to safeguard employee and public health.

Secretary Bernhardt should not be pushing the Grand Canyon, or any other national parks, to reopen.

He is jeopardizing the lives of Americans across the country.

Rob Arnberger was superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park and retired from the National Park Service as the regional director of National Parks in Alaska. He lives in Arizona and is a member of the Coalition to Protect Americas National Parks.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2020/05/22/dont-reopen-grand-canyon-park-yet-we-risk-harm-covid-19/5240695002/

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The outdoors is a good getaway amid pandemic. Just not the Grand Canyon. Don't reopen it yet - AZCentral

Human Behavior

Denver’s behind on sidewalk and bike lane construction but ahead on other street safety fixes – Denverite

The Denver Streets Partnership wants the city to lower speed limits, get rid of pedestrian beg-buttons and ban turns on red downtown.

Stay-at-home orders have drastically changed peoples travel habits. And it turns out that when fewer people drive, fewer people crash, and fewer people die.

Traffic crashes are down 30 percent, according to Denver Police Department data. At 17 people killed while traveling around the city, Denver is on pace for 42 traffic deaths this year, which would be the lowest total since 2012.

I think this is interesting information that tells us one of the big contributors to traffic fatalities is the number of cars on our street, said Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership, which advocates for safer roads. And so to the extent that we can really encourage people to shift from driving to using other ways of getting around like walking, biking and transit, that is going to go a long way towards helping us achieve our Vision Zero goals.

On Thursday the group released its Vision Zero Report Card aimed at holding the transportation department accountable for Mayor Michael Hancocks commitment to end traffic deaths under the banner of Vision Zero. In it, the Partnership compares the administrations promises for streets that prioritize walking, rolling, biking and transit with what was actually implemented in 2019.

Overall, the city received a C+.

On sidewalks, the street safety advocates gave the city government an F for building just five miles worth of walkways last year compared to a goal of 12 miles. Denver received a C for bike lanes after the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure installed 12.5 of the 20 miles intended.

Denver received high marks for making intersections safer and improving streetlights citywide as well as calming traffic with new street designs on 35th Avenue in northwest Denver where crews installed traffic circles and diverters to slow driving speeds and detour drivers.

DOTI refused to grant an interview with transportation director Eulois Cleckley or any staff member associated with the Vision Zero program. But spokeswoman Heather Burke provided documents outlining the departments 2019 and 2020 projects, including intersection improvements for people walking and in wheelchairs that run the length of East Colfax Avenue.

In an interview with Denverite earlier this year, Cleckley said his department is focused on redesigning streets and intersections to prevent crashes. He also said physical changes to roads are not enough.

Street design is critical, but human behavior is just as critical, and we just need people to slow down and people to be aware of their surroundings, Cleckley said.

But Charlie Myers, who often bikes 35th Avenue with his kids, said the traffic circles and diverters installed on the street are obviously deterring car traffic and speeding, which Denvers government calls the fundamental factor in crash severity.

Ive been bicycling the 35th (Avenue) neighborhood for years now, so I know what it was like before all these wonderful changes, Myers said. It was a very harrowing experience to come up to Irving Irving Street there, especially during rush hour. You had cars going right, left and straight. And the cyclists were in the mix of this kind of harrowing, very daunting experience.

The Denver Streets Partnership made six demands to accompany its report card:

We know that these things can reduce traffic injuries and fatalities and change peoples behavior, said Molly McKinley, vice chair of the Denver Streets Partnership.

Denvers government is facing a $226 million shortfall and city departments, including the transportation division, are being asked to cut their budgets by 7.5 percent, potentially making Vision Zero funding harder to come by. But many projects are being paid for with dollars from a 2017 voter-approved bond, Locantore said.

Vision Zero is critical to our mission, so we will continue to prioritize safety initiatives, said DOTI spokeswoman Nancy Kuhn. Were also actively seeking grants and to leverage partnerships to advance our work.

This article originally misattributed a quote by Charlie Myers to David Chen and has been corrected.

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Denver's behind on sidewalk and bike lane construction but ahead on other street safety fixes - Denverite

Human Behavior

Chris Cooper (Homecoming) on subverting expectations: Hes disillusioned with the CEO way of life [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW] – Gold Derby

Hes a mystery character, hes the CEO, the creator of Geist Industries, however we find out that hes not a CEO type, reveals Chris Cooper about his mysterious new role on psychological thriller Homecoming. Watch our exclusive video interview with Cooper above.

