The Halifax County High School varsity and junior varsity football teams will face their final pre-season test Thursday night with a scrimmage against Colonial Heights High School.

Thursdays action at Tuck Dillard Memorial Stadium starts with a JV scrimmage at 5 p.m. followed by the varsity scrimmage at 6 p.m.

Both Comets teams were successful in their respective opening pre-season tests Friday night, with the varsity squad topping Buckingham County High School 34-14 in the annual Virginia High School League Benefit Game and the JV team outscoring Buckingham County High School four touchdowns to none in its scrimmage.

Thursdays scrimmage against Colonial Heights will be a different kind of test for the Comets varsity squad in terms of preparation, format and the level and style of the competition.

As far as preparation goes, it is quite a bit different because it cuts a day of preparation out in your normal routine, so everything is off kilter, explained Comets Head Coach Grayson Throckmorton.

Youre scrimmaging on a night you are not accustomed. You have to adjust your practice plans and your overall mindset. In the NFL, it doesnt make much difference. In college, it doesnt make much difference. With high school, it makes a lot of difference because the kids cant adjust as well as those seasoned veterans can.

Its just something weve got to do out of necessity, Throckmorton added.

The Comets are expected to see the level of the competition ramp up Thursday night when they face the Richmond-area school.

As far as team size, the number of players and the number of students in the school, Buckingham County and Colonial Heights are about the same, Throckmorton noted.

But, Colonial Heights competes in a much larger district, and they compete against the likes of Thomas Dale, Dinwiddie, Meadowbrook, Matoaca, and the list goes on. When they get into the (post-season) playoffs, they compete at the Division 3 level, but they compete mostly against Division 5 and Division 6 teams during the regular season. So, just with regard to the level of the competition they are used to competing against, Colonial Heights is going to be a better squad.

Colonial Heights, Throckmorton said, will play a different style of offense than his team saw Friday night with Buckingham County High School.

They (Colonial Heights High School) are a true spread team which we havent seen yet, explained Throckmorton.

They are going to be looking to throw the ball out in the perimeter and try to screen on us with wide receiver screens and screens in the backfield. They will be looking to use their passing game as an advantage, which is going to be good for us.

The result, Throckmorton says, is that the Comets defense will be stretched more and better play will be needed in the defensive secondary.

Were not going to be able to play as run heavy as we did Friday night, he pointed out.

Were going to have to play more 50-50 versus the run and the pass, where the other night we were playing 80 percent run and 20 percent pass. Were going to have to be more evenly balanced Thursday night.

Throckmorton and the Comets kept everything very simple in Friday nights contest against Buckingham County High School. The Comets Head Coach says he plans to expand a few things Thursday night.

Offensively, we are going to add a little more offense in, some stuff we have been working on that we didnt use and a couple of things that are brand new, Throckmorton pointed out.

Defensively, were going to add a few stunts in that we didnt use the other night. We didnt use any stunts Friday night and we are going to add some of that in on defense.

Thursday night is also going to offer Throckmorton and his coaching staff another opportunity to evaluate personnel.

We are going to continue to look at personnel, Throckmorton pointed out, and see who can play what positions and who can play what and where in the future to help us. We have a real good idea of who is where now. Where before there were some bigger adjustments the last week and a half, now its a matter of one or two (players) here and there.

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Comets face final test Thursday - YourGV.com

No one comes to the Galapagos Islands for coffee. But Scott Henderson is hoping to change that.

There are no giant tortoises around his farm in the highlands of Santa Cruz, the most popular of the islands. No marine iguanas or blue footed boobies. Just Henderson and his ripe red coffee beans.

His farm, calledLava Java,is the soup to nuts operation of gourmet coffee. He grows the beans, picks and husks them, soaks them to ferment off the sugars, dries and roasts them, and then sells them to foreign visitors craving more than a glimpse of the islands famous wildlife.

The whole coffee idea was to find a way to tap into these 200,000 high-end Starbucks addicts out in the bay on these nice boats and five-star hotels, Henderson says.

But he and his wife, Maria Elena Guerra,arent aiming to become coffee barons. They came to the Galapagos 25 years ago as conservationists. And their farm is actually more about trees than coffee.

In particular, a species of tree called scalesia, native to the Galapagos, but largely wiped out since the arrival of humans.

Probably at one time there were hundreds, thousands who knows, lots and lots of these trees at this elevation, Henderson says of the highlands region. He and his wife originally bought their farm in part to restore the scalesia forest.

They are one of the most important species, Henderson says. So many of the birds and the insects that are the foundation of the Galapagos ecosystem depended for some part of their life cycle on that tree. So thats why we went on and planted a couple thousand of them.

And the couple realized that coffee might be the cash crop they needed to finance their restoration dream.

We may not have a perfect, restored Galapagos highland ecosystem, but weve got all the elements of it, Henderson says. And what pays for that to happen is coffee.

Shade-grown coffee can fetch premium prices because it can cut the use of unsustainable farming practices. It has become the coffee you drink if you care about the planets health and can afford to pay a little more.

And then there are benefits to the local ecosystem, which trickle down to its most humble creatures, including a species of moth that feeds only on the scalesia.

Without the trees, the moths disappear, which has a knock-on effect through the islands. The government is so worried that it has a plan to reforest scalesia across the islands by 2050.

Hendersons plan is giving that effort a head start.

It may seem idealistic to think an American expat and his Ecuadorean wife could restore a Galapagos ecosystem, but local biologist Heinke Jagar of the Charles Darwin Foundation says theyre kind of doing it.

Its a good example of what would work as a model for other farmers, Jagar says.

So far,many other locals seem to like the idea too.

We protect the forest, says Paul Salinas, who buys beans from Lava Javaand other local growers for his shop OMG Coffee, one of the high-end cafes near the Santa Cruz harbor.We inspire [other] little farms to stop using diesel, so they are moving [to] solar, some of them. ... So we are generating change."

Theyre also generating something new a one of a kind product grown in the islands cold ocean air, volcanic landscape and scalesia forests.

Salinas says the flavor of Galapagos coffee is unique.

But just how good is a shade-grown, ecosystem-restoring Galapagos brew? Youll have to go there to find out.

Of course youve always wanted to see the blue footed boobies, right?

From PRI's The World 2017 PRI

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Humans are damaging the fragile Galapagos ecosystem. Maybe coffee can help save it. - KOSU

Source: Civic Place/Date: PALO ALTO, Calif. - August 23rd, 2017

Civic Improves wikiHows Security and User Experience by Enabling 150 Million wikiHow Users to Log In without Usernames or Passwords.

Civic, the revolutionary blockchain identity verification technology, today announced the official roll out of its strategic partnership with wikiHow, the worlds leading how-to website. The partnership will help deliver a more streamlined, secure experience for wikiHow users through Civics Secure Identity Platform. As a result, over 150 million monthly wikiHow users will now be able to login securely without using a username and password.

We are pleased to officially welcome wikiHow to Civics Partner Network. This collaboration illustrates our continuing, strong momentum in building our ecosystem for on-demand, secure, and low-cost access to identity verification services, said Civic CEO, Vinny Lingham.

Jack Herrick, CEO of wikiHow, shares his support for the new partnership, saying, wikiHow is partnering with Civic because we believe in their long term goal of decentralizing identity. We hope to live in a future where people, not corporations, control their own personal information. While Civic is still building towards that decentralized vision and has a way to go, as of today Civic ID already offers better security than passwords. So were happy to offer Civic login to provide a better user experience for the 150 million people a month who visit wikiHow.

New wikiHow account creation is simplified by providing verified identity data with the Civic mobile app. Through Civics Secure Identity Platform wikiHow now provides greater assurance in the privacy of data transactions and greater trust in user identity. Civic helps ensure wikiHow accounts are created by the true owner of the identity data, and provides a better user experience, without weak passwords, password reset vulnerabilities, and the hassle of legacy two-factor authentication.

