A very good evening aspirants welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought you by Shankar IA's academy for the day 1st of June 2022 displayed here are the list of news articles that I have chosen for today's discussion see today all the four topics are very very relevant for your upcoming preliminary examination in today's discussion I had made a point to enable you to revise certain factual topics also I had taken few other topics to give you awareness of those things which may be straightly put forward as a preliminary question for you okay so without wasting much time now let's get into the first news article discussion now have a look at this news article this news article mentions that the demands of the endosulfon victims remain unfulfilled we will see what is the issue but before that what is this endosulfon endosulfon appears as a brown or colorless crystalline solid with a pungent order it is used as a pesticide particularly it is a broad spectrum organochlorine this pesticide works as an insecticide and acrycite see insecticide means it kills the insects that are detrimental for crops and acrycide means it kills the subclass of arachnids which is acary okay this acary subclass includes ticks and mites also this endosulfon is volatile and persistent so it reminds in air water sediment and biota plus it also has the potential to bioaccumulate in aquatic and terrestrial organisms bioaccumulation refers to the gradual buildup of a chemical in a living organism over time so what is the issue with this pesticide the main issue is it is toxic by inhalation skin absorption or ingestion and causes many health issues it's persistent and bioaccumulating nature further aggravates the problem due to this it has negative impacts on humans in humans it leads to neuro behavioral disorders cognitive disorders hydrocephalus mental retardation cancer at younger ages and other severe lifelong illness among female children see hydrocephalus is a condition that increases pressure within the head and makes the head to grow in abnormal size and this leads to brain damage and ultimately death endosulfon also causes abnormalities related to male reproductive system see it also impacts environment and other organisms it leads to mass deaths of bees fishers birds and also causes congenital deformities and domestic animals such as cows so now what is the news background see endosulfon was used in certain districts of kerala and karnataka it was used by way of aerial spraying over the cashew plantation since late 1970s aerial spraying led to increased exposure to endosulfon but the problem is only 1990s it was found that the pesticide is toxic to human beings and environmental ecology in kerala and karnataka it caused congenital abnormalities in humans and children were born with birth defects and deformities many children became mentally retarded and fully bedridden so after realizing its effects first the kerala high court banned the sale and use of endosulfon in kerala in 2002 then the kerala state government banned it in 2003 it also provided various benefits to the victims such as financial assistance, freeration, treatment, pension, education and scholarship etc etc but the central government did not believe that endosulfon causes problems so it even opposed to list endosulfon as the nxa chemical and the stock home convention on persistent organic pollutants see if a chemical is listed in the nxa to the convention then the parties to the convention must take measures to eliminate the production and use of such chemicals India is a party to the convention but it did not vote for listing endosulfon as nxa chemical taking cognizance of the serious impacts of endosulfon the national human rights commission also made several recommendations in 2010 mainly it asked central government to take administrative and legislative action to ban endosulfon then second lead also recommended to establish a centrally sponsored palliative care center or hospital thirdly it asked the state government to provide compensation ranging from 3 to 5 lakhs see after this supreme court intervened and passed an added interim order in 2011 which banned the production sale and use of endosulfon in the country till further orders are passed but the news is the recommendations have not been implemented and even the compensation is provided only to few victims so that's all about this news article see this is a issue that has spoken for a long time and it has seen in news frequently so just being aware of this kind of chemical which creates so many issues especially health issues and environmental issue will be very much useful for attempting your science-based preliminary question okay and just this awareness will help you attempt a question that's why we took this topic and discussed it in an elaborate way for your preliminary point also we discussed about the issue because you can use these points no to enhance your main's answer that is why we gave the recommendations of the national human rights commission these points all know you can use to enhance your main's base questions okay so these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion have a look at this news article the 118th meeting of the permanent indus commission took place in delhi on may 30 and 31 this news article is about this meeting according to the ministry of external affairs statement the meeting regarding the indus water treaty was cordial the ministry also noted that the annual report of last year was finalized and signed during this meeting this is about the news article see in this context let us revise about the river indus and the indus water treaty both in prelims perspective okay see this is very much important for your upcoming preliminary examination so kindly pay attention to this discussion and note each and every point in this discussion it is absolutely going to be useful for your preliminary exam first let us take up the indus river the indus also known as the sindhu is the western most of the Himalayan rivers in india the indus originates from the vokarchu glacier in northern slopes of mount kailash which is 6714 meter height after originating in mount kailash the river then flows through the trans-Himalayan ranges of karakoram ladak and zaskar and finally through the great Himalayan ranges in Tibet indus is known as singhikamban or lion's mount after flowing in the northwest direction between the ladak and zaskar it passes through ladak and baltistan it cuts across the ladak range forming a spectacular gorge near gilgith in jamun kashmir indus enters pakistan in the dardistan region note here the indus flows in india only through the leh district in jamun kashmir the indus receives a number of Himalayan tributaries such as the shayok the gilgith the zaskar the hunza the nubra the shigar the gasting and the dras the indus river finally emerges from the hills near a talk in pakistan where it receives the Kabul river on its right bank the other important tributaries joining the right bank of the indus of the kuram the tochi the gomal the vubua and the zangar they all originate in the sulayman regions in the afghanistan the indus river then flows southward and receives the panjanad a little above the methan coat note that the panjanad is the name given to the five rivers of panjab who are they they are the sattelaj the bees the ravi the channab and the jalam before we see about the major tributaries of indus let us see about the drainage pattern of the indus river like most of the Himalayan river the river has antecedent drainage what is antecedent drainage see antecedent drainage or inconsequent drainage is formed when the flow of the river is obstructed by an upliftment of landmass this is due to erosion by the river even after the upliftment the river still follows the same slope the antecedent drainage has features like deep gorges see in the case of Himalayan rivers they were flowing into the tethysae before the indus australian plate collided into the uration plate these rivers had a source in the tibetan region and they were draining into the prehistoric tethysae once the indian plate collided with the uration plate the Himalaya started racing the rate at which the Himalaya rose was lesser than the rate of undercutting or vertical erosion done by the Himalayan rivers this is the reason for the Himalayan rivers including indus having antecedent drainage hope you guys understood the basics about antecedent drainage and the reason for indus to have antecedent drainage now let us move on to the tributaries of indus first let us take up jalam where does it originate jalam rises from a spring at verinag verinag is situated at the foot of the pyrpanjal range in the southeast and part of the kashmir valley here pyrpanjal is a part of the middle Himalayas jalam flows through shrinagar and the ulu lake before entering pakistan through a deep narrow gorge now what is a gorge gorge is a narrow deep valley formed by the erosive activity of a river see the jalam forms a natural boundary between india and pakistan after entering pakistan the jalam river joins the chenab near jang in pakistan now let us move on to the chenab river first note that the chenab is the largest tributary of the indus chenab river originates from the zaskar range in lahul spiti which is near the baralacha pass in himachal pradesh it is formed by two streams the chandra and the baga these both know will join at tandi near kelong in himachal pradesh hence chenab is also known as chandra baga okay the river flows for 1080 kilometer before entering into pakistan like we already saw the chalam river joins the chenab near jang in pakistan now let us take river ravi ravi originates west of the rothang pass in the kulu hills of himachal pradesh the river flows through the chamba valley of himachal pradesh in india it flows between the pirpangal range and the davlada range we saw pirpangal range is a part of the middle himalayas right davlada is also a part of middle himalayas river ravi also forms a natural border between india and pakistan okay see the river enters pakistan and merges with the chenab river near sarai sindhu in pakistan okay now let us take up river bees the river bees originates from the bees kund near the rothang pass at an elevation of 4,000 meter above the mean sea level the river flows through kulu valley and forms gorgeous at kathi and largi in the davlada range it enters the panja plains where it meets the sattlage near harikish the sattlage originates in the rakhas lake near mansoorovar which is at an altitude of 4,555 meter in tibet in tibet sattlage is also known as lanchen kambab initially the river flows almost parallel to the indias for about 400 kilometer before entering india sattlage enters india by forming a gorge at rupar himachal pradesh it passes through the shipkilla on the himalayan rangers and enters the panja plains note that this river feeds the canal system of the bakaranangal project see this is all you have to know about the indias river system for preliminary examination see each and every point can be easily put into a preliminary type of question so now let's continue the discussion with the indias river water treaty in a brief manner see the treaty was signed at karachi by field marshal muhammad