SEE Emmys 2020 exclusive: Amazon Studios categories for Hunters, Maisel, Modern Love and more

Amazon Prime Videos critically acclaimed Homecoming is back for a second season without leading lady Julia Roberts (who has stayed on as a producer on the show), this time starring Janelle Monae as Jackie, a woman who wakes up stranded in a rowboat with no memories of what has happened to her. The series is a taut seven episodes of 30 minutes each, following Jackie as she uncovers the mystery around her past and the continuation of the first season story line of the nefarious Geist Corporations testing of an experimental drug that wipes the memories of PTSD-suffering military veterans.

Oscar winner Cooper co-stars as CEO Leonard Geist alongside Joan Cusack as a high-ranking military official, with Stephan James and Hong Chau reprising their roles as Walter Cruz and Audrey Temple. As Cooper admits, what attracted him most to the part was that this was not your typical immoral CEO that we have seen countless times before. He started this business with honesty, simplicity, the actor says. He never expected it to grow and he became so disillusioned with the CEO way of life.

SEEover 150 interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders

There may well be a lot of CEOs that dont keep their eyes on the business, he further explains. I think we get hints of that in the news and the life of luxury that some of these CEOs can live.

Cooper was very keen to be involved in the shows second season, which he believes is just as strong as, if not better than, the programs first outing. Having seen the first season and loving every aspect of it, the time with a 30 minute drama, the pace, the writing, the casting, the soundtrack was a knockout, he explains, I got the info that theyre introducing new characters and this new Geist character and I got to read all seven scripts, he says, explaining that it did not take much more to convince him to sign on to the show. What got me involved in this business is the idea of human behavior. Just simple human behavior, he says. Making an old-time movie. This reminds me of touches of that.

PREDICT the 2020 Emmy nominees now; change through July 28

Be sure tomake your Emmy predictions today so that Hollywood insiders can see how their TV shows and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until just before the nominees are announced on July 28. And join in the fun debate over the 2020 Emmys taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our television forums. Read more Gold Derbyentertainment news.

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Chris Cooper (Homecoming) on subverting expectations: Hes disillusioned with the CEO way of life [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW] - Gold Derby

Human Behavior

School focused on climate and sustainability will amplify Stanford’s impact | Stanford News – Stanford University News

Stanford is designing a school focused on climate and sustainability that will draw on the considerable expertise that exists across academic units, aligning those efforts around research, education and impact, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne announced in a presentation to the Academic Council.

To address urgent challenges facing the planet, Stanford is designing a school focused on climate and sustainability that will draw on the considerable expertise that exists across academic units. (Image credit: M. Scott Gould)

Among the most urgent issues of our time are climate change and the challenge of creating a sustainable future for people and our planet, said Tessier-Lavigne. At Stanford we have tremendous strengths in climate and sustainability studies working across the schools and institutes, but there is an opportunity to amplify our contributions in education, research and impact further by aligning people and resources more effectively in a school. I want to thank everybody whose hard work has resulted in this exciting conclusion.

The idea for the school arose out of a faculty-led process, first as part of a Long-Range Vision design team focused on climate and sustainability and later through a committee tasked with proposing organizational structures to support the design teams sweeping vision.

Stanford Vice Provost and Dean of Research Kathryn Moler will lead an inclusive process designing the schools structure. She has engaged Stephan Graham, dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, as co-chair, and together they will consult with key internal and external stakeholders to develop a school organization that amplifies faculty and student contributions to address the most urgent climate and sustainability challenges. Moler and Graham plan to provide monthly reports to the community on progress, which they expect to be completed by fall.

This is an exciting opportunity to engage everyone addressing climate and sustainability at Stanford in a newly expanded, integrated and impact-focused community, with new opportunities to enhance the impact of their work on the issues they deeply care about, Moler said. I thank the teams that have worked over the past year to articulate an aspirational vision, and who identified the building blocks of the school both new ideas and existing Stanford assets, both people and research groups that can support this vision.

The school will leverage Stanfords excellence in climate and sustainability research areas including foundational science, low-carbon sustainable energy, human behavior, economics, food security, environmental law and policy, global health and more. It will include faculty in core departments addressing cross-cutting themes and run degree-granting programs for undergraduate and graduate students.

The school is also proposed to include a sustainability neighborhood that would provide place-based education and infuse sustainability in the education of all students across campus, and an accelerator, which would drive new sustainability solutions through external partnerships with government, industry and nongovernmental organizations and co-develop scalable solutions for the world. Other elements that could play a role include programs that have driven Stanford as a living lab for solutions such as reducing energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste.

