All right. I have 10 o'clock according to my SL viewer. I'm not sure maybe a few people are still arriving. So we might wait a minute or two to allow people to arrive and find a seat. And while we're doing that, I want to make sure to acknowledge Delia Lake. Linda Kelly. She created this environment for us. Some of you I think maybe attended last month her walk through presentation of this build.  It's a real treasure for a second life education. And we're really grateful to be able to have this unique build and unique setting for today's presentation. So thanks very much, Linda. This is fantastic. So what do you think? Are we ready to call this to order? Sign it away, Matt. Okay. That's all I needed. All right. So welcome, everyone, to today's Science Circle event. As many of you know, this is one of a series of panel discussions sponsored by the Science Circle. The Science Circle is a grant funded nonprofit organization to develop virtual world platforms for education. So just want to remind everyone to be on your best behavior so that we don't have any issues with our grant funding. And welcome to everyone to today's panel discussion. Where our topic today is going to be global fires, as you all know, especially last year. The scale of gigantic fires all around the world was very shocking to people, I think. In Australia and in California, and then also in the Amazon of Brazil. And I thought it would be worthwhile to take a deep dive into what might be going on about that. So I have a very special collection of panelists with us today. We have the lake who is a Linda Kelly and she created this environment that we're meeting in today. And did a fantastic job. It's a really stunning environment. We also have with us word Smith Jarvan and Keith Grant, and then also special guest, Dolly wave writer Chris Lincoln, who has experienced as a firefighter. I think we're going to have a nice collection of different points of view about the global wildfire situation with this.  Also, I actually have prepared remarks. I usually speak extemporaneously today. I actually prepared remarks and I'm going to open up this event with a an overview of what the heck is going on in the Amazon. So I'm just going to get right into that. You can see behind me. The slide behind me is a sort of satellite image of the Amazon region. It's a map of the Amazon rainforest eco regions. It's eliminated in white.  That's the rainforest ecosystem. And then in blue is the Amazon drainage basin, right? And the nine countries share the Amazon basin. Most of the rainforest 60% is contained in Brazil with eight other countries, including Peru, Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela, Guiana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Ecuador also sharing portions of the Amazon basin. The Amazon River traverses the jungle from Peru to the Atlantic Ocean. It is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world. And by most accepted definitions is the second longest river in the world after the Nile. And you can just see the density of that jungle, which I'll talk about a little bit more later. More than 56%. The Amazon jungle, weirdly enough, is fertilized by dust. More than 56% of the dust fertilizing the Amazon rainforest comes from the Vodelae Depression in northern Chad in the Sahara Desert of Africa. The dust contains phosphorus important for plant growth. The yearly Sahara dust replaces the equivalent amount of phosphorus washed away yearly in Amazon soil from rains and floods. NASA's Calypso satellite has measured the amount of dust transported by wind from the Sahara to the Amazon. An average of 182 million tons of dust are windblown out of the Sahara each year. Almost 30 tons of dust fall on the Amazon basin. 22 million tons of it consisting of deforestation is the conversion of forested areas to non forested areas. The main source of deforestation in the Amazon are human settlement and development of the land. In 2018, about 70% of the Amazon rainforest was already destroyed. Research suggests that upon reaching about 20 to 25%, so that's only like 3 to 8% more, the tipping point to flip it to a non forest ecosystem to graded savanna such as in the eastern, southern and central Amazonia will be reached. So here you can see the areas of deforestation. I'm sort of highlighting here. You can see it's quite a patchwork. Prior to the 1960s, access to the forest interior was highly restricted and the forest remain basically intact. Arms established during the 1960s were based on crop cultivation and slash and burn method. Our colonists were unable to manage their fields and the crops were unable to manage their fields and the crops because of the loss of soil fragility and weed invasion. And this is actually pretty common with jungles is that the nutrients, the soil nutrients and jungles is very thin and is and is easily lost when the through deforestation. The top soil is very, very thin. The source in the Amazon are productive for only just a short period of time. The farmers are constantly moving to new areas and clearing more land. These farming practices led to deforestation and caused extensive environmental damage. Deforestation is considerable and areas clear to forest are visible to the naked eye from outer space. In the 1970s, construction began on the Trans-Amazonian Highway. This highway represented a major threat to the forest. The highway still has not been completed, limiting environmental damage. I'll just add a personal note here. I lived in Brazil in the 1970s when I was a teenager as an exchange student and the talk when I was there about the Trans-Amazonian Highway, I thought was very illustrative of how Brazilians viewed the Amazon. And I'm not sure it's still true, but in those days Brazilians viewed the Amazon jungle as just a sort of force of nature that could not be tamed. So that sort of led them to feel like the Amazon jungle was like it couldn't be damaged. The ongoing joke or belief in those days was as they tried to build the Trans-Amazonian Highway, they could only work on the highway during a certain time for the year when it wasn't raining or whatever. And when they would go back to restart work on the highway, the jungle had overgrown and taken over the work they did during the previous period. And so the work on the highway was very frustrating for them. And just sort of reinforce this idea that the Amazon jungle just can't be tamed like it's just, you can't harm it. It's just a powerful force of nature on its own. And I think that this belief that the Amazon jungle is just impenetrable to damage sort of has contributed to what we saw happen last year. So what did happen? There were 73,000 fires in Brazil in 2019 with more than half within the Amazon region. In August of 2019, there were a record 26,000 fires, the highest number in a decade. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose more than 88% in June 2019 compared with the same month in 2018. Wide spread blazes provoked an international outcry that Brazil was not doing enough to protect its forests. So here you can see we have another satellite image and I'll sort of point out different areas of fire all over the place, over here, over here, here, and so forth. The Brazilian Minister of the Environment tweeted that the fires are driven by dry weather, wind and heat, but experts disagree. Quote, the blazes are surging in a pattern typical of forest clearing along the edges of the agricultural frontier, Science Magazine reported. This deforestation has been encouraged in turn by Bolsonaro, the new Brazilian president, who has repeatedly said the Amazon should be open for business for mining, logging and agricultural purposes. President Emmanuel Macron of France called for urgent actions to be taken along the fires, rapidly becoming embroiled in a war of words with Brazil's right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro. Macron accuses Mr. Bolsonaro of lying to world leaders about Brazil's commitment to preserving the environment. Mr. Bolsonaro at one point insulted Mr. Macron's wife and said he would only accept $20 million in aid offered by a group of seven nations if the French withdrew its quote unquote insults. So, but this isn't just about one road ahead of state. To get to the underlying forces of much of the world's deforestation from the lush Amazonian rainforest, or the carbon which peatlands Indonesia also, by the way, which have a similar problem, you need to follow the money who is profiting from the development that led to these fires. Earlier this year, US-based nonprofit Amazon Watch, which has worked closely with indigenous groups in South America for 20 years, published an analysis showing that foreign investors have enormous influence over what happens in the Brazilian Amazon. State banks and large investment companies play a critical role, providing billions of dollars in lending, underwriting, and equity investment. These investors have helped stoke the growth of the beef and soy industry in Brazil, irresponsibly and inexorably, regardless of their intention, putting the Amazon into crosshairs of agribusiness. In recent years, Brazil has emerged as one of the world's largest exporters of beef and soy. Brazil accounts for roughly 20% of, excuse me, of the global beef export market. Together, Brazil and its nearest rival, the United States, account for 83% of the global soy export. Its biggest markets are found in the EU and China. As trade wars intensify between the United States and China, observers worry that demand for these Brazilian products will only grow. Cattle ranching accounts for 80% of rainforest destruction in Brazil, according to Yale School of Forestry. As the soy export market grows, so does demand for land to grow the commodity, another key driver of deforestation. Also, according to the Intercepts, Ryan Grimm, Blackstone has been a major force behind huge agribusiness and infrastructure projects in Brazil, including a controversial highway and a major port, all in the former rainforest areas, and all to expand agribusiness and export markets. Blackstone has also launched two funds dedicated to buying farmland in Brazil and other South American countries. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has exalted the quote unquote significant opportunities for investors in Brazil, and after Bolsonaro's election, he announced the expansion of BlackRock's operations in the country. Keep in mind, this is a regime that has openly celebrated the country's two decade long military dictatorship, as called the land defenders, quote unquote terrorists, and lamented ecological land protection that quote unquote underdevelopment. France and a group of Brazilian states, this is as of December 2019, so about four months ago, France and a group of Brazilian states plan to announce a partnership to reserve the Amazon rainforest by passing Brazil's federal government after a spat between the presidents of the two countries that I referred to before. The end, that is the end of my rant about the Amazon and the complicated political and economic forces that are contributing to deforestation and burning of the jungle. So, that said, let me review. If we have any comments here, any questions? Yeah, Worsmith points out it's the tragedy of the Collins. I think that's a fair assessment. If everyone believes that they own it, then nobody owns it in a sense and people do what they want. And just to reinforce it, I do think that there's a sense of sort of indestructibility of Amazon jungle, because it is just considered just a powerful force of nature in and of itself. And this contributes to sort of cavalier attitude towards this protection. Well, I'm afraid I don't really know too much about the details of this arrangement that France has made with these with the governors of the states of Brazil. I don't know that that the plan has really been made public in detail. I think it's still, I mean, I think it's more aspirational to be honest than it is a concrete plan at this point. So we'll see. Yes, exactly. They're bypassing Bolsonaro who is being intransigent in his negotiations and they're going directly to sort of local leaders. That's right. And the comments that the coastal rainforest in Chile is also under attack. And in fact, why don't we move along because we have a lot to cover today. So if you're prepared. Go ahead and make your presentation. Let me know if you would like me to operate the slides or whether you want to do that yourself. Thank you. We'll see if