ayub khan who is the then president of pakistan and shri jarlal neru who is the then indian prime minister and mr wab illif of the world bank this was signed on 19th september 1960 the treaty however was effective from first april 1960 according to the treaty india has absolute control of all the waters of eastern rivers while if you ask me about pakistan it shall receive for unrestricted use of all those waters of the western rivers which india is under obligation to let flow beyond the permitted uses here the eastern rivers will be ravi bees and sattlage and what about the western rivers it includes indus jalam and chinam see this point is very much important for your prelims questions what is that india is having absolute control of all the waters of the eastern rivers while pakistan is having control over the western rivers okay then according to the treaty india and pakistan undertook to establish a permanent post of commissioner for indus waters the two commissioners constitute the permanent indus commission each commissioner will be the representative of a government for all matters arising out of this treaty the important role played by the permanent indus commission is the implementation of the treaty so these are some of the basic point that you have to know about the indus water treaty in preliminary perspective so that's all about this news article in this discussion we saw about the indus water its tribute trees and what are all the points that are mentioned here in this discussion is going to be very very useful for your preliminary examination because these are all the facts that you can revise for your upcoming preliminary exam and note that all these points are straightforwardly mentioned in your ncrt books so utilize this opportunity to revise this entire topic let's hope that a question is straightforwardly asked from this topic okay so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion look at this article this is with reference to the demand of delhi home minister satyendra jane to enforcement directorate custody this is done by a special cbi court on tuesday this was done after his arrest in a money laundering case see let us not get deep into the issue instead let us utilize this opportunity to learn about the enforcement directorate in prelims perspective okay see the directorate of enforcement that is ed is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency it is responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crimes in india it is a specialized financial investigation agency and it is under the department of revenue which is under the ministry of finance it enforces certain laws what are they the first law is foreign exchange management act 1999 that is fema it is a civil law now officers are empowered to conduct investigations into suspected contraventions of the foreign exchange laws and regulations and impose penalties on those adjusts to have contravene the law now the second law is prevention of money laundering act 2002 that is pmla it is a criminal law here the officers empowered to provisionally attach or confiscate the asset and to arrest and prosecute the offenders found to be involved in money laundering see the directorate of enforcement was established in the year 1956 with its headquarters at new delhi and it is headed by the director of enforcement besides directly recruiting personnel the directorate also draws officers from different investigation agencies like customs and central excise income tax police etc these are all done on deportations okay there are five regional officers which are at Mumbai Chennai Chandigarh Kolkata and Delhi which are all headed by special directors of enforcement okay as we have seen it is responsible for enforcement of the foreign exchange management act 1999 uncertain provisions under the prevention of money laundering act now you can have a look at some of the other functions of ed see some of the other functions include it should handle adjudication appeals and prosecution cases under the erstwhile ferrah act also which is the ferrah act at 1973 then it should process and recommend cases for preventive detention under the conservation of foreign exchange and prevention of smuggling activities act also okay then it should undertake survey search seizure arrest prosecution action etc against the offender of the pmla offense that i mentioned before see go through these functions because this may be directly put as a preliminary type of question okay so that's our regarding this news article this enforcement directorate is one such body which can be easily put as a preliminary type of question that's why i took this opportunity to discuss this topic today okay so note each and every point in this discussion and make use of it for your revision purpose okay so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion look at this news article the news article discusses about india's position regarding the customs duties moratorium on e commerce trade let us see what this issue is and we'll also see few facts about wto or world trade organization which is very much important for your preliminary examination see the issue here is there exists a moratorium that is temporary ban on imposing customs duties on e commerce or electronic commerce trade its origin can be dated back to 1998 see the 1990s was decayed when e commerce started gaining prominence so due to its growing importance in global trade wto members that is world trade organization members deliberated on the matter at the second ministerial conference held in the year 1998 in jenny was with selen as a result they adopted a declaration on global electronic commerce one of the main aspects of this declaration is it included a so-called moratorium stating that members will continue their current practice of not imposing custom duties on electronic transmission remember this was just a moratorium that is a temporary ban and it was supposed to extend forever one of the reasons for this moratorium was it is technically not possible for the customs to collect duties on digitalized products like software but even after 21 years the moratorium continues it has been extended at every ministerial conference of the wto but due to pandemic the 12th ministerial conference has been postponed for two years and is planned to happen this month we will then know whether it is continued or not but here we have to know what india wants see india wants to remove the moratorium one of the reasons behind this is it leads to tariff revenue losses see customs duty is one of the revenue sources for governments so banners adversely impacting developing countries because they are majorly importers of ecom goods and services according to a un conference on trade and development study in 2017 alone developing countries incurred a us dollar of 10 billion potential tariff revenue loss this is due to the moratorium we will see more about the issue the benefits and disadvantages of the moratorium when the 12th ministerial conference happens okay now as our problems is fast approaching let us see few facts about the world trade organization which will be very much helpful for your preliminary examination see it was created in 1995 by the marakesh agreement of 1994 wto is the only global international organization that deals with the rules of trade between nations but it is not a united nation's body note this point again it is not a un body the primary purpose of the wto is to open trade for the benefit of all so its goal is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly predictably and freely as possible for this it takes up many roles such as it operates a global system of trade roles acts as a forum for negotiating trade agreements then it also settles trade disputes between its members etc etc its headquarters is at jeniva switzerland know that it has 164 member countries which represent the 98 percent of world trade and india is also a member since 1995 and these members only run wto so all major decisions are made by the membership as a whole decisions are a result of negotiations and are normally taken by consensus that is why wto called a member driven consensus based organization okay so that's all about this news article in this news article we saw about the moratorium issue that is going on and then we saw about the wto which will be very much useful for your preliminary examination so these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion see today i have two questions for discussion and two question for quiz so now let us see the first practice question it is with regard to the world trade organization it is a three statement question see whenever you have three statement or multiple statement question always try to approach with the last statement or the statement that is present in more number of options so now let me start with the third statement read the third statement its top most decision-making body is the ministerial conference which usually meets every year see here the first part of this statement is correct that is the ministerial conference is the top most decision-making body of the world trade organization or wto that part is correct but it meets every two years and not every year so that part is wrong so this statement is incorrect when you know that statement three is incorrect you can eliminate two options here what are those option a and b can be eliminated now you have two more options in that you can very well know that statement two is present in both the options so straight away go read the first statement and see whether it is correct or incorrect now look at the first statement it is an outcome of uruguay round negotiations see this statement is correct uruguay round which lasted from 1986 to 1994 only led to the wto's creation and its rules and this resulted in the marakesh agreement that i mentioned during the discussion okay so statement one is correct now read the question carefully the question is demanding for correct statement so your answer here will be option c one and two only are the correct statements okay now look at the second question see this second question is taken from the 2021 upsc problems i took this question based on our indus river system discussion see whenever your thorough about the facts that too these questions are directly taken from the ncrt book so i took this opportunity to show you that how relevant is our discussion today with respect to your upsc preliminary examination now read this question with reference to the indus river system of the following four rivers three of them pour into one of them would join the indus direct among the following which is one such river that joins the indus direct so here four options are present what are they option a chenna b jelam option c ravi and option d is satellite now before telling the answer for this question look at this map see in our discussion we saw that jelam joins the chenna b neer jang in pakistan and we also saw that ravi joins the chenna b neer sarai sindhu and if you look closely you can see that chenna b joins sattledge finally the sattledge is the one that joins indus so the map is clearly showing that it is sattledge that joins indus river directly okay so what is the answer for this question yes you're right the answer for this question is option d sattledge okay see if you have any doubt regarding this question go back to the indus river system discussion here at one more time and note all the key points mentioned in that then come back to this question and approach this question again okay now displayed here are two quiz question see one question is regarding the enforcement directorate and these statements are clearly discussed in our discussion itself so if you are clearly understood what we have discussed you can easily eliminate and find the correct answer see be careful with the question it is demanding for incorrect statement so find the correct answer and post it in the comment section okay and our next question is very very easy because both these points I had discussed in my today's endosulfan discussion itself if you have clearly listened to it then it's a very very easy thing I had mentioned these two as quiz question because you can recollect the points and be aware of both the topics okay go through both the questions and post your answers in the comment section the correct answer for this will be posted in the next 24 hours okay and with this we have come to the end of the news article discussion today if you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankara Eze Academy's YouTube channel thank you for listening


