Category Archives: Human Behavior

Human Behavior

Study: Yes, More Parking Does Put More Cars on the Road – Streetsblog New York

This article originally appeared on the Sightline Institute, a sustainability think tank for the Pacific Northwest. It is republished with permission.

Do cities create greener lifestyles? Or do they just enable them?

Its very, very, very clear that people who live closer to other people drive less. But how much of this is due to the fact that people who were already predisposed to driving lessthose of us who dont particularly enjoy driving, for exampleare deliberately living where parking is scarce and buses are frequent?

A forthcoming academic paper finally begins to answer this crucial question. Its breakthrough conclusion: Bigger parking lots make us drive more.

Even if we ignore the breathtaking economic costs of dedicating scarce urban space to car storage, mandatory parking isnt an all of the above strategy that simply lets people choose their favorite mode of transportation. Instead, as UCLA professor Donald Shoup put it in 1997, parking spaces are a fertility drug for cars.

Our buildings shape our behavior

Speaking scientifically, the key to proving a cause-and-effect relationship is finding a randomized sample of human behavior.

And in their new paper, What Do Residential Lotteries Show Us About Transportation Choices?, four Californian academics found such a sample: the free, site-specific lotteries that San Francisco uses to select who gets to live in the price-regulated homes of new apartment and condo buildings. (Because this is San Francisco, a two-person household generally can qualify while earning up to $118,200, equivalent to 120 percent of city median income. So these findings dont apply only to people who would struggle to afford a car.)

Its so hard to do this kind of research, wrote Jessica Roberts, a principal at Portland-based Alta Planning + Design and one of the countrys leading experts on the science of transportation behavior. Their elegant experimental design is a huge breakthrough.

After surveying the auto ownership and basic transportation habits of the residents of 2,654 homes in 197 projects built since 2002, the authors (Adam Millard-Ball, Jeremy West, Nazanin Rezaei, and Garima Desai) found that projects with more on-site parking induce more auto ownership:

Buildings with at least one parking space per unit (as required by zoning codes in most U.S. cities, and in San Francisco until circa 2010) have more than twice the car ownership rate of buildings that have no parking, the authors write.

Do buildings with less parking and car ownership limit the job prospects of their occupants? Apparently not. The team found no correlation between parking supply and employment status at the time of their 2019 survey.

They also found that more parking led to more driving, less transit use, and less walking. And they checked the locations of the 197 projects and found that non-automotive transportation choices seem to be induced by higher AllTransit scores (a measure of nearby mass transit quality by street address), higher WalkScores (a measure of the diversity of destinations within walking distance, inspired in part by an old Sightline blog post), and higher BikeScores (a measure of the quality of nearby bike networks).

Its not just that people who enjoy walking to the store will choose to live near stores. Its that living near stores makes us more inclined to walk, and less inclined to drive.

We shape our buildings, Winston Churchill said. And afterward, our buildings shape us.

This addresses one of the most important questions in urban environmentalism

This paper doesnt close the book on the questions of how much our buildings shape us, and in which ways, and which of us they shape more or differently. Its one study in one city from one year.

But it is a big new confirmation of one of the central hypotheses of the modern pro-housing movement.

Weve known that Amsterdam, built mostly before the automobile was invented, has much lower energy use per person than Seattle, despite their comparable population and wealth. Weve known that this pattern holds within countries, too. When youre measuring greenhouse emissions per person within a country, density is all but destiny. Weve known that if everyone on the world could consume energy like Netherlanders rather than like Cascadians, it would be far easier to find our way to a planet that can remain both prosperous and habitable for human life.

But at least in the United States, there hasnt actually been much solid evidence that building cities differently will actually change our behavior enough.

This new study strongly suggests that its possible, all these centuries later, to build new Amsterdams.

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Study: Yes, More Parking Does Put More Cars on the Road - Streetsblog New York

Human Behavior

Panthers DE Stephen Weatherly Reveals His Artistic Side on Netflixs Blown Away – Sportscasting

Linebacker Stephen Weatherly is a promising defender, but to stereotype him as just an NFL player sells him short. Hes among the most fascinating characters in the NFL. In his first four years with the Vikings and hislast year with the Carolina Panthers, hes a fascinating example of how athletes pursue other interests. Art, music, TV Weatherly does it all. Perhaps, this is best shown by his recent appearance on NetflixsBlown Away.

Coming out of Vanderbilt, details Pro Football Reference, Weatherly alwayssaw the NFLas an opportunity not only to play the game he loves for a living but to do so while pursuing other interests away from the sport. He was a sociology major at Vanderbilt and used his education to learn the intricacies of human behavior. Perhaps, this can explain hissuccess as an NFL player. After all, defenders have to read the offense on a whim and predict where the ball is headed.

He made it to the Vikings roster as a rookie, although he played in only two games. The following year, he came off the bench for all but one game en-route to seven tackles. However, it was the 2018 season that changed everything. That year, splitting his time between the bench and the starting lineup, Weatherly tackled 35 opponents and got the first three sacks of his career.

It was a welcome party for the longshot football player. He continued that promising penchant for defense the following year, although he spent more time coming off the bench. Weatherly started all nine games he played this year with his new team, the Panthers, but he still embraces other interests during his off time.

Weatherly recently spoketo the Panthersabout all of his interests away from football. To him, it started from a young age.He explained:

From a young age, y mom would tell you that she always knew that I was destined for greatness like any parent says about their kids, right? But she wanted me to be multifaceted because its really easy as a young kid to be gifted in the sports realm, to be known as just an athlete.

Once he got to college, however, Weatherly made the most of his education and helped show off his unique brand of entertaining others. One of his more ambitious projects was a self-made game show hed host out in public as a way to study human behavior.

I studied sociology at Vanderbilt, so experimenting with humans is highly frowned upon. So I offered money just to see [what people would do], Weatherly said. I just talked to random people at the mall and gave them my own money. We were there for like an hour and it was crazy. We got some hilarious reactions, but just to see people being nice to each other felt good.

From the nine instruments hes played to his interest in the arts, Weatherly is unlike anything the NFL has seen. This is how he wants it.Football is a major part of my identity, but its not all of it, Weatherly told the website. Its true. Now, hes spreading his name beyond football to a far more niche market the glass-blowing one.

RELATED: Aaron Maybin Turned $25 Million Rookie Contract Into Art Teaching Job

Weatherly took up an interest inglass-blowing as a young man, according to SB Nation. When Netflix looked for judges on their glass-blowing competition,Blown Away, this made him the perfect celebrity judge. Sitting alongside experts of the field, Weatherly did not feel like an ignorant athlete giving halfhearted feedback. He was a man with an evident passion for the craft.

Weatherlys episode featured people paying homage to their college past. For the Vanderbilt alumni, this was the perfect storm of interest. He didnt just judge people on their basic craft. Instead, the NFL star gave thoughtful feedback and fit right in. This is what makes him so fascinating. While Weatherly is a serviceable defender in the NFL, his side hobbies paint a man who cannot be defined by one skill or craft.

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Panthers DE Stephen Weatherly Reveals His Artistic Side on Netflixs Blown Away - Sportscasting

Human Behavior

Why trophy hunting is on the wrong side of history and evolution | TheHill – The Hill

What if a greater race of beings were to make flageolets (flutes) or buttons out of our bones?

Henry David Thoreau

The so called civilized people? They had no excuse. They hunted for what they called trophies, for the excitement of it, for pleasure, in fact.

Romain Gary,The Roots of Heaven,1958

Compassionfor animals is intimately associated with goodness ofcharacter,and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a goodman.

Arthur Schopenhauer

"As for trophy hunting, I think it is probably the kind of animal killing that most resembles murder - murder in the first degree. It is done with planning (premeditation) and without provocation or biological justification. The animals are entirely innocent creatures killed only for ego-gratification and fun. It's time we began to see this practice as akin to murder."

Kirk Robinson, executive director of theWestern Wildlife Conservancy

Photo credit: Lysander Christo

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.

Milan Kundera,The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Henry David Thoreau never made it to Africa but must have known what Europeans did to the great, great elephant herds centuries ago. Hundreds of thousands killed for fun. The big game hunters dont like to admit their betrayal of life because its big business. Men like Hemingway who created a lifestyle out of brutality and unabashed vanity. Thoreau surely knew what had happened to the great whale pods of his time. But unlike the Inuit of the Arctic, whalers rarely ate whale. The Inuit would have been aghast at the way the white man treated whales and the way they massacred them without mercy in the hundreds of thousands. And later on in the 20th century with harpoon guns. They would have said we had lost our minds. And when one hears Paul Watson describing his defense of whales and what the Russians were doing, taking the purest oil on earth in order to lubricate Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, he knew we had gone totally mad. We have lost our bearings as a species. The whalers of old, they happily took their oil and their teeth and their baleen. Whales became a resource and their great populations were wasted. Elephants became a resource and they were exterminated to a vestige of what they once were.