To create a verified ID with Civic, wikiHow users must download the Civic mobile app and complete an Identity Validation Process. The simple, quick process verifies credentials to ensure ownership of the identity and establishes the required level of trust. The data is fully encrypted in the Civic app on users devices, not stored by Civic or wikiHow.

After validation, the user is considered a Civic Member with authenticated identity data and may share this data with other Civic partners. Civic-verified identities help businesses lower identity verification costs and reduce the likelihood and impact of data breaches.

Learn how to get started with Civic at: https://www.wikihow.com/Use-Civic

About Civic

Civic is an identity verification and management service that allows consumers to protect and authorize the use of their identities in real-time. Civic is spearheading the development of an ecosystem that is designed to facilitate on-demand, secure, and low-cost access to identity verification services via the blockchain. Civic recently introduced a Civic token that participants in the ecosystem will use to provide and receive identity verification-related services. The company sold $33 million of its tokens during its token sale event in June.

For more information or to become a Civic business partner, visit https://www.civic.com/

Disclosure: Civic is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

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Civic Integrates with wikiHow to Expand Identity Verification Ecosystem - Coinspeaker

Mass Audubons Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary 345 Bone Hill Rd - Cummaquid Events

41.7093184 -70.27641419999998

Date/Time Date(s) - August 24, 2017 10:00 am - 11:30 am

Location Mass Audubon's Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary Cummaquid

Categories

How do horseshoe crabs survive on the mudflats? What do birds do when it rains? What kind of tracks does a raccoon leave? Long Pastures Ecosystem Explorers program will uncover the answers to these questions and many more this summer as kids learn about the incredible environments at Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary.

During this multi-week program, learn about butterflies, horseshoe crabs, frogs, trees and marshes as naturalist Andrea Higgins conducts field experiments and crafts that will get you thinking like a biologist and a nature-inspired artist! Make T-Shirt prints, net turtles, discover horseshoe crabs and catch frogs as your explore different habitats each week and learn about Cape Cods amazing animals.

August 24 Ecosystem Explorers Week 9: Twitter in the Trees Description: Birds sing in the trees at Long Pasture and fly from branch to branch. A Nuthatch climbs along using its talons while a chickadee sings its song. Explore the woods and make necklaces out of forest cuttings, paint with pine needles and learn some important bird songs!

MA Audubon Member Adult $7 Child $5, Non-member Adult $9 Child $7

Pre-registration is required. For more information call 508-362-7475 or visit website: http://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/long-pasture

The rest is here:

Long Pasture Ecosystem Explorers: Twitter in the Trees - CapeCod.com News

A new study shows rehabilitation work on Haifa's beaches contributes to the swift spread of the matuta victor, an invasive swimming crab species

Work being done to rehabilitate the beaches in the Haifaarea is one of the reasons for the swift spread of an invasive swimming crab, according to a study published this week. Covering the beach with sand created a convenient environment for reproduction, and from there the crabs moved to other beaches, endangering populations of local creatures.

The new study was published in the Journal of Natural History and was conducted by two researchers from the natural history museum in Florence, along with Dr. Bella Galil of the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv University and independent researcher Moti Mendelson.

The researchers kept track of the spread of the swimming crab, matuta victor, in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It arrived in the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal and was first spotted in the Haifa Bay area five years ago.

This discovery led to a more systematic surveillance of the crab and its lifestyle, about which little was known. The surveillance discovered a significant increase in the crab population in two main centers, one near the Kiryat Yam beach and the other near the Nahal Naaman estuary in northwestern Israel, which suffers from high levels of pollution.

The researchers believe that the pollution in Nahal Naaman and the additional sand in Kiryat Yam created the conditions for the increase. The sand covered the living creatures on the beach and removed competitors. The pollution also adversely affected the crabs competitors and made it easier for it to reproduce.

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We created conditions for them like Club Med and turned it into an export industry to other countries, which arent exactly happy about it, said Galil. They reproduced rapidly and reached the Lebanese coast. Now the crabs are on other beaches, including those in Antalya, Turkey, 1,500 kilometers from Haifa Bay.

The swift population increase apparently exacerbated the competition for food. The researchers documented fights over food among the crabs, which included hitting with their legs and pincers and attempts to hold a rival crab and turn it onto its back. This is something that hasnt been observed among crabs anywhere else.

The increase in the population of these crabs causes the sidelining of local crab species and is considered a threat to the ecological system. In light of what happened in Kiryat Yam, Galil thinks the Enviromental Protection Ministry should consider the effect of the domination of invasive species when approving plans for the artificial supplying of sand on the beaches. There is an inclination to expand the use of this method in the coming years to protect the cliff adjacent to the beach, which is in danger of collapsing due to contact with the waves. The sand is meant to serve as a protective layer for the cliff.

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Crab invasion in Israel captured in unprecedented footage - Haaretz ... - Haaretz

Storyzys business is alerting brands to their presence on fake news sites. By and large, the advertising communitys response is simply appalling.

French startup Storyzy spotted six hundred forty-four brands on questionable sites ranging from hardcore hyper-partisan fake news sites to clickbait venues hosting bogus content with no particular agenda, except making a quick buck.

Storyzy showed me the list of brands that fund the fake news ecosystem, but didnt want Monday Note to publish it. Never mind. With 600+ advertisers, you can expect many household names to show up. And they do: tech companies, banks, retailers, airlines, cosmetic companies, luxury goods companies, universities, and NGOs. Reputed media brands ended up on hyper-partisan and fake news sites. As shown below, The New York Times was spotted on RealtimePolitics and The Wall Street Journal on Americas Freedom Fighters:

While some advertisers know and choose to turn a blind eye, most of the brands feeding the fake news industry do so completely unaware of their complicity.

In fact, they are caught in a combination of negligence and greed from media buyers and the cohort of intermediaries that rule the digital advertising sector.

The real surprise comes from the brands reaction once they are notified. Normally, one would expect most of them to take radical measures to notify the chain of intermediaries, such as media buyers or trading desks.

To alert advertisers caught on junk or blatant fake news sites, Storyzy sends them an email with eloquent screenshots attached.

We contacted about 400 brands, says Pierre-Albert Ruquier, marketing director and co-founder of Storyzy. Reaction varies. Some clearly dont care and dont even bother to respond. The biggest advertisers usually refer us to their media buying partners. We talk to most of them, even though we are often received coldly. Weirdly enough, we are also sent to large consulting firms that advise big clients on brand safety issues. The vast majority of advertisers dont know where their ads land. Or choose to ignore it. Thats why when they refer us to their media buying agency these wont budge. The reason is that almost all campaigns are ROI-based, a field dominated by behavioral targeting and retargeting.

In other words: Most of the brands dont really care where their ads show up as long as the overall return on investment is fine. One of the worlds largest hotel chains told us they dont mind showing up on questionable sites if it is the result of a retargeting process, which is a convenient way to say that, as long as they can invoke deniability, performance supersedes any damage caused to the brand, or ethical considerations such as fueling a vast network of misinformation. And if by chance the brand does care, they cant always trust intermediaries whose incentives are tied to the campaigns financial performance.

Such a combination of deniability and greed is toxic. It explains the millions of dollars that contribute to the well-being of a fake news/junk news system, one that needs not worry about survivability. (Misinformation media are, in addition, super efficient at maximizing bang for their own buck: their production costs are but a tiny fraction of those required for legit sites.)

Storyzy derived its current business from expertise in fact-checking that goes back to 2012. At the time, the startup was called Trooclick; its goal, using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, was detecting false information in financial news.