I can move the slides or not. I thought about this. I thought that it's important to know the scientific information for sure. But to connect this, the fire maelstroms, the global wildfires to human experience, I think is also very important. So I kind of took that approach here. And one of the things that I have done when doing this build and also preparing slides is listen to a piece of music that I have put into the one of the signs here. And it is still a bit as cold Missouri waters, but what it is is a song about why God who was a smoke chopper fire fire in man Gulch fire in Montana near Missoula in August of 1949. And I think to me, anyway, that sets the feeling of how sad and visceral some of this is. So while we have heard a lot about the fires in Amazon, the fires are really all over the world. And let's see if I can move this here. So most recently we heard about Australia and the build right here is based on Australia, but it is not entirely Australia. And one of the areas, let's see if I can do this, where there was an extreme amount of loss is down here. I got the green spot there. That's Kenroo Island where all of the koalas were burned out. But if you look at the NASA image here, you see fires all along the coast. So why would that happen? There's always fire in Australia has been but it's seasonal and it's Bush seasonal bushfires. The habitats in Australia have evolved to be dependent on the fire. So for instance, the Eucalyptus Regnans only will seed if they have fires. But the fires this past year, this year and recent years have been much, much more intense than before. So the ones in New South Wales along the coast there where you see all those red spots started coastal mountains and the coastal cities. So you probably all saw pictures of the people huddled on the beaches. They had to leave their houses and spend days on the beach, not expected. But one of the things that you didn't hear about was the rainforest, the Guamanda rainforest, it's just inland a bit. And that's one of the most ancient ecosystems on earth and it was burned. It's the first time that in recorded history that that area has burned and it is home to many, many rare species. So take a look at these later and explore some of these things because no presentation can do this justice. Then we have California. California also has always had fires. But the last couple of seasons have been very intense. Human development has destroyed a lot of the wilderness as the populations increase. But it used to be that there was a more predictable dry season and wet season. And so you could depend on the fires going out and they probably weren't in somebody's yard anyway. That's not true now. All along the entire state of California. You have fires that are burning down residential areas or evacuating residential areas. And this past February was the driest month on record for the state of California. And Dolly, do you want to add anything here about the fires in California? Well, just let me mention that primarily I fight fires on a barrier beach island. And my fires are house fires and my main concern is extension of a fire from one house to another. So I don't have specific experience fighting fire fires, forest fires rather. However, I'll just mention a few of the topics. I think you've touched on some of them. There is a history of fires. Fires normal. Clearly the fires have been getting more extreme. One of the reasons, I mean there's lots of different reasons why that might be happening. One of the factors has been that fires in the past have been stopped. And so there's a lot more fire load which can fuel, which means a lot more forest that's contiguous without having sort of random burns here and there which might stop a fire from extending to be a larger fire. So there's actually environmentalists on both sides of the issue. You should protect all of the forest or maybe you should manage the forest and harvest strips through it or in some way to make it less contiguous. So that fires are at least contained naturally. So that's one topic. Another topic is, if I can grab my idea, the other topic was related to infrastructure. And part of the, some of the California fires have been blamed on electrical wires. And that's due to the installation being lost in the electrical wires. That's something I actually experience in my own community where the electric utilities, they are pretty good at maintaining the electricity. But they're not so good at maintaining the insulation on the wires that go through the community. And so therefore any time a branch falls on a wire or pushes two wires together, a secondary or primary wire or a neutral wire, then creating a short circuit, then sparks fly and those sparks that fly then fall to the ground and tend to start fires. And if they burn through the wire, then the wire itself falls down and it tends to start fire. So what's the problem here? It's a much more general problem in that long ago we used to over engineer all of our infrastructure. And over time we've gotten more and more economical and people awarded for being more economical, which means that there's much less headroom for failure for all kinds of infrastructure, bridges, electrical systems, water systems in Michigan. So that is an issue. And so from the point of view of these California fires, I think we have to be aware that the electrical infrastructure needs to be revisited and some serious people need to look at it to be done to garbage it. That's my story. It may not be obvious to you looking at the picture, but look at it closely here because that photo there of the campfire, Paradise, California, that's a house burning. Wow. That is a house burning. And so here's before and after. Paradise estates before the community where people lived, a young community solely incorporated in 1979, 25,000 people lived in this area. So then the picture to the other side is after the fire. There is nothing there. So I guess in a sense you could say that Mother Nature has reclaimed this area. Well, we heard a lot about the Amazon fires. At the same time, there were fires in Central Africa and particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, but all there were fires. But all there along in Central Africa. That's different