Hi everyone, Joe for jazby's case breaks.com coming at you with 2019 2020 panini noir basketball 2 box random team break number 21 who are some famous 21 basketball players number 21 Tim Duncan was a 21 Was KG a 21 Max Muncie just hit one out All right, so there's all the people right here big thanks to you Congrats to the winners of spots in here The second half should be in the store. Check it out. We'll have to do a couple more cello packs Just like this one, but check that out There are all the teams in right here. Let's roll it. Let's randomize it four and a six ten times Oh was that that's a jock home run not a not a Muncie home run Maybe Muncie was the previous at bad four to six ten times for each list One two Seven eight Nine and 10th and final time Four and a six ten times. There's ten right there We've got William on top with a spot that he won and Robert on the bottom with a spot that he won Ten times for the teams. Good luck one Two and good luck tenth and final time after ten we've got the Atlanta Hawks all the way down to the Brooklyn Nets Dave Doman saying Dominique Wilkins was a 21. There you go. This is break 21 ladies and gentlemen All right, that's a good basketball number 21 William with the Hawks Rick Serrano with the Bucks young with the Spurs Kevin with the Bulls Trey with the Magic Paul with the Sixers Kevin with the Pacers Josh with the Mavs William with the Blazers Robert with the Grizz Nick with the T Wolves David with the Raptors Charles with the Warriors William With the Rockets and my Lakers Robert with the Pistons William with the Clippers Ryan S with the Heat Josh last Bob Mojo Kings John with the Wizards Nick with the Nuggets Ryan with the Suns Josh with the Pelicans with the spot You got straight up Robert with the Celtics young with the Jazz Oliver with the Hornets William of the Thunder David with the Cavs Nick with the Knicks Nick with the Knicks and Robert with the Brooklyn Nets Got me there Tickled me right there column B. We'll sort it by my Yoda And there you go. We're gonna pause the video when we come back We're gonna see if there's any trades and then we're gonna have the break. So stick around All right, welcome back everybody. There was a trade look at that Robert and Josh made a deal So Josh is out of the Mavs spot and is in the Celtic spot We'll put a tee next there for trading in case you're following along at home If you want to see who draws first blood in the trade and Robert is out of the Celtic spot and into the Mavericks spot See how that shakes out for these two. Good luck to both. Good luck to all We're gonna print and then we're gonna decide which two boxes. We're gonna do right here. So there's a fresh case Right here. All right, so we're gonna roll the die. We're gonna select that one right here We're gonna roll the die one two three for the top two four five six for the bottom two Good luck boxes, and it's one. It'll be the top two right here These we will save for next time probably later tonight So we'll put those two X's right there. So you know that they're from the same case Next so this is break 21 break 22 right here. All right, so here's the final print out right here Random team 21 2019 20 20 penino or a basketball random team 21 on the 27th Thanks, everyone for getting in whether you bought spots straight up or whether you won spots. I appreciate it Boxes here were a little a little horrific, but kind of get these out of here is Surgically as carefully as possible There you go, that's just the way it goes folks I'm sure they'll fix that design next year All right, is there a base card on the bottom? Where's to the hit on the bottom? There's a base on the bottom So let's pull that up here. Whoo. Look at this Looks like it's robber. It looks like it's Josh drawing first blood in the trade the Kemba Walker one-of-one base card association edition Top-loader dust in there, but it's on the outside of the card. Okay. There you go one-of-one Kemba All aboard the big hit express Next base card is Goran Drogage 2 out of 99 That'll be for Ryan s and the heat and we've got Fred van Blee 28 out of 99 for the rafters That's gonna be for David Ross First hit is Isaiah Roby rookie jumbo material for the map 54 out of 99 for this one's for Robert and the maps So a card each for the people who traded 49 out of 99 Dylan windler and Kevin Porter jr rookie jerseys Cleveland teammates D-Munn with that one tried to trade couldn't trade mojo Next one here is Tyler hero 84 out of 99 new wave jerseys and Ryan s with the Miami Heat there's our first autograph Jalen horde 74 out of 99 rookie auto for the Blazers William William Hawkins with the Portland Trail Blazers and Nice sneaker spotlight Steven Jackson warriors 72 out of 99. I love these There's his cakes right there nice Warriors Charles Wilson with the Golden State Warriors warriors come out to play Wow and another sneaker spotlight card Trey young Wow, that's nice 60 out of 99 That's adorable. There's a dog in the San Francisco Bay swimming out to get a baseball Nice Trey young sneaker that goes to William who won that spot and got randomized the Hawks I like his kicks there too. It's nice the sneaker spotlight card super popular and the last one out of box one is Shaquille O'Neal freeze frame signatures 22 out of 48 For the Lakers who's got William Hawkins has my Lakers Got ran he that's another spot that he won and got randomized the Lakers Wow That is awesome. Did foster foster call it. I don't see you calling a shack There it is Big diesel the big Aristotle nice one William Second half of this is in the store folks. You ask these case breaks calm second and final box here in break 21 Yeah, when he played in Phoenix the big cactus is pretty good too. I just re-watched his Hall of Fame speech the other night It's a little long, but it's pretty good. Nah, he was on point on it. Maybe inside the NBA on TNT sometimes All right, we got a redemption looking like right there, right slightly different color. I think that's a redemption color here We've got a D'Angelo Russell Warriors edition right here four out of ten for Charles Parliament in town 78 out of 99 Timberwolves that'll be for Nick Stover Tyler hero seven out of 99 for Ryan s another one My hero Matisse Tybal rookie jumbo material 65 out of 99 sixers Paul with Philadelphia Kevin Porter, Jr. 49 out of 99 new wave relic for Demon and the Cavs tried to trade couldn't trade mojo We've got look at this Patrick Harry Giles Kings Two out of seven. It's a lot of nice color there Kind of a what is that a throwback Kings? You any there? That's pretty cool That pops really nicely against the the black background bring those jerseys back that goes to Josh Townsend last spot mojo Kings Should the recipe autographs? I think yeah, Ty Jerome 68 at 99 two-color jersey and auto for the Suns That's gonna go to Ryan s he looked excellent in the restart Next one is freeze frame signatures three out of five mark a guire Pistons edition Train whistle for Robert Runkle who won that spot got the pistons gonna get a train whistle All aboard the big hit express Old school mark choir and the next couple oh Matisse Tybal rookie patch auto color is the variation there That'll be for Philadelphia. That's another one for Paul and guess what Paul a free top loader for you There you go a free 120 point top loader rare and the last one here folks is Eric Pascal gold ink autograph Some great photographer here 33 at a 99 Spotlight signatures is what this is called and that goes to Golden State and That will be for Charles Wilson who won at that spot There you go, and there you go everyone I'm Joe for jazby's case breaks calm That was a great break of 2019 2020 noir basketball another two boxes second half of this case in the store check it out And I'll break that with you next time. Bye. Bye


Many people have an illusion of creating a global movement to stop war. When I have done arms control disarmament work, some of my pacifist friends have said, why don't we just ban war? I think it's way more complex than that, which doesn't mean that we can't together change the mindset and start moving toward a world of sustainable peace. But that takes re-education. It takes training people about peace. That war isn't heroic. That there is heroism in war, but war is ugly. It is people crying. It is guts on the ground. Let's be realistic and stop glorifying violence and war. Start educating people from the minute they go to school about conflict resolution. You have to build a basis for people to understand that sustainable peace is not an illusion. It's not a utopian dream. It is a viable option. I believe in human security instead of national security. National security protects the institution of the state. And the theory is that if the state is secure, all of its people are secure. I don't buy that for a minute. I think that real security comes from meeting the needs of humans, the people who make up the world. If the basic needs of people everywhere we're met, decent housing, access to healthcare, access to basic education, a decent job that brings you respect, there'd be a lot of less turmoil and violence in the world. And I think that all of the work that people of good spirit, if you will, carry out for a better world for everybody, contributes to creating a world of sustainable peace. The human rights people I know who do their work are contributing to sustainable peace. The arms control and disarmament work that I've been privileged to be part of is a definite contribution. People who are trying to save this environment are making a huge contribution to the possibility, not only of sustainable peace but of existence. It's all of those threads together that I think will ultimately bring us to a real possibility of sustainable peace and it probably will not be in my lifetime, to be quite honest. I think people want to be able to snap their fingers and have peace tomorrow. That's not how humans work.