In taking this bold organizational step, we will be stewarding the continuing evolution of Stanfords role in understanding the Earth and applying those understandings, through research and education, toward the needs of society, as we have done for the last 130 years, Graham said. We are in an era of rapid environmental and societal change, and the challenges we face this century are formidable. Stanford must be a visionary leader in understanding environmental change, and in collaboration with diverse partners, translating that knowledge into action toward our goal of a sustainable, healthy planet and healthy people.

In his presentation, Tessier-Lavigne said the university was focused on addressing near-term challenges posed by COVID-19, but at the same time using this period to put in place the structures that will enable the universitys long-term success once the current crisis has passed.

Over the past decades, faculty and research teams spanning Stanfords schools and institutes have made great strides in addressing sustainability and climate issues probing the underlying challenges facing our planet, developing low-carbon sustainable technologies and working with policymakers, nongovernmental organizations and other partners to implement solutions. But the scale, complexity and urgency of challenges ahead require that the university be strategically aligned to allow faculty and students from across the disciplines to realize their maximum collective potential.

Living sustainably on our planet requires more than advocacy, we need deep scholarship, said Sally Benson, co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. The paradigm thats led us to the world we have today is based on growth thats not sustainable. Across the board we need to rethink and reinvent how we use and preserve our precious planetary resources. We need to transition to an economy where more value is created by restoring and preserving Earths resources than by activities that degrade and deplete them. This school will provide a home to support the scholarship needed to realize this vision.

Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, added, Stanford has an incredible legacy of high-impact leadership on climate and sustainability. The school will powerfully amplify Stanfords legacy and leadership role in tackling the defining issues of our era.

Even as the university looks to the future of climate and sustainability research, faculty and students are focused on important immediate efforts. Many across the university are contributing to significant research and policy work relating to climate change, ocean solutions and clean energy, and a recently announced call for proposals is seeking new groundbreaking ideas for sustainability solutions.

A Long-Range Vision design team led by Lynn Hildemann, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Scott Fendorf, professor of Earth system science, proposed a series of important initiatives to further amplify the universitys impact, including programs on zero emissions energy systems, adaptability and resilience to climate change, informed environmental decision-making and the health of the oceans. In the course of the teams work, however, they surfaced a strong desire among many faculty to rethink how Stanfords efforts in the broad areas of climate and sustainability are organized for maximum impact.

This prompted Tessier-Lavigne to task a committee led by Arun Majumdar, professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of the Precourt Institute for Energy, and Noah Diffenbaugh, professor of Earth system science, with proposing academic structures that would maximize the impact of Stanfords sustainability-related research. That committee, made up of faculty from all seven schools, the four policy institutes and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, carried out a campus survey, held five open forums, met with faculty, staff, students and other stakeholders from across the university, and interviewed past and current campus leaders.

Stanford Vice Provost and Dean of Research Kathryn Moler will lead the process designing the schools structure. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A consistent message from those conversations was an enthusiasm for the idea that Stanfords ambition and commitment to climate and sustainability must be as large as the challenge, according to Diffenbaugh. We heard that sustainability should be a top priority in research, education and impact, he said. We also heard that the structure should be inclusive and that sustainability needs to be infused in all aspects of the university.

Majumdar added, The feedback made it clear that we need a coherent educational program, the ability to hire the best faculty and allow them to succeed in their research regardless of whether it is fundamental or applied, and we have to have an organization that connects to the outside world and enables faculty and students to co-develop solutions with partners.

The group led by Majumdar and Diffenbaugh proposed two possible new organizational structures: a school focused on climate and sustainability, or a college of climate and sustainability that would span existing schools, institutes and other units. (Read the committeesexecutive summary, Stanford ID required.) Both options address faculty excitement about better aligning resources focused on these issues, and proposed including the educational neighborhood, sustainability accelerator and campus elements that have made Stanford a living laboratory.

The school option would bring together multiple strands of Stanfords existing expertise in climate and sustainability research and education currently taking place across the university. This option is consistent with Stanfords organizational structure, which is centered in schools, though the committee warned that it requires care to ensure that it does not create silos across the university. The college option would seek to integrate these activities horizontally across all Stanford schools, institutes and other units, but it would create a new organizational structure that might take years to fully implement.

The executive cabinet was unanimous in their enthusiasm for moving forward with the school, which is a familiar structure that could be implemented in a timeline consistent with the urgency of the challenge. Molers process will also seek to integrate some benefits of the college option in the school.

Helping to design this school with internal and external partners is an incredible opportunity to shape the way the university addresses critical issues that affect us every day, including our health, food security, energy availability or even our ability to enjoy natural places like forest lands and coral reefs, Moler said. I would like the entire Stanford community to share my excitement and to feel welcome to participate.

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