This argument very much like the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys will no longer hold weight in 20 or 30 years. If nature is still kicking, for many species, it will be a miracle. There is a catastrophe brewing for much of the natural world thanks to climate change. Seals are dying, whales are being beached and land mammals are starting to suffer as the 300 or so elephants can prove this summer in Botswana. We can no longer afford to assassinate the innocent.

My grandfather didnt like fascists and the subjugating mindset that came with it. He and LeClerc defeated a Panzer brigade of the Nazi army, dead set on taking Paris in August 1944. It was neutralized and France was saved. He was fighting for freedom and as such was captivated by the great writer Romain Gary whose book TheRoots of Heavenis one of the supreme masterpieces of the 20th century. Morel, the central character, is fighting for the rights of elephants who at mid-century may have numbered perhaps several million. Elephants for Gary were the worlds great sentinel for freedom. So to think that there are those who have enjoyed and actually looked forward to putting a bullet in an elephants brain is an atrocity of the highest order, totally counter to the tribes who used to hunt elephants just to survive. Hunting in tandem with poaching devastated their numbers over the last half century. Today maybe 400,000 forest and savanna elephants remain. The entire ecology of half of Africa depends on them.

Who are the would be warriors, that would love to open up the entirety of Yellowstone? Trophy hunters of course. Not to feed oneself but to say one has conquered a grizzly, to say one has vanquished a mountain lion. To adorn ones mantelpiece. The ultimate act of betraying the wild, which is the greatest legacy of this very young country. Something for which the Native nations would be aghast. Killing for fun? Instead of having a sanctuary to go to, unique in all of America and the most remarkable we have outside of Alaska, some would have it open season to bagging grizzlies or wolves or bears and cougar. Quite simply astounding that this scenario could even be contemplated. Rob Wielgus, one of the preeminent predator experts in the country from Washington State University demonstrates how the trophy hunting of adult male lions increases the number of lions and the number of attacks on livestock. Very similar results with leopards in Africa with their highly acute territorial imperative. Robs work helped stop mountain lion hunting in the state. But of course, certain statesmen like Joel Kretz, a trophy hunter from rural Washington, was elected on a platform to hunt lions.And not coincidentally the greater percentage of lions reside in his district. The previous administrationattempted to push this extreme group of people run wildlife management on our national wildlife refuges. It was only a recent ruling that just managed to stop scheduled hunts in Wyoming and Idaho in the greater Yellowstone area that would have allowed 23 bears to be killed.

Opening up Yellowstone to hunting probably wont happen because a measure of sanity will strike down this nightmare scenario, but the fact that it was wished, is the height of folly that our species owns. Most recently it was Edward Abbey who would have howled with suffocating embarrassment for what we had done to America when he exclaimed, God bless America. Lets save some of it. And if a certain breed of huntsmen had had their way a great portion of the 48 states in terms of wilderness would have been utterly sacrificed.

North America has long had its breed of conquerors who took over the Native nations and subjugated the wildlife, for profits and also for fun. There is fun, there is sport and then there is subjugation. If we are used to conquering and mutilating humans, we unleash strange death wishes upon the other. It is about the conquest of the other, 20 million buffalo exterminated, and the bounty hunting of rare, charismatic, dangerous animals of the world, an activity that begs the question, why?

Why kill for fun? Some have mentioned, it is an addiction. Like mainlining heroin. Others say that psychologically, it is an ego driven need to pretend that we are in control of nature, although with climate change that will soon change, and for all time. In the midst of the sixth extinction, many species are facing elimination, forever, all thanks to us. To find the targets of our misspent hunting cravings will be harder than ever. James William Gibson, professor of sociology at California State University, has tackled some of the underpinnings of our societal malaise and paramilitary culture in which men attempt to restore a sense of power and masculinity. Inhis bookWarrior Dreams- Paramilitary Culture in Post Vietnam America,1994, he surgically and precisely underscores the structure of a Rambo Culture in America. Warriors fighting and one may say even hunting outside the established order.

The killing of an animal for fun or leisure or so-called sport or for any reason but survival is murder as many have suggested but few are willing to admit. Max Weber, one of the supreme figureheads of sociology of the 20th century, emphasized how modern mans disenchantment with nature and refusal to accept nature as alive, led to the dismantling of Creation. To be made into a commodity. Nature has to be dominated and subdued. But Nature is alive. Each animal is assuredly alive and an irreplaceable gift, the greatest this Earth harbors. To sacrifice one in the name of fun is fundamentally evil, but it demonstrates the warrior class to an extreme.

Photo credit: Lysander Christo

In America the continued baiting and snaring of black bears in Montana and Idaho, which can impact grizzlies, continues to this day. Wolves decimated over the last few hundred years, continue to be shot in the West and the last administration even made it easier for wolves and bears to be lured by doughnuts and then shot, although almost 70 percent of Alaskans oppose the killing of bears in their dens, and the killings of wolf pups by hunters which by any standard should be considered a monstrosity. Future generations, when predators are almost gone, will ask, what on Earth were we thinking or feeling for beings trying desperately to hold on for dear life.

What we need as a species is to recreate the self, the character and soul of what it means to be human. The hunting rational for conservation does not serve the others and it does not support short term or long range conservation efforts. We no longer need to kill to survive except under extreme or unique situations as Indigenous people have done for millennia. Reserves in Africa, the motherland of the hunting experience, have been denuded of its game across entire wilderness areas, most notably in the Selous of Tanzania, where 60 percent of the countrys elephants roamed until a few years ago. Where trophy hunters have been allowed, on most occasions, poachers have pursued their prey. Picture a 12-year-old girl with the carcass of a dead zebra or giraffe. Where did she learn this behavior? The wild giraffe population has dropped by 40 percent in the last generation. If one wants science and numbers, there it is.

From over 140,000 giraffes to 80,000 in less than a generation. The great sentinel of the plains are in free fall. Giraffes are among some of the first beings children marvel at when their parents buy them toys or teach them to speak. In the future, childrens first words after dada and mama, after the wild has become a memory, might very well be com-pu-ta.

The animals that introduced children to life will roam only as effigies in the imagination. It will not just be a sad world. It will be an irremediably, irreducibly, tragic world bleeding from every eco-system on Earth.

Lets not forget that the mindset is not just America. It is British and French and Italian and German and now more than ever Chinese who are lusting after species, literally, on their last legs. Too many species are being lost, including half of all mammal species whose numbers are declining and a fifth of all mammal species are at risk of disappearing from earth. Forever.

Will it be worth having children where nothing breathes except the human face? Many childrensimply do not know if they will have a future due to climate change and the 6th extinction. The Extinction Rebellion that started in the UK just a few years ago is a direct response to humanitys subjugation of the natural world for millennia. It is no coincidence that the movement started in the former British Empire.The great hunter ethos exemplified in Teddy Roosevelt, was assimilated into American culturefollowing the British model. Hunting a single unique, often keystone predator species for the purposes of hunting does not improve an areas biodiversity, which is plummeting all over the planet. Animals were not the ones thrown out of paradise. Only Adam and Eve were.

There is an entity called the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation that enables you to hunt eland for a few thousand dollars in Africa or black bear here in the United States. Recreation is one thing but the deliberate obliteration of a being for entertainment is not something we as a species can afford any longer.Everywhere ecosystems are in jeopardy and predator species are plummeting. Many of the most charismatic, most sought after species for the most elite hunters are endangered worldwide. The black bear population is not an issue for now, but their great cousins up north in the melting Arctic most definitely are.

The price tag on a polar bear, which used to nourish Indigenous communities and which are now hunted solely for their fur or body is obscene and a sacrilege. The polar bear will disappear from an overheating Earth within several generations. The foundation of their being is melting and no self-respecting Inuit would have hunted for fun in the old days if you listened to the Inuit elders or Rasmussen, back a hundred years ago. It would have been abhorrent. In equal measure, no self-respecting Maasai warrior would ever, ever have killed a lion for fun. The greatest warriors on Earth have now become lion guardians.

For a senator or outdoorsman from the U.S. or a businessman from China to pay $100,000 to simply put a bullet through the brain of the largest predator on Earth demonstrates how far we have lost ballast and why the world is convulsing. In January 2014, The Guardianran an articleRapid Loss of Predators a major environmental threat. On land and in the sea. Sharks, one of the key components of the immune system of the oceans are in free fall. Many thousands have been caught in shark fishing tournaments for fun off Montauk and many others coastal cities. Many have had to reform. Tournaments saw the light, but many shark populations have been reduced by 70 percent as well. Some scientists fear sharks might not even survive. They go back almost 500 million years ago. How dare us.