than some of the other places in that they are still doing slash and burn agriculture. They're also beginning to be more and more of the longing, particularly in the palm oil. So it's a different kind of a place and most the fires are either set by people or they are lightning strikes, but it is very far bordered by Savannah. So it's the Amazon had just under 3,000 fires. At the same time, the DLC had 6,900 fires. And Angola had almost 4,000 fires. So all of this, we've got to think about if it's happening everywhere in the world, what is the future here? This is what it looks like when it's just forest and Savannah and what it looks like when it gets burned out. It's not just the places that we typically think of as warm, but it is also places that we typically think of as cold. So we have fires in the Arctic. We've had fires in the Arctic for a number of years now. And there's always some fires in the Arctic, but it's typically has been frigid winters and cool summers. Not anymore. We've had the highest Arctic temperatures in the summer that have ever been recorded. And speaking of smoke, I should have mentioned when we were talking back in Australia that the smoke was going across to New Zealand and landing on the glaciers there, and now they're saying that it's likely that they are going to be melting the glaciers in New Zealand. So the Arctic wildfires are all around the entire Arctic. So what differences does this make? I mean, it's not very much inhabited by people. So you have the burial forests and the taiga and peat burning, but it changes the whole composition of the forests as they grow back. And one of the factors that we don't understand well what the consequences will be is if we have burned the peat. When does that stop burning? They've been underground coal fires that have burned for decades. Will that happen here in the Arctic? Will it be melting permafrost all year round? What about the release of methane? We simply don't know at this point. But what we do know is that the old normal is no longer operating. So I think we have to consider here what is the new normal? Are the new fires around the world going to be our new normal? And how are we as humans going to live with this? And how are we going to figure out whether our actions influence this and what can we stop? So I think there's a lot of work to do. And I really, really encourage people to look at this seriously and look at the policies, look at the ways that things have changed over the decades and what our responsibility is moving forward. For me, these are points of discussion, not so much as fact. And I want to emphasize that again and again that we don't know. And the more that we keep these things top of mind, the more that we are aware of what we're doing, the more likely we are to be able to find some solutions in the future. Yeah, people are mentioning Centralia. So I have some personal experience with that in that I went to college in the middle of Pennsylvania. I went to Bucknell University and going from New York to Bucknell, I would go through Centralia. And I can tell you that the first time it was very, very frightening because the roads would steam you. So that's been burning a very long time, yes. And you can smell it. I can still smell it to this day. It's like there. But anyway, I hope that we're sparking some conversation among people here. I think to me that's a very, very important piece. And Keith, I'm going to turn it on to you to talk about some of the changes in climate that have been factors in the metapires. Okay, thank you. Yeah, please, let's Keith, well, let's move on please proceed. Okay, we've heard sort of the on the ground and I'm not don't have anything that duplicates what you said on the Amazon. Matt, I actually looked at Southern Africa, California, Australia and the Arctic and the conditions for fire. Behind all this are high temperatures. We get those from higher temperatures from climate change, dry conditions out, which there's a relation. There's a tie in there and a fuel on the ground and an ignition source, which in many cases is lightning for people. So Southern Africa, we have an enhanced only an enhanced El Nino because of climate change, higher temperatures. And the El Nino in the winter between December and February is what this dot represents causes. It's a wave effect. So the El Nino is off the coast of Peru, but it causes drought in South Africa. And so a good part of the drought is the years there's an El Nino in here, it's warmer in here and that prevents the rain in Congo. And when you have that over several years, that November to February is the rainy season there. It's all connected. So California, two slides on California, and then very familiar with it because they live in the Bay Area. But you can see in this picture this high here off the coast of California, high meaning high pressure. And what it's doing is directing these storms up into Washington. So California is a Mediterranean climate. It only gets rain generally between November and April. So if this high builds in and is persistent, all the rain goes somewhere else. And California, the Sierra snowpack, which California depends on for water the rest of the year, doesn't occur. Now along with that is by fall a high pressure forms over the Great Basin in Nevada and air flows down out of the Sierra. And as it comes down from high altitude to lower altitude, it compresses and heats. And so we get this hot dry offshore flow in California. It's sort of the one time of the year that you can laugh that San Francisco doesn't have air conditioners. Because it's normally very nice and suddenly the temperature rises up. In the south, these are known as the Santa Ana's. In the north, they're known as the Diablos. So if you mix in the lack of rainfall and the lack of snowpack in Sierra because of the blocking high, combined with this offshore shore flow, hot dry in October, you've got the perfect situation for fire. So all you need is to fuel on the ground and some sort of ignition, which could be lightning or high tension power lines. There's also an effective climate change to temperature gradient between the tropics and the Arctic lessons with global warming because the Arctic heats about two and a half times