How to Save Money on Gas

Gas is already expensive, and it’s unlikely to get any cheaper in the near future. Here are some tips and tricks to help you stretch your gas budget even further!

It would be nice if we could all just walk or bike or take public transit everywhere we needed to go. It would certainly be healthier, better for the environment, and, on an immediate level, it would be so much cheaper. Because fueling up the car can get very expensive, very quickly.

But many people do not live in such a world! And if you’re reading this article, you’re probably one of them. You might need a car to get to work, to take your kids to school, to take your dogs to doggy school, or any number of other things. And until we can finally get those foot-powered Flintstones cars to work, you’ll probably need gas for your automobile.

Unfortunately, gas can get pretty expensive. If only there was a way to make you gas money stretch budget stretch a little bit further. Well, as it turns out, there’s not only one way you can save money on gas, there are several of them! Read on to find out more!

Apps and sites and a third thing, oh my!

These days there are multiple programs, apps, and websites that can help you save on gas. Just imagine if our ancestors had access to such technology. They wouldn’t have had to spend so much money on hay for their horses, which as we all know were the cars of older times. Like if there was some kind of “Triple Hay” website that would have allowed them to compare different hay prices across states so they could save money when taking long trips …

“My primary recommendation would be the AAA website, especially for families taking a road trip,” advised Piper Bloom, marketing manager for fuel card provider P-Fleet (@pfleetinc). “AAA allows you to compare prices between states so you can plan where the best fueling site would be. This is extremely helpful as fuel taxes vary dramatically between states.

“Additionally, travelers can download the Voyager App which displays the nearest gas stations and their recent prices, so you can pick the lowest price from the list. They also have a map and navigation functionality which is extremely helpful on-the-go.”

Certified financial planner Karen Lee offered some additional apps and programs you can take advantage of to lower your gas expenses:

“1. Download the GasBuddy app. It helps you find the lowest prices based on the grade of gas your car takes and a distance you’re willing to travel.

“2. Use Kroger Gas points (or something similar if you don’t have Kroger). We regularly save 40 cents to one dollar per gallon each month by accumulating these points based on the grocery shopping we do for the month.

“3. Join Costco or Sam’s Club. You’re likely to save more than the membership costs annually if you routinely use their gas pumps which run cheaper than the regular stations.”

Driver smarter, not harder.

If you can drive more efficiently, you won’t use as much gas, and then you won’t have to buy as much gas. You could also consider a more fuel efficient or even electric car, but obviously, that’s an enormous expense—and if you’re already struggling to afford gas, it’s probably not an option in the near future.

So what can you do to drive more efficiently? Here are some tips from the land down under the Land Down Under: New Zealand!

“If you’re racing up to the next set of lights only to have to brake heavily to a stop, you’re wasting fuel,” warned Darren Cottingham of DT Driver Training. “Look as far ahead as you can—preferably 12 seconds—and anticipate when the lights will change. Brake early and coast to a stop. Try to keep your momentum so that you don’t have to come to a complete stop.

“Eliminating tailgating, or following too closely to another vehicle, is another way of smoothing out your driving. If you’re too close to the car in front as it slows down, the gap gets noticeably shorter very quickly, so you brake. As it accelerates, you accelerate too. This constant cycle of braking and accelerating uses a lot of fuel. If you hang back two seconds behind the car in front you can easily absorb those small fluctuations in their speed often without changing your speed.

“Reducing the weight of your vehicle by not carrying unnecessary items, keeping your tires pumped up to the correct pressure, and maintaining your car’s drivetrain and engine will improve fuel economy. If you have to be stopped for any more than 30 seconds, turn off your engine.

“Finally, don’t take your car out of gear when you are coasting downhill. Apart from being dangerous because you’ll have no power if you need it, you actually use more fuel because the engine has to maintain an idle speed.”

Taylor Covington, marketing associate for The Zebra (@TheZebraCo), echoed the need to keep your car in good shape if you want to save on gas:

“Rotate your tires a little more frequently, generally when you get an oil change or about every 5,000 miles. Moving the tires front-to-back and/or side-to-side will keep the tread wear even. Your car will handle well, you’ll save gas, and your tires will last longer.”

And of course, you can always…

Drive less.

It may seem obvious, but the less you drive, the less gas you’ll use.

“To reduce overall gas consumption, I personally use the half-mile rule,” suggested personal finance writer Dustyn Ferguson (@dustyndream). “It’s a rule I made up that says, if it is within half a mile, walk or ride a bike. Starting your car up alone can use up gas and wear down parts that could be saved by just walking whenever you need to go somewhere nearby.”

Now take all of this advice and hit the road! Or you know, walk or bike if you can. To learn more about saving money, check out these related posts and articles from OppLoans:

What are your best tips for saving money? We want to hear from you! You can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Visit OppLoans on YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIN

Piper Bloom is the Marketing Manager at P-Fleet (@pfleetinc), a leader in expense and payment management solutions for commercial fleets. Her goal is to ensure people are maximizing their financial opportunities and putting every dollar to work for their future.
Darren Cottingham is the director of DT Driver Training, a provider of online training for car, motorbike, truck, and forklift drivers. He is also a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists.
Austin is right up Taylor Covington‘s alley since she loves succulents, adventuring to small Texas towns, camping and hiking. She’s also obsessed with content creation, which is awesome, since that’s her focus on The Z Team! Responsible for maintaining an educational vision for all that The Zebra (@TheZebraCo) publishes, Taylor explains “In Plain English” just what all that insurance jargon means.
Dustyn Ferguson (@dustyndream) is the personal finance aficionado behind Dime Will Tell. He often blogs about his experiences and shares his secrets when it comes to making and saving more money to achieve financial success.
Karen Lee has worked in the financial services industry since 1987. She chose Financial Planning as a career specifically to follow her lifelong desire to help others and make a difference in their lives. During this time, she has worked with countless numbers of families, individuals, and small businesses to help them pursue their financial dreams. She has the comprehensive education and experience to handle all aspects of a person’s financial situation.


New Year's Celebrations Around the World

Everyone loves celebrating the new year. It’s a time to reflect on the previous year’s successes (and its non-successes, too) to help you figure out what kind of person you want to be and what you want to do for the next 365 days.

In the U.S., we have some very particular traditions. We all enjoy the midnight countdown, and there is even a recent movie dedicated to people searching for their midnight kisses. Some people enjoy eating a meal of ham, black-eyed peas, and cabbage to signify health, wealth, and happiness. And we all love fireworks!

Actually, fireworks are probably the one tradition Americans share with cultures around the world on New Year’s Eve. There are so many different ways people from other countries celebrate the new year, and not everyone’s New Year begins on January 1st!

(No matter where people live, the New Year symbolizes new beginnings and dreams coming true.)

For instance, most people are aware that the Chinese New Year, centered around the lunar calendar, is celebrated anywhere between late January and the third week of February. Similarly, many Indian provinces celebrate their New Year in April and Muslims traditionally celebrate theirs on the first day of Muharram, which falls in August in 2019. Ethiopians actually have 13 months in their calendar, meaning they traditionally celebrate the New Year in September.

New Year’s traditions range from deep cleaning everything including homes, cars, and gardens, like in Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Puerto Rico. In Spain (and now in many Central and South American countries) it is a tradition to stuff 12 grapes in your mouth at once as the clock strikes midnight. Each grape represents a wish for the New Year, and if you can get all of them to fit, then all your wishes will come true.

In some South American countries such as Ecuador and Brazil, it’s common to burn effigies of public figures who have done wrong or life-sized dolls with masks that represent bad events from the past year. It’s also common in some Central and South American countries (and Thailand, too!) to throw buckets of water out of windows on New Year’s Eve to symbolically clean out the old year.

Some traditions that are even stranger for Americans come from Europe. In Denmark it is common to collect dishes throughout the year so they can be shattered by the front door on New Year’s Eve - the more broken plates, the more friends one will have that year. As the clock strikes midnight for the Danish, they leap from the tops of chairs to welcome the New Year.

In Germany, people melt lead and drop it into cold water to see what shape it takes to predict the future. Estonians eat anywhere from 7, 9, or 12 meals on New Year’s Eve! These are lucky numbers in Estonia, and people are encouraged to begin the New Year a little heavier than before. In Scotland and England, there is a tradition that the first person to cross the threshold of a home in the New Year should be a tall, dark-haired man bringing a gift for good luck.

These are just the bare-bones of New Year’s Eve traditions. There are literally so many in all the different regions of the world that to write an article about all of them would take a lifetime! We just thought it would be nice for you guys to see all the different ways people celebrate around the world - maybe there’s room for one or two more traditions in your family this year? (I wouldn’t mind eating 12 meals in one day…)

What’s your favorite NYE tradition? Leave your answer in the comments below!

You just earned points!
Login to save points.
Earn your spot on the leaderboard.

You earned We ♥ Celebrations points!

You're on your way to the top of the leaderboard!


• News
  • Columns
  • Interviews
  • BW Communities
  • Events
  • BW TV
  • Subscribe to Print
BW Businessworld

Big Bang Governs The Universe Even Today

Big Bang created a homogeneous, isotropic, expanding Universe with indefinite life.

Photo Credit :

The term Big Bang often refers to a cosmological event that took place approximately 13.8 billions years ago and the Universe was born as the result.

It was an explosion

Most people imagine the event as an explosion for at least 2 reasons. First is the name it self and secondly, a large number of significant events happened in a very short span of time after the event.