Five years later, the initial product expanded to a more general quote verification system called Quote Verifier.

Currently, the service is available via a paid-for API (access to the web site, however, is free). This function is at the core of the companys fake news detection.

According to Ramon Ruti, CTO and co-founder of Storyzy, extracting quotes in a reliable fashionand being able to find and properly attribute indirect quotesis complex and requires layers of techniques: sentence splitting to detect misleading sentences boundaries like in certain acronyms; morphosyntactic analysis, to understand the nature of each word; topic and named entities extraction; reported speech extraction, for both direct and indirect speech; and other tweaks to deal with language ambiguity and newswriting imprecision.

Each day, Storyzy collects and sorts 50,000 new quotes in English lifted from 5,000 trusted and untrusted sources. The quote is a quintessential element of journalismespecially in the Anglo-Saxon world. Quotes are also the most often forged and the most hijacked items used by fake news sites. Even if a fake quote can be debunked in a matter of hours, the delay is largely sufficient for broad viral propagation on social nets. Hence the utility of the quote verifier to quickly pinpoint false information. Combined with other signals, it proves quite effective at fingering fake news sites.

Quotes also have great value for documentation purposes. Storyzy is currently building a private website for a global media brand to be used by journalists, fact-checkers, and moderators who will verify quotes, attribution, and context; the service will be plugged on the publishers CMS to warrant the accuracy of archived quotes.

For its brand safety-related business, Storyzy is just warming up. A few months ago, the company started to provide a list of 750 questionable websites to its customers, and more bad sites are added at a rate of 20~30 a month. Storyzy is also working on a full monitoring service to ensure brand safetyfor those who are interested.

Careless advertisers and media buyerss are actually harmful to everybody:

This post originally appeared at Monday Note. Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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More than 600 global brands are advertising on fake news websitesand they don't seem to care - Quartz

When the Negros Island Region (NIR) was declared as a unit separate from Regions 6 and 7, a lot of us in the environmental groups were glad for the islands natural resources.

Finally, the island, the fourth largest in the country, can be managed as one whole ecosystem, with better coordinated efforts for sustainable agriculture, wildlife conservation, ecotourism, and a green economy.

Despite differences in dialect, the people of Negros were ready to build and sustain the connections between the Occidental and Oriental sides.

Weve seen that dream shot down again. This is not an essay attempting to unravel the political complications of both the establishment and the dissolution of the NIR. In the movement for sustainability, one can be overwhelmed with politics at play, sometimes at the expense of our environment.

What we could talk about now is how the current generation of Negrosanons from the two provinces (and now two separate regions) see that even though we are divided in administration, we could still definitely continue to work together for our shared goals.

People will ask why there would even be a divided Negros. This is a question we could start with. Perhaps for a long time, has it been difficult to travel through the terrain in the middle of the island?

Roads were not well-paved, safety amid insurgency was an important concern, and it took more than half of the day to get to the other side of Negros. I grew up in Bacolod City and honestly I wasnt able to memorize what cities and municipalities are in Negros Oriental. When I was learning more about geography, the farthest in my memory of Negros were Hinoba-an in the south and San Carlos City on the other end.

It was only in the last three years that Ive come to truly appreciate connecting with Negros Oriental. The millennial trends in social media have brought us the stories and images of the beautiful other side. It does hit you: How come weve traveled to other islands when we havent fully explored our own?

My questions to fellow young people from Negros Occidental: Have you been to the caves of Mabinay? Have you enjoyed the air in Canlaon? Have you seen the beauty of the Balinsasayao? Mt. Talinis? There must be a lot more to appreciate in Negros Oriental.

And with the better road system now, and information easier to find through the Internet, we have to encourage the visiting exchanges between Occidental and Oriental. The travel routes in between will hopefully usher new businesses, products, and experiences for the locals of Negros Island.

In terms of ecology, even if NIR is no longer an entity, our island remains to be an ecosystem we all need to take care of, even if it is divided into two different jurisdictions.

The NIR team of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) was one of the very active NIR-borne agencies that I was optimistic about.

I was disappointed with Regional Director Al Orolfos departure and now even more with the dismantling DENR-NIR just when we were starting to gain momentum in the continued fight for our protected areas. But then again, we must continue to protect our islands ecological wealth, even through changes in political landscapes.

Our meager three to four percent primary forest cover is delicate, and as Negrosanons we need to be aware of all the efforts past and present to conserve Negros forests and reefs.

Barely scratching the surface of Negros Islands environmental concerns, I am aware there are readers here who are passionate and eager about the status of different projects that may affect our islands resources.

As stewards of our one island ecosystem, valuing interconnectedness of our remaining forests and reefs, we need to have a discourse thats not an all-or-nothing for any side. I invite different parties to send this newspaper letters about issues you care about so that theres a space for these participatory discussions.

***

In Dumaguete City last weekend for the Students Environmental Writing Initiative (Camp SEWI), I had a meaningful time with 15 young and aspiring environmental journalists.

Organized by Silliman Mass Communications magna cum laude and TOSP finalist Val Vestil with the support of Kennesaw State University in Georgia, USA (where Vestil was an academic fellow earlier this year), the US State Departments Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), and the American Studies Resource Center of Silliman University Library, the event provided training to improve budding journalists skills in reporting environmental stories. More of this workshop and its outputs in my next column.

See the article here:

One island ecosystem | SunStar - Sun.Star

On August 17, a California Indian Tribe,two fishing groups, and two environmental organizations joined a growing number of organizations, cities and counties suing the Jerry Brown and Donald Trump administrations to block the construction of the Delta Tunnels.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe,North Coast Rivers Alliance (NCRA), Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Associations (PCFFA) and the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association filed suit against the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) in Sacramento Superior Court to overturn DWRs approval of the Twin Tunnels, also know as the California WaterFixProject,on July 21, 2017

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe has lived on the banks of the McCloud River for thousands of years and our culture is centered on protection and careful, sustainable use of its salmon, saidCaleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe near Mt. Shasta. Our salmon were stolen from us when Shasta Dam was built in 1944.

Since that dark time, we have worked tirelessly to restore this vital salmon run through construction of a fishway around Shasta Dam connecting the Sacramento River to its upper tributaries including the McCloud River.The Twin Tunnels and its companion proposal to raise Shasta Dam by 18 feet would push the remaining salmon runs toward extinction and inundate our ancestral and sacred homeland along the McCloud River,Chief Sisk stated.

The Trump and Brown administrations and project proponents claim the tunnels would fulfill the coequal goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration, but opponents point out that project would create no new water while hastening the extinction of winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other imperiled fish species

The project would also imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers that have played a central role in the culture, religion and livelihood of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes for thousands of years.

The tunnels would divert 9,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Sacramento River near Clarksburg and transport it 35 miles via two tunnels 40-feet in diameter for export to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests andSouthern California, according to lawsuit documents. The projectwould divert approximately 6.5 million acre-feet of water per year, a quantity sufficient to flood the entire state of Rhode Island under nearly 7 feet of water.

The groups pointed out that this staggering quantity of water equal to most of the Sacramento Rivers flow during the summer and fall would exacerbate the Deltas severe ecological decline, pushing several imperiled species of salmon and steelhead closer to extinction.

Stephan Volker, attorney for the Tribe and organizations, filed the suit.The suit alleges that DWRs approval of the California WaterFix Project and certification of its Environmental Impact Report violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009, and the Public Trust Doctrine.

The Public Trust Doctrine protects the Deltas imperiled fish and wildlife from avoidableharm whenever it is feasible to do so, according to lawsuit documents. Contrary to this mandate, the Project proposes unsustainableincreases in Delta exports that will needlessly harm public trust resources, and its FEIR dismisses fromconsideration feasible alternatives and mitigation measures that would protect and restore the Deltas ecological functions. Because the Project sacrifices rather than saves the Deltas fish and wildlife, itviolates the Public Trust Doctrine.

Representatives of the fishing and environmental groups explained their reasons for filing the lawsuit.

The... Twin Tunnels is a hugely expensive boondoggle that could pound the final nail in the coffin of Northern Californias salmon and steelhead fishery,statedNoah Oppenheim, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Associations (PCFFA).There is still time to protect these declining stocks from extinction, but taking more water from their habitat will make matters far worse.

Larry Collins, President of the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association, stated, Our organization of small, family-owned fishing boats has been engaged in the sustainable harvest of salmon and other commercial fisheries for over 100 years.By diverting most of the Sacramento Rivers flow away from the Delta and San Francisco Bay, the Twin Tunnels would deliver a mortal blow to our industry and way of life.

Frank Egger, President of the North Coast Rivers Alliance, stated that the imperiled salmon and steelhead of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers are one of Northern Californias most precious natural resources.They must not be squandered so that Southern California can avoid taking the water conservation measures that many of us adopted decades ago.

Chief Sisk summed upthe folly of Browns legacy project, the Delta Tunnels, at her speech at the March for Science on Earth Day 2017 before a crowd of 15,000 people at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

The California Water Fix is the biggest water problem, the most devastating project, that Californians have ever faced, said Chief Sisk. Just ask the people in the farmworker communities of Seville and Alpaugh, where they cant drink clean water from the tap.

The twin tunnels wont fix this problem. All this project does is channel Delta water to water brokers at prices the people in the towns cant afford, she stated.

To read the full story, go to:www.sandersinstitute.com/...

The lawsuit filed by Volkers joins an avalanche of lawsuits against the Delta Tunnels.Sacramento, San Joaquin and Butte Counties have already filed lawsuits against the California WaterFix and more lawsuits are expected to join these on Monday, August 21.

On June 29, fishing and environmental groupsfiled two lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's biological opinions permitting the construction of the controversial Delta Tunnels.

Four groups the Golden Gate Salmon Association (GGSA), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Defenders of Wildlife, and the Bay Institute charged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species (ESA), a landmark federal law that projects endangered salmon, steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and other fish species. The lawsuits said the biological opinions are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion."

On June 26, the Trump administration released a no-jeopardy finding in their biological opinions regarding the construction of the Delta Tunnels, claiming that the California WaterFix "will not jeopardize threatened or endangered species or adversely modify their critical habitat." The biological opinions are available here: http://www.fws.gov/...

Over the past few weeks, the Brown administration has incurred the wrath of environmental justice advocates, conservationists and increasing numbers of Californians by ramrodding Big Oils environmentally unjust cap-and-trade bill, AB 398, through the legislature; approving the reopening of the dangerous SoCalGas natural gas storage facility at Porter Ranch; green lighting the flawed EIS/EIR documents permitting the construction of the California WaterFix; and issuing a take permit to kill endangered salmon and Delta smelt in the Delta Tunnels.

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Winnemem Wintu, fishing groups sue to block ecosystem-killing Delta Tunnels - Intercontinental Cry

Opportunities and Challenges Surrounding Broadcom in Fiscal 3Q17 PART 1 OF 16

After multiple mergers and acquisitions, Broadcom (AVGO) became the worlds largest fabless IC (integrated circuit) design company by revenue in 2Q17, according to Trendforce. Broadcom was followed by Qualcomm (QCOM) and NVIDIA (NVDA) in second and third place, respectively. Broadcom has a vast portfolio of 18 IC components used in the communications market.

Broadcoms business segments are Wired Infrastructure, Wireless, Enterprise Storage, and Industrial. Its products and services include data center networking, set-top boxes, broadband access, smartphones, factory automation, and electronic displays.

TrendForce analyst CY Yao stated that Broadcom became a leader in IC design due to strong growth momentum in network infrastructure,data center applications, and automotive electronics. He expects that companies with exposure to the above three markets would witness strong growth in 3Q17 as well. Yao added that companies with exposure to smartphone chipsets or display drivers could face a slowdown in growth.

Qualcomm, which has a large exposure to smartphone chipsets, is seeing a slowdown in growth. NVIDIAand Xilinx (XLNX), which have large exposure to network infrastructure and data center applications, are enjoying strong growth.

Broadcom has exposure in each of these markets, and it earns around 10% of its revenues from Apple (AAPL). Some analysts believe that Broadcom would be the biggest beneficiary from the iPhone 8.This growth comes along with several challenges.

Broadcom is acquiring Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD) to expand its reach in the enterprise and data center storage market. However, this acquisition has been facing stringent scrutiny from regulators, which delayed the deal by a few months.

Broadcomrecently came under negative news after a flaw in its chips exposed several smartphones to a bug. Although the issue has been resolved, it prompted the company to improve the security of its chips.Despite these challenges, Broadcom has posted strong earnings, and it is on track to meet or exceed its target financial model.

In this series, well look at the opportunities and challenges that could impact Broadcoms fiscal 3Q17 earnings.

Read more here:

A Look at Broadcom's Business Ecosystem - Market Realist

Most cryptocurrency enthusiasts see Ethereum as a project that has a lot of potential. Itstechnology most notablysmart contracts is certainly worth exploring. Unfortunately, any new form of technology will also attract people with less-than-honest intentions. The Ethereum ecosystem has become a home to cybercrime in a disturbing way. Millions of dollars have been stolen over the past few years, and it looks like things will not be improving anytime soon.

Most Ethereum enthusiasts will agree that the technology used by project developers leaves much to be desired. This is especially true on the security front. Some very disturbing exploits have been discovered and taken advantage of in recentyears. A new post on the Chainalysis blog explains how cybercrime related to Ethereum is on the rise, as it has proven to be a very profitable undertaking. Whether a DAO or cryptocurrency ICO, hackers will exploit any weakness they can find.

Cryptocurrency userswill remember how Ethereum started gaining a lot of momentum when The Dao was announced. This massive project had a lot of promise, and itsbusiness model is still considered to be solid to this very day. Unfortunately for The DAO and the team behind this project, their dream concept quickly turned into a nightmare. Raising around US$177 million in funding was a big milestone, but was also bound to attract criminals. It did not take all that long for smart contract flaws to be discovered, eventually leading to 40% of all ICO funds being stolen. Some of this money was eventually recovered, but it showed how immature the technology was at that time.

Unfortunately for Ethereum, things have not improved all that much in the past year. Cryptocurrency ICOs have become more popular than ever. Not only do these crowdsales cripple the blockchain on a regular basis, there is also a significantsecurity risk associated with such projects. There are dozens of scam sites and phishing attempts to steal investors funds in one way or another. According to Chainalysis, around 10% of Ethereum holdings inICO investments are in the hands of criminals. This means nearly US$150 million worth of Ether has fallen into the wrong hands. Thatis a substantial amount that will most likely never be recovered.

As more cryptocurrency ICOs take place, there will naturally be more ERC20 tokens. That in itself is not a big deal, for the time being. With over US$1.6 billion raised by most recent projects, there is a lot of money movingaround in the cryptocurrency world. This will always attract people with both honest and malicious intentions alike. In a recent incident, one cryptocurrency ICO saw the smart contract address on itswebsite changed by a hacker. This situation was resolved quickly, but not before some customers had sent a lot of money to the wrong address as a result.

Bugs found in the code used by Ethereum-based projects are just one of the potential threats. Phishing attacks are the main concern, with the number of victims well above the 16,000 mark. Exploits are the second-most commonthreat, followed by effective hacks and Ponzi Schemes. All of this goes toshow that most projects themselves have nothing but honest intentions. Whether or not that will remain to be the case is anybodys guess.

Having entities such as Chainalysis keep tabs on these trends and highlight bad elements is quite beneficial to the Ethereum community as a whole. Clearly there is work to be done in this regard. The technology itself is improving, which is a positive trend. Protecting users from phishing attacks is a different matter altogether. If auser cannot tell the difference between a fake and genuine email or website, there is very little project operators can do to make it more obvious.

Originally posted here:

Cybercrime Is on the Rise in the Ethereum Ecosystem The Merkle - The Merkle

Sunny Savage, wild foods activist and author of Wild Food Plants of Hawaii, will launch her mobile food truck, Savage Kitchen Maui, on Aug. 24, 2017.

Sunny Savages food truck will serve up wild, invasive plants which threaten Mauis ecosystems. PC: Cadence Feeley

With nearly 80% of Hawaiis endangered plants threatened by invasive plant species, Savage sees eating the invasives as a way to turn a liability into an asset.

The food truck will serve up wild, invasive plants which threaten Mauis ecosystems. Savage says she hopes to educate customers on how to eat and enjoy the abundance of wild foods that grow on Maui, and is focusing on five different edible invasives.

Wild foods are a gateway into connecting deeply with the land and with ourselves. In addition to serving up exceptionally nutritious and delicious gourmet wild foods, Savage Kitchen Maui is an outreach tool, where I can introduce people to these unique flavors and create awareness around haole koa, strawberry guava, Java plum, spiny amaranth and kahili ginger, she said. That will hopefully lead to more people harvesting these invasives for their own tables, while learning the importance of not spreading them further.

In 2001, the Hawaii legislature identified invasive species as the number one threat to Hawaiis environment, economy, and to the health and wellness of Hawaiis people.

Savage Kitchen Maui is working on an app that will assist in identifying, mapping, harvesting, and preparing the five highlighted edible invasives. I want to empower people with a tool that will assist them in incorporating these wild edible invasives into their daily life. These plants are gatekeepers to sharing information about how to survive climate change, how to protect ourselves from disease, and how to heal.

Dishes at the food truck will include Tempeh Kering made with wild haole koa seeds, Crispy Egg bowl with wild kahili ginger onion jam, and a savory pastry filled with wild spiny amaranth greens and Java plum chutney. Wild flavored kombucha and other drinks will be available as well.

The food truck and mobile app was funded in part through community crowd-sourcing, where Savage raised over $30,000 to transform her vision into a reality.

The food truck will be open every Thursday and Friday to start and will be at different locations around Maui. Details on where to locate the food truck and its hours of operation can be found on Twitter @savagekitchenhi, the Savage Kitchen Maui Facebook page, and here.

The mobile app will launch later this fall in the Apple iTunes store and Android Google Play.

Savage has spent 20 years working with wild plants around the world and formerly hosted the television series Hot on the Trail with Sunny Savage. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Dietetics and Master of Science degree in Nutrition Education.

Read the original here:

New Food Truck Aims to Save Maui's Ecosystem - Maui Now

Hurricanes and other strong storms can have a profound impact on communities. Power outages, flooding and interruption of communication systems can interrupt everyday life. But storms and natural disasters can wreak havoc on animals, ecosystems and coastal habitats.

Although parts of the world have been subjected to hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes and other storms for millenia, experts at the United States Department of the Interior and the U.S. Geological Survey say that today's storms may be more detrimental to animal life and ecosystems than ever before. That's because periodic disturbances on plants and animals that result from storms are compounded by consistent environmental changes brought on by human development and industry. Animals that could once bounce back from a weather event may find it harder to rebound because their habitats have already been weakened by human interference.

In 1998, Hurricane Georges was the most destructive hurricane to strike the island of Puerto Rico since 1932. Georges further stressed the habitat of rare species such as the sea turtle and the highly endangered Puerto Rican parrot, cutting the parrot population in half. Conservation specialists estimate there are fewer than 50 of these parrots currently living in the wild and roughly 140 in captivity.

Thousands of animals live in coastal regions. In addition to high, damaging winds taking down trees and defoliating forest canopies, wind can cause powerful storm surges that displace sand. Ultimately, entire coastal landscapes may be reshaped or reduced.

Information from the University of Rhode Island estimates that hurricanes such as Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike have changed shoreline positions of about 328 feet (100 meters) in certain areas. Northeastern coastal areas in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have been entirely reshaped in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Wildlife that may have been living in the dunes or coastal channels of areas impacted by hurricanes and other storms may have been obliterated or forced to relocate to other, less tolerable locations. Barrier islands, important for protecting areas of the coast, shift or erode, taking out forests that are resting places for migratory birds. Should a storm take place during a period of mating or egg-laying, entire generations of animal life can be wiped out.

Coastal areas are not the only places impacted by such storms. During Hurricane Sandy, seawater breached many areas that had never before seen such a surge in water levels. Saltwater intrusion can change other wetland ecosystems, making them inhabitable for some organisms not acclimated to salty conditions. Displaced sand can end up suffocating insects and other animals in areas where it has been dumped, and may impede the growth of grasses and other plants that feed a wide variety of animals.

Hurricanes can affect marine life as well. Hurricanes can destroy oyster beds and crab habitats and displace fish that feed many other large marine creatures. Flood waters can transport sewage and untreated chemicals from land into the water, harming marine life as a result. Fish and crustaceans may be tossed on shore, where they are unable to return to the safety of the water. Furthermore, discharge of boat fuel and oil from wrecked vessels can infiltrate marine ecosystems, further damaging delicate species.

Hurricanes can cause structural changes, interruption of food sources and destruction of homes while slowing down communication methods. But hurricanes affect the animals that live in and around storm-ravaged areas as well.

Excerpt from:

How hurricanes affect the ecosystem | | shorenewstoday.com - Shore News Today

If you do aerial spreading you just spread seeds wherever maybe they hit a rock, maybe they hit a swamp, and theyre not going to survive. Photo: BioCarbon Engineering

Mangroves are a group oftrees and shrubsthat live in thecoastal intertidal zone, and mangrove forests only grow at tropical and subtropical latitudes near the equator because they cannot withstand freezing temperatures.

For about five years now, a group of villagers in the delta of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar (also known as Burma) has painstakingly planted 2.7 million mangrove trees with the hopes of beginning to restore an ecosystem that has been disappearing for decades. But this work is rather laborious, and the local nonprofit guiding the work wants to cover a much larger area so theyre to turning drones to help with their large-scale tree-planting project.

The drones, from the startupBioCarbon Engineering, can plant as many as 100,000 trees in a single day, leaving the local community to focus on taking care of the young trees that have already started to grow, according to the company, which has offices in Oxford, U.K., Sydney, Australia and Dublin, Ireland. In September, the company will begin a drone-planting program in the area along withWorldview International Foundation, the nonprofit guiding local tree-planting projects. To date, the organization has worked with villagers to plant an area of 750 hectares, about twice the size of Central Park. The drones will help cover another 250 hectares with 1million additional trees. Ultimately, the nonprofit hopes to use drones to help plant 1billion trees in an even larger area.

The technology will come together in stages. As a first step, mapping drones fly more than 300 feet over the land, collecting detailed data about the topography and soil quality. An algorithm uses that data to choose the best locations to plant trees, and the best species to plant. Next, asecond group of drones, flying low over the ground, automatically follows the map to plant seeds in custom, nutrient-filled seed pods designed by plant scientists to support each species. Each of the drones can carry a mix of different species simultaneously. The drones fire the pods quickly enough to penetrate the soil, states BioCarbon Engineering.

The company has a video, Changing the world One billion trees at a time from zee on Vimeo, that is available at https://vimeo.com/126378542

The process targets locations for planting a seed within centimeters. We can modify what to plant, and where, so you have the highest chance of survival, says Irina Fedorenko, cofounder of BioCarbon Engineering. If you do aerial spreading you just spread seeds wherever maybe they hit arock, maybe they hit aswamp, and theyre not going to survive. But we can basically control for that.

With todays technology, its possible for a single drone pilot to oversee six of the drones simultaneously, reaching the maximum of 100,000 plantings in a day. Drone regulations in some countries, however, do require a pilot for every drone, making the process slightly slower. The drones are at least 10times faster than humans planting trees by hand, while the process can cost half as much.

The startup began developing the technology in 2015 and says that they have successfully tested the process on test plots in the U.K. and in Australia, where they used a seed-spreading drone to plant trees at an abandoned coal mine.

Drones are being used to plant trees in Myanmar. Photo: BioCarbon Engineering.

In the U.K., where the test plots have been in place for more than a year, the trees are showing good rates of survival. [Survival rates are] definitely much better than spreading from a helicopter, which many people use, says Fedorenko. In some species, its comparable with hand planting. In Myanmar, the technology will be tweaked to best handle local conditions. Mangrove trees grow in brackish water along coastlines, so the drones will have to successfully shoot the seed pods underwater.

Members of the local community will be paid to collect seeds and load the seed pods for planting, and, more importantly, take care of the trees as they grow. Planting trees on its own is not actually that hard, she says. The crucial part of the ecosystem restoration

project is not actually planting trees, its the post-planting monitoring and management. Mangroves play several roles in the area. The roots filter the water and create a tangled, protected network where fish can live. As the trees have been cut down to make way for rice or shrimp farming or used for fuel 75% of the local mangrove cover was lost by the 1990s the local fishing industry has seen fish stocks plummet.

In the past villages have spent years replanting mangroves along the Irrawaddy River. With drones, their work will now go much faster.

Go here to read the rest:

These Drones Designed to Plant Mangrove Trees and Help Restore an Ecosystem - Inside Unmanned Systems

VOL. 132 | NO. 165 | Monday, August 21, 2017

Memphis entrepreneurScott Vogel, whos also executive director of Regional One Healths Center for Innovation, was the keynote speaker at the The Daily News latest seminar.(Daily News/Houston Cofield)

In the days following Memphis latest startup Demo Day event, after new startup funding announcements, after former U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith even gave Memphis startup community a shoutout on Bloomberg TV, it might seem like the startup scene here is having a moment.

Key stakeholders in the ecosystem, though, say there are still a few things holding back even more progress - impediments, even, to more startups getting launched, getting funded and having enough resources to stay in business. Or, at least, to stay in Memphis.

Funding and engineering talent were some of those factors mentioned at the top of the list during The Daily News latest seminar, this time focused on startups and innovation. Keynoted by Scott Vogel, a serial entrepreneur in Memphis whos also executive director of Regional One Healths Center for Innovation, there was plenty to praise.

But leaders like him and Andre Fowlkes - president of the Start Co. organization, which runs a collection of local startup accelerator programs - also pointed out that theres still lots more startup and innovation potential for Memphis to tap into. But doing so is not free.

Vogel, for example, suggested during a panel discussion that Memphis needs something like an angel-plus fund, a pool of capital that can be used to help seed more startup enterprises.

We have to be deliberate about how we build this ecosystem so that talent doesnt run away, Fowlkes said. I think at the end of the day, were going to need a significant shift, whether it comes in the form of angel investment or a $50 million to $150 million fund that can really support a lot of the work thats taking place.

To be sure, that work is bearing fruit. Last weeks Demo Day - the culminating event for Start Co.s accelerators, at which teams pitch potential investors - is evidence alone of that. More than 400 business leaders, including entrepreneurs, mentors and investors, attended the event, at which each founder had three minutes to pitch their businesses in the hopes of winning follow-on funding.

Two teams scored six-figure funding awards.

Vogel, meanwhile, is trying to tap into the nimbleness and innovative potential of the startup world to bring value to the entity he leads within Regional One. It exists, because hospitals have to be so focused on the day-to-day, on regulations, that it doesn't leave much time to devote to new ideas and ways to do things better.

He has big ambitions for it, like hospital employees helping develop ideas that can radically change health care. And even developing revenue streams that can be used to fund a portfolio of startups.

Change is always hard for people in certain industries, said seminar panelist Jessica Buffington, the CEO and co-founder of FrontDoor. Her startup bills itself as a kind of Uber for real estate - a nationwide listing service with a network of agents who agree to sell homes for a flat fee instead of a commission.

This is why, Fowlkes said, it's so important to grow a startup ecosystem in Memphis. Change sometimes comes from outside the corporate world, from small players not afraid to try new things.

Years ago, when we first got into this (at Start Co.), ideas were quite honestly laughed out of the room, he said. A community like Memphis, which has traditionally been more of a brick and mortar-type town, a manufacturing town, tax incentives being the main way we recruit economic development here - when you start talking about diversifying economic development, with technology innovations, etcetera, a lot of people get a little nervous. Because they worry about where the capitals going to come from to do that. Will that capital be taken from efforts already in existence, versus saying to themselves maybe this can recruit outside capital.

Startup leaders here, nevertheless, are pressing forward. And their efforts are being noticed. Smith, for example, was the U.S. CTO during the Obama administration and used what's happening in Memphis to praise the wonderful entrepreneurs around the country during her Bloomberg interview in recent days.

Continue reading here:

Leaders: Memphis Startup Ecosystem Needs More Funding to Grow - Memphis Daily News

When it comes to start-up success, Aussie tech wizards are increasingly making their mark both at home and abroad as they chase their dreams over the rainbow. And just like in the song, many are finding that, with the right support, the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

Of course, Dorothys trek along the yellow brick road has many parallels with the start-up journey, not least of which is the importance of banding together with other like-minded souls in pursuit of your dreams.

If youre a start-up, or aspire to be, its a great time to be in Australia as our start-up eco-system continues to evolve to meet the needs of a growing and diverse start-up community.

The rise of co-working spaces, incubators, and accelerator programs designed to support the transition from nascent idea through to a successful business is being enhanced by increased focus and funding, from both government and private sector entities.

To clarify, incubators are mostly co-working facilities that seek to provide affordable and supportive environments in which founders can launch and grow an early stage start-up, while accelerators offer short-term (typically 2-6 months) programs aimed at delivering rapid growth and scale. There are no rules for what different environments provide, and facilities vary significantly depending on who is involved, the linkages to tertiary and research institutions, funding access, and so on.

The announcement last month of a $35 million investment from the NSW Government to create an 11-storey start-up hub in central Sydney will bring together key players including Stone & Chalk, Fishburners, Tankstream Labs and The Studio, providing facilities and resources for thousands of start-ups.

This followed the announcement of $1.4 million in federal grants for four innovation incubators in Brisbane, Sydney, Newcastle and Adelaide under the Federal Governments $23 million Incubator Support Initiative. The Victorian Government is also developing the Goodshed at Docklands with partners Data 61.

The American example

I was recently in San Francisco and took the opportunity with senior ACS colleagues to investigate the different options available to support start-ups in the US. We visited the Austrade Landing Pad along with several other leading incubator and accelerator facilities including Rocketspace, Founderspace, Parisoma, Alchemist Accelerator and Impact Hub. We also saw BeSpoke a Westfield-operated incubator that targets retail-focused start-ups and offers co-working, demo and event spaces converging retail and technology.

Some co-working spaces are little more than shared real estate with concierge services and regular events to encourage collaboration between different tenants, while others offer a high level of engagement, tailored support and structured programs to move start-ups through defined growth stages.

A sign of growing maturity in the Australian market is greater involvement by corporations in helping to fund incubators or even in some cases establishing their own. Citibank Australia operates a fintech accelerator program while Telstra launched its Gurrowa Innovation Lab in Melbourne two years ago with a strong focus on mobile technology.

ACS Vice-President Yohan Ramasundara is currently on a three-month secondment to Austrade in San Francisco through his employers talent management program. Ramasundara is actively engaged with the innovation and start-up communities and the Australian Landing Pad, while contributing to and learning about Silicon Valleys start-up eco-system.

He said the biggest differences hes noticed between Australia and Silicon Valley are the lack of venture capital funding available in Australia, (an issue also tabled publicly last week by Blackbird Ventures partner, Rick Baker) and our risk-averse culture.

Silicon Valley culture encourages fast failure while its not preferred, they see having a failure under your belt and recovering from it as a positive learning opportunity. The risk appetite is much greater over here and that leads to a more open approach to sharing information and talking freely about business ideas. An idea without execution is not worth much at all. Stakeholders in the eco-system collaborate while competing, he said.

With so many people in a concentrated space all working on start-ups and collaborations, and the easy access to researchers, mentors and investors, theres lots of cross-pollination happening here that Australia really hasnt been able to replicate yet.

Ramasundara welcomed the recent announcements of start-up hubs in Sydney and Melbourne as steps in the right direction, saying its critical to create an environment where founders can readily access a range of professional services and support along with acceleration programs, R&D expertise, investors, mentors, potential partners and collaborators.

Experience counts

One of the key ingredients for a successful start-up eco-system is the ready access to experienced entrepreneurs and professionals to mentor local start-ups through the challenges of seeking funding and scaling their business.

A highlight of my recent visit to San Francisco was speaking with Kevin Jones, who co-founded the Impact Hub for start-ups that want to make a positive change in the world. With eight start-ups under his belt, seven of them successful, Jones has a wealth of experience to offer conscious entrepreneurs operating out of the Impact Hub in San Franciscos Mission community.

Co-working spaces, incubators and accelerators and corporate-funded programs can be good options for some start-ups, however founders should do their research before making a commitment. Some companies are using their incubators to gain early access to technologies that will give them a competitive differentiator with large equity stakes in high potential start-ups.

A critical next step in the development of Australias start-up eco-system will be a clear process to measure the effectiveness of different options and programs to help identify which approaches are delivering the best outcomes to maximise success.

Our future competitiveness in the global economy depends on it.

Here is the original post:

Building a successful start-up ecosystem - ACS (registration)

MUMBAI: Managing relations with founders and key stakeholders has emerged as a vital lesson for CEOs from the Infosys saga. Industry leaders and HR experts said transformation of an enterprise such as Infosys, which is steeped in legacy, especially with an outsider CEO, was not possible without a clear alignment with the company's founders. At the same time, experts said promoters, too, need to change their outlook and not confuse the values of an organisation with personal lifestyles.

"To me, this is an organisation culture crisis," said Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG Enterprises. "Mr Narayana Murthy, by far one of India Inc's most respected leaders, is known to lead a frugal life. Simplicity is in the DNA of many promoters who have built their organisations from scratch. On the other hand, Dr Vishal Sikka, an exemplary global CEO, is a professional who wanted to steer Infosys the way he deemed right and with the board's approval. What emerges from this as well as the Tata-Mistry episode, which is equally painful, is changing relationship dynamics between founders and key stakeholders in today's day and age."

According to K Sudarshan, managing partner of EMA Partners India, there is a fundamental disconnect between the CEO and the key founder. "A transformation is not possible in this environment. How much ever Sikka can do, you cannot wish away the fact that the company was built the way it was.

The founders have their eyes and ears in the organisation and any CEO would be under scrutiny till such time there is mutual trust. At the same time, it is critical for the business to set up a CEO for success, else even the best of them will fail," said Sudarshan.

The lesson is critical as the next CEO, too, would require support from all key stakeholders to make an impact. Ronesh Puri, managing director of Executive Access, said, "One can draw a lot of parallels between what happened at the Tatas and now at Infosys. The promoters are highly accomplished people with a great track record and an awesome reputation, so there is bound to be a lot of emotion at play. Any CEO who tries to change the ecosystem and values of an organisation without proper buy-in from key promoters will not succeed. Nobody gets a blank cheque in today's world."

Several promoter-driven companies today have professional CEOs and the reason they run like well-oiled machines has a lot to do with clarity on individual roles, mutual respect and a good rapport between the CEO and the founder as also the board and the founder. Infosys appears to have failed on many of these counts, except that Sikka had strong support from the board.

Harsh Mariwala, chairman of Marico, said, "The issue is complicated due to strained relations between the board of directors and founders. There has to be total clarity and alignment on the role between the board and the founders. It's not the job of the CEO to manage relations with each founder."

But never mind the relationship between the board and the founders, hiring experts said exceptional ecosystem management skills would be the main criteria of hiring CEOs going forward. "Organisations, when they look for a CEO, should first gauge the ability of a person to wield exceptional ecosystem management skills which can be challenging. The other aspects are not as important. Therefore, it is not merely business. High EQ and promoter/stakeholder management are very important. This criteria does not always get the attention it deserves as companies get too hallowed by a person's reputation and personal achievements," said Puri.

A CEO, who did not wish to be quoted, said in today's networked world, managing relationships is critical for any leader and s/he needs to invest time for this.

"A lot of senior managers today don't want to be a CEO," said Puri. "They believe it's a thankless job, with everything under a microscope and expectations too high and at times with too many pulls and pressures."

Read the rest here:

'CEOs must be able to manage ecosystem' - Economic Times

The sky swings gently above me as I rest in the hammock my kids bought me on a long ago Fathers Day. The tree that is shading me swings back and forth as well, coming in and out of focus with the swaying of the hammock. This is one of the best places to spend time on these hot days, in a hammock with a cold drink and a few minutes of quiet.

The tree above me is a Red Maple. From where I lay, holes in the leaf appear and disappear as dots of blue sky shining through. The tree was carefully chosen to grow fast and shade my children as they grew and, surprisingly, the hammock swaying gently under me. It was also chosen to be eaten by insects.

That may seem like a weird choice to some people, but this choice was based on a book that changed how I looked at landscaping right when I had land to scape. The book was Bringing Nature Home, by Douglas Tallamy.

The core of the book is simple. Animals eat bugs. Many bugs eat plants. If plants from other continents are planted, few native bugs eat them. This means fewer bugs, but also fewer other animals. It takes 6,000 to 9,000 insects, mostly caterpillars, to raise one family of chickadees.

Think about that for a second. Young chickadees leave the nest at around two weeks old. That means that the parents have to find 400 to 600 caterpillars EVERY day. That is a lot of caterpillars to find, especially since the parents rarely travel much more than 50 yards looking for food.

This fact was brought home by Doug Tallamy in person, when he spoke at the Wild America Festival at Panama Rocks a few weeks ago. His program really brought home the value of planting natives. What trees support the caterpillars that feed the birds? Which ones support no insect life?

His book made the concept of my yard evaporate. It is not just a yard now, but one piece of green in a quilted neighborhood of green spaces required by animals to survive. Those animals need native plants to support the insects that they catch to raise their young. Most of these insects are more protein-rich than beef and provide huge amounts of food for birds. This new way of thinking about the yard is called ecosystem gardening.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. Ecosystem gardening is using native plants to make the yard one part of the larger habitat throughout the neighborhood.

Which brings us back to the hammock. The Red Maple over the hammock was chosen because it provides a home to insects and provides shade. Native maples can support almost 300 species of caterpillar. A Red Oak in the corner is almost as tall and was planted by my daughter when she was a year and a half old. Native oaks can support over 400 different caterpillars.

Native plantings along the back of the lot have started to go wild and need to be tamed, but there are great plants there for insects to eat. A variety of milkweeds had Monarch eggs on them last night. The Joe Pye Weed has trails through the leaves from insects that ate them. Black Eyed Susans and coneflowers attract birds, bees and insects to eat the flowers, seeds, and leaves. Towering over all of them is Ironweed, an eight-foot-tall plant with bright purple flowers that attracts all kinds of insects.

The yard has some thought behind it. The yard is full of violets for fritillary caterpillars. Virginia Creeper climbs an old metal pole and provides food for several kinds of caterpillars. A row of Spicebush sports snakelike Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars. The blueberry bushes not only provide yumminess for me, but also insects that eat the leaves.

More and more bird nests are found in my yard each year. At peak nesting time in June, there were Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, robins, Song Sparrows, cardinals and two pairs of chickadees nesting in the yard. Since then, several more robin families, another cardinal family, two more sets of Mourning Doves and two families of House Wrens were also raised there.

My yard doesnt have enough food for all those young. That is literally 35,000 to 50,000 or more caterpillars coming out of the area. My neighborhood is full of big old native trees, from beautiful oaks and Black Walnuts to huge Silver Maples and Black Cherry trees.

Some of the biggest trees have been there the longest, but provide little to no food for the birds. An ancient Norway Maple that may be older than my house towers nearby, but few to no insects dine on the leaves. Bradford Pears are equally unpalatable to local insects. Both are non-natives, but often planted in city and suburban landscapes.

In some ways, planting trees and plants from another country is like filling a salad bar with Poison Ivy. It may look pretty and green, but there is no way that Im filling my plate. Many insects will starve before they recognize those plants as food.

My yard is not a well-manicured paradise. It is a wild ramble of plants, trees, raspberries and wildflowers with overgrown grass in the middle. That, however, has less to do with my plant choices than my personality. It is easy and possible to add a few well-manicured native plants into the landscape and keep a neat aesthetic. It is not hard when planting a new tree to find one that is native to the area and plant it. Some neighborhood trees have been transplanted from the forest or grown by kids from seeds.

Fall is a great time to plant new things in the yard. Trees and shrubs plant well in the fall, as do many seeds and seedlings. Take a few moments, right now, to picture your yard as an animal sees it. Is it a smorgasbord of plants that provide insects with food so the birds love it? Or is it a green desert full of plants that are pretty, but serve little to no purpose for local wildlife? Is there room out there for a few milkweeds or a native oak that can help provide food for nesting birds? If we each plant just a few things, it could make all the difference.

Jeff Tome is a naturalist at the Audubon Community Nature Center.

Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are open from dawn to dusk as is Liberty, the Bald Eagle. The Nature Center is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily except Sunday when it opens at 1 p.m. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345

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Going native helps ecosystem and animals | News, Sports, Jobs ... - Evening Observer

The sky swings gently above me as I rest in the hammock my kids bought me on a long ago Fathers Day. The tree that is shading me swings back and forth as well, coming in and out of focus with the swaying of the hammock. This is one of the best places to spend time on these hot days, in a hammock with a cold drink and a few minutes of quiet.

The tree above me is a Red Maple. From where I lay, holes in the leaf appear and disappear as dots of blue sky shining through. The tree was carefully chosen to grow fast and shade my children as they grew and, surprisingly, the hammock swaying gently under me. It was also chosen to be eaten by insects.

That may seem like a weird choice to some people, but this choice was based on a book that changed how I looked at landscaping right when I had land to scape. The book was Bringing Nature Home, by Douglas Tallamy.

The core of the book is simple. Animals eat bugs. Many bugs eat plants. If plants from other continents are planted, few native bugs eat them. This means fewer bugs, but also fewer other animals. It takes 6,000 to 9,000 insects, mostly caterpillars, to raise one family of chickadees.

Think about that for a second. Young chickadees leave the nest at around two weeks old. That means that the parents have to find 400 to 600 caterpillars EVERY day. That is a lot of caterpillars to find, especially since the parents rarely travel much more than 50 yards looking for food.

This fact was brought home by Doug Tallamy in person, when he spoke at the Wild America Festival at Panama Rocks a few weeks ago. His program really brought home the value of planting natives. What trees support the caterpillars that feed the birds? Which ones support no insect life?

His book made the concept of my yard evaporate. It is not just a yard now, but one piece of green in a quilted neighborhood of green spaces required by animals to survive. Those animals need native plants to support the insects that they catch to raise their young. Most of these insects are more protein-rich than beef and provide huge amounts of food for birds. This new way of thinking about the yard is called ecosystem gardening.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. Ecosystem gardening is using native plants to make the yard one part of the larger habitat throughout the neighborhood.

Which brings us back to the hammock. The Red Maple over the hammock was chosen because it provides a home to insects and provides shade. Native maples can support almost 300 species of caterpillar. A Red Oak in the corner is almost as tall and was planted by my daughter when she was a year and a half old. Native oaks can support over 400 different caterpillars.

Native plantings along the back of the lot have started to go wild and need to be tamed, but there are great plants there for insects to eat. A variety of milkweeds had Monarch eggs on them last night. The Joe Pye Weed has trails through the leaves from insects that ate them. Black Eyed Susans and coneflowers attract birds, bees and insects to eat the flowers, seeds, and leaves. Towering over all of them is Ironweed, an eight-foot-tall plant with bright purple flowers that attracts all kinds of insects.

The yard has some thought behind it. The yard is full of violets for fritillary caterpillars. Virginia Creeper climbs an old metal pole and provides food for several kinds of caterpillars. A row of Spicebush sports snakelike Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars. The blueberry bushes not only provide yumminess for me, but also insects that eat the leaves.

More and more bird nests are found in my yard each year. At peak nesting time in June, there were Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, robins, Song Sparrows, cardinals and two pairs of chickadees nesting in the yard. Since then, several more robin families, another cardinal family, two more sets of Mourning Doves and two families of House Wrens were also raised there.

My yard doesnt have enough food for all those young. That is literally 35,000 to 50,000 or more caterpillars coming out of the area. My neighborhood is full of big old native trees, from beautiful oaks and Black Walnuts to huge Silver Maples and Black Cherry trees.

Some of the biggest trees have been there the longest, but provide little to no food for the birds. An ancient Norway Maple that may be older than my house towers nearby, but few to no insects dine on the leaves. Bradford Pears are equally unpalatable to local insects. Both are non-natives, but often planted in city and suburban landscapes.

In some ways, planting trees and plants from another country is like filling a salad bar with Poison Ivy. It may look pretty and green, but there is no way that Im filling my plate. Many insects will starve before they recognize those plants as food.

My yard is not a well-manicured paradise. It is a wild ramble of plants, trees, raspberries and wildflowers with overgrown grass in the middle. That, however, has less to do with my plant choices than my personality. It is easy and possible to add a few well-manicured native plants into the landscape and keep a neat aesthetic. It is not hard when planting a new tree to find one that is native to the area and plant it. Some neighborhood trees have been transplanted from the forest or grown by kids from seeds.

Fall is a great time to plant new things in the yard. Trees and shrubs plant well in the fall, as do many seeds and seedlings. Take a few moments, right now, to picture your yard as an animal sees it. Is it a smorgasbord of plants that provide insects with food so the birds love it? Or is it a green desert full of plants that are pretty, but serve little to no purpose for local wildlife? Is there room out there for a few milkweeds or a native oak that can help provide food for nesting birds? If we each plant just a few things, it could make all the difference.

Jeff Tome is a naturalist at the Audubon Community Nature Center.

Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are open from dawn to dusk as is Liberty, the Bald Eagle. The Nature Center is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily except Sunday when it opens at 1 p.m. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345

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Going native helps ecosystem and animals - Evening Observer

John Baltisberