Some have said that history ended with the fall of Soviet Russia and the subsequent virtuous spread of liberal democracy. Now, with a fossil-fueled dictator at the Kremlin conducting information wars to topple western democracies and with the various and many-fanged monsters of climate change howling at the gates of a world besieged, that notion seems both ignorant and laughable.

Pshaw — history ended? Clearly not.

(The glaciers and snows of the Himalayas are dwindling — just one of the obvious impacts of human-forced climate change. Video source: Google Earth Engine.)

A good segment of the world now acts like their brains have been hacked. Bots and trolls masquerading as real people try to shout down valid out-crys for divestment-from and resistance-to worsening abuses. And Elon Musk has a point when he says we’re all cyborgs now.

But it is, perhaps, possible for us to sympathize…

1st round of nuclear weapons ban treaty talks ends

Delegates from 115 countries have wrapped up the first round of talks on a proposed international treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
The 5-day meeting ended on Friday at United Nations headquarters in New York. It was held following a resolution adopted last December by the UN General Assembly. Non-nuclear countries such as Austria led efforts to press for the adoption.
The next round of talks is scheduled to be held from the middle of June to early July.
Costa Rican Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez chaired the meeting. She said there was constructive discussion on the scope, legal framework, and methods to prohibit nuclear arms.
She added delegates will aim to adopt a draft treaty by July 7th, the deadline for the next negotiations.
A UN statement said the discussion this time was about making nuclear arms illegal. It said the elimination…

Toshiki Fujimori, left, hands folded paper cranes to the representatives of countries participating in the United Nations Conference to negotiate a ban on nuclear weapons at the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 31, 2017.

Anti-nuke NGO hands paper cranes to delegates at U.N. conference

NEW YORK — As the first session of the United Nations conference to negotiate a ban on nuclear weapons wrapped up here on March 31, an atomic bomb survivor and Nagasaki University students had a special present for each of the government representatives: a folded paper crane.

By handing the representatives this symbol of peace, Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor Toshiki Fujimori, 73, and the students conveyed their hope for the establishment of a U.N. treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. The cranes were an initiative planned by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a non-governmental organization (NGO).

“I hope that the cranes will…

A group supporting child cancer sufferers in Fukushima on Friday confirmed the diagnosis of a boy who at the time of the 2011 disaster was just four years old, contradicting the local government’s position that no child of that age has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

The boy was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery after taking part in a Fukushima prefectural government survey to gauge the impact of the disaster. Local authorities, however, claim at the time of the survey he had not yet been officially confirmed as suffering thyroid cancer.

The survey found that of the 385,000 people aged 18 or younger at the time of the disaster, a total of 184 youths aged between 5 and 18 have been diagnosed with or are suspected to have thyroid cancer.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2017/03/466482.html

By Natasha Geiling

Climate change is not just an environmental problem; it’s an economic problem, as well.

The consequences of climate change — more intense precipitation events, longer and more destructive wildfire seasons, increased risk of drought or flooding, sea level rise — will harm plants and wildlife, but they will also damage crops, reduce availability of natural resources, and destroy infrastructure.

Economic studies that seek to quantify the cost of climate change have found figures ranging from $180 billion for just the United States to $400 trillion globally by the end of the century.

It’s entirely possible, then, that efforts begun by the executive order President Donald Trump released Tuesday — which began the process of rolling back U.S. climate policies in favor of fewer regulations for the fossil fuel industry — will end up costing American taxpayers in the long run.

One analysis from the Center for American Progress estimated that, based on preliminary figures associated…