Hello, good morning, and good afternoon wherever we are in the world today. My name is Rocha Maria Costips-Cisneros and I am working with the Independent Theatre Hungary on this incredible project where we're sitting down with various artists and theatre practitioners from all walks of life. And they're telling us a bit about who they are, how the work that they're involved in and they're framing different parts of the work. And I'm very lucky today to sit down with Sebastiano Spinella, who's a circus and performing artist who is one of the main protagonists of the play Children of the Wind. Hello, Sebastiano, how are you today? Hello, Rosa. Hello, hello. Thank you. I'm fine. It's nice weather. Finally, it's not so hot anymore. Yes, yes. I'm sitting in my yard. And are you right now in Italy? I am in Italy. I am 70 kilometers north of Rome, capital. Okay. I used to live in Rome, but two years ago we decided to move to the countryside. And that was a good choice, seeing what happened in the last few years. Yes, yes. We are lucky being in the countryside. We can be outside. Though I go to Rome often to meet my Roma fellows and collaborators. Yes, yes. So it's nice that you can be near the city, but also a bit further. So can you tell me a little bit and introduce yourself for those of people watching and listening that might not know who you are? I said you're a circus and performing artist, but can you tell me a little bit more? Well, I have been a circus and performing artist for many years. I started as a street performer. I did clown school and circus school.  And also this is actually what have made the meeting with the Roma culture. And I've been working with several companies, theater companies, that travels by horse wagons. Okay. Wow. You know, in England, there is a whole movement of people in France too, of people that have gone back to a way of life with horse wagons and traveling. So they do traveling, they take over the old traveling artisanery and things like that. This is how I slowly got to know the Roma culture. Because you see, I'm not born in a Roma collective or in a Roma community. I'm a born in Sicily from an average Sicilian family.  And when I was very little, she secretly told me that we are of Roma roots, ancient Roma roots. Yeah. So you see, as you told, I am Sebastiano Spinella, but I found all the documents of my family that says Spinelli, not Spinella. And in my search for my roots, I understood that Spinelli is a large community of Italian Roma and Sinti of a region here in the central Italy. So without having a real proof, I understood out of my experience of my life with traveling and traveling horse wagons and getting in touch and loving old tradition, Roma tradition. And this story of the family name, I decided at a certain point that this was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be, I like to call myself a camminante, the walker. It's a community in Sicily of probably Roma or mixed Roma roots that call themselves camminanti, the walkers. I like to walk a lot and I have been walking a lot. So beside the horses, with the horse wagons. So today I like to consider myself not as an artist, as I think that a human being, we are all artists. I like to say I'm an artisan because I made a profession out of my art. I worked with a lot with theater, from street theater to like let's say institutional theater and also experimental theater with companies, different kind of theaters. And theater made me develop my talent for music. And so I work a lot with music, I study, I'm self-taught in theater and in music. But I also have developed the profession of musical instrument reparation, restoring and tuning. And I have specialized myself on the instrument of the accordion because accordion is the queen, the king instrument of the Roma culture. And so I, today I teach theater and music and this artisanery of tuning and restore instruments to young Roma peers and children. That's beautiful, that's beautiful. And I love this, I mean it's also sad that you use the word your grandmother had to tell you in secrets and kind of self-identify in secret and there are many reasons why I'm assuming she might have had to have done that because anti-Egyptianism is quite alive and serious and that's a term that's very modern now but there's a whole legacy and historical reality that is not often taught and not really known. So you know it's sad that that, but it's also a very normalized way that people had to hide or change their names in order to survive, in order to flee persecution. So you know it's, and I didn't know that Spinelli was a family name from the Roma Sinti community in Italy. So I thank you for teaching me that because I, you know I feel there's so much to learn and also we're a community of oral history. You know it's only now that we're in this digital age that we can, you know, dig and finding out. Exactly.  So it's a lovely way to frame the work that we're going to talk about, children of the wind. So can you tell me a little bit about this piece of theatre work and your role in the theatre work, in the work please? Yeah. The script is autobiographic. It's actually, I choose to tell about my life to give, it was a kind of also own self-therapy for defining myself. Because I had all this confusion about being or not being a Roma and being so much involved into the Roma community struggles of today and how I came to this, how my life kind of directed me to this point where I choose to be part of the Roma community in Europe. And this project has helped me a lot to define myself. So it's mainly autobiographic and that's why I tell about my grandmother. The whole thing begins with the story of my grandmother. Of course I have used a lot of poetic because I sing songs to her and I tell how she kind of passed the message to me and out of a big family I was the only one receiving it and I feel a duty also to bring it forward. Still today a good part of this family doesn't accept this reality and I am the black sheep. I have decided to work with the gypsies.  No, I have recognized the troubles of the gypsy community. I find in myself the talent of a good life teacher and I have decided to help the young people to define themselves, to find out what it is to be Roma and to find out why in the world they live in this situation, how comes they are born there and they have to deal with being that personalities and that realities with all the struggle they have. So I kind of in the beginning I honor the figure of my grandmother as a beginner of my story. And in the middle part of the play I tell about my experience as a traveling artist. With the street theater I travel all over Europe. I do camps with other artists. We live as the gypsies they used to live in the 1800s. We make camps with our bands. We make a fire in the middle. We cook food together and this and also later when I met the horse wagon community, I did a long travels with them, left my van somewhere parked and walked taking care of the horses. And there I kind of lived a kind of déjà vu, you know, a kind of life. I know this life. I've been living this before. It must be part of my of my genetic, you know, I really felt home. And even today that I am settled down. I decide to live in the countryside because it gives me a better possibility to live in a more natural way because that is what I observe even today, even in the big cities in the Roma community, there is an unbreakable bond to nature. Even if it's not, it's not conscious, it's not green. There is a lot of confusion, especially in the camps here in Italy. There is not an ecological mind, but there is a strong, strong bond toward it that only needs to be informed, to be sustained, to be grown. And can you describe a moment, is there memorable moments in the play for you?  And you said at the beginning that it was in a way a bit of a therapy, so a bit cathartic in some sense. Yes. So is there something that really stands out for you from either working on it, performing it that you might want to share with us? Yes. The third part of the play, I tell about the experience I had, now it's 15, nearly 20 years long experience I have with this little community in the city of Rome, this little Roma community of the Serbian origin. Actually they come from the frontier between Serbia and Romania. So they speak both languages and they speak Romanese. And I have seen the development of the community and of the settlement between the last 20 years, considering the intervention of the institutions the last 10 years. 10 years ago or 15 years ago, there was a huge shift in the politics in Italy and in Rome, especially, and the big cities like Milano and Torino, the main big cities of Italy. All the Roma communities were evicted from the settlements, self-builded settlements in the cities and big institutional settlements has been built up made of metal containers in an area far away from the center of the city and from many facilities and fenced with the armoured guardians at the entrance. You have to show your ID card to come in and in a kind of segregational camp. And I have seen, I have testified the change from the self-builded settlement to the new institutional settlement, which was done in a very hurry and with a lot of, with no attention to the real needs of the community. And these have put the whole community into a very severe situation as a scapegoat. For any problem, big problem that happens in Italy, often the Roma culture is seen as the scapegoat. So I tell in the last part of the play, I tell about this community and what I have seen. So the most, coming back to your question, the most emotional, I say, moments for me of the plays are three. One is when I sing a song to my grandmother because I knowledge and thank her. One is when I tell about my horse wagon experience. And the third sad one is when I play, I play the trumpet in a moment of the play. And behind there is the screening of the camp and the young people that died in the camp because of fire and big fire that happened in the settlement because no fire extinguisher were put by the institutions, which was meant to be there. But nobody, I mean, the people or the workers that had to build, they never put the fire extinguish on their place.  And one of these two were a part of my musical project. He was playing drum on my musical project. And that was a turning point for me because the institution said, ah, but we had put the fire extinguish. The Roma community says, no, you never did. I know that they never did because I was there and I saw it. And I even helped many women in the settlement putting a tube on their system so that they can easier wash and give water to the flowers. So I know exactly all the water pipes connection that was there. And I am waiting still to go to a process and testify that this was not well done. Probably the money disappeared or they said they had put in it, but they didn't. And so in this moment, I realized that the institutions and politics, they don't want to solve the situation, to include the Roma community as the European community asked to in a good way so that they can keep their traditions, but have a better life and better education and better housing and better condition. They don't want to do that, especially in Italy today. Even the pandemic have done it worse, but already much before this, you to speak about Roma is to put yourself in troubles in a public contest. I mean, I've been accused to be defending the bandits and the illegals and the drug dealers and car stealers and all this. When I say no, I work with the children. I work with the young generation. It's very difficult to help the grown-ups because you institution are not intended to help them. So I, little man with a little organization, I cannot help them, but I can help the children because they can still build up a positive mind. They can still get to learn about prejudice and to be able to build own character and own meaning about things. Absolutely. And I think there's something quite powerful in the work you're doing in bringing attention to this reality, using your arts, your own story and reflecting on what's around you to share and to educate Roma and non-Roma. And I think we're both in the arts world. So clearly, we believe that there's power and transformation that could come from arts. But it also is reflecting something quite powerful and very sad as well. And so it brings me to my last question, which is around the title of the piece, Children of the Wind. Can you share a little bit of insight into what that means and where that came from? Because it's a beautiful, very poetic title. But also it brings up a little bit of, yeah, I don't know if sadness, but something melancholic in me when I saw the name. And when I saw the play, then it made sense. But I'd love to hear from your perspective where the title came from. Okay. Well, the title itself comes from my grandmother. That's what she used as words to say, we are children of the wind. By that time, I didn't really understand it. But then this word, I mean, I also read, then later I read that in the history of the Roma people, they've been called the people of the wind because they never settled down. But I decided to use it as a title because when I started working with the community, with the Roma community in Rome, there was an area in the camp that had just been built, the institutional camp, they had left an area open and free where in the plan, in the institutional plan, there should be the playground. And three years after, there was no playground yet. I went to the institution, asked when they're going to do it. And in the end, they said they will not build this playground. So one day I went into the camp and I called all the children together and I said to them, listen children, they're never going to make a playground here. So let's build it ourselves. And the children went crazy. They started helping me, carrying rubbish and cleaning with all the grown-ups staring at us and calling us crazy, you know, looking what are you doing? But the children, they were so enthusiastic that in one hour, the whole area was totally clean from everything. And there I realized the power of the children. The children, they have power. The children and the young people to a certain age, they have a special power that we have to learn to listen to. I say today, they are my teachers as much as I am their teacher, you see.  Also because I was, unfortunately, I met several teachers that you could feel they were frustrated because they wanted to do other kind of work. But the only way they could make a living was by teaching. And so they could, you could feel a little bit this frustration in their teaching. But when I started to teach, which was by accident, somebody asked me, I have a concert to do somewhere else for a week. Could you please cover me teaching, making a accordion lesson to the children this week? And this meeting was great. I, it's there, I found out that I became friend with them straight away. And you know why? Because they had seen these children. They used to sell roses in the very same square where I used to go and make a street theater. So they had seen my show. And when they saw me arriving, they said, oh, you are one of us.  They didn't see me as an educator or operator or social operator.  You also live from the hat. You also collect coins.  I remember them every time I would start the show because the street performing life is you choose a square and you stay there half a day. And every, every half an hour, every hour you make a show. And I saw them every time I would start the show when they saw that the circle of public was surrounding me. They would stop selling roses and come and sit front row to watch my show. And they had seen it many times. So when they saw, they realized that I would, would be the accordion teacher. They were very happy. And the guy that I was supposed to cover, he later asked me to join the project and left it to me actually. In the end, I was alone taking care of this project. Okay. So that's, you know, it feels full circle to, to hear about, to have seen the work, to speak with you about your own personal story and reality and also how this links back to the next generation and, you know, all of your work and love and passion for children. So thank you so much. It's, it's really, I've learned so much and also felt really inspired by, by what you've, you've said your, your vulnerability as well and sharing, not only with the work, but also in the interview. So thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anything else, any final words for our viewers or listeners that you want to share? Yes. I, I would drop a word about the independent theater because it's thanks to them that we are here having this conversation. And now it's the fourth year I know them. It all started with children of the wind. And I'm very grateful to them for giving me this opportunity. And I feel for every year that passes, I feel more and more important what they are doing because the team is growing internationally. Yes. You see, we, you are in England, there is people in Scotland, there are people in Ireland, in Spain, but also from the Eastern Bloc. They are working with Ukraine, with Czechoslovakia and other, other, other countries, Romania. Yeah. And this, I think in the future will bring, will bring results because this is, it's a no frontiers, no borders movement. And this is very important for the future of humankind. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that out of the last, the last level on which the, the, the Roma community has been pushed down to the lowest level of the society, I think we have a message that will form the future of the humankind. This is my deep belief. It's very beautiful.  And I, I stand right beside you or I dance right beside you. So, yeah. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rosa. Thank you.


I'm pleased to introduce our next speaker, Paul Falkowski. Paul is a board of governors professor of geological sciences in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University. The title of his talk is Oceans as Natural Climate Solutions. Over to you, Paul. Thank you very much, and thank you all for inviting me. It's been a long time since I thought about this. I guess since the late 1970s, early 1980s, when the Department of Energy set up the first carbon dioxide office. And I was working at Brookhaven National Lab. And so I go back a long way with this problem, and I just want to think about this with you for a minute. When you think about the oceans, you have to think about geologic time scales. And the oceans, although they cover 71% of the Earth's surface, actually they covered significantly more of that over geologic time. And we don't know where the water came from, to be honest with you. It was imported almost certainly from chondritic meteorites. But that was the source of water, and we're the only planet in the entire solar system that has liquid water on its surface. And at four periods of Earth's history, that water was completely frozen, we think, over virtually the entire Earth's surface. And when it is frozen, there's no exchange of carbon dioxide or any other gas between the ocean, liquid ocean, beneath and the atmosphere above. Now if we take all that water and put it into a ball, that's the volume it would contain. So if you are teaching and you want to give some aspect of the volume of water compared to the diameter of the Earth, if the diameter of the Earth is one meter, the entire diameter of the Earth is one meter, the thickness of the water on the surface of the Earth would be equal to about two typewriter pages. That's it. So it's a very, very thin film of water, which is remarkable that it stayed on this planet for so long. It's been on the planet, we know, for at least 4.3 billion years. And it is no longer on Mars, it is no longer on Venus. I just want to make a point that for the, from 4.3 billion years until 430 million years ago, the oceans were the source and sink of natural CO2 from volcanoes. There were no terrestrial land plants until about 430 million years ago. So they're relatively recent invention. Now let's just take a look at what's in the water. Water dissolves ions from rocks. And so we have obviously the main cation is sodium and then followed by magnesium, which is in order of magnitude less. And then calcium, potassium and strontium. And then we have the anions. We have chloride is obviously the major one that comes from actually volcanic gas emissions, sulfate as well. And then bicarbonate is the third largest one. Now the calcium and magnesium, and to some extent the boron, they act as what we call buffers and contribute to what's called alkalinity. So the bicarbonate in the ocean is a sink, ultimately for atmospheric CO2 from volcanic outgassing. Now in pH of sea water, the normal pH of sea water, and it's been this way for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of years, if not billions of years. The pH is about 8.2, roughly between 7.9 and 8.5. About 95% of the inorganic carbon in the ocean is in the form of bicarbonate anion. Only about 5% to 6% is in the form of carbon dioxide per se and a smaller amount or a larger amount, depending on the pH is in the form of carbonate. Now on geologic time scales, the ocean transfers inorganic carbon in a form of CO2 to the terrestrial biosphere via the atmosphere. So bicarbonate is obviously a salt, an ion, it's not volatile. So it has to be converted to CO2. And the atmosphere is really, if you think about it, a hallway between two large rooms, between a terrestrial biosphere and the ocean itself. And we can see this on geologic time scales, how this works. So this is an example of an ice core record from the Antarctic. And this goes back about 800,000 years. We go back roughly to the end of the ice core record is going to be about one million years. And you can see several things here. First, that there's a cyclicity of about 100,000 years in carbon dioxide, and that's the upper blue line and temperature. And the bottom line of methane is a very interesting one. I'm not gonna talk about it unless there's a question about it, but it also cycles. Now the carbon dioxide cycle and the question of whether temperature led to carbon dioxide, or carbon dioxide led to temperature has been one that's been debated for a long time. I think most of the consensus is that carbon dioxide leaves the changes in the temperature, not the temperature changes the carbon dioxide. Now what's the 100,000 year cycle here? Now let's just talk about it for a second. So during interglacial time, carbon dioxide goes up to about between 260 and 280 ppm CO2. And that's measured from the gas bubbles in the ice cores. So we know that with relatively high accuracy. And it goes down during glacial times to about 180. So there's this cycle that is very natural on 100,000 year timescales. And that 100,000 year timescale has been the same for roughly the last three and a half million years. Before that it was a 40,000 year timescale. Now what causes this? We correlate this, we don't really understand it, but we correlate it with the Milankovic cycles. So the Milankovic cycles have three different systems in them, there's procession, which I show on the top, we're going from 23 and a half degrees off axis to a roughly 24, 24 and a half.  And when we put those three together, you can develop a synthetic curve. And it's obvious that the eccentricity is the main driver of the glacial interglacial system. Now we are in what would be the end of a interglacial period. And carbon dioxide should be, if all things were natural, staying the same for periods of a few thousand years and then going down. So where is the dissolved in organic carbon in the ocean? So the dissolved in organic carbon in the ocean is in the deep ocean. The surface ocean is lower than the deep ocean by about 250 to 400 ppm CO2, depending on where you are or dissolved in organic carbon micromoles. And there's the alkalinity curve on the right. I'm not gonna go into that for the moment, but the alkalinity curve is also depressed as you approach the surface. So why is that? Well, the carbon in the ocean can be pumped into the so-called into the deep ocean. There are two main pumps. One is the solubility pump where the atmospheric carbon dioxide can be dissolved and then go in through the thermocline as water sinks. Now, where does that happen? That primarily happens in cold waters in the Northern Hemisphere around Greenland. It can happen in the Southern Hemisphere in the Antarctic today. The second sink is called the biologic pump from Tyler Volk and Marty Hofford. And this sink is based on the fact that photosynthetic organisms, the phytoplankton in the surface waters, photosynthesize and sink into the deep ocean and decompose. And when they decompose, they release their nutrients and carbon dioxide. The decomposition is done by bacteria. And so that decomposition leads to this so-called biologic pump, which enriches the deep ocean by a few hundred ppm micromoles of CO2. And there's a little bit of calcite rock weathering, which I'm not gonna go into here. This is a major sink for volcanic carbon on geologic time scales. That is the major sink for. When we talk to a geologist and talk about a carbon cycle, they don't think about photosynthesis and respiration. They're thinking about volcanism and rock weathering. So in the steady state, which is on the time scales of decades in the ocean, and we have an ocean record for carbon dioxide that goes back to the Challenger Expedition in the later last part of the 19th century. We actually measured CO2 in during the Challenger Expedition. It was quite ingenious actually. And it was not as obviously as precise as it is today. We have a precise record of CO2 and nutrients in the ocean for about 70 years. Now, in the steady state, the dissolved inorganic carbon is driven by physics and chemistry, not biology. So that's totally in contrast to what Rob and Chris are talking about. This is where biology controls the terrestrial carbon sink and source. And I just wanna now talk about the role of the biologic pump because this has been misunderstood and mischaracterized for a long time. So this is an annual, many annual cycles from sea whiffs of the terrestrial and marine biosphere and green in the ocean is high biomass relatively and blue and red is very low, red is very, very low biomass. So the South Pacific Ocean is ultra oligotrophic. So where do these nutrients come from? These nutrients are coming from the seasonal change in the thermocline. So they're bringing nutrients from depth up to the surface and it occurs, for example, in the North Atlantic quite well. So you get these blooms in the spring. Now, let's imagine that we could change that mixing rate and just put a big egg beater in the ocean, if you will. Would it change the CO2 in the atmosphere by adding nutrients to the upper ocean? The answer is no. And that may be surprising because when you're doing that, you're bringing nitrate or phosphate up in the upper ocean, for example, stimulating productivity. You're also bringing up carbon dioxide from depth or dissolved in organic carbon from depth, which would become carbon dioxide in the surface. So there's no change in the steady state by just mixing the ocean. And so that has been an issue that was misunderstood, I think, by the biologists during the so-called JGOS program. And it's sometimes very confusing for geologists to understand why the biologists are doing these kinds of long-term experiments. Now, I just wanna talk about what controls the productivity of the ocean because it leads on to manipulation of the carbon in the ocean. So Alfred Redfield, who was a biologist, was in Plymouth, England, and he was shown the nitrate, new nitrate to phosphate ratios through the English channel. And he realized that the ratio was 16 to one by Adams. And then he looked at the ratio, which he didn't do any measurements, by the way. He looked at the ratio at that time of the plankton. And the plankton had a canonical, what's called canonical ratio of 106 to 16 to one. That became the Redfield ratio. So if it's not 106 to 16 to one, if it's, let's say, somebody tells you it's 100 to 15 to one, that's not the Redfield ratio. That's another stoichiometry. It exists, but the Redfield ratio canonically is 106 to 16 to one. Now, let's take a look at what limits productivity in the ocean. This has been going on now for 50, 60 years. So these are the three major ocean basins. And there's the 16 to one vertical line. So if everything was at 16 to one, you would see that vertical line for the nitrate to phosphate in the ocean. You don't, except in the North Atlantic. So everywhere in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, for example, the line is less than 16 to one. So we have less nitrate than phosphate from the sinking flux. And you have less nitrate to phosphate from the sinking flux in the Pacific ocean. And it approaches the sinking flux in the Atlantic ocean. And it actually can exceed it. You can see those lines deviate to the high end in the Mediterranean, for example, which has an N to P ratio of 25 to 30 in some cases. So why? That's because when you sink nitrate biomass into the ocean, if it encounters low oxygen, it denitrifies. So the denitrification takes the nitrate out of the ocean and you're left with a deficit of nitrate. Now, let's imagine you could fill that somehow. Let's increase nitrogen fixation. If I could fill that and make that go to 16 to one, how much carbon dioxide would I take out of the atmosphere? So I did that thought experiment years ago and it was published in Nature. And the answer is about 35 to 40 PPM CO2. So it's not an incredibly large sink, but it's not insignificant. Now, there's another aspect of this which is misunderstood often by biologists. And it is that we can precipitate carbonate. So there's a lot of carbonates that precipitated, especially in the Atlantic Ocean, which is shallow enough to keep it in the sediments. When you precipitate inorganic carbon as carbonate, you actually release CO2 to the atmosphere. So that is not a solution for re-sequestering CO2 on time scales of decades, the centuries. Now, where's the organic carbon? So organic carbon is stored in shallow seas and along continental margins around the world. And that organic carbon is there for tens of thousands of years. In some cases, hundreds of thousands of years. And in some cases, when it becomes part of land biomass, millions of years. So we had a seaway that ran from Alberta down through to Mexico. And that seaway is a major reservoir of stored organic carbon in the form of oil and natural gas. And similarly, Oman and Saudi Arabia, those were all underwater at one point. And these are the major sinks of carbon on geologic time scales. And we're really smart animals. So we can extract in one year, one million years worth of deposition of that organic carbon. So we're one million times more efficient at taking it out of the ground than nature was in putting it into the ground in the form of fossil fuels. So can we monkey with the biological pump? The answer is yes. And the question is, should we? So let's take a look at how we could monkey with it and then before we get to the question of should we? So here's an example of the surface distribution of phosphate in the upper ocean or the distribution of phosphate in the surface ocean when the sun is shining. And you can see there's a huge amount of nutrient in the southern ocean all around the Antarctic continent in the subarctic Pacific and in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific. These regions are called high nutrient, low chlorophyll regions. So even though the sun is shining and the phosphate in the nitrate are extremely high, especially in the southern ocean, phytoplankton do not suck down the nutrients to near zero like they do in the rest of the world ocean where you see, for example, virtually no biomass or no nitrate or phosphate in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean. Now, what's the reason? Well, many years ago, John Martin, who was a eclectic chemist, thought that, well, we probably are overestimating iron and other elements in the ocean because we're contaminating them with the way we sample from ships. So he developed a technique after many years of struggle with the National Science Foundation that was a clean technique for measuring iron. And here is the distribution, for example, of iron. The scale is on the upper portion of the graph. And we have in the Pacific Ocean, for example, this is just the regular Pacific Ocean, less than 100 nanomolar, less than 100, I mean, 100 picomolar, less than 100 picomolar dissolve in organic iron. Now, molybdenum is very abundant, copper is by far much more, you know, even much more abundant. And what's the source of iron? Well, the primary source of iron to the oceans today is Aeolian iron. This is coming from deserts. So if you wanna reforest the world, and especially, for example, the Sahara Desert, the Gobi Desert and other deserts of the world, you're taking away a source of iron, ultimately, from the oceans. So it's, you are doing something that you don't understand to the ecosystems of the world of the oceans. And I should point out that the Sahara Desert was forested 4,000 years ago. Now, the distribution of iron or fluxes of iron from the atmosphere are asymmetrical because we have many more continental mass in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern Hemisphere and it's seasonal and it's important. So this is an example of an iron fertilization experiment. So these are, this is the, this is two ships leaving from Christchurch in New Zealand. I just wanna show you how we do this. So here's the pre-cruise talks and here we're gonna dump the iron. So here's the mixed master. So here's iron in our jars, going in with a tracer into this big mixing vat. Here's the mixed master. We're gonna add a little acid to help dissolve it and then add a tracer. And here's the very expensive way we do it. A Costco hose with a lead weight tossed off the fantail of the boat, turn it on and you do that. All right, the way you do this is you go out and you start here and you go up and down like you're mowing a lawn seven kilometers by seven kilometers or approximately or eight kilometers by eight kilometers depending on the cruise. And then you know exactly where you started, you know exactly where you ended and you can then take the time as you sample back across and you go outside of the box and into the box that you put the iron in. And what happens is very, very, very quickly within 24 hours, for example, in this particular experiment, the photosynthetic rate is increased by a factor of two. So we can stimulate photosynthesis very, very, very rapidly by the addition of iron to the HNLC regions. Now, I'm just gonna make this point. This is not conceptual anymore. We've done this experiment at least 13 times. Not we, I mean, we as the scientific community have done it 13 times. So the first two experiments were done in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific with the late John Martin. And then we were the first to be third in the Southern Ocean and we, the Japanese have done it in the subarctic Pacific. You get blooms. You get phytoplankton blooms that sink. And yes, that can be a mechanism of taking CO2 out of the ocean. The issue is, if you do, I don't do these models, but some of my colleagues like Ken Caldera and Jorge Sarmiento and others have done these models. The problem is over a few hundred years, that biomass will be converted back into not just carbon dioxide, which would be okay. That would enhance the carbon pump. But it would remove oxygen in some areas of the ocean because of the respiration that is accompanying the mineralization. You make methane gas and potentially nitrous oxide. And the gases that are going to come out of the ocean in the centuries to come would be even more potent in terms of greenhouse gases than the carbon dioxide that would potentially come out. Now I just wanna finish this up with let's not forget the heat. It takes a lot more energy to warm water than the air. And so the ocean in timescales of decades, we can see changes in the heat content. This has been because we have incredibly accurate thermal measurements now, incredibly accurate to hundreds or thousands of a degree. And approximately 93% of the heat that would have been produced by increased CO2 in the atmosphere is actually stored in the upper 2000 meters of the ocean. Let me just show you this. This is only a six year record. And you can see there's a little bit of variability that is due to seasonal changes, but there's a long-term trend. And this trend we can continue. So we look at heat storage, not as temperature changes, but heat storage in joules per square meter. And this is really how we can calculate the transfer of heat from the atmosphere to the ocean. Now that means that the ocean, even if you stopped emitting CO2 today, zero, the ocean is going to be a source of heat back to the atmosphere of at least two tenths of a degree. So the ocean is a source of heat in the future. Now, what does that mean? It means from the point of view of you and I that there's going to be a change in sea level. And we see this as Sally pointed out, we can see changes in glacial biomass in Greenland, but the global cumulative change in glacial mass is enormous. And we're following this for a long time with a complicated two system, two satellite system. And I'm not going to go into that, but it's a very, very, very precise measurement of glacial mass. And I just want to point out that, for example, I'm not really worrying so much about the perennial ice, but it's glacial ice in Antarctica, which is the massive amount of ice that we should be worrying about. So the Western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet. And I'm just going to show you this. This is Bill Frazier. Bill has been working in the Antarctic for 30 something years. So in the 30 years or 40 years since he started, the area in the front of this graph from the Antarctic in Palmer Station, which is where we have a station for many years, that used to be all ice covered. And this year, for example, for the first time, when we were down in December, in the middle of the, the austral summer, for the very first time it was raining. We've never ever had rain in the 30 years of the LTER that we've been there. So I'm going to conclude that the fluxes of inorganic carbon between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere on time scales essentially are largely controlled by chemical and physical processes. So I'm talking about the fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere, right? Not the terrestrial biosphere independently. They can be manipulated by adding nutrients to the ocean with potentially harmful effects. And I'm just going to point out that the heat stored in the ocean is significant. It's not something that we can control anymore. So I'm going to end that there. Yes, thank you, Paul. That's food for thought, certainly. So we have a question. I'd like to go to Shafiq. Shafiq, would you like to unmute yourself and ask your question? Thanks, Paul. You kind of mentioned some of the unintended consequences of this phytoplankton and increasing this biological pump. Do we understand also the food chain potential in the ocean, the impacts of increasing kind of organic near the surface and kind of what that potentially has on the overall ecosystem of the animals and other plants in the ocean? Yeah, to some extent, it's quite straightforward in a way. So for example, the southern ocean is dominated by very large cells because the nutrients there, even though they're unconsumed fully, are very abundant. And the primary producer there are diatoms.  And so the food chain is very short. And because the food chain is very short, it's much more efficient than it is in the subtropics, for example, where the first cells that are formed are very small cells that are consumed by small zooplankton ciliates, which are single cells, which are then consumed by zooplankton, which are then consumed by small fish, which are then consumed by larger fish. So those changes in efficiency are going to lead to changes in the relative abundance of higher-order organisms over geologic time. So there's a very nice paper about this by Wolf Berger, who was a geologist at Scripps years ago. And he pointed out when we first formed the Antarctic continent about 30 million years ago when it broke off from the Drake, from the southern portion of the South America and became the first continent to be covered with ice for tens of millions of years, actually for hundreds of millions of years. That led to the, for reasons I'm not gonna bother you with, it led to the ecological dominance of these diatom organisms in the southern ocean. And that led to the evolution and ultimately success of whales. So whales re-entered the ocean from Melland, right? They're mammals. Basically they're hippopotamide that, you know, now are the largest mammals on the planet. And so their success was linked to this climate change that occurred 30 million years ago, which was driven by tectonics.


to right five plus long, to fast right five plus long, 30 left two long, 30 left two long, 30, flat right five and a half long opens 150 to right two, to right two, 30, short flat right five and a half, into short left five and left two and a half long opens, and left two and a half long opens, 30, long right six over brow, big titans and narrows into right three and a half long, 50, to a left two opens, left two opens, and short left five hug into right three and a half minus, it's right three and a half minus, 30, to left three, to left three, and right three and a half long, right three and a half long, and left four very long titans, left four very long titans, into right three plus long, to right three plus long, to finish, 30, left four and a half over crest, okay. It's a bit slippery with those tires I think, that might have been the wrong choice.


Hello and welcome to This Week in the City. Highlights brought to you from the Public and Media Relations Department. I'm your host, Alicia Utsi. On Monday, August 6th, the Planning Commission will meet at 5.15pm at City Hall in Chambers. For agenda items, visit our website at ColumbiaSC.net. On Tuesday, August 7th, Columbia City Council will meet for a work session at 2pm. A work session will be held only due to National Night Out activities. And of course, Tuesday, August 7th is also National Night Out when our neighborhoods will be sponsoring various activities throughout the city. For information regarding activities in neighborhoods near you, visit our website at ColumbiaSC.net. And again, there will be no City Council meeting at 6pm on August 7th. On August 8th, Wednesday, join Councilmembers Tamika Azadevine and Councilman Howard DeVall for at-large open house at City Hall. However, you must call 545-3061 to schedule an appointment. On Thursday, the Design Development Review Commission will meet at City Hall at 4pm in Council Chambers. Check ColumbiaSC.net for agenda items. And on Friday, check out Destination Hometown on our social media platforms on City TV and our YouTube channel for events coming up near you this weekend. Well, we have a busy week ahead of us and we hope you have a great week in the city.


We're in the Audio Technica booth with Brian Piper and we are actually recording this on a Canon camcorder with an Audio Technica transmitter and receiver, but I asked Brian whether by any chance they have something newer and cooler than what we already have. What are you showing us here today Brian? So what we've got here is our System 10 family. So we've got a couple different lines out of that, but this is the System 10 camera mount that we're going to be viewing here. The System 10 is actually operating in the 2.4 gigahertz range, so we're kind of in digital world now. Okay, so for the audio only listening audience, this is a device that Steve can hook to the top of his camcorder, plugs into the audio input jack on the camcorder and then right now what I'm holding on the old version is a big old pack with a 9 volt battery in it and a long cable and it's kind of messy and it's all analog, but now we're going to go digital. Correct, yeah exactly. If you can kind of see the transceiver here, it's a transceiver, it actually does both, so they're both talking with each other which is really, really nice. So he's holding a microphone that has no wires, no battery pack, no thing hanging off it. Correct, yeah everything is built inside here, it goes wirelessly through, connects right to your camera here as you can see, you get the mount with it. You've got two antennas on this now, why? It's got diversity, so you have two frequencies constantly searching for each other. So it makes sure that you have the best, strongest signal possible. So on my old unit I've got a little AB switch, you're saying this is going to switch automatically? This is going to switch automatically and it actually is constantly searching for the best frequency to be on. So if your option A goes out, it switches over to your option B immediately without any drop out. And then that A goes in searches for a new frequency. I know saying digital sound sounds really cool, what does it actually mean to us? So basically you're getting high HD quality sound, you're operating in 24-bit, 48k audio, so it's full HD sound. The other thing with that is too is we don't have an analog compander in there. So the analog compander kind of shrinks your frequency spectrum down a little bit. Because it cuts off at like 70 hertz and then it kind of cuts you off at 16k. Now we have a full 20-20 frequency spectrum here. Alright, I don't know what all that means, but Steve, did you have a question? No. But he knows what it means. Alright so now you've got, so you can buy this transceiver with a microphone and the mount and the receiver on the, and how much does that go to cost? So it's a 449.99 for the handheld as you see here. And then you could do a body pack option with a lab mic. And the lab mic, actually we do our 4-pin, so all of our lab mics or our head worn microphones are going to work for it. It's a very simple, very easy click and there's no twisting, you just pull it out to release the lock. Alright, very nice. Now one of the problems we have is we're always searching for 9 volt batteries at the hotel because we've burned through batteries. What have you done about that? Very, very slick. We actually built in a battery for it. It's a rechargeable battery. You can kind of see on this one here, it runs off of just a mini USB switch here. Micro. Micro, excuse me, micro USB, exactly. And another really cool thing too is they make those body packs that you can use, USB, that you can charge it if you're trying to do something for 16 hours throughout the day. It does last an 8-hour battery though for continuous use. Wow, that's really cool. Now see, there's a display on it too. What's that telling us? This one is kind of going through, since I re-plugged this back in, it's turning on, the batteries are dead from yesterday, but it's going through and searching for either microphone, either the body set or the handheld right now. So it's searching for the piece to be on right now. So what would Steve be doing with all those buttons? So yeah, you can kind of see here, it's the system ID number. Now the system ID number is basically like digital gaff tape. So it pairs up on one of these guys here, either the microphone or the body pack, and kind of tells you that this is going with this one here. You can use up to 8 at one time if you needed to, which is kind of nice. So that's how you can switch it. Exactly, you can switch it. It's kind of like this one is pairing with this one here, and this one is going with that one. So you can kind of tell which one is on or which one's not. I got you. How about, there must be a battery in the microphone too, in the transceiver? Yeah, there is a battery in the microphone here, just twisting it apart. So it's just two double A's. At least double A's are easier to find. They are easier to find and a little less expensive than the nine volt, right? And you can get rechargeable. So I don't think they make rechargeable nine volts. Nine volts, I don't think so. I know they make rechargeable double A's though, for sure. So good for the environment too. All right, thank you very much. Brian and people wanted to find out more about this, where would they, oh wait, one more question? No, we already did the cost. Yeah, where would they find these products? You can go to any, you know, B&H, Guitar Center, any of those guys, you can go on to AudioTechnica.com for more information on any of that stuff as well. Or through Allison's Amazon affiliate link, I bet. Absolutely. Oh, there, now we're talking. Absolutely. All right, thanks a lot, Brian. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it.