faster than the lower latitudes. And that weakens the jet stream and causes it to meander more, which also ties in with the Arctic fires. In Australia, there's the temperature effect of global warming, so we're getting higher temperatures. What's also gone on is the Indian Bible, which is an ocean oscillation between warmer in the east and warmer in the west. And when it's warmer in the west, it's colder in the east and that tends to inhibit the rainfall in Australia. Coupled with that is the semi-annual mode, which is the sort of roaring 40 winds, which have been pushed a little bit to the south. One thing I was looking at said they had to be called the roaring 40 threes now. And that also means that the rain goes elsewhere, the storms go elsewhere, and don't come under the coast of Australia. So it's a complex combination of higher temperatures from global warming. Synchronous in the last couple of years with the Indian Ocean dipole and the southern annular mode going south. The migration of the southern annular mode also affects the southern Africa because it pushes the storms south of Africa. And finally, in the Arctic, we have the jet streams, which I mentioned with global warming become weaker and more meandering. This also can produce really cold temperatures in the mid-continent, the U.S. continent in the winter because our care comes down. But it also means the winds and storms are less vigorous in the Arctic and you don't get the precipitation. So Alaska, for instance, has had a severe drought and described as walking up there underground is crunchy rather than soft and mussy. You couple that with lightning and the heat deposits, which get ignited and are dry and just keep smoldering and burning. And that's it. Thanks so much, Keith. Thanks to all to my panelists today. I really appreciate your presentations. Dolly, Keith, do you have any additional comments you'd like to share with us to kind of react to what's been presented? Or do you feel, have you said your piece already? As Elia said, it's a new reality and one of the factors that's changing is the amount of resources, the expenditure that it requires to fight fires, which has been getting diverted from trying to maintain forests and brush lands and prevent fires. Let me also mention something that I put in chat, but I didn't mention here. And that's, we're all very well aware of the Amazon rainforest. It's a major cause as is the Central African rainforest. However, there is a temperate forest that's just south of the Amazon, which most of us are not aware of because it gets no press whatsoever. It's a fairly large, in fact, I think it's the largest temperate forest in the southern hemisphere, and it's being cut down at an alarming rate. And you can just zoom in on Google Maps, or if you really want to see the history of it on Google Earth. And what you'll see is a whole bunch of rectangles turning from dark green to light green. Huge, huge tracks of forest being clear cut. But there are, I mean, there's so many ecological awareness that they're leaving small corridors of forest so that local animals can at least transport between areas. But it's just alarming how fast it's happening, going unnoticed at the same time. Yeah, that's very sobering. What's the name of that region again? Well, it's, it escaped me right now, but on your original slide, if you can put that up, I'm not sure if you can. Let's see. I can scroll back, I think. And basically, it's the southernmost point, it's at the juncture of Chile, Brazil, and Paraguay. On the Paraguay, mostly on the Paraguay side, but not just in Paraguay. And instead of being that sort of patchwork that you have that sort of follows rivers, okay, right at that lower point, just to the east of there. All right, huge tracks, just, you know, just an awful lot of forest disappearing very quickly, and they're not burning it. It's being done very methodically. Oh, they're not burning it? They're just cutting it down? Yeah, I mean, but lots of it. I mean, like, one to two-digit percentage of all of Paraguay. It's just remarkable. And I just stumbled upon it by accident when I was looking at the Amazon rainforest. I think so. Like here, okay. Well, yeah, I think there's a huge demand for South American woods, like a global demand for it. So that probably is a- It could be a deciduous forest, so it could be high-quality hardwoods. So, Nick mentions the Foresty-Guassou, which is a spectacular, spectacular waterfall system. I think at the border of Brazil and Chile, I think, one of the true wonders of the world. And Delia remarks in a local chat. In Australia and Tasmania, they cut the Eucalyptus regnans' temperate rainforest for toilet paper. And Taglard mentions all the rosewood trees are being harvested ASAP by Chinese interests in Africa, too. Yeah, you know, I thought, you know, I was thinking, well, maybe we should try to cheer things up by having a little discussion about what the possible solutions are. But it just doesn't feel like there are any. It just feels like the economic forces that work around the globe, not to mention climate change and other factors are just- It just feels like a problem that we just can't wrap our arms around. But I think that one of the things that we need to do is to seriously look at how our lifestyles are impacting these things. So that, for instance, back in California, when we are wanting to get out of the more densely populated areas and we are now encroaching into the wilderness areas, it may be beautiful. But we are also making it so that humans are, because of the way we built, and because of what Dali was saying about how we built and the infrastructure, we're making it more likely that we're going to have the larger fires, not the seasonal fires that have always been around. So, and do we really need to cut down the eucalyptus residents for toilet paper or for crates that just get tossed away? So I think part of what is important for us is to rethink how we are doing some of the things that we're doing. That is an outstanding point. I think especially in the rich developed nations, I think it just feels like inevitable that there has to be at least some flattening of economic growth to moderate our lifestyles. And I think we've mentioned here in the science circle recently that there are being proposed sort of economic models alternative to capitalism that, or maybe not maybe more tweaks of capitalism, but that utilize more sustainable economic models in an effort to, you know, at least there is a discussion, I think especially going on among academics and economists, to address that exact issue of how to basically not have to rely on constant economic growth to maintain the global economy. There has to be a way that you can flatten economic growth and still have a comfortable lifestyle that do it in a more sustainable way. It just seems that a crucial element of the problem is that global capitalism now is dependent on constant growth. You have to constantly be expanding markets and this results in the waste of resources. One of the things that I and many other people have written about is decoupling growth from exploitation of resources so that if your economic growth is dependent more on intellectual property rather than exploiting virgin natural resources, you have a different base for growth. And the other thing here is that we reward extraction and exploitation and we do not reward recycling, reuse, repurposing all of the things that would decrease the amount of natural resources that we need to use. Right. You know, I'm not sure how optimistic to be about this seems like a long term project. You know, I am kind of also, but there was some discussion local chat also about the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the, on the environment. I think a synergy mentioned that China's carbon emissions have dropped by 25% due to the slowdown of its economy from coronavirus. And I kind of feel like due to climate change, we this is like coronavirus may be just the leading indicator that the future may hold in store for us. Additional novel infectious agents that because of climate change, you know, now have an hospitable environment. We could see that more and more. So the combined forces of pandemics and climate change may force the issue on us. I mean, we may not be able to plan for this. The capitalism may be forced to reckon with what is happening to the planet. And Keith, the wordsmith mentions in local chat, capitalism has tended to push the cost of externals, not including costs forced on others who gain no benefit from an activity. Yes, that's the whole issue of externalities where the costs of economic activity are pushed under the public, whereas the benefits are of economic activity are kept private. And this is a huge flaw. I mean, there are efforts to try to bring externalities into economic models through taxation, for example. But it's patchwork and it's not systematic. And it's still too easy to gain the system that way, but to push costs onto the public. And right now we do that throughout the entire supply chain, right from the beginning of extraction through to the end of life of any product. All right. Well, I think we're at the top of the hour and I think some people need to get along. I know that the VWBP is also going on. So I don't want to keep people here too long. Let's see. We have one last comment from tagline, the current best coping strategy of capitalism. It's still a great concentration of wealth and string everyone else along for the hopes of similar luck. Yeah, I'm a little bit disturbed by this sort of privatization of, you know, especially with the Corona pandemic that solutions to it are being developed by private concerns like, for example, out of Silicon Valley. And, you know, it's kind of a libertarian wet dream a little bit, pardon my French, but it's being seized upon by certain interest groups as a way to really try to diminish the public's role through government to address these matters. So that is another complicating factor. So with that comment, I'm going to gavel this panel to a close, really appreciate everyone who could attend. We had a really good attendance today, so I'm very grateful for that. It took me a long time to assemble this great panel that we had with us today. So I really appreciate the good attendance. Have a great weekend, everyone. Enjoy your BWB PE and your weekend and your quarantine. And with that, good night.


This lecture is part of an online algebraic geometry course about schemes, and we will be discussing proper morphisms. So for background, the problem is to find a good analog of compact spaces in topology. So the problem is that pretty much every scheme you encounter is compact in the usual topology, and so both the affine line and the projective line are compact, but in the classical complex topology, the affine line definitely isn't compact. So we want to find what is the real analog of compactness. So we'll start by looking at general topology. So in general topology, you can see that x is compact if and only if the map from x times z to z is closed for all z, means all topological spaces z. So saying a map is closed just means it takes closed sets to closed sets. Now already, this gives you a possible way to define compactness in algebraic geometry. You could just say a scheme is compact if the corresponding map here is closed, where here you would take the topology of the scheme x times y, not the product topology on the spaces x and y. Well, we could do this, but in practice it's much more useful to have a relative version of this. Well, there is a relative version in topology. We say that continuous map from x to y is called proper if the map from x times z to y times z is closed for all z. So we're working with topological spaces and tacitly assuming that all maps are continuous. For example, x is compact if and only if the map from x to a point is proper. So this sort of property is sometimes called being universally closed. So we're not only insisting that the map from x to y should be closed, but all these product maps should be closed as well. And the difference is illustrated by the following basic example. So the map from r1 to a point is obviously closed. However, if we take r1 times r1 and map this to a point times r1, this is just the projection from the plane to the x-axis. And it obviously isn't closed because we can take a closed set, say, x, y equals 1. This is closed in r1 times r1. And its projection on the x-axis is just the x-axis minus the origin. So it's obviously not closed. So just because a map is closed, it may not remain closed if you sort of multiply the top and the bottom by something. And you can see the problem here is that somehow this curve has zoomed off to a point at infinity. And this is possible because the y-axis isn't compact. And if the y-axis were compact, you wouldn't have this problem. In fact, in general topology book, you can see that x to y is proper. It's equivalent to saying that the fibers are closed, so the fibers are compact, and x to y is closed. If you don't have the condition that x to y is closed, the fibers can be compact without the map being proper. For example, x could be r1 minus the origin, and y could be r, and the map could be the obvious inclusion. And the fibers of this are all compact. They're either empty or a point, but this map obviously isn't closed because it takes a closed set to a non-closed set. So the condition that the map be closed is sort of saying that points don't suddenly disappear as you move around in the base somehow. So I just mentioned there's another criterion for properness. If y is locally compact, and let's add house store because I can't remember if this is necessary or not, then x to y is proper. It's equivalent to saying that the inverse image of any compact set is compact. So the condition of the fibers be compact just says the inverse image of a point is compact. And more generally, this condition that x to y is closed sort of says that not only is the inverse image of a point compact, but the inverse image of any compact set is compact. So that's what happens in general topology. Now we want to kind of find the analog of this in algebraic geometry. So now we're going to forget about topological spaces and work with schemes. So we say x to y is universally closed if the map from x times over z times over y z to y. Here we've got x to y. So that's z down there. So if this map here is closed for any morphism from z to y. Now this is actually a site extension of the condition that when you multiply x and y by z it gets closed because if you look at x goes to y. And you just look at y times z to y, then the pullback of this is just x times z. So in particular, if z is any topological space, the map from x times z to y times z is closed. So this is a sort of generalization of the previous condition. And growth index defined a map to be proper if it is separated of finite type and universally closed. So that's a long list of extra conditions. And of these conditions, the conditions about being separated and the finite type are usually obviously satisfied. And the important condition is this one here. So proper basically just means universally closed plus a much rather minor conditions that are in practice usually satisfied just to make sure that things behave smooth nicely. So there are two basic examples of proper maps, proper morphisms. So proper morphisms come from finite morphisms and projective morphisms. So we'll first discuss finite morphisms. So any finite morphism is proper. And what I mean to do is just sort of sketch roughly why this is true. Notice by the way, quasi-finite does not imply proper. So having finite fibers isn't good enough. And this is a counter example. This is very similar to the example that having compact fibers doesn't imply properness for topological spaces. You could just take the affine line minus the origin and map it to the affine line. And this map is certainly not proper. It's not even closed, but it's quasi-finite. Anyway, so finite morphisms are more or less obviously separated as they sort of look like affine morphisms. And they are obviously a finite type. So we just have to prove, show that they're universally closed. So step one. And step two, we notice that if X to Y is finite, then any pullback X times over YZ is also finite. So if this is finite, this is also finite. So it's enough to show that finite morphisms are closed. So we don't need to worry about being universally closed because finite morphisms are closed under pullback. Thirdly, we can reduce the affine case by covering Y with open affine subsets. And this means we want to show that if A goes to B is a homomorphism of rings and B is a finite A module, then the map from the spectrum of B to the spectrum of A is closed. So we've reduced our problem to a problem about commutative algebra. And now you can factor this into A goes to A over I, which is contained in B, not quite contained in B, but isomorphic to something contained in B. And this corresponds to a closed immersion of schemes, which is closed. Here I is of course the kernel of the map from A to B. So we can assume that A is contained in B because the composition of two closed morphisms is closed. Next, a closed set of B is given by an ideal of B. It's called this ideal J of B, and it would be something like the spectrum of B over J, which is contained in the spectrum of B. And now we get a map A modulo A intersection F minus 1 J is contained in B over J, where F is the map from A to B. So the spectrum of A over A in F minus 1 J is closed in the spectrum of A. So it's enough to show that if A is contained in B and B is a finite A module, then the map from the spectrum of B to the spectrum of A is onto. So if we've got a closed set in B, we can just apply this result to the map from the spectrum of B over J to this space here. So we've reduced our theorem to this question of commutative algebra. This is still quite a tricky theorem to prove, but we're not going to prove it, we're just going to quote it. This is a theorem by Cohen and Seidenberg, which just says that exactly this, that if A is a subring of B and B is a finite A module, then this is onto. In fact, they proved a little bit more than that. They proved something called the going up theorem, which says that not only is this map onto, but you can add some extra conditions about the primes of B and A, which we don't need for this result. So that's final maps. The other main example of projective maps, projective morphisms, we've had a special case of this before. We saw that if X is a projective variety over field K and Y is any variety, then X times Y goes to Y is closed. So this is a result of elimination theory. So this is, it's well on the way to proving that the map from extra point is universally closed. We've done it for varieties and you need to do it for arbitrary schemes. So we'll explain roughly how to do this next lecture when we discuss the relation between valuation rings and proper morphisms.


I first want to thank Connie and Corey and the whole team here at the Experimental Station for letting us in a sense take over their space for today. They've been incredibly hospitable and generous with enabling this to take place. So immense thanks to the Experimental Station team. And I also want to thank Cecilia Bevan, who I was hoping would be here, but she's not, I think, here yet this morning, but Cecilia made the mural for us on the Blackboard also to make us feel welcome and to ensure that we feel very warmly hugged in this space. So thanks to Cecilia. So Arts Link Assembly, what is the Arts Link Assembly? It's a question I'm asked often, but it's actually very simple. It's literally that. It's an assembly. It's an assembling, a gathering of artists, of people. It's bringing ideas, ways of thinking, ways of looking, and ways of being in the world, all in one space. And as Arts Link, we bring artists from around the world and we gather together with their colleagues and peers wherever we are. So today in Chicago. So thank you all for being here from Chicago. And tomorrow we'll be online with artists and cultural leaders in Ukraine, again gathered for the assembly. So as Arts Link, we assemble artists and cultural leaders from around the world together with their peers. And what we seek to do is really look at how we can share perspectives, build connections, and really focus on how we generate the networks and connections that we know feed our work, but also feed the broader needs of the society we're part of. The format of the assembly is deliberately intensive. So I'm sorry about that. But it's short presentations from individuals. It's very tight conversations. And it's also critical discussions. And the whole point of that is that you're receiving ideas and we've built into the day long breaks. There's pauses in the morning, there's a long lunch break, and then there's the gathering around dinner tonight, where we can meet, connect, and share our perspectives and really explore the ideas that you're engaging with through the day. So CEC Arts Link works with people, I should say, and not organizations. We work with individuals, not institutions.  We all know the histories of war and aggression, of displacement and extraction. And these are the very practices that shaped where we are today, this place we call the United States of America. And it's vital we recognize both these histories and practices and work thoughtfully and deliberately to repair the impact that this has had and continues to have on all peoples who are living here. Yet these practices continue now, today, in the 21st century, currently in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Nagorno-Karabakh, in Syria, in Sudan, in the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, in Myanmar, in China, the list is shamefully long. We believe it's vitally important to work with and support independent artists, many of you guys here, and arts leaders who work in opposition to war and who help build dialogue and empathy between people. I believe, and the work of the organization is built around the idea that artists can really help us reimagine and rebuild civil society trans-nationally. So we strive to support and empower those independent artists and arts leaders who share our values of compassion and freedom. These two days, I hope will inspire us and help us see how we can all work towards ensuring the future can be a place where we can and want to be. Thank you all for being with us today. I hand you over to Mega. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thank you so much again for being here. I want to invite you all to practice with us today. When we practice another world where we aren't separated by the geographies that do separate us, but instead make up lots of other little worlds based on different things, our values, our shared strategies, our questions, that map would look really, really different, wouldn't it? So this is basically how we put together this program today. Some of the presenters that you'll see here know each other well, and many of them are meeting for the very first time and live in different corners of the world. But from our perspective, they're already in touch. They're already working together. And in fact, they're already collaborating with many of you. So we created this space here to understand that the separations that we've been taught are false, they're a sham, and we can abandon them for something different. But this way of thinking requires practice, and that's what we want to do together today, to evolve our understanding and always attune to the nuance and complexity that we know, but at the same time remind ourselves that there are really simple truths, that we are guests on this land, that we're transient visitors on this planet, that those neighborhoods over there aren't really that far away, maybe they're ours, and that those are our children, and they belong to the earth and to all of us. So how do we grow our stamina to uplift this way of thinking and to choose actively to affiliate across our differences, whether big or small? What does it mean for us to assemble here today as this varied group of artists and organizers, researchers, students, funders, sharing space, carving out our very precious time to prioritize a thinking through artistic practice? And we're doing this in Chicago, a place where artists seem to be in a constant state of reflection and refinement, where they are the ones who are ushering in more full three-dimensional perspectives on our land, our architecture, our inheritance, our governance, not to mention public art, public good, nonviolence, and love. So this is our hope for today, to practice this together in this space, and we will hear from an incredible group of presenters who are doing this every day, practicing this from their unique vantage points, and it's really an honor to bring them together with you, and I am very happy to start the program. Thank you.