Between major global climate upheaval we are all experiencing and the very fragile state of democracy worldwide with people clamoring for food, water and resources, species are being decimated. They literally have nowhere to run. The aerial shooting of wolves, the baiting and killing of grizzlies or black bears or mountain lion in North America is insanity and hubris writ large. Maybe humans, so divorced from the survival days of yore are bored out of their minds. Its possible.

Photo credit: Lysander Christo

There are many arguments for why trophy hunters kill.Hunters can absorb the high costs of hunting, which enhances their status as men, mostly men, although some of those hunters stop as they get older and feel more vulnerable to lifes last days and start to feel compassion for other living beings.

We have been social predators for eons only out of sheer necessity. A long time ago, our species was an innocent killer, as Jane Goodall and Hugo van Lawick can testify in their first book on jackals, spotted hyena andwild dogs calledInnocent Killers, 1970. All that changed with civilization and the domestication of animals. We know the story. Our destructive potential imposed on nature especially in the last 200 years with the industrial revolution, has developed in tandem with the ability to inflict pain on ourselves on a mass scale. Innumerable species decimated and vanquished at the hand of man. It is part and parcel of a larger mindset of conquest and subjugation. What we do to ourselves we have inflicted on the others. So, to ask why trophy hunters crave to kill begs the question, where does this strange, aberrant behavior come from.

It stems from psychology but philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer had partial explanations for the need to kill. It is a stain on our karmic DNA. In the old days we needed to hunt for food, and except for the last remaining tribal groups on Earth, humanity no longer needs to do so to survive.Trophy hunting is of an entirely different breed than hunting out of sheer necessity. Schopenhauer exclaims, The assumption that animals are without rights, and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance, is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.

Strangely, as our civilization approaches its peak years and possibly senility it may behoove us all to ask why some of us insist on killing for fun. The entire foundation of our morality is breaking down. The gap between rich and poor, between peoples of different colored skins, between men and women and between human and non-human is increasing. The inequality is numbing to the point of mini revolutions across the globe. The need to subjugate has been engraved into civilizations fingerprint for millennia now. Today it has taken on unique proportions because it is an industry bringing in tens of millions of dollars, money which mostly stays in the industry. The Native people of Africa, already moved out of prime hunting grounds, are not allowed to hunt. But foreigners, of course, are.

Why we may never understand the reasons people hunt animals astrophies,Xanthe Mallett, a criminologist,reports, research shows increased levels of hostilityand a need for power and control are associated with poor attitudes towards animals, among men in particular. Mallett also writes, "another paperhas linkedpersonalitytraits of some people who hunt for sport to a different triadof behaviors, known ominously as the dark triad. This includesnarcissism(egotistical admiration of ones own attributes, and a lack of compassion),Machiavellianism(being deceitful, cunning and manipulative) andpsychopathy(lack of remorse orempathy, and prone to impulsive behavior).

In a study published in 2016 during the heyday of the elephant slaughter authored by Scott Creel, Jessie Msoka, Eli Rosenblatt, Twakundine Simpamba and others, the authors underscore that:

Trophy hunting has had negative effects on lion populations throughout Africa, and the species serves as an important case study to consider the balance of costs and benefits, and to consider the effectiveness of alternative strategies to conserve exploited species. Age-restricted harvesting is widely recommended to mitigate negative effects of lion hunting, but this recommendation was based on a population model parameterized with data from a well-protected and growing lion population.

The research by Brent Staplekamp who actually collared Cecil the lion before he was killed by a trophy hunting dentist from the U.S., suggests that lion hunting is not sustainable. His experience in Hwange, the largest park in Zimbabwe shouldsilence all skeptics once and for all.

Today the lion population is decreasing across Africa. Some say there are 30-25 thousand left, some say as few as 10,000. When will they be as rare as cheetah, who may number no more than 7,000, maybe 1,000 less. When I was first in Kenya as a teenager of 15, there may have been as many as 40,000 cheetah. The elephant herds of Africa have taken a direct hit losing 30 percent of the their numbers in the last 15 years. The black rhino hovered close to 70,000 individuals in 1970. Today maybe 5,000. To auction off a black rhino in Namibia for $350,000 as happened in 2015, flies in the face of reason. Was that animal really worth more dead than alive? The outrage against that particular killing was widespread and begs the question: Is this the best humanity can do to preserve its most fragile species?

Not that long ago, there were more than 40,000 tigers in India and maybe 80,000 in all of Asia. Between 1875 and 1925 the rich and aristocrats of Europe killed off the vast, vast majority of Asias most formidable predator. India now has maybe 1,600 tigers. Is there going to be a price tag to shoot a tiger five years from now for $1 million, $5 million, how about $50 million?

I, for one, would rather see the Sistine Chapel fall to pieces, the unique vision of one man, just one man, however talented he may have been, than to lose for all time a single species whether it be the mountain gorilla, elephant, lion, tiger, polar bear or any whale species on this planet. We are riding on the razors edge of insanity when the body parts of species on the near edge of extinction continue to motivate adult men, mostly men, for killing purposes.

With all the money at hand in the world, conservation and the business elite need to mobilize economic resources in tandem, because we now know that natures financial score card, what she yearly gives back in terms of ecosystem resources of the planet is more than double what humanity makes each and every year in terms of GDP. Economy and ecology have to come together.

Photo credit: Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson

I asked a priest at a temple in India what would happen to humanity if we lost the tiger. He said, it will not matter because there will not be humanity any more. In a park, almost serene beyond comprehension, the great 65 feet statue of Vishnu the protector, preserver and sustainer of the world lies in the forest where about 8 tigers per square kilometer roam the sanctuary. Buddhist monks used to meditate in caves where tigers patrolled the jungle. The grown men of the world steeply infused with the last remnants of Rambo style mentality, still suffering the stress and horrors of post Vietnam, post 1960s social dislocation, continue to execute the greatest exemplars of the life force on Earth.

If big game hunters were to enter even one of the caves at Bandhavgarh, sit very quietly for an hour in a way Buddhist monks used to 2,000 years ago, and maybe indulge in a moment of utter tranquility such as most of them have never done before, exit that cave,and stare profoundly into the eyes of a tiger at 20 feet, they would be utterly silenced and irreducibly haunted and transfigured by a vastly more coherent being. But I suspect there are a few hunters today who would follow in Yuri Yankosvkys footsteps when he left Russia after the Russian Revolution and became a tiger hunter living on tiger steaks and vodka. The tigers bred in China for tiger wine are shameful beyond measure. The deer bred in Texas by the thousands for the biggest horns is craven.

To track down an endangered argali sheep in Mongolia, the one inscribed on hunters life list of trophies is mindless. While no-one is allowed to kill a tiger in India the black market still exists. One day many species will become as rare as the Bengal, Sumatran tiger or Siberian tiger. But there are those who dream of hunting them. They continue to be poached. With changing monsoon patterns with heat indexes expected to rise across Asia, how will the tiger survive? How will humanity survive?

Unbelievably enough, an elephant can still be targeted for the asking price of $40K. How on Earth anyone would want to shoot one of the pillars of the world is beyond comprehension.But the estimated value of an elephant over its lifetime may be over 1.5 million dollars, many, many times what it is worth as a lifeless, mute, inert, devastated lump of obscenity hanging on someones wall, or as a tusk encased in glass. When will this come to an end? When will there be only 1,000 elephants left in the wild protected by electric fences and armed guards? By then there will be nothing left of the wild.

What exactly will it take to come to our senses? You know, when a child looks at a live being and then is told that adults, or their parents enjoy, actually enjoy the slaughter of that being, that child is severed from the world forever asElephant Song, the remarkably insightful film from Canada makes abundantly clear. We have reached the tail end of morality on this Earth as a species. A few more millimeters and we will have reached the point of no return. The Convention on Biological Diversity seeks to stave off the bleeding of nature while nature still exists in some measure. But we are running out of time. The Arctic and Antarctic melting are starting to make short work of our vanity. We need to wake up.

There may come a time, when teachers will have to explain to their students what Nature was. That Nature came to an end abruptly in the 21st century out of greed and utter arrogance. The end, not just of the proverbial elephants tail, but the lifeline to existence, which are its species. We have the next four years and maybe this decade, and then it will be over. I promise. Unless we make an about face.

The clinical dimension of loss where 70 percent of the worlds animal populations have been eliminated in the last two generations is incalculable, ecologically, and in terms of the human psyche, psychologically and spiritually. It is why more people are addicted to drugs than ever. Why more people are taking their lives than ever. Why more people are deciding not to have children than ever. Because not only are they being left behind, the species that gave them a reason to marvel and wonder, are diminishing.We have precisely this decade to turn things around before the possibility of living viably on this Earth disappears.

Recently, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the explorer, was able to convince the WWF to change its endorsement of trophy hunting. Which speaks volumes about this inimitable explorer and about one of the very largest conservation groups on the planet. Change is possible. Fiennes wrote about Boris Johnson, as the leader of the country that incited trophy hunting more than any other in modern times when he said that he hoped that the prime minister would understand that hunting was about cruelty. "Bullying bastards are involved and people who are vain sticking lovely dead animals on their walls. This preeminent British adventurer was the oldest to climb Mt. Everest and has crossed both polar ice caps summoned by a spirit virtually unmatched in modern times. So whenKilling Game: The Extinction Industry2020 by Eduardo Goncalvescame out, he had to call out the WWF for its diabolic practice of supporting trophy hunting and called out the practice for what it was, the perfidy of killing for its own sake.

Released five years after the killing of Cecil the lion, the book made an impact and especially on the WWF. They were shamed as should every killer, every hunter who wantonly destroys life for fun, not for venison, not for food, but for plain old entertainment. In this extraordinary time of extreme vulnerability, life can no longer be taken for granted. To hold onto antiquated models of human behavior does humanity and Earth a grave injustice. As Eduardo exclaims, All forms of animal cruelty, persecution, and murder are unjustifiable. But this is perhaps the most senseless and vile form of animal exploitation of all. It is people killing animals literally just to amuse themselves.Nine out of ten people want trophy hunting banned and the vast majority want to see all forms of trophies banned not just endangered species who could well disappear in the next few years, let alone the next generation. If the WWF can change its stand on one of humanitys most heinous practices, so too can the executioners of the wild, called trophy hunters.

But the greatest argument of all comes of course from science. Incontrovertibly so. The maximum sustainable yield concept that hunters might use, lets say in taking out a few dozen, or even a hundred deer out of population of lets say a thousand over a year leaves the remaining population with more unfit individuals. Those with the biggest horns, the largest tusks, if taken out, leave the less fit in the overall population. The conspecific competition between the strongest males in a species is reduced by targeting the ones with the largest horns, which erodes and undermines natural selection. Trophy hunting is artificial selection.Trophy hunting impairs genetic selection for the hardiest individuals. Trophy hunting stops evolution or rather causes reverse evolution.

We can no longer afford to turn a deaf ear to the future. For if we do not act now, the future will be silent except for the guile laden, war ravaging, profit mongering voice of a young species, called Homo sapiens, that took the life force for granted and conducted itself in a manner that led to the 6th extinction now upon us. For far too long men thought they were superior to women. For far too long whites thought they were superior to people of color. For far too long humans have thought they were superior to animals. For far too long humans thought of themselves as the crowning achievement of life on Earth. If life persists with even the semblance of the species Earth once had by centurys end, it will be a miracle. If we dont, the hunters of the world will have plenty to answer for because their ethos, their conduct is part of the warrior behavior that puts a bullet in an elephants brain because it can. We are very close to the point where nature simply has no use for us anymore. We are unraveling the life force.

Sometimes with the barrel of a gun.

Anyone who has doubts about the psychosis involved with the deer breeding farms in Texas should go down to that state and look around. To shoot deer with the biggest horns, Hornography, as Gibson calls it. Africas situation with the near shut down of tourism should not be an excuse for ramping up the hunting industrys quota for the greatest mammals on Earth. The death industry imposed on the innocent is very much part and parcel of our militarized civilization. And we will have to invent incredible excuses for the incredulous children who will have lost wonder and childhood forever. We are very close to the razors edge. We need to be very careful this decade. We are about to lose the meaning of life. Which is life itself.

As Werner Herzog, the visionary filmmaker once exclaimed after makingCave of Forgotten Dreams

I do not want to live on a planet where there are no lions anymore.

Our species used to kill to survive, because we did not have a choice. Today we have to choose life before it withers before the great cosmos of what this Earth once encompassed. The animals of the world, the backbone of existence, have been treated like expendable resources and garbage for far too long. The cavemen of 50,000 ago had far more respect for life. Animal populations are collapsing and our civilization will too. Native people always took the weakest individuals, as I was just told by a Gwichin elder in Alaska. They respected the leader, the strongest of the bunch. Our civilization simply does not. Unlessunless we change the heart of our humanity. In this extraordinarily fragile pandemic time, we should all know what that means.

Perhaps when all is gone and there is quite nothing to expect to find in the forests of the world we can look back with utter shame at what was and remember the great short story,The Most Dangerous Game,by Richard Connell in 1924 wherein the protagonist, a man, is hunted because he has cunning, courage and reason which supposedly the other animals do not. From the story:

"It will be light enough in Rio," promised Whitney. "We should make it in a few days. I hope the jaguar guns have come from Purdey's. We should have some good hunting up the Amazon. Great sport, hunting."

"The best sport in the world," agreed Rainsford.

"For the hunter," amended Whitney. "Not for the jaguar."

"Don't talk rot, Whitney," said Rainsford. "You're a big-game hunter, not a philosopher. Who cares how a jaguar feels?

"Perhaps the jaguar does," observed Whitney.

"Bah! They've no understanding."

"Even so, I rather think they understand one thing--fear. The fear of pain and the fear of death."

"Nonsense," laughed Rainsford. "This hot weather is making you soft, Whitney. Be a realist. The world is made up of two classes--the hunters and the huntees. Luckily, you and I are hunters.

As Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, who has spent years with the Bushmen back in the 1950s and knew the old Africa like very few on Earth magisterially explains, Yes, poaching and trophy hunting are different, but only from the human point of view. The two disgusting practices are identical from the wildlife point of view, especially for endangered species which seem to attract unusually large numbers of trophy hunters.

We have to change as a species before its too late.

Learn more aboutCyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson's work at their website.

WT Trailer cut 4 from Lightningwood on Vimeo.

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Why trophy hunting is on the wrong side of history and evolution | TheHill - The Hill

Human Behavior

Think forecasting COVID in Colorado was tough in 2020? It will be tougher in 2021, experts say – Colorado Springs Gazette

A mix of policy and behavior helped Colorado dodge a bullet late last year, contributing to a cumulative 2020 COVID-19 death count far below some of the worst-case scenarios predicted by the state's modeling team in the fall, one of its members says.

But were other factors at play? Was the modeling off? Did Colorado buckle down on preventative measures in the nick of time? Was it sheer luck or perhaps a mix of factors?

It's impossible to say precisely, experts contend. But one thing is certain: The job of those who attempt to forecast the pandemic hasn't gotten any easier in the new year, given nascent variables such as the vaccine rollout and the development and spread of mutations.

Infectious disease epidemiologists are "trying to change their shoes while riding a bicycle in the middle of a hurricane," saidDr. Elizabeth Carlton, assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health and member of the state's COVID-19 modeling team,a multidisciplinary team comprised of experts at colleges and universities throughout the state.

Says Dr. Phoebe Lostroh, a Colorado College microbiology professor with a history of highly accurate El Paso County virus projections: "It's just as complicated as forecasting the weather, if not more so."

COVID directly caused 4,215 deaths in Colorado last year less than a quarter of one of the worst-case scenarios proffered by the state's coronavirus modeling team last fall, according to preliminary data released Friday by the state that is expected to be finalized later this spring.

A Dec. 4 report from the state's COVID-19 modeling group warned that deaths could reach as high as 7,650 by the end of the year if the state saw an 11% reduction in transmission control a measure that monitors how well Coloradans are adhering to pandemic-related behavior and policy changes and a 30% drop in social distancing due to the holidays. At the time, it was on track for 5,600 deaths.

An Oct. 28 report, just 15 days ahead of the state's all-time high in new daily diagnoses, warned that Colorado's death toll could reach as high as 17,500 by the end of 2020 with a decrease in transmission control due to the holidays. At the time it was on track for 7,600 deaths.

Explanations for the lower-than-expected death toll are complex, involving a mix of factors like policy, behavior, politics and perhaps even factors like climate and the health of Coloradans prior to the pandemic.

"We don't generate forecasts, we generate projections," Carlton said "what if" scenarios for a multitude of factors including how quickly the virus is spreading and how well Coloradans are complying with transmission-control measures.

As to why the state's COVID death toll came in lower than anticipated, "the week before Thanksgiving we saw this dramatic reduction in the amount of population mixing and the contacts people where having," she said.

Consequently, hospitalizations began to fall by early December, and deaths followed suit, with the usual lag of a couple of weeks.

"It was some combination of policy and behavior that started sometime in late November, and we're in a much better place because of it," she said.

Lostroh's take: "The worst-case scenarios took into account the worst possible choices, and I don't think we made all of those," she said, speaking of Coloradans on a whole.

The models being produced on a state level are "so much more sophisticated than what I'm doing," Lostroh said, adding that longer-term forecasting, versus the week-by-week forecasting she does, is "inevitably more inaccurate."

The Harvard grad's modeling is based off of two "very simple assumptions": One, that the "virus is spreading exponentially," and two, that "every infected person infects, on average, more than one other person."

Assuming human behavior isn't changing, "when these two things are true, my forecast has been accurate, for weeks and weeks," Lostroh said. "When either is not true, it's no longer as accurate."

The biggest wild card in modeling, Carlton contends, is humans behavior.

"I think the hardest thing to predict in any model is how people are going to behave," Carlton said. "It's much easier to predict how the virus is going to behave."

A race between vaccine, variants

To make matters more complicated, there are new variables that weren't present a couple of months ago. For one, there's the vaccine rollout, contributing to a rising herd immunity. And then there are variants like the highly transmissible and potentially more lethal B.1.1.7, which triggered alarm when announced by U.K. officials in December and caused strict lockdown measures in southern England. There is also L452R, first seen in Denmark last spring and recently linked to several large-scale outbreaks in California.

Both have been found in Colorado, though only 33 variant cases had been identified in the state, with 13 cases under investigation. Only 30% of the state's positive cases are being screened for the B.1.1.7 variant, and genome sequencing to confirm it is only performed on approximately 3% of positive tests statewide, state health officials cautioned in a Friday news release.

"One of the challenges for any modeling team is responding in real time" to changing factors, Carlton said. Are COVID patients spending less time in the hospital? Are deaths dropping due to advancements in treatment? What mutations are present in Colorado, and how rapidly are they spreading?

The state's COVID modeling team is now building vaccination scenarios into its models, she said, as well as variant scenarios. But both are a "moving target."

For instance, it's unknown how rapidly the B.1.1.7 variant is spreading in the state.

"Right now it looks like in Colorado it's not spreading very rapidly," she said, adding that in the U.K., the variant "held at low levels for several months and then increased very rapidly."

Why would it spread so rapidly there and not here?

"I've been banging my head against the wall, trying to figure it out," she said.

The further ahead one tries to forecast, "the more uncertainty you have and the more you have to make educated guesses," Lostroh said.

But one thing is fairly certain.

"I think it's a race between the spread of that variant and vaccinating people," she said.

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Think forecasting COVID in Colorado was tough in 2020? It will be tougher in 2021, experts say - Colorado Springs Gazette

Human Behavior

Hundreds of fish species, including many that humans eat, are consuming plastic – The Conversation US

Trillions of barely visible pieces of plastic are floating in the worlds oceans, from surface waters to the deep seas. These particles, known as microplastics, typically form when larger plastic objects such as shopping bags and food containers break down.

Researchers are concerned about microplastics because they are minuscule, widely distributed and easy for wildlife to consume, accidentally or intentionally. We study marine science and animal behavior, and wanted to understand the scale of this problem. In a newly published study that we conducted with ecologist Elliott Hazen, we examined how marine fish including species consumed by humans are ingesting synthetic particles of all sizes.

In the broadest review on this topic that has been carried out to date, we found that, so far, 386 marine fish species are known to have ingested plastic debris, including 210 species that are commercially important. But findings of fish consuming plastic are on the rise. We speculate that this could be happening both because detection methods for microplastics are improving and because ocean plastic pollution continues to increase.

Its not news that wild creatures ingest plastic. The first scientific observation of this problem came from the stomach of a seabird in 1969. Three years later, scientists reported that fish off the coast of southern New England were consuming tiny plastic particles.

Since then, well over 100 scientific papers have described plastic ingestion in numerous species of fish. But each study has only contributed a small piece of a very important puzzle. To see the problem more clearly, we had to put those pieces together.

This story is part of Oceans 21Our series on the global ocean opened with five in depth profiles. Look out for new articles on the state of our oceans in the lead up to the UNs next climate conference, COP26. The series is brought to you by The Conversations international network.

We did this by creating the largest existing database on plastic ingestion by marine fish, drawing on every scientific study of the problem published from 1972 to 2019. We collected a range of information from each study, including what fish species it examined, the number of fish that had eaten plastic and when those fish were caught. Because some regions of the ocean have more plastic pollution than others, we also examined where the fish were found.

For each species in our database, we identified its diet, habitat and feeding behaviors for example, whether it preyed on other fish or grazed on algae. By analyzing this data as a whole, we wanted to understand not only how many fish were eating plastic, but also what factors might cause them to do so. The trends that we found were surprising and concerning.

Our research revealed that marine fish are ingesting plastic around the globe. According to the 129 scientific papers in our database, researchers have studied this problem in 555 fish species worldwide. We were alarmed to find that more than two-thirds of those species had ingested plastic.

One important caveat is that not all of these studies looked for microplastics. This is likely because finding microplastics requires specialized equipment, like microscopes, or use of more complex techniques. But when researchers did look for microplastics, they found five times more plastic per individual fish than when they only looked for larger pieces. Studies that were able to detect this previously invisible threat revealed that plastic ingestion was higher than we had originally anticipated.

Our review of four decades of research indicates that fish consumption of plastic is increasing. Just since an international assessment conducted for the United Nations in 2016, the number of marine fish species found with plastic has quadrupled.

Similarly, in the last decade alone, the proportion of fish consuming plastic has doubled across all species. Studies published from 2010-2013 found that an average of 15% of the fish sampled contained plastic; in studies published from 2017-2019, that share rose to 33%.

We think there are two reasons for this trend. First, scientific techniques for detecting microplastics have improved substantially in the past five years. Many of the earlier studies we examined may not have found microplastics because researchers couldnt see them.

Second, it is also likely that fish are actually consuming more plastic over time as ocean plastic pollution increases globally. If this is true, we expect the situation to worsen. Multiple studies that have sought to quantify plastic waste project that the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean will continue to increase over the next several decades.

While our findings may make it seem as though fish in the ocean are stuffed to the gills with plastic, the situation is more complex. In our review, almost one-third of the species studied were not found to have consumed plastic. And even in studies that did report plastic ingestion, researchers did not find plastic in every individual fish. Across studies and species, about one in four fish contained plastics a fraction that seems to be growing with time. Fish that did consume plastic typically had only one or two pieces in their stomachs.

In our view, this indicates that plastic ingestion by fish may be widespread, but it does not seem to be universal. Nor does it appear random. On the contrary, we were able to predict which species were more likely to eat plastic based on their environment, habitat and feeding behavior.

For example, fishes such as sharks, grouper and tuna that hunt other fishes or marine organisms as food were more likely to ingest plastic. Consequently, species higher on the food chain were at greater risk.

We were not surprised that the amount of plastic that fish consumed also seemed to depend on how much plastic was in their environment. Species that live in ocean regions known to have a lot of plastic pollution, such as the Mediterranean Sea and the coasts of East Asia, were found with more plastic in their stomachs.

This is not just a wildlife conservation issue. Researchers dont know very much about the effects of ingesting plastic on fish or humans. However, there is evidence that that microplastics and even smaller particles called nanoplastics can move from a fishs stomach to its muscle tissue, which is the part that humans typically eat. Our findings highlight the need for studies analyzing how frequently plastics transfer from fish to humans, and their potential effects on the human body.

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Our review is a step toward understanding the global problem of ocean plastic pollution. Of more than 20,000 marine fish species, only roughly 2% have been tested for plastic consumption. And many reaches of the ocean remain to be examined. Nonetheless, whats now clear to us is that out of sight, out of mind is not an effective response to ocean pollution especially when it may end up on our plates.

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Hundreds of fish species, including many that humans eat, are consuming plastic - The Conversation US

Human Behavior

Hope in its rawest form: why pandemic literature provides comfort in times of crisis – Observer Online

When COVID-19 began, I was in the final semester of my senior year of high school. After my exams were canceled, I found myself, like many others, with more time on my hands. I turned to literature and the arts, as they gave me a refuge from the outside world. However, I noticed something interesting about the kinds of media being consumed.

For one, the sources of entertainment that seemed to be gaining popularity were those that contained infectious diseases themselves. Outbreak became one of the most streamed films on Netflix at the end of March 2020, andpublishers reported booming sales in novels that featured epidemics. In Italy, Camus The Plague tripled in sales, and Penguin had to rush a reprint in different translations in order to meet the rising demand across the globe.

At first, I didnt quite understand this peculiar phenomenon. For me, literature is a form of escapism, in which I can explore other cultures, backgrounds and lives that are distinct from my own. I am a traveler without a passport, unrestrained by limitations, but rather, boundless in the worlds I may enter.

To read literature that features pandemics themselves seemed counter-productive. We already are surrounded by doomsday themes in our everyday lives. Why would I want to add to the chaos, to the turmoil that is already ensuing? The influx of readership in dystopian and pandemic literature led me to question why we, as humans, gravitate towards books that depict such harrowing experiences, especially when these stories begin to resemble our own.

To answer this question, I began to read literature that featured plagues, including Boccaccios The Decameron.Although the work takes place in medieval Italy, I began to realize that despite the time gap between the setting and the current 21st century, the tendencies of the human behavior are eerily analogous to those of today.

In The Decameron, some of rich enjoy the arts in the comfort of their homes, experimenting with music and other forms of fine arts. The wealthiest of the lot flee to their countryside estates, leaving the middle and lower class to stay in the urban city and work, many of which succumb to the plague.

These class disparities existed long before the presence of the Black Death, but these inequities become amplified as resources become scarcer and more unattainable for many groups of people. Sound familiar?

Pandemics demonstrate the vulnerabilities in human nature, our fears of not being able to provide for our families, achieve our goals, or even survive. Humanity can become amplified by the heroic efforts of frontline essential workers and altruistic neighbors who shop for their immunocompromised friends. At the same time, goodwill can seem bleak, with fights breaking out in stores when inventory runs low.

Although news outlets throw the word unprecedented in every other sentence, I am reminded through reading such literature that we are not alone these same issues have occurred throughout history, both in real life and in the world of fiction. In a strange way, I am comforted by these characters, in that they face similar fears and worries as my own.

Literature and the arts as a form of comfort during times of uncertainty is not an unfamiliar concept. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel features a flu pandemic which devastates the world. In the aftermath of the disease, the main character joins a group that performs Shakespeare plays across the remaining settlements. Instead of surrendering to despair and futility in the obstruction of society as they knew it, groups of survivors form solidarity in performing plays for those who still live.

While the fine arts are not seen as something being essential to physical existence, after experiencing a year full of quarantine and isolation, it is becoming increasingly prevalent that implementing creativity and intellectual curiosity is necessary for ones mental health and well-being.

Art is an expression of what it means to be human. Consuming or producing art, whether it be literary, visual or any other kind, can help people process difficult events and form conclusions about both the world and themselves. It has the ability to heal and provide hope, a form of rehabilitation during a year replete with much trauma and suffering.

While dystopian and pandemic novels do evoke dark themes such as anguish, I believe that this kind of literature also has the ability to portray hope in its rawest form. Hope is not produced in contentment but, rather, when desolation is near. It is during these times of trouble that we hope for a world that is full of literature, books and the arts. In an age where many are silenced, confused and scared, when we find ourselves rooting for the protagonist who is attempting to overcome obstacles, we are truly rooting for ourselves.

Elizabeth Prater is a first-year student with double majors in marketing and Program of Liberal Studies. In her free time, she manages her goldendoodles Instagram account (@genevieve_the_cute_dog) which has over 23K followers. She can be reached at [emailprotected] or @elizabethlianap on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

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Hope in its rawest form: why pandemic literature provides comfort in times of crisis - Observer Online

Human Behavior

Written Submission to the UN Human Rights Council Intersessional Meeting on the Prevention of Genocide – World – ReliefWeb

This submission was prepared by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect an independent organization that focuses on conducting research, analysis and advocacy in relation to mass atrocity crimes. The Global Centre is the leading international authority on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and since its inception in 2008 it has expanded and deepened global support for the norm. The Global Centre plays a unique role at the United Nations (UN) as the only organization carrying out monitoring, research and advocacy on all current and potential mass atrocity situations around the globe, as well as working with governments, the UN Human Rights Council and Security Council to translate this research into actionable policy responses.

STRENGTHENING NATIONAL CAPACITIES FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE

Modern history demonstrates that genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and/or crimes against humanity can occur almost everywhere. Genocide and other mass atrocity crimes are often the result of long-standing discriminatory practices, the targeting of vulnerable groups, patterns of violations and abuses of human rights and a lack of strong domestic institutions.

Genocide as a crime is distinct from the commission of other atrocity crimes as it includes the intent to destroy, in part or whole, an entire group. As history has taught us, genocide does not happen overnight, but requires planning and organization on the part of the perpetrator. As such, genocide is preventable if warning signs are taken seriously and followed by early action.

On a national level, risk factors for genocide and other mass atrocity crimes must be addressed through holistic policies and processes aimed at countering discrimination and marginalization. This includes strengthening legislative and institutional frameworks to guarantee principles of non-discrimination, ensuring the presence of various communities in political and public offices, and investigating all cases of discriminatory behavior or dangerous public discourse, even when practiced by popular politicians and leaders.

Governments should undertake the following measures to strengthen national capacities for the prevention of genocide and other atrocity crimes:

1. Create a national strategy or plan for genocide and atrocity prevention

Genocide and atrocity prevention are domestic policy imperatives. It is a cross-cutting issue that is relevant to the work of various departments and ministries, including national security, justice, human rights, minority affairs, women and child welfare, education, culture, health and beyond. A holistic, government-wide atrocity prevention strategy can aid in assessing national vulnerabilities to atrocities, strengthening societal resilience and building structural mechanisms to prevent or respond to atrocity risks. A national strategy on atrocity prevention can also equip political actors with the necessary contextual knowledge on risks factors for genocide and other atrocity crimes to comprehensively assess policy options and timely and consistent responses aimed at protecting populations and holding perpetrators accountable. Such a strategy should be rooted in the principle of R2P.

2. Enact legislation that facilitates structural atrocity prevention

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) obliges states to take measures to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. Governments should expeditiously sign and ratify the Genocide Convention and enact domestic legislation criminalizing genocide in accordance with the Convention. States should also adopt domestic legal protection for vulnerable groups and communities to help strengthen their capacity to prevent or halt genocide and other atrocities. National legal frameworks should include the protection of minority rights and legislation against hate speech and incitement.

Minority rights protection. Minority groups are often the most marginalized and vulnerable groups within society and are most likely to be exposed to structural discrimination, racism and exclusion from participation in economic, political and social life. In addition to adopting domestic legislation that aims to protect minority rights, states should ratify international treaties that protect and enhance human rights to prevent discrimination, exclusion and hostility against members of minority groups.

Legislation against hate speech and incitement. One of the most important early warning signs of genocide is the proliferation of hate speech and incitement. Hate speech is rhetoric that marginalizes and targets people on the basis of their religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or race. In other words, it is language that demonizes people not for anything that they have done, but for who they are. Such dangerous speech erodes social cohesion and lays the foundation for violence against vulnerable groups. Discriminatory public discourse against communities based on their identity normalizes violence against individuals or groups who are perceived as threats, which may incite its audience to engage in greater violence and acts of genocide. Governments should enact domestic legislation aimed at preventing hate speech and incitement, while guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech. Furthermore, states should utilize the recommendations outlined in the UN Plan of Action and Strategy on Hate Speech to identify gaps and challenges on a national level.

3. Appoint an R2P Focal Point

Governments can strengthen capacities for genocide and atrocity prevention by appointing a senior-level government official responsible for the promotion of mass atrocity prevention at national and international level. Currently, 61 countries from all regions of the world as well as the European Union (EU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have an R2P Focal Point and are part of the Global Network of R2P Focal Points, which meets annually to exchange best practices and strategies for strengthening atrocity prevention, including on a national level. Members of the Global Network include states that have never experienced mass atrocities domestically as well as states with populations currently experiencing, or at imminent risk of, mass atrocity crimes. The placement of an R2P Focal Point within a particular ministry or office is decided by each individual government, taking into account its structure and priorities, including whether the R2P Focal Points responsibilities are focused on national or international atrocity prevention. More information can be found here.

4. Systematically engage with civil society organizations

Although the prevention of genocide and other atrocity crimes is the primary responsibility of the state, civil society organizations can be instrumental in identifying early warning indicators of genocide, providing recommendations for necessary action at a national and local level, and alerting the international community if governments are unable or unwilling to act. Therefore, governments should regularly call on the expertise of civil society, including through regular consultations with national and local human rights defenders and NGOs. Through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, governments should consult national civil society to identify existing risk factors for mass atrocity crimes and ensure that recommendations towards addressing risk factors are implemented across the domestic system.

5. Strengthen atrocity prevention with education

Educating government officials and the wider population is a crucial tool for domestic atrocity prevention. Organizing trainings for public servants and politicians on R2P and mass atrocity prevention raises awareness within institutions and improves their ability to analyze potential risk factors for atrocities, develop comprehensive policies, and identify and strengthen existing local resources to address risk factors. To build resilient societies, states must develop curricula that promote diversity and inclusion, foster social solidarity, prevent prejudice and acknowledge past atrocities. Governments can also strengthen genocide and atrocity prevention by translating the UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes into local languages and organize public events to promote it domestically.

PROMOTING PARTICIPATION IN REGIONAL INITIATIVES FOR GENOCIDE AND ATROCITY PREVENTION

Regional organizations play a unique role in preventing and responding to genocide and other mass atrocities, as well as in taking effective collective action to protect civilians. These organizations are often best placed to guide multilateral action on situations emerging in their region. Such organizations may have a better understanding of political dynamics and are composed of neighboring states who may be disproportionately affected in the aftermath of atrocities.

6. Regional organizations should appoint an R2P Focal Point to work collaboratively on atrocity prevention with their member states

The appointment of R2P Focal Points by the EU and OAS were significant achievements that may enable more efficient and collaborative work on atrocity prevention among states in these regions. By appointing a senior diplomat as an R2P Focal Point, regional organizations can further strengthen multilateral action on emerging atrocity situations through its mechanisms and procedures. A regional R2P Focal Point can be crucial to enabling the integration of genocide and mass atrocity prevention within different sectors of the organization, helping to facilitate information sharing and creating linkages between different member states to regularly exchange on best practices and lessons learned. States that have appointed an R2P Focal Point should be encouraged to apply collective pressure on relevant regional bodies to encourage the appointment of a regional R2P Focal Point. Such an appointment would signal that the regional organizations can and will play a key role in responding to emerging crises by systematically applying an atrocity prevention lens to their mandate.

7. Utilize regional mechanisms to share best practices and develop preventive tools

While genocide and atrocity prevention, or a direct reference to R2P, may not be in the founding documents of all regional organizations, many of them operate within the spirit of mass atrocity prevention. For example, institutional mechanisms for providing technical assistance to member states and various regional field operations support the implementation of Pillar II of R2P. Collaboration among member states should be strengthened to regularly share best practices and develop relevant preventive tools. Preventing genocide and other mass atrocities by upholding R2P may also aid in defending the organizations interests in ensuring the stability and security of the region. One example is the EUs Integrated Approach to conflicts and crises, which ensures that all EU foreign policy instruments identify early warning signs and apply appropriate tools to confront emerging risks. Organizations should aim to further develop partnerships with different regional organizations to aid in the development of mutually supportive strategies for the prevention of atrocities, such as the African Union-EU-UN trilateral partnership.

STRENGTHENING EARLY WARNING, EARLY RESPONSE AND PREVENTION MECHANISMS WITHIN THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM FOR THE PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE

Systematic violations and abuses of human rights often serve as early warning for situations at risk of escalation to atrocities. Human rights mechanisms and procedures, including Special Procedures, the UPR and investigative mechanisms, are uniquely suited to address these risk factors at an early stage. They are therefore essential for early warning of situations at risk of genocide and other atrocity crimes and can be vital to mobilize early response within the UN system.

8. Systematically utilize UN Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review to identify warning signs and risk factors

The HRCs special procedures mandate holders constitute key mechanisms for early warning and the identification of atrocity risks. Several of the 44 active thematic special procedures are directly relevant for identifying atrocity risks stemming from ongoing human rights violations, including, but not limited to, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, and the Special Rapporteur on minority issues. Six of the current country-specific special procedures are mandated for situations where populations are experiencing, or are at risk of, atrocity crimes, including Eritrea, Myanmar and the Central African Republic. The regular updates and recommendations by these Special Procedures can be vital to identifying genocide and atrocity risk factors and providing guidance on preventing non-recurrence. UN member states should systematically utilize this information to identify situations at risk and develop prevention strategies. The UPR also provides a unique opportunity for mainstreaming and institutionalizing prevention of genocide and mass atrocity crimes by encouraging states to assess atrocity risks and identify means to build resilience, including through concrete and context-specific prevention and mitigation strategies. The UPR further allows for the mobilization of international support through technical assistance and capacity building. UN member states participating in the UPR process should provide targeted atrocity prevention-related recommendations to other governments and, where applicable, provide assistance for domestic implementation.

9. Establish independent investigative mechanisms to ensure accountability and non-recurrence

Although investigative mechanisms are normally established in the aftermath of grave violations and abuses of human rights, they are not only vital to contribute to justice and accountability, but also contribute to non-recurrence by outlining risk factors that facilitated the commission of atrocity crimes. Investigative mechanisms, including Commissions of Inquiry, Fact-Finding Missions and Groups of Eminent Experts, have proven to be instrumental in providing analysis as to whether international crimes have occurred, supplying actionable recommendations for all relevant actors, and advancing accountability efforts. Some mechanisms have also been successful in the identification of the root causes of human rights violations and abuses. By directly applying an atrocity prevention lens, investigative mechanisms can broaden our understanding of patterns of behavior that enable the commission of genocide and other atrocities and outline necessary institutional reforms to prevent their recurrence.

10. Mandate HRC-mechanisms and procedures to apply the UN Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes

The UNs Framework of Analysis is one tool available to expand comprehension of the early warning indicators of mass atrocities and can help enhance risk assessments, including through the work of Geneva-based mechanisms and procedures. When UN member states establish and renew HRC investigative mechanisms and Special Procedures, they should systematically include the Framework of Analysis in the mandates, asking the relevant experts to conduct a risk assessment of genocide and other atrocity crimes as part of their monitoring, reporting and investigations. The CoI on Burundi and the FFM on Myanmar used such an assessment, which helped alert the international community on existing structural and hybrid risk factors, warning of recurrence of atrocity crimes if they remain unaddressed. This can be vital to mobilize a response that specifically aims to prevent genocide and atrocity crimes. Where relevant, all HRC investigative mechanisms should also actively collaborate with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.

11. Support Special Sessions and Urgent Debates of the HRC to respond to deteriorating human rights crises

For country situations where violations and abuses of human rights rapidly deteriorate, the HRC may hold Special Sessions or Urgent Debates to address the escalating crisis and discuss options on how to respond. Yet, far too often, political dynamics in Geneva and beyond impede the holding of such meetings when the risk of atrocities is high. UN member states should respond in a more timely and decisive manner by holding a Special Session or Urgent Debate to increase international scrutiny on a situation at risk, receive relevant briefings by the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other stakeholders and formally discuss necessary action to prevent further deterioration.

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Written Submission to the UN Human Rights Council Intersessional Meeting on the Prevention of Genocide - World - ReliefWeb

Human Behavior

Participants Needed for a Health and Behavior Study – University of Arkansas Newswire

Are you interested in learning more about how behavior impacts your health?

The Center for Human Nutrition and the Exercise is Medicine program at the University of Arkansas are recruiting adults over the age of 18 years to participate in research related to health and behavior.

The DFEND (Diet, Food, Exercise, and Nutrition During social distancing) research study is a 20-week education program which involves 30-minute educational meetings once per week, weekly health and behavior challenges, and the opportunity to meet weekly with personalized coaches.

Compensation for full participation for the first 75 people to sign up. Anyone can join the DFEND educational sessions for free without signing up for the research study.

For more information, please contact us atbaum@uark.eduorDFEND@uaex.eduor go to our websitehttps://aaes.uark.edu/centers-and-programs/nutrition/dfend-3/.

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Participants Needed for a Health and Behavior Study - University of Arkansas Newswire

Human Behavior

To Fight COVID-19 Misinformation, WHO Is Partnering With Big Tech : Goats and Soda – NPR

Open up any social media app on your phone and you'll see it: links to COVID-19 information from trustworthy sources. Here, a Twitter screen reads, "No, 5G isn't causing coronavirus." Michele Abercrombie/NPR hide caption

Open up any social media app on your phone and you'll see it: links to COVID-19 information from trustworthy sources. Here, a Twitter screen reads, "No, 5G isn't causing coronavirus."

Open up any social media app on your phone and you'll likely see links to COVID-19 information from trustworthy sources.

Pinned to the top of Instagram's search function, the handles of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization are prominently featured. Click and you'll find posts and stories how to keep safe during the pandemic.

In the home section of the YouTube app, there's a playlist of videos that promote vaccination and counteract vaccination misinformation from WHO, the Journal of the American Medical Association and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

And on the Twitter app, you might spot a warning under posts with fake or misleading COVID-19 information. A tweet from a user falsely proclaiming that 5G causes coronavirus, for example, has a big blue exclamation mark with a message from Twitter: "Get the facts about COVID-19." It links to a story debunking the claim from a U.K. media outlet called iNews.

About Goats and Soda

Goats and Soda is NPR's global health and development blog. We tell stories of life in our changing world, focusing on low- and middle-income countries. And we keep in mind that we're all neighbors in this global village. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Learn more about our team and coverage.

In the noisy news landscape, these are just some of the features launched by the tech industry to bring down COVID-19 misinformation and deliver facts to the public.

This effort didn't happen spontaneously. The World Health Organization sparked the efforts in Feb. 2020 in the early days of the coronavirus crisis. The U.N. agency teamed up with over 40 tech companies to help disseminate facts, minimize the spread of false information and remove misleading posts.

But there's one big question that's tough to answer: Is it working?

Have any of these efforts actually changed people's behavior in the pandemic or encouraged them to turn to more credible sources?

Health messaging experts and misinformation specialists interviewed for this story praise WHO's efforts to reach billions of people through these tech industry partnerships. But they say the actions taken by the companies have not been enough and may even be problematic.

Vish Viswanath, a professor of health communication in the department of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has been closely monitoring the global health content spread by the tech industry since the pandemic started.

"The WHO deserves credit for recognizing that the sheer flood of misinformation the infodemic is a problem and for trying to do something about it," he says. "But the tech sector has not been particularly helpful in stemming the tide of misinformation."

Researchers say there are limits to some of the anti-misinformation tactics used by social media companies.

Flagging or pulling down a problematic social media post often comes too late to undo the harm, says Nasir Memon, professor of computer science and engineering at New York University. His research includes cybersecurity and human behavior.

"It only comes after the post has gone viral. A company might do a fact check and put a warning label," he says. "But by then the ones who consumed that information already have been influenced in some way."

For example, in October, President Donald Trump claimed in a Twitter post that he had COVID-19 immunity after he was sick. According to the CDC: "There is no firm evidence that the antibodies that develop in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection are protective." The post was taken off Twitter after being flagged by fact-checkers but not before it had been shared with millions of his followers.

And there are no guarantees that people are going to take the time to click on a link to credible sources to "learn more," as the labels suggest, says Viswanath.

These "learn more" and "for more information" COVID-19 labels can be found on almost every tech platform yes, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, but also Tinder, the dating app (every few swipes there are reminders to wash hands and observe physical distancing, with links to WHO messages) and Uber, the ridesharing app (a section on its website with rider safety information directs people to WHO for pandemic guidance).

"If I'm sitting in some community somewhere, busy with my life, worried about my job, worried about whether the kids are going to school or not, the last thing I want to do is go to a World Health Organization or CDC website," Viswanath adds.

WHO is aware these measures aren't perfect. Melinda Frost, with WHO's risk communication team, concedes that simply removing posts can create new problems. She shares a December study from the disinformation analytics company Graphika. It found that the crackdown on anti-vaccine videos on YouTube has led their proponents to repost the videos on other video-hosting sites like BitChute, favored by the far-right.

YouTube removes videos if they violate its COVID-19 policy. Videos that claim the COVID-19 vaccine kills people or will be used as a means of population reduction, for example, are not allowed. But other platforms may have less stringent policies.

"We may expect a proliferation of alternative platforms as fact checking and content removal measures are strengthened on social media," Frost says.

Researchers say it's hard to know whether any of these efforts have actually changed people's behavior in the pandemic or encouraged them to turn to more credible sources.

Claire Wardle, U.S. director of First Draft, a nonprofit organization that researches misinformation, says "we have almost no empirical evidence about the impact of these interventions on the platforms. We can't just assume that things that seem to make sense [such as taking a post down or directing people to a trustworthy source] would actually have the consequences we would expect."

Andy Pattison, who leads WHO's digital partnerships in Geneva, says the organization is now trying to assess impact.

WHO is working with Google, for example, on a questionnaire for users to see whether the company's efforts have resulted in behavior change and/or increased knowledge regarding COVID-19. Since the early days of the crisis, Google has ensured that users searching for "COVID" or related terms on its search engine see official news outlets and local health agencies in its top results, says Pattison.

In the absence of current data, past research can shed some light on social media misinformation.

For example, an April 2020 study from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering found that warning labels messages such as "multiple fact-checking journalists dispute the credibility of this news" can reduce people's intention to share false information. The likelihood, however, varied depending on the participant's political orientation and gender.

Memon, the lead author of the report, says the findings are relevant to social media policing in the pandemic. "Fact checking [on social media platforms] is going to become an important aspect of what we do as a society to help counter the spread of misinformation," he says.

Both Memon and Viswanath say with tens of millions of posts being shared on social media a day, companies need to scale up efforts to take down false information.

"They have the power. They have the reach. They should be more aggressive and active than they have been," says Viswanath.

Memon suggests that companies could deploy stronger mechanisms to verify users' identities. That could help prevent people from creating troll accounts to anonymously spread falsehoods and rumors, he says. And Viswanath suggests that tech companies hire teams of experts ethicists, researchers, scientists, doctors for advice on how to handle false information.

As for WHO, it's learned a key lesson during the pandemic. "Information alone is not going to shift behavior," says Frost, who has been working on WHO campaigns to debunk unjustified medical claims on social media.

So over the past few months, the organization has been gathering a group of sociologists, behavioral psychologists and neuroscientists to study how information circulates, how it can be managed and how it can change people's minds.

"A lot of what we know about behavior change really requires something closer to the individual making sure the information we have is relevant to individuals and makes sense in their lives," she says.

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To Fight COVID-19 Misinformation, WHO Is Partnering With Big Tech : Goats and Soda - NPR

Human Behavior

Love is in the air with Oatland wildlife center birds – Savannah Morning News

Eric Swanson| For Savannah Morning News

Musician John Paul Young once wrote Love is in the air, everywhere I look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound. As Valentine's Day approaches, the same could be said for the animals at Oatland Island Wildlife Center. While romantic love is debated as purely a human emotion, the rituals and behaviors of animals can be easily confused for love. So, since love is in the air, we thought we would take this opportunity to share some facts about the birds (but not the bees!) that call Oatland home.

Bird courtship rituals can look like human dating, with some species singing or dancing to impress a mate, others putting on flashy outfits by molting into bright feathers, still others provide tasty morsels to eat. The male Carolina wrens take things a bit further, asking females to move right in and start a family, building multiple nests to woo their partner. The building process and home showings display both their building skills as well as their excess energy which cues potential mates that they are successful food foragers.

At Oatland, the Carolina wrens have been seen building their nests, and it won't be long until we see females diligently incubating eggs. Listen for their loud teakettle, teakettle, teakettle call next time you visit, and you might spot them!

More: Match beak to food to boost your bird-watching buck

Owls are winter nesters and hoot wildly from high perches to maintain and define territory, which is then controlled by a bonded pair. They work together to find a suitable place to lay eggs, like a tree cavity or an abandoned nest, the male striving to impress the female by bringing her small rodents to eat. Owl species cooperate to raise their young with each member of the pair providing incubation and food.

For years, our barred owl, Wahoohoo, has laid one or two eggs within a week of Valentines Day. With no male present in the enclosure the eggs are always infertile, but she still heeds the biological cue to lay an egg every winter. Listen for the easy-to-remember barred owl hooting, Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all? and the great horned owl making a deep but soft hoo-ha HOO-hoo-hoo.

More: Find stars used on the underground railroad with Oatland Island astronomy night

If you have walked past the Oatland eagles recently you may have noticed two white eggs peeking up from their nest. Eagle eggs take approximately 35 days to incubate, with the female eagle minding the nest and tenderly turning the eggs with her beak. In the wild, many Southern bald eagle chicks hatch out near Valentine's Day. While our bald eagle pair, Arnold and Francesca, do appear to have bonded and tolerate each other's presence year-round (a rarity in the wild), the eggs laid every January have so far been found to be infertile. Whether the infertility is due to the human-made match or because of their poor balance due to past wing injuries, we can only speculate.

So, do bald eagles love? They do mate for life and return year after year to the same nest which takes a lot of commitment, so we will let you decide.

From flashy feathers to nest-building, a lot of bird behavior is driven by the biological urge to perpetuate their genes. In nature, if you have the skills to survive, your genes are valuable. While that simplification may not seem romantic for a pairing in human society, in the animal kingdom it is what matters the most. So this Valentines Day, though you may don your nicest clothes and secure a delicious meal for your partner, dont forget to delight in the human experience of conversation and connection. And, if youre looking for a great date idea, come check out the animal couples at Oatland Island Wildlife Center.

Eric Swanson is a naturalist at Oatland Island Wildlife Center. Learn more atoatlandisland.orgor on Facebook atoatlandisland.

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