The Universe had a temperature of 10^32 K at 10^-43 second after the event and had 2 forces, Gravitation and Nuclear Strong, Nuclear Weak and Electromagnetic forces combined into one. At 10^-35 second, the Strong interaction separated leaving Weak and Electromagnetic forces as one. This was followed by an accelerated expansion of Universe till 10^-32 second, referred to as “inflation”. Universe expanded by a factor of at least 10^28 in this period and attained the size of grape fruit at the end. This was much faster than the speed of light but did not violate Special Theory of Relativity as this was stretching of space and not movement of a body. The definition of unit of space say meter expanded exponentially. The Universe was also cooling exponentially and by 10^-10 second, Weak and Electromagnetic interaction got separated creating the 4 forces of nature as known today followed by creation of protons and neutrons. The Universe had a radius of 10 light years after 1 sec and not 1 light second.

The continuous fall in temperature allowed nuclei to be formed from around 200 seconds onwards but temperatures have fallen so much that this process stopped in a few minutes. Unaided by Gravity, this temperature of around 10^7 K could not sustain nuclear fusion reactions and humans have experienced the same issue as they try to develop nuclear fusion reactor. At that time, about 3/4th of Universe consisted of Hydrogen by mass and rest was Helium with very minor traces of Lithium. At around 379000 years, atoms started appearing and reduction in ionized particles allowed light to shine through forming Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. Light cannot be used to study Universe before that, one hope being to use Gravitational Waves which are being detected frequently.

Thereafter, it took many million years for Gravity to aid formation of stars and galaxies and after a billion year, the appearance of Universe changed little.

It was not an explosion

However, most scientists do not consider Big Bang to be an explosion. First, there is no theory that describes what happened from the event till 10^-43 second, also called Planck time. This theory will merge Quantum Mechanics and General Theory of Relativity. Extrapolation of General Theory of Relativity yields a singularity and the theory is not valid before Planck time.

Most importantly, Big Bang created space and time besides energy and matter. It was not an event that someone could have watched at a distance as there was no space or reference frame outside the Universe. The expansion of Universe created space itself and not expansion into space. It was not like a cracker explosion where matter scatters from a point but was movement of each point relative to every other point.

Observations today

The size of the Universe is independent of the position and direction of observation and yields the same value, i.e. a sphere of radius 46.5 billion light years. This is called Observable Universe. This is fraction of actual Universe which is much bigger, at least 250 times bigger. The stretching of space that started with Big Bang continues though at a slower rate, hence this number is more than the expected 13.8 billion light years. In fact this is used to calculate the age of the Universe, light from galaxies at the edge of the Universe have taken 13.8 billion light years to reach us. In future, light from more galaxies will get time to reach us making them visible but some visible galaxies will start moving faster than speed of light and hence disappear from our view.

Hubble’s law says that all galaxies seem to be moving away from us and each other with speeds increasing with distance. This implies that there is no preferred centre point of the Universe or a place to say where Big Bang took place and is yet another reason not to treat this as explosion but a continuous event.

One related question is the shape of the spacetime curvature of the Universe. The curvature of Universe to an 0.4% degree of accuracy is flat, the initial curvature of the Universe was flattened during the inflation period. The flat curvature also implies that the Universe will continue to expand and expansion will stop after an infinite amount of time. The density of Universe matches the critical density needed for the flat curvature. Also even now, about 3/4th of Universe consists of Hydrogen by mass and 1/4th is Helium if Dark matter is excluded which is very difficult to detect.

The inflation also explains the homogeneity of CMB, its uniform temperature in whatever direction the measurement is taken, including between distances that light could not have travelled since the birth of the Universe. The expansion of Universe transferred uniformity even between bodies not in causal contact now but causally connected at that time. Even in this sea of homogeneity, some quantum fluctuations induced patches of lumpiness resulting in formation of galaxies.

Many scientists consider the inflation to be the real “Bang” due to the enormity of the event and sometimes one hears the word “Big Stretch” rather than Big Bang.

Conservation Laws

The Universe is homogeneous, i.e. all points in the space are same and hence laws of Physics do not depend upon where we chose our reference frame to be. This translates into Law of conservation of linear momentum. Similarly, Universe is isotropic, i.e. space has same properties in all directions and hence laws of Physics do not depend upon orientation of coordinate system. This translates into Law of conservation of angular momentum. The fact that the laws of Physics do not depend upon what we choose t=0 to be results in law of conservation of energy. These and other symmetries of the Universe give arise to conservation laws that govern Physics up till the particle physics level.

Big Bang created a homogeneous, isotropic, expanding Universe with indefinite life. Nowadays, scientists gave more importance to Big Bang Theory which governs the entire life cycle of the Universe even as the research continues to understand the event it self.

Tags assigned to this article:
big bang

Sandeep K Chhabra

Sandeep K Chhabra is a software professional working as General Manager at Ericsson India Global Services Pvt Ltd (EGIL). He is B Tech from IIT Delhi in Computer Science and Technology has more than 24 years of experience of working in IT industry. He is a Digital/Business transformations expert, startup mentor and an evangelist of emerging technologies.

More From The Author >>

Top themes and market attention on:


The transitory and fragile nature of life, its pairing of beauty and cruelty— this paradox compels me to engage with the world visually. I create installations and objects that allude to the comforts of home, that reveal its myriad contradictions and conflicts, its tenderness, bewilderments and humor. The outside world compels us to create refuge, but that refuge, despite it’s comforts, is porous and unstable.

My installations may evoke the banality of waiting rooms and furniture showrooms or the mythic intimacy of historic house museums; they are inspired by DIY TV shows and home decorating magazines- stages for invented controlled worlds. My work responds to and recreates the environments and objects we surround ourselves with in our relentless quest for permanence. Compulsive process and obsessive repetition are part of what makes me tick. Meditative and revelatory, I am fascinated by how things are made and how taking them apart reveals hidden worlds and the ingenuity of the human imagination.

The life of the studio is inextricably bound to my daily life. A current project, Maximum Security, came about when an image of a quilt in a newspaper article turned out to be an aerial view of Guantanamo prison. From this disquieting discovery, I learned the modular patterning in prison design shares a great deal with quilts’ formal qualities and geometric construction. Quilts immediately bring to mind ideas of home, comfort, and security. As heirlooms they carry narratives that are otherwise forgotten. Bringing these seemingly polarized forms together allows me to highlight the costs borne by societies deeply invested in surveillance and incarceration. In my newest works I disassemble the braided rugs common in old houses. These resourceful rugs, made from moth-eaten coats and blankets, reveal the tread of humanity across time, going about their daily lives.


List of United States Congresses
This is a list of the United States Congresses, including their beginnings, endings, and the dates of their sessions. Each "term" of Congress lasts for two years.
List of United States Congresses - Wikipedia
Joint Vision 2020
United States Census
United States Census - Wikipedia


Acrimony the movie

I’m very late, but I finally watched the movie Acrimony today. I’ll admit that I didn’t have very high expectations but it was a decent movie. There were so many mental health and social psychology applications within the movie. The main character Melinda went above and beyond in trying to ensure that her husband Robert was successful. But throughout the movie it became clear that he was using her. Being the only spouse supporting the family financially for 18 years took its toll on Melinda and she snapped. She had lost herself in the marriage and in its subsequent downfall. She invested heavily in a dream that she saw her husband’s fiance getting and it was too much. The money that she had been given didn’t hold a candle in her mind to spending the rest of her life in luxury with the man that she held down for years. While ten million is nothing to sneeze at, she could never get the time back that she had spent in the relationship. The entire movie was an example of why doing the right things for the wrong person can be detrimental. Melinda’s family was supportive and tried to warn her from the very beginning but she chose her own path. It wasn’t pretty and it was full of frustration and in the end, loss. Yes, she was young when she first met Robert but she put up with working two jobs and leaving him at home sleeping every day for well over a decade. It’s good to believe in people but there has to be a limit. Yes, there were definitely some mental health implications but Melinda was incredibly hurt and she absolutely did not have the coping skills in place to adequately deal with a loss of that magnitude without losing her mind. She just couldn’t walk away and in the end she paid the cost.

What I’m watching now

Cable and my new favorite binge watching show

When I moved into my new apartment I did something that I had always wanted to do—got cable television. Now granted I don’t have enough channels to even remotely keep up with things in the television world, but it’s been a decent deal. Of course my cable use has been supplemented with my TV antenna, Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Videos so I really don’t miss a lot. I rarely watch things in real time but I’ve come to love the DVR. It’s so amazingly convenient to watch things when you want to. I’ve found a new favorite show to DVR–Modern Family. About 120 episodes worth if we’re being specific. It’s an awesome show about the daily life experiences and challenges of families. It’s not really a comedy but there’s this dry ironic underlying humor vibe that I like. Needless to say, watching an episode or so after a long day at work has been great for decompressing after a long frustrating day at work. It’s comfortable and doesn’t require a lot of thought…Self care right?

Fifty Shades of……Interesting Part I

 Not too long ago there was a pretty big discussion on social media related to the movie release of Fifty Shades of Gray. The book brought attention to a lifestyle that normally isn’t broadcasted in the mainstream. People were giving their opinions on how the storyline lends itself to glorifying unhealthy relationships and some in the faith community were questioning the piety of those who chose to go see it. I’m a curious person by nature and I never got caught up in the original discussion when the books were released but wanted to know what it was all about. I’m a fan of being informed before I form an opinion so I decided to do some research and read the books for myself. Within a few minutes of making the decision the books were downloaded on my phone for easy reading. Or so I thought. There are some books you read and they just seem to flow but I had to read the series in spurts because it was a really choppy read. Anyway, throughout the course of the book, the author draws so many conclusions to explain the behaviors that are pretty colorfully described. We have a young college student who is so enthralled at first sight with someone that almost loses her individuality in the process and spends a significant bit of time pacifying his insecurities. Sidenote: I’ve always questioned the intelligence of people who insist that you should only date one person in your lifetime and treat everyone else as your brother or sister until this “one” arrives. Ana has no point of reference in this department and ends up in a relationship she might not have chosen for herself if she had something to compare it to. But I digress. The relationship develops somewhat awkwardly but before we know it, Ana is already staying at his penthouse and declaring her jealousy of someone she has not met but already come to the conclusion that she doesn’t like. One of the assumptions is that Christian is controlling because of a relationship in his adolescence and his childhood. Ana initially balks at his expensive gifts but becomes used to them and “their” money as he tells her. To say that Christian is controlling is an understatement considering the fact that he buys a company in order to “keep her safe.” The lesson in this is that it’s one thing to be controlling but a person with money who is also very controlling isn’t always the best thing. It might work well in business but doesn’t create the healthiest relationship.

The Interview

Recently, I had a small amount of free time and decided to spend it watching the controversial movie The Interview. First off, it was a movie I never would have paid to go to. However “free ninety-nine” was a price I could afford. There aren’t many movies that I’ve seen where I’ve thought the world would be a better place if it had never been made, and this one definitely fit in that category. First off, I’m a funny person although most people don’t know that about me. I have a super dry and sarcastic at times type of humor. That being said, the scene in the movie with the Eminem interview was the best part. However, the story line just went downhill after that. I’ve seen The Dictator before and The Interview was pretty much the same thing to the nth degree. To make a comedy about an existing country and their still living leader could not have been the brightest idea ever. As I said before, I like comedies but I found myself laughing and then remembering that it wasn’t funny because it was an actual country with people who probably are experiencing a lack of some of the rights that citizens in some other countries have. The humor could be easily classified as dark and it was definitely not a “feel good” movie. The ending moral of the story was that you can’t trust that a foreign leader is telling the truth and that they are always waiting to stab you in the back or attack you. Not a great message when world peace is still clearly needed in the world.


Many cats are afraid of anything new. Some quickly overcome their fears, and are curious about new things and try to make friends with people. Other cats, who likely aren’t well socialized, or who perhaps have genetic tendencies toward fearful behavior, have great difficulty adjusting to anything new, including people. They may hide under the bed when guests arrive, or avoid new things.

Fears are not rational. Think of something you are extremely afraid of – perhaps it’s heights, snakes, flying, or insects, which is Dr. Hetts’ personal favorite. It isn’t very helpful for someone to force you into an airplane, put a snake around your neck, or a bug in your hand and say “See – it won’t hurt you!”

In fact, you are likely to become even more fearful by having these experiences forced on you. The same thing holds true for your cat. So avoid forcing your cat to experience what he is afraid of. Do not try to pick up a fearful cat and introduce him to visitors. Your cat may become defensive and bite or scratch .

Cats can sometimes habituate (get used to) to the people and things that frighten them. This most often happens with mild fears, where your cat still can tolerate some limited contact with what frightens her.

With more severe fears, your cat will continue to avoid, and never have the chance, to get used to the thing she is afraid of. Instead, you’ll need to use carefully implemented behavior modification techniques such as counter conditioning and desensitization procedures. Most cats can learn to be friendlier, but some may never be social butterflies and at ease with everyone.

Enroll in our online course Understanding and Helping Fearful Animals  for detailed information about how to help your fearful cat be less afraid and have a better quality of life.


Innovative Pro-Poor Healthcare Financing and Delivery Models

Register as new member

Join AVPN as a member to gain access to full details of this Asia Policy Forum resource. Register here.

Not sure why you're seeing this?

If you are an AVPN APF member and are seeing this message, please contact .


Very often any external problems with teeth, such as spots, yellowing, chipping, etc. are the reason why people practically stop smiling. And this may already affect their lives. After all, sociability and cheerfulness are also important factors in the search of a job, a career and a personal life.

Photos with lumineers: what was before installation and what will be after it?

1051 0


Music FUNdamentals

Music FUNdamentals is a research based early childhood music education program offered to Early Headstart, Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and 1st Grade students.  This program is based on research that confirms that a baby’s auditory processing system is fully functioning at 24 weeks in utero. Once the baby has entered the world, research further confirms that the most rapid period of brain development is birth to one year of age, with the second highest being one to three years of age, and the third highest from three to five years of age. Therefore, when a child enters Kindergarten, they will have already passed through the three most critical periods of brain development.

Research also tells us that music intervention is an extremely cost-efficient means to increase a child’s potential during this time. However, despite these results, music specialists are not viewed as a necessary component in contemporary school curricula. In fact, current education standards do not include music until second grade. How can this be possible?

Friends of South Florida Music (FSFM) aims to address this gap in the education curriculum to help children to thrive during their formative years and to build aptitude for future learning regardless of their socio-economic background.

In Music FUNdamentals, cues are learned by the teacher and children to know exactly when to come to the circle, how to distribute the materials, move to the music and how to clean-up.

These same cues are essential for all which facilitates more time for engagement. Plus, after the lesson, the music specialist spends time discussing accomplished practices with the teachers individually as well as provides a bi-weekly summary for the principal.

Who can request Music FUNdamentals?

Music FUNdamentals is available to any underserved school population in South Florida providing early childhood education. School Principals or Preschool Directors are encouraged to email Dr. Joy Galliford at for further information.

How can I support Music FUNdamentals?

Music FUNdamentals is funded by private donations and grants. We encourage you to click on the donate button below and offer a gift today.


Sustainable Tourism

Stick to centre of the trail. By walking on the edges you ERODE the side and DESTROY vegetation, which keeps the trail intact during monsoon rain. Also, don’t take shortcuts across the switchbacks. Switchbacks PREVENT the erosion, which can lead to landslide

When choosing a trekking agency, ASK QUESTIONS! Do they carry KEROSENE for staff and porters as well as for foreigners? Has their staff attended FIRST AID and ECO- TOURISM workshop? Do they carry NON-BIODEGRADABLE waste back to Kathmandu? Report any problems with guids or porters back to the agency. Let them know your concerns.

FOOD AND WATER: A good appetite is a sign of  good acclimatization. Drink at least

4 LITRES OF LIQUIDS A DAY to avoid dehydration. Include re-hydration solution in your medical kit. The local product is called JEEVAN JAL.

Discarded batteries leak LEAD and TOXINS into the water supply. Bring used batteries to Kathmandu, or ideally, take them home with you for proper disposal.

Human weste transmits DISEASE. When a latrine is no available, DIG A SMALL HOLE and cover the waste with dirt and rocks. Be sure you are 50 meters away from any water source.

When choosing a trekking agency, MAKE SURE that they use Kerosene not firewood for cooking. Ensure they carry enough for all staff includding porters.

When camping in alpine areas renember how FRAGILE this environment is. it can take decades to produce the vegetation killed by a careless boot or thoughtlessy pitched tent.

AVOID buying BOTTLED WATER. It is expensive and UNNECESSARY to drink water this way. Water treated with IODINE is safe and pure. Thousands of plastic water bottles left by the tourists CANNOT BE RECYCLED IN NEPAL!

Don’t ask your owner to boil water because it wastes energy. Purify water with IODINE or use your own FILTER.

“If you are not feeling well at altitude (2000meters) you have altitude sickness until proven otherwise”. De David Shlim

REALY SYMMPTOMS: headache, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, sleeplessness.

TREATMENT: Stay put until symptoms go away. Drink plenty of water.

WORSENING SYMPTOMS: increasing tiredness, severe headache, vomoting, loss of co-ordination.

TREATMENT: descend 300-400meters, rest and try again. Do not let anyone with AMS symptomes desecend ALONE,

ADVICE: ascend no more than 400 meter/day above 3000meters.

Eat the local DAHL BHAT rather than the less fuel-efficient foregin foods. Encourage other trekkers to do the same and to eat all the same time.

DEFORESTED HILLSIDE: The use of firewood for fuel in trekker’s lodges, resturants and by porters from trekking companies greatly accelerates deforestation in Nepal.

While trekking, support lodges that use SOLAR POWER. When shower water is heated by wood, each shower costs the forest about 3 trees. Alternatively, try a good bucket wash or shower less often.


An analysis of 10 ways to reduce violence

If so, consider these 10 common sense ways to do so. These are things one can implement fully and immediately with no permission or agreement from anyone else but are entirely in the control of any individual.

An analysis of 10 ways to reduce violence

Gerbner and Gross assert: Its function is in a word, enculturation ".

You are here

This can apply anytime social observation occurs in any form outside a natural environment. Gerbner subsequently began work on the federally funded Cultural Indicators Project at the Annenberg School of Communications. This new committee funded a number of studies on the effects of television: This allowed viewers the access to data regarding the frequency of violence in television shows but also raised questions regarding the accuracy of the study and the research hypotheses used.

While the Violence Index received criticism, Gerbner and his team updated the Index to make sure that the data being produced was accurately composed, and addressed any criticisms posted.

This standpoint allotted Gerbner access to a number of grants that continued to fund the Cultural Indicators Project throughout the s. The first assumption highlights the medium, the second, the audience, and the final assumption deals with the function of the medium on audiences and their ability to react to it.

Television is fundamentally different from other forms of mass media. It has the potential to be free, aside from the initial cost of obtaining a television although free access to television is generally quite limited. There are multiple added costs for television viewing, including the necessity of a converter box to access most local television broadcasting and the high monthly fees required for accessing cable television.

These costs may prohibit poor and low-income families from viewing television. However, television is still ageless in the sense that anyone from any walk of life can use it, and most importantly, anyone is able to comprehend the content that is broadcast through television.

Television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources Gerbner and Gross write that "the substance of the consciousness cultivated by TV is not so much specific attitudes and opinions as more basic assumptions about the facts of life and standards of judgment on which conclusions are based.

Gerbner observed that television reaches people, on average, more than seven hours a day. Television offers "a centralized system of story-telling". We live in terms of the stories we tell and television tells these stories through news, dramaand advertising to almost everybody most of the time.

Assumption three paradoxically asserts that television is a part of a larger sociocultural system. Therefore, although the effects of watching television may be increased or decrease at any point in time, its effect is consistently present.

Support our work

The size of an effect is far less critical than the direction of its steady contribution. Described by Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorielli as a "tool for making systematic, reliable, and cumulative observations about television content", it not only tracks the perceived awareness of an individual about what he or she is viewing on television, but also represents the ongoing collective messages shown on television that shape larger community impressions over an extended period of time.

Although information provided through media channels is not always reliable, message system analysis provides a method for characterizing the messages transmitted through television. Another facet of the message-system analysis Gerbner discovered was something Griffin called "equal violence, unequal risk.Do you want to reduce your risk of death by gun violence?

If so, consider these 10 common sense ways to do so. Log In / Register 10 Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Death by Gun Violence. June 6, at am Anti-Media’s independent journalism and analysis takes substantial time, resources, and effort to produce, but we do it because. The Problem of Gun Violence Among Serious Young Offenders.

This guide addresses serious youth gun violence, describing the problem and reviewing factors that increase the risks of it.

18 Facts About Gun Violence and 6 Promising Ways to Reduce the Suffering

After a shooter killed 17 people at a Florida high school, many have expressed frustration at the political hand-wringing over gun control and calls for prayer. As a parent, I understand the.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter."Institute of Medicine and.

An analysis of 10 ways to reduce violence

Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related pfmlures.comgton, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: This guide concerns the systematic analysis of social inequalities. While stressing what causes social inequalities, it considers such topics as: what is a social inequality, how do social inequalities arise, why do they take different forms, why do they vary in degree across societies, what sustains social inequalities over time, how do various institutions and practices contribute to.

This article identifies 10 punctual policy recommendations for reducing violence and containing crime in Mexico. Each of these recommendations were drawn from the results of “What works in reducing community violence,” USAID’s latest study, and by comparing it with evidence and analysis of.

Causes of Inequality: Analytical Strategies -- Robert Max Jackson


Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.20.17

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

My Thoughts On Twitter, 3/19/17

Good News! It’s OK to Talk about Anti-Semitism in America @haaretzcom antisemitism

From Twitter, 3/19/17

Related Material:
My Thoughts On Twitter, 3/18/17
My Thoughts On Twitter, 3/17/17
My Thoughts On Twitter, 3/16/17

What Is The Taste Of Spiritual Pleasure?

laitman_572_02Question: What is the taste of spiritual pleasure?

Answer: The taste of the spiritual pleasure is, first of all, rising above your nature, when you do not feel yourself limited by the boundaries within which you exist.

We live as if in an iron cage, rushing about and bumping against its corners and edges. But when we exit it, we begin to feel our existence in the Creator—an unlimited mutual adhesion. He is inside us, and we are inside Him.

Our world has specific boundaries: right, left, inside, and outside. But there are no edges in the spiritual senses and that is why they are inexpressible. First and foremost, it is the taste of freedom.

Question: But why are we speaking about so much about unity and integration?

Answer: Because it is the means to attain the quality of bestowal, infinity, and freedom when you can exit yourself.

Question: Does a Kabbalist feel the taste of earthly food, cold, and heat?

Answer: A Kabbalist feels much more than others.

There were times when my wife cooked food for my teacher Rabash, and he wrote notes to her about exactly what to add to the food, which spices.

Question: Have all the tastes of spirituality been previously recorded?

Answer: Of course. Tastes are the spreading of the Upper Light into our desires.
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/20/16

Related Material:
What Do We Enjoy In Spirituality?
The Secret Of Spiritual Pleasure
Live Enjoying Eternity

Revelations Of The Creator

From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 11/27/16

Related Material:
Balance, Emotion, And Intellect
Calculation In The Corrected Heart
Same Words, But Without Shells

How Can You Find A Teacher?

laitman_591Question: I really want to have a teacher. Does the teacher arrive when the student is ready? How can I find him?

Answer: It will gradually be revealed to you.

I advise anyone who wants to develop spiritually to start studying regularly on the Internet. We have a serious well-organized system. Study, simply start and you will advance. And after come to our convention.
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/30/16

Related Material:
How Can We Check The Teacher?
How Can You Find The Right Teacher?
Private Lessons Will Not Help

Twelve Tribes In One Nation, Part 2

From KabTV’s “New Life” 12/1/16

Related Material:
Twelve Tribes In One Nation, Part 1
12 Tribes Of Israel
Uniting The Twelve Tribes

Two Halves Of The Spiritual Ladder

laitman_232_05Question: Can the ego be positive? I mean, if you do good to yourself, do you also do good to those around you? Can I totally fulfill the law of “love thy friend as thyself” if I don’t love myself?

Answer: This law works according to a totally different principle. I don’t need to love myself in order to love others. After all, this is an egoistic trick! In fact, nothing works this way.

The ego can work properly only if it is controlled by altruism. This is a very high level: the second half of the spiritual ladder.

The rule “love thy friend as thyself” is fulfilled when a person’s egoistic attributes begin to work with the intention of in order to bestow. This is the second part of the ascent up the spiritual ladder.

The first part, “don’t do unto others what is hateful to you,” exists when you don’t use your ego at all.
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

Related Material:
What Is Hateful To You, Do Not Do To Your Fellow Men
Hillel’s Rule
Know Yourself

Soul And Physical Health

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion:  Can receiving of the spiritual soul reflect on a physical body, for example, heal it?

Answer: Hardly ever. The person becomes inspired, empowered, and energized, he has great creative energy, drive, and aspirations. But this does not apply to the body, in particular, to his health.

Question: How does the revelation and attainment of the soul help me in this world, for example, in business, family life, etc.?

Answer: Only in that a person begins to understand the purpose of his existence and therefore, he no longer gets distracted by nonsense, but rather sticks to his guns. Only in this case, studying the wisdom of Kabbalah stabilizes his life in this world.

However, the revelation of the soul does not in any way help a person to succeed in the corporal world: to earn more money, to become healthier and happier.

The study of the wisdom of Kabbalah directs a person’s life toward attainment of the higher purpose of existence, and therefore the material component doesn’t concern him much. He must provide for himself and for his family, but no more than that. And he devotes all of his other forces only to the revelatation and formation of the soul.
From the lesson in Russian, 11/6/2017

Related Material:
The Path Of The Soul And Corporeal Life
A Person’s Characteristics And His Future Soul
A Healthy Body Reflects A Balanced Soul

Everything Depends On Us

Question: Does the Creator know?

From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/1/17

Related Material:
Wishes For 2017
Why Can’t We Know The Future?
On The Verge Of A Bright Future

The Mixing Of The Nations

laitman_747_01A person is created as an absolute egoist and his task is to acquire a quality of bestowal and love that is opposite to egoism. This is what the Torah is for, as it is written, “I created egoism and gave the Torah for its correction.”

Since the light of the Torah corrects and returns to the correct state, we should use it as an instrument to achieve equivalence with the Creator.

Here the problem arises: does a person use the Torah for its intended purpose? Unfortunately, we see that its true purpose is absolutely forgotten.

The correct attitude to the Torah didn’t exist for long, only when the people travelled through the desert and performed correction up to the level of mutual bestowal. Then began their correction on the level of mutual reception in order to bestow, which is symbolized by the entrance to the land of Israel.

This is when they built the First Temple—the state of the full mutual completion. The system of integral connection was utilized, which means to be as one man with one heart. In it, they revealed the Creator in all His glory.

However, as soon as they reached the correct highest state between themselves, they immediately began to fall because the next level of egoism rose within them, which no longer depended on them. This egoism was in the nations of the world and outside the circle created between the Jews called the Temple.

They didn’t have the strength to resist, correct, join, and absorb it in the connection between them. After all, it belonged to those nations of the world who didn’t leave Babylon with them, didn’t go through the path of suffering in the Egyptian exile, and didn’t do the correction that people of Israel performed during 40 years of crossing the desert.

The Jews were not ready to pass the method to the nations of the world and absorb their egoism within themselves because there was no interface and no mutual inclusion of the different desires into each other. Thus, the people of Israel began to fall from the high level of mutual love in order to prepare the correction of the nations of the world.

It turns out that this almost completely corrected part of humanity had to be broken, just as the system called “Adam” was broken in its time, to dissolve in the nations of the world.

So the mutual mixing and absorption of different qualities occurred. Part of the qualities (the egoism of the nations of the world) entered the corrected qualities of the people of Israel, and Israel’s qualities of bestowal and love fell into the egoistic qualities of the nations of the world.

Naturally, nothing good came out of it, except of the mutual mixing. Therefore, it is written that the people of Israel left the exile only to attach to themselves the souls of all the rest of the people, all of Babylon who had scattered around the world and covered the surface of Earth.

This became the cause of destruction of the First Temple, which symbolized love. Then the destruction had to continue according to the same system as in the world of Nikkudim, in the system of Adam and in the destruction of the Second Temple.

After the destruction of the First Temple, there was no love left between the people, but the vestiges of the quality of bestowal remained and they were expressed in the mutual agreement and laws of the correct community. However, after destruction of the Second Temple, they also disappeared.

As it is written, “The people of Israel fell from the level of love to the level of unfounded hatred.” At the same time, they became completely identical to the nations of the world and even worse than them because the nations of the world didn’t have the rise and fall, where all the previous rises inversely transform into corresponding falls: the higher the ascent, the lower the fall.

Therefore, after the final collapse of the Second Temple, the people of Israel found themselves in a spiritual state most remote from the Creator. From this state, they must begin the path of elevation.

Thus, the first move was directed to the completion of mutual penetration, the diffusion of the qualities of the nations of the world with the qualities of the people of Israel and vice versa, so that no difference would remain between them.

This condition, on the one hand, was achieved through the creation of religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) with the help of various wars, raids, massacres, and expulsions from country to country, and on the other hand, by creation of science and culture, the discovery of continents, the great assimilation and so on by Jews.

All this was in order for the final dissolution to happen and for the various qualities to enter each other. Moreover, it is not about physical qualities and material contacts between people since the Jews always lived in isolation, but about the internal, spiritual interpenetration of the qualities. Perhaps, it was expressed externally through various physical actions that are completely incompatible with the spiritual ones.

The final diffusion of the qualities of the people of Israel with the nations of the world ended approximately in the 16th century when the great Kabbalist the Ari described the method of correction of the world and the system of the correct condition of the universe. Therefore, he is considered Mashiach (Messiah) Ben-Yosef among the Kabbalists, which is the predecessor of Mashiach Ben-David (Messiah)
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/14/16

Related Material:
The Temple Is The Measurement Of Spirituality Level
Guiding The World Towards The Good


5 Signs of Emotional Cheating in a Relationship

We’ve all been there before. No matter how happy you are together, or how committed they seem to be, you can’t help but wonder—would my partner cheat on me?  But what if the cheating isn’t so explicit? How can you tell if your partner is having an emotional affair?

What is emotional cheating?

Similar to its sister-term “micro-cheating,” which involves simply thinking about receiving attention from someone other than your partner, emotional cheating, or an emotional affair, occurs when one partner engages in emotionally intimate behavior with someone outside of their relationship. At best, it results in a breach of trust. At worst, it can dissolve a marriage. Here are five signs your partner is emotionally cheating on you, and how it can affect your relationship.

They spend more time on their phone or computer

You see them with their phone in their hand all the time, but when you text them, they take forever to respond. If your partner is constantly texting, and vague about whom they’re talking to or completely unwilling to disclose a name, it could be a sign that they’re participating in an emotional affair. Extra signs include putting their phone away around you or getting defensive when you start to ask questions.

They know a lot about a coworker or friend

It’s completely normal to keep up with the details of a friend or coworker’s personal life. The problem arises when boundaries are crossed and sharing becomes oversharing. If your partner starts to know too much, such as specifics about another’s sex habits and love life, it could be a sign that their conversations are too intimate. If you notice this behavior, you should speak up. A good partner will put an end to the conversations if they make you uncomfortable.

They stop talking to you

This one goes hand in hand with the above. If your partner is beginning to have these deeply intimate conversations—which are the bread and butter of emotional cheating—it’s likely that they will stop sharing things with you. After all, they have another person to confide in. If they all of a sudden “forget” to tell you about important things that are happening in their life, you can probably bet they’re telling someone else first.

They accuse you of cheating

Whether they accuse you of emotional cheating, or the regular kind, it could be a sign that your partner is projecting their feelings of guilt onto you, especially if the accusation comes out of left field. Your partner could know that what they are doing is wrong, even if they aren’t explicitly cheating. If that’s the case, they may try to assuage their guilt or distract you by redirecting the blame.

Something just feels off

Sometimes the best evidence you have is right in front of you (or inside of you!). If your partner brushes off the signs above, but you still feel like something is going on, you should trust your gut. Science actually calls this phenomenon predictive processing framework. Your brain has made the connection before it’s able to reach your conscious awareness. So if you think your partner is emotionally cheating, chances are you’re probably right.

Even with the signs above, it’s important to talk to your partner before jumping to conclusions. No one wants to risk losing a valued relationship over a couple of insecurities. But if you can’t shake your discomfort, or your partner refuses to change their actions, it may be time to reevaluate your relationship.


ردمد (ISSN): 1813-4610

الكلمات الرئيسة : Iraq during Ottoman era

South Iraq Tribes Uprisings In Ottoman Rule

Mithaq K. Jalud

مجلة دراسات اقلیمیة, السنة 10, العدد 34, الصفحة 257-281

The Ottomans rule South Iraq in an unsuitable way composed from difficult alliances unfamiliar with political authority (Al-muntafik, Khzael, Zubyid….) it was natural that those tribes would face the ruler in Basrah and Baghdad and those rulers were interested in collecting taxes to fill the treasure of the Porte to stay in their posts. They also interfered in isolate or a point the shyikhs of the some family. During four centuries, South of Iraq was a stage for armed operations between the state and the Arab tribes.
There fore, these tribes did not like the Ottoman state participating its wealth. Both parties in these wars lost money and men in which they might be invested in other places especially Arab Gulf Region which stayed for from the active ottoman control except Al-Ahsaa. These tribes made more then 50 revolts and took part in more then one hundred battles.


Invoice Faster to Avoid Cash Flow Crunch Says FundBox Executive

From time to time I run into a "cash flow crunch." This is when you paid out $10,000 in expenses but invoices that are owed to you are being paid back in 30 or 90 days! What do do? This is a challenge that many business owners have.

At Intuit' QuickBook's Connect, I interviewed Jordan MacAvoy of Fundbox, who shared his tips on how to better optimize your cash flow. Fundbox is a service which provides invoice financing for businesses. If you need to get paid on an invoice and it's going to take a long time, Fundbox can advance those funds to you.

Jordan shared that if you invoice faster, you'll often get paid faster. I've found that something as "simple" as me forgetting to invoice or not invoicing soon enough has slowed payment. It's also important to streamline your operations - make sure that your entire invoicing flow is as efficient and simple as possible.


TK-421 and the Satellite Tracker

by tacogirl
Ambergris Caye apartment Rentals with a pool Belize

Earlier this year, I happened across an interesting article from Vice Magazine about women conservationists saving the world, one croc at a time. As it turns out it was Belize’ very own Dr. Marisa Tellez, and Miriam Boucher who are at the forefront of advancing wildlife technology in the country.

Crocodile Conservationists Placencia Belize

I decided to reach out to Marisa Tellez of Crocodile Research Coalition (CRC) with a few questions to find out more about TK-421 croc and the satellite tracker.

What are you looking to or have you already found with the satellite tracker?

The satellite tracker is to help us and the Forest Department (FD) understand the dispersal movement and behavior of crocodiles over time and season to assist us in conservation efforts (what habitat do they utilize more so we can work towards its preservation) as well as minimize human-crocodile conflict. For example, if crocs like to gather in one area of a lagoon a certain part of the year, we can inform community members to be cautious when spearfishing or swimming in that area that time of the year

Additionally, we have worked with internationally known crocodile behavior expert Flavio Morrissey from Florida in regards to negatively reinforcing crocs who have been slightly habituated to humans to determine if these animals can be released back in the wild. Conservation biologists have used negative reinforcement on several predators around the world; tigers in India, Polar Bears in Canada, and Cougars in the US for example. Instead of now euthanizing these animals or throwing them into captivity, they can now remain in the wild given they have learned to be weary of humans. In partnership with FD, our negative reinforcement program is working using scientific methods and verifying process with international croc behavior experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)/Species Survival Commission (SSC) Crocodile Specialist Group (CSG). One of more than 100 species specialists groups operating under the auspices of the SSC & IUCN, the world’s largest consortium of conservation organizations and agencies, the CSG works closely with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora and other international intergovernmental bodies to promote crocodilian conservation and legal trade that does not threaten the survival of crocodilians). This furthers the CRC mission in providing the education needed to learn how to co-exist with these animals as there is much-misguided information, false facts, and sensationalization about these animals through movies, tv shows, and misinformed media.

Are there times of the year when there is more crocodile activity in Belize and do they tend to be more active at night?

Crocodiles tend to move more around the rainy season. If we look at the CRC wildlife call database, the majority of “problematic” croc calls come during the rainy season as that is when crocodiles begin to move around, using flooded areas as highways to get from one water body source to the next. And side note… seeing a crocodile swimming, or a crocodile basking in your backyard is NOT a problematic crocodile. The word “problematic” has been thrown around way to much over the years and subconsciously tells people you CANNOT live alongside with crocodiles. The majority of the time the real problem is people feeding crocodiles directly or indirectly, or harassing the animal (the majority of croc attacks in Belize and in this region are related to feeding crocs).

Crocodiles are more active at night, and in certain areas, it appears they are now very active way late into the night/early morning. Why? It’s because humans are less likely to be out and about during this time – a testament that the croc species (at least on the mainland) DO NOT want to be around humans and would rather be left alone. Some scientific studies have come out stating how more and more (diurnal) species are now shifting their temporal behavior and becoming more nocturnal to minimize human contact. Humans lack of tolerance towards wildlife is affecting the behavior of wildlife in certain areas of the world. In the Placencia Lagoon, we have seen a shift in crocodile and manatee behavior given the increase in boat traffic and human presence.

How much do trackers cost?

The initial cost of a tracker is $6,010BZ, as that also includes the set up of GIS software. After that, it is about $5,000BZ… not including the $40BZ per month for software use.

Can you monitor crocodiles in real-time, with precise location information on the crocodile movements?

There is a delay in monitoring crocodiles in real-time given the satellite. The transmitter’s signal to the satellite is about every 4 hours, so you get an idea of where an animal is.

If so do you plan to implement publically viewable online tracking maps so residents living with crocodiles could note movement patterns?

Even if we could do this, we wouldn’t as too many illegal hunters utilize scientific technology like this to hunt animals. It’s becoming a real problem thus why the CRC gave a general area for our satellite croc TK-421 (Star Wars reference). Only FD, CRC, and Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) knew of exact coordinates of our croc given it was released in the Payne’s Creek area in Toledo.

What data will the satellite provide on crocodile management and what kinds of patterns are you looking for?

The TK-421 was a male American croc that was habituated to people via indirect feeding. We took TK in as he was a perfect candidate for negative reinforcement – a small adult male that was not territorial and not illustrating signs of a TRUE problematic crocodile. With the satellite tracker, we were able to assess TK’s movement, in addition to his interest in heading back to where he came from down south. Luckily, TK preferred his new home AWAY from humans and is staying in the Payne’s Creek area. TIDE rangers have not seen him (although we have seen him through our tracking) which provides us some evidence our negative rehabilitation program is working (as Flavio said, not only will they be scared of human voices, but dog barks as well!)

Are Morelet’s still a threatened species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list?

Morelet’s crocs are currently not a threatened species and considered “least cncern” but conservation dependent. They have illustrated signs of recovery in Belize from past exploitation in which hunters (foreign and domestic) almost wiped out the species and other crocodilians throughout the world for the fashion industry demand in the early 1900s. Given the recovering population, and the growing human population, CRC is now working with the FD to create the 1st conservation and management action plan for the species. The first official meeting is set for June 25, where particular NGOs, such as TIDE, SACD, FCD, and BAS, as well as international experts, will discuss the data collected by the CRC during the countrywide Morelet’s crocodile population survey the last few years. The American crocodile is under threat, and the CRC will lead the same type of survey in meeting in a few years to create a national action plan for that species as well. With these action plans, the goal is to ensure species survival, while also mitigating human-crocodile conflict.

How will tracking crocs in Belize provide long term benefits to the survival of the species?

Tracking of crocs will give us an idea of preferred habitat, allowing us to preserve key habitat that will not only ensure the survival of the species but also of other wildlife in crocodilian habitat.

If the tracking patterns show it will you do a future collaboration with another country?

We are already in discussion with colleagues from Mexico and Guatemala in a trans-national tracking program. In particular, Mexico has done an amazing job in their conservation efforts with crocs, and now that the habitat is hitting carrying capacity, we are likely starting to see the movement of crocs from Mexico down into Belize (we are seeing similar patterns around the world). Additionally, many of the crocs we see as Morelet’s or Americans are actually hybrids, so my colleagues and I are interested in seeing how hybrid movement and habitat use may be different than that of the parental species.

In the case of relocated crocodiles, I have read they use the sun, sight, smell and magnetic fields to navigate. Magnetic fields are a big one (like birds- they are all descended from the same common ancestor after all!). Relocation of crocs, particularly of large adult males who have a territory well established is difficult to relocate as they do go back. However, females, as well as young males or less established adult males are willing to relocate and define their territory. When we say relocate, we are discussing more than 30km. Anything less won’t work.

About the Crocodile Conservationists

Flavio Morrissey has been working with crocs for over 30 years and is now a consultant to zoos internationally in regards to husbandry practices, target training, as well as consults state governments in regards to “problematic” crocs. He is considered the leading expert in crocodilian behavior in the world, and a member of the IUCN/CSG.

David Hilmy is the Biology Manager of the Kutunza Translocation Facility in southern Belize and assisted us in the negative reinforcement program.

Marisa Tellez was appointed Sub-regional Chair of Central America and the Caribbean for the IUCN/CSG. See full credentials of, Marissa, Miriam, and Grecia on the Crocodile Research Coalition website.

I will leave you with a few pictures of the monumental event courtesy of Marisa Tellez.

Research boat trip Southern Belize
Crocodile Conservationists Placencia Belize
Crocodile Conservationists Placencia Belize
Crocodile Conservationists Placencia Belize
Crocodile Conservationists Placencia Belize

You may also like

Leave a Comment


Yesterday I found myself in two conversations regarding business plans for the year.

In both cases we found ourselves talking about risk with relationship to time. The issue was how much time should be devoted to large deals that have a low likelihood of actually happening.   What I found interesting is the differences of opinions as to how each person viewed time and risk.

What is your criteria for measuring risk and how does it line up with time?

My feeling is we don’t take enough risk, because our world and in particular our education system teaches us to minimize risk. From birth we’ve had engrained in our mind that risk is something to avoid.  What makes this interesting is if we look at the “value builders” of this era — Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeffrey Bezos, etc. — we find they love risk. Each one of them would never have achieved what they did without running toward risk rather than away from it.

Are you leveraging risk to your advantage?

Being average is simply not an option. Risk begins with being confident in our own mind. If we fail to believe in ourselves, how can we ever expect anyone else to believe in what we want to accomplish?

The more we believe, the less we view the task at hand as being risky. It’s why two people can look at the same thing, with one thinking there’s a high risk and the other believing there’s no risk.

If we want to increase our tolerance of risk it starts with first increasing our own level of confidence.  I can sum it up very simply. The more confident you are, the more risk you’ll be willing to embrace.

High Profit Prospecting


Hiland-Roberts Ice Cream - Norfolk, NE - Executive Summary

1.1    SOURCE
The Hiland Roberts Ice Cream Company in Norfolk, Nebraska is subject to the USEPA's Risk Management Program (RMP) for Accidental Chemical Release regulation (40 CFR 68) because it has a refrigeration system that contains more than the threshold quantity (10,000 pounds) of anhydrous ammonia (CAS Number 7664-41-7).  Anhydrous ammonia (NH3), is a gas at ambient conditions.  The anhydrous ammonia (ammonia) refrigeration system is used to manufacture and store ice cream and related dairy products.  It is a closed system that contains approximately 26,800 pounds (i.e., 5,400 gallons) of ammonia in various physical states (gas, liquid, and saturated vapor).  The largest vessel is the high pressure receiver that operates at approximately 150 psig and can contain as much as 9,500 pounds of liquid ammonia (at its maximum safe fill volume of 90%).  However, during typical operation, the vessel contains only 3,600 pounds of ammonia.  Most of the ammon
ia equipment is located indoors.  The condensing towers, receiver, and some piping runs are located outdoors.  The Norfolk plant is located in a rural setting.
Ammonia is the oldest and most common refrigerant in general industrial use throughout the world.  It is a high capacity refrigerant that operates at reasonable pressure.  Although exposure to ammonia is irritating and potentially toxic in large doses, personnel exposure to more than a small leak is rare because ammonia operates within a closed system of vessels, piping, and equipment.  In addition, ammonia can be easily detected by smell at levels well below its toxic endpoint.
The anhydrous ammonia refrigeration at the Norfolk plant is a two-stage system consisting of a high (pressure) side and a low (pressure) side.
The ice cream processing units (barrel freezers) and storage freezers operate on the low side (low pressure and, therefore, low temperature).  Ammonia suction from the units, at about 0
psig, passes through the low pressure liquid recirculator before entering the booster compressors.  Any liquid ammonia in the low side suction is trapped in the liquid recirculator and pumped-out to the low side load units.  The booster discharge passes through an intercooler before entering the high side compressors.
The high stage compressor suction draws from the intercooler (booster discharge) and two high side suction accumulators at about 25 psig.  These accumulators receive suction from the ice builder, air handlers, various cooler units, and the milk silos.  Ammonia liquid which collects in the high side accumulators is transferred by pumper drums to the control pressure receiver.
Discharge from the high side compressors (hot gas) is vented to three roof-mounted condensors.  A portion of the hot gas is also used for defrost, operation of the pumper drums, and for the control pressure receiver.
The condensed liquid is returned to the high pressure receiver where it is fed to
either the control pressure receiver or to the low pressure liquid recirculator.  The liquid passes through a liquid cooler before entering the low pressure liquid recirculator.
The control pressure receiver is used to supply high pressure liquid to the high side load units.  The pressure of the liquid is maintained by feeding hot gas into the vessel.
Various safety systems are part of the anhydrous ammonia refrigeration system.  These include pressure relief valves, engine room ventilation, and safety interlocks.
Safety relief valves (SRVs) protect the compressor discharge, condensors, pumper drums, suction accumulators, intercooler, and liquid recirculation system from overpressurization.  SRVs on the compressor discharge and condensers are set at 250 psig.  SRVs for the suction vessels are set at 150 psig.
Safety interlocks include high pressure and high temperature alarms and cut-outs for the compressors, as well as high level floats and/or sensors for the vessels.  If a d
ischarge pressure of 180 psig is reached in the system, an alarm sounds. if the pressure continues to rise to 210 psig, the compressors and boosters are shut down.  If the intermediate pressure increases to 30 psig, an alarm also sounds.  If the pressure continues to rise to 40 psig, the boosters are shut down.
Float switches on the suction vessels alarm when a high level is reached.  If the liquid level continues to rise, additional float switches and/or level control shut off the appropriate compressors or boosters to avoid slugging.
The refrigeration system is a totally closed system.  Historically, releases of ammonia from industrial refrigeration systems most often occur from leaking valves, malfunctioning pressure relief devices, or inadvertent releases during repair activities.  While these incidents can impact employees, they seldom lead to a release of a reportable quantity or represent an off-site impact.
Consistent with the RMP rule require
ments, two specifically defined release scenarios (a worst-case release and an alternative release) were analyzed to determine the maximum distance to an endpoint where the ammonia concentration is 200 parts per million in air, or 0.02 percent.  This endpoint represents the maximum airborne concentration below which nearly all individuals could be exposed for up to one hour without experiencing or developing irreversible effects or symptoms that could impair their ability to take protective action.
The release scenarios analyzed are based upon the guidance contained in the USEPA's Risk Management Program Guidance for Ammonia Refrigeration (the "Model Plan"), dated November 1998.  This guidance document used the SACRUNCH atmospheric dispersion model to construct "lookup" tables that relate the quantity and rate of ammonia released to the endpoint distance.
The worst-case release is considered to be defined by the catastrophic rupture and complete loss of the max
imum contents of the high pressure receiver (approximately 9,500 pounds of ammonia) over a 10-minute period.  Using the specified worst-case meteorology contained in the Model Plan, the distance to the endpoint for a worst-case release was estimated to be 9,200 feet or 1.75 mile.
Although the worst-case consequence analysis is required by the RMP, it should be considered a highly unlikely event.  Design, construction, and operation of the high accumulator is such that catastrophic failure is extremely remote.  The vessel was designed and constructed in strict accordance with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (Section VIII), and was certified and stamped by the National Board of Pressure Vessel Inspectors (National Board).  Third party and state mandated inspections of the vessel's condition occurs annually by a boiler and machinery insurance inspector who has been certified by the National Board.  In addition, the vessel is visually in
spected daily.
There are only two plausible causes for a catastrophic loss of containment of the receiver:  (1) the internal pressure were to increase uncontrollably and rupture the vessel from the inside; or (2) rupture of the vessel wall due to inadvertent contact (e.g., vehicular) from the outside.
The vessel is operated well below the design pressure (i.e., maximum allowable working pressure) of 250 psig and because of the safety factors built into the ASME Code, a fourfold pressure excursion, to approximately 1,000 psig, would have to occur before catastrophic vessel failure.  Such pressures could not be generated internally.  The only logical external cause of high pressure would be flame impingement or surface radiation from a high challenge fire adjacent to the vessel.  If this were to occur, the vessel is equipped with a safety relief valve (SRV) set to relieve internal pressure at 250 psig.  A high pressure excursion would not occur as long as the SRVs continued to function
.  Actuation of the SRV would result in an ammonia release similar to that described in Section 2.2 for the alternative release scenario.  The SRVs are scheduled to be replaced every five years, in accordance with the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR) guidance contained in IIAR Bulletin Number 109, Minimum Safety Criteria for a Safety Ammonia Refrigeration System, to ensure that they will function properly when required.
Further, rupture of the vessel from the outside as a result of inadvertent vehicular contact is unlikely since the unit is protected by guard posts.
The worst-case release scenario is unlikely for the following additional reasons:
* The worst-case weather conditions which were used for this scenario are uncommon;
* Industry standards were followed for the manufacture and quality control of this vessel;
* Ammonia is not corrosive in this service;
* Safety relief valves limit operating pressures;
* The facility has a preventive maintenance pr
ogram in place to maintain the ongoing integrity of the vessel;
* The facility has a training program designed to ensure that the system is operated by qualified personnel;
* The facility has emergency response procedures which enable trained personnel to respond quickly to isolate any potential releases;
* Main ammonia shut-offs have been labeled to allow personnel to stop the flow of ammonia quickly in an emergency.
The alternative, or "more likely", scenario is considered to be defined by a release of ammonia through a 1/4-inch effective diameter hole in a high side (i.e., 150 psig) pipe or vessel, releasing 100 pounds of ammonia per minute for up to 60 minutes.  This release is representative of a small pipe or vessel leak.  It would also be representative of a flange leak or pump seal  failure.  Because the high pressure receiver and some piping are located outdoors, passive (building) mitigation1 was not used to reduce the release rate or the dist
ance to the endpoint.  Active mitigation2 was considered, because it is believed that emergency responders could identify and stop the leak in less than 60 minutes.  However, reducing the release duration does not change the TEP distance obtained from the Model plan.
Using the specified meteorology contained in the Model Plan, the distance to the endpoint for the "more likely" release scenario was estimated to be 1,000 feet or 0.19 miles.
The alternative release scenario is unlikely for the following reasons:
* Many of the high pressure liquid lines are located in enclosed areas that could help to contain such a release, and the outside piping is elevated to promote dispersion;
Industrial standards were followed for the manufacture and quality control of these lines;
* Ammonia is not corrosive in this service;
* Most of the lines are elevated to minimize potential damage from fork lifts;
* The facility has a preventive maintenance program in place to maintain the ongoing int
egrity of the system;
* The facility has emergency response procedures which enable trained personnel to respond quickly to isolate any potential releases by closing valves in the liquid lines.
The facility has carefully considered the potential for accidental releases of ammonia, such as the occurrence of the worst-case and alternative-release scenarios described in Section 2.0.  To help minimize the probability and severity of an ammonia release, a prevention program that satisfies the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Process Safety Management (PSM) of Highly Hazardous Chemicals  standard (29 CFR 1910.119) has been implemented.  The key components of the prevention program are summarized below:
* The development, documentation, and operator availability of critical process safety information regarding the hazards of ammonia,
the design basis of the system, and the equipment.  This information is used to fully understand and safely operate the ammonia refrigeration system.
* The development of an extensive employee participation program, which includes employees from all levels of the organization and from all areas within the plant (i.e., production and maintenance).  This program also assures that employees that utilize the ammonia system and are most knowledgeable about it are best able to easily, effectively, and regularly recommend changes or improvements which enhance safety.
* The performance of a formal process hazard analysis (PHA), using the "What-if..." technique.  A team with expertise in engineering, operations, maintenance, and safety evaluated the existing refrigeration system in depth and developed recommendations to improve the safety and operability of the system.  The PHA addressed:  (1) process hazards; (2) previous incidents; (3) engineering and administrative controls applicable to t
he hazards; (4) the consequence of control failure; (5) facility siting; (6) human factors; and (7) a qualitative evaluation of possible safety and health effects of control system failures.  The PHA will be updated and revalidated every five years.
* Written operating procedures (OPs) were prepared to provide the basis for proper and safe operation of the ammonia refrigeration system.  The OPs include procedures for normal operation, startup, shutdown, emergency operation, and emergency shutdown.  They also describe safe operating limits for temperature and pressure, the consequences of operating outside these safe operating limits, and a description of safety systems and how they operate.
* Refrigeration system operators receive refresher training at least every three years.  The training content is based upon the process safety information and operating procedures.  The training program ensures that the operators understand the nature and causes of problems arising from system ope
rations and serves to increase awareness with respect to the hazards particular to ammonia and the refrigeration process.
* Formal authorization systems (i.e., management of change procedure, pre-startup safety review) are in place to ensure that system changes or expansions are as safe as the original design and that an independent recheck, prior to start-up, confirms that the changes are consistent with the engineering design and safety requirements.
* Events that might (or did) cause an accidental or unexpected release of ammonia are subjected to a formal investigation.  The objective of the investigation is to correct deficiencies in such a way as to prevent recurrence.
* Contractors that are hired to work on, or adjacent to, the refrigeration system are "pre-qualified" based upon their knowledge of ammonia refrigeration, understanding of applicable codes and standards, and their demonstrated ability to work safely.
* Prior to the performance of any hot work (i.e., spark or
flame producing operations such as welding, cutting, brazing, grinding), management must approve the work by executing a written hot work authorization permit to verify that precautions to prevent fire have been implemented.
* Periodic formal walk-throughs occur to find unusual or increasing vibration, incipient leaks, or other indications of potential upsets or failures that could lead to a release.
* Replacement of all pressure relief valves is scheduled every five years.
* Numerous safety systems, including pressure relief valves, ammonia vessel level controls, and safety interlocks are used in the refrigeration system.
* Periodic inspection and calibration is performed on liquid level sensors, temperature and pressure instruments, switches and shutdown devices that have safety implications.
* Periodic inspections are performed for major powered equipment, including compressors, pumps and large fans, bearings, couplings, shaft seals, mountings, etc., for vibration or incipient
mechanical failure.
* Proper design, including adherence to recognized safety codes.
* Adherence to fire codes and preparation for fires, storms, or events which could impact the ammonia system.
* Planning with the local fire department to ensure a rapid response to potential incidents involving the system or external events, such as storms or tornadoes.
* Prevention program compliance audits are performed every three years to verify that the elements are being properly implemented.  Any deficiency found in an audit is corrected.
There have been no accidental releases of ammonia at the facility in the last five years (since June 1994) that have resulted in death, injury, or significant property damage on-site or off-site death, injury, evacuation, sheltering in place, property damage, or environmental damage.
The facility has implemented a detailed written Emergency Action Plan (EAP).  The EAP is intended to address all emergenci
es at the facility, in addition to incidents related to a release of ammonia.
The EAP includes awareness and response training for employees, coordination with the local fire department, and evacuation of the facility.  The plan details what personal protective equipment and spill response equipment is available; identifies specific individuals, their 24-hour telephone numbers, and their responsibilities; identifies procedures for emergency medical care; and refers to other pertinent elements of the management system (i.e., standard operating procedures).
1    Passive mitigation means equipment, devices, and technologies that function without human, mechanical, or other energy input.  Examples include enclosures (e.g., buildings) for compressed gases and secondary containment dikes for liquids.
2    Active mitigation means equipment, devices, or technologies that require human, mechanical, or other energy input to function.  Active mitigation for compressed gases, like ammonia, may include
automatic shut-off valves, rapid transfer systems, and scrubbers.
Click to return to beginning


Hiragana writing app

August 18, In: No wonder Japanese is such a difficult language for English-speakers to learn!

Hiragana writing app

Japanese has three — sometimes four — writing systems. Where do you start? But I quickly ran into a major obstacle — the Japanese writing systems. Namely Hiragana and Katakana.

I figured that because my focus was on speaking and listening, that I could worry about it later. I tried to avoid learning them, writing everything down in Romaji. If I really wanted to dive hiragana writing app different resources and maximize my study time, I needed to learn the Japanese writing systems.

So I decided to just go for it and get it done.

By Khuong Le

I mean, I had learned to read and write in Korean, RussianArabic and even Chinese at different points, so why should Japanese be any different?

For one big reason. Because they each serve different functions. The Four Japanese Writing Systems Taking on several new writing systems for one language can seem like an impossible project.

Why could a language possibly need to write with three or four different systems? The answer is reasonably logical. Prior to the s, Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana were each used separately. After the Meiji Restoration, however, the government made a decision to simplify Japanese writing and the three were combined, each with a different purpose.

Here are each of the writing systems and how they are used. Kana The first two writing systems are each one half of what is known as Kana.

Kana are phonetic symbols — representations of pronunciation — and the systems are Hiragana and Katakana. They are known as syllabaries.

This means that each character represents a specific sound rather than a specific consonant or idea. Hiragana are derived from Chinese characters. Basically, they are simplified versions of characters. It first made its appearance in the 5th century, but it was not widely accepted after it was first developed.

Educated men preferred to write using the Chinese-based writing system, so Hiragana was first picked up by women who did not have access to the same education as men. What is Hiragana used for? Today, Hiragana is used by everyone as a key part of writing in Japanese.

It is used to write okurigana suffixes following kanjigrammar, function words like particles, and Japanese words for which there are no kanji. Hiragana pronunciation, unlike other writing systems, has incredibly consistent pronunciation. There are just three exceptions: Katakana is used for borrowed words usually those added after the 19th century.

This would be words like: Thankfully, Katakana is not much more difficult than Hiragana. Plus, 46 of its 48 characters represent the same sounds as Hiragana. Kanji Chinese writing, or Kanji, came to Japan around the 4th century.

At first, characters were monosyllabic — this meant that each Chinese character represented a certain sound. Later, characters were ideologically used, so they lost there reference to Chinese pronunciation.

hiragana writing app

The average educated Japanese person is said to know around 3, Kanji. The government suggest list includes around 2, kanji with 4, on- and kun-yomi readings. What is Kanji used for? Compared to the other systems, this is pretty straight forward. This system is most often used by learners, but it can occasionally make an appearance in Japanese texts.

Most notably, many Japanese scholars considered replacing the other Japanese systems with Romaji during the Meiji period, but it never caught on.This app is the training app for writing "HIRAGANAs" in heartoftexashop.com master the correct writing at "HIRAGANAs" with your father,mother or teacher.

Better, though is Japanese-hiragana which uses rhythm, real Japanese vocabulary and touch screen writing practise to help you advance. The advantage of this app is that you learn words as well as kana so maximise the use of your time. Download this app from Microsoft Store for Windows 10, Windows , Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 10 Team (Surface Hub), HoloLens, Xbox One.

See screenshots, read the latest customer reviews, and compare ratings for Kakitai - Learn Japanese by Writing. Learn japanese hiragana in a few hours without effort, with three types of exercises: drawing the hiragana with your finger on the screen, choosing the right hiragana for each syllable and writing the correct syllable for each hiragana/5(K).

Title: Hiragana Writing Practice Sheet Author: heartoftexashop.com Subject: downloadable and printable writing practice sheets (PDF) with grid lines for correct, beautiful handwriting of Japanese Hiragana alphabet. Kana Complete is a complete solution to help you master reading and writing the two Japanese kana syllabaries hiragana and katakana.

Hiragana Writing Free Download - heartoftexashop.comnawriting


add to your listSave
Gender Masculine
Pronounced Pron. GAWR
  [key · IPA]

Meaning & History

From an English surname meaning "triangular" (from Old English gara), originally referring to someone who lived on a triangular piece of land. A famous bearer is American writer Gore Vidal (1925-).

People think this name is

informal   common   devious   strong   rough   strange   comedic

Entry updated ·


Jane Sanders Begs Democrats to Remain Unified: Bernie’s Campaign ‘Is About Unifying People’

FILE- In this July 26, 2016 file photo, former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., hugs wife Jane during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. A Republican lawyer pushing the allegations that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ wife committed bank fraud to win a loan while president …
AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File

Jane Sanders, wife of senator and presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on Wednesday urged Democrats to remain united amid bubbling tensions between the respective supporters of the socialist senator and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“The @BernieSanders campaign is about unifying people across our country – not dividing them up by race, ethnicity or gender,” Sanders said amid rising hostilities between Democrats.

“Forget those who are trying to divide us, focus on building the progressive movement & be positive to succeed!” she urged, using the hashtag #MenWomenUnited:

Tuesday’s debate in Des Moines, Iowa, ended with an icy standoff between Sanders and Warren, who refused to shake her colleague’s hand following the conclusion of the debate. Tensions particularly soared after CNN’s Abby Phillip asked Warren, “What did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” — phrasing the assertion as fact, despite Sanders’ vehement denial just seconds before.

Warren did nothing to dispute the claim and evidently did not take issue with the way the moderator framed the question.

Prior to the debate, Sanders denied CNN’s original report, which claimed he told Warren during a private meeting in 2018 that he did not believe a woman could win the presidency, calling it “ludicrous.”

Anti-Warren hashtags emerged after the debate, ranging from #NeverWarren to #WarrenIsASnake to #CNNIsTrash. However, the critiques caused many Democrats within the party to scramble to overtake the hashtags, using them to peddle a similar message as Jane Sanders urged Democrats to stay focused and unified no matter what.

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.


Cividac’s pressure vessels and PSA adsorption systems

The sectors where we operate, like petrochemical or environmental, often use PSA systems (Pressure Swing Adsorption), which apply the adsorption process.

Unalike absorption, adsorption is used to separate certain types of gas or liquids whenever they are mixed with other substances. In other words, the PSA process is used to purify a gas or air, or to synthetize certain substances.

The process takes place inside a pressure vessel where – in order for it to be successful - the mix must get in contact with a specific adsorbent at a given pressure.

Examples of applications of PSA systems

Adsorption is used in different sectors. For example, in the treatment of biogases, zeolite (a microporous mineral) is used as an adsorbent, to separate carbon dioxide and increase the methane content, thus making biogas suitable for energy production.

In the healthcare sector, adsorption is used to separate nitrogen from oxygen to produce oxygen-rich air for patients with breathing problems. Similarly, nitrogen-rich air is created for flame-retardant equipment.

In the petrochemical sector, PSA technology is used to synthetize hydrogen (for example for these two pressure vessels that we produced for Linde, for the plants in Vicksburg o Fort McMurray), or to purify water that will be re-used in the production cycle.


Drinking From the Firehose

There are some 25,000 energy and climate experts from virtually every nation in the world here and more events than you can possibly attend. Today, I went to a wide variety of sessions and learned a lot. Here is a snapshot.

First, I attended the RINGO delegation morning briefing. RINGO is the research constituency that includes university faculty and researchers from around the world. Most of them pay detailed attention to the arcane details of individual sections and articles of official UN documents like the Paris Agreement.

Then, I attended the Presidency’s Open Dialogue, which was inspired by Fiji’s Talanoa approach to inclusive, respectful dialogue. COP President/Fiji Prime Minister Bainimarama led the discussion. Official Parties gathered around an extra-large rectangular table, surrounded by several hundred non-Party participants that packed the room.

The topic was the NDCs, Nationally Determined Contributions, which make up each nation’s pledge under the Paris Agreement. The President said that we need to know about local action that could help meet national NDCs. He continued: “Today, we will not be negotiating. We will be talking to each other, and of course we will be listening.” Using the Talanoa spirit by including different sectors, both Parties and non-Parties, is the only way forward. “The Talanoa spirit isn’t just about being nice…it is honest constructive dialogue for the common good.”

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa added that different constituencies helped to set the agenda, conveying a shared sense of urgency for implementation of the Paris Agreement. “Our informal processes help us deepen levels of understanding that in a formal setting might be difficult to address. Government alone can’t do it. It requires participation of each and every one of us.”

A long list of speakers followed with specific comments on how local and state governments, small island nations, and companies are reducing emissions. They also addressed how to ensure that the energy transition is fair and equitable to workers in the coal industry and to vulnerable island nations, how to protect the interests of young people, and how urgent it is to accelerate the Paris Agreement goals. This meeting seemed to be a big step towards recognizing the importance of non-Parties to help determine the outcomes of the COP process, but it remains to be seen how it will influence the decision makers – the official Parties.

Another session I attended was about the clothing industry, which according to speaker Elin Larsson of Swedish fashion company Filippa K, is the second most polluting industry after the oil industry. Over 60 million people are employed in the industry around the world, mostly in low-income countries. Several well-known company representatives, including H&M, discussed their goals to reduce carbon emissions, deploy renewable energy and energy efficiency throughout their supply chains, reduce the enormous amount of clothing waste, and make cotton production sustainable. One key point is similar to energy markets – policies matter, and subsidies and policies should reward customers making the right choice.

Finally, I attended a session that shared research from various experts about the trajectory of coal power around the world. I was quite surprised to learn that a number of countries, for example Pakistan, expect to increase their coal-fired electricity production by a factor of 10 times or more in coming years. A question was asked about whether people in developing countries without access to electricity would be helped or harmed by deploying more coal plants. The speakers agreed that in developing countries, putting money into coal is taking money away from development because renewable energy is cheaper and coal investment is risky. Additionally, coal plants in developing countries may help big cities and industry, but often do not help those in rural areas where there is no grid infrastructure or economic incentive to extend power.

This is just a snapshot of one day at the COP23. Stay tuned for more!

Published in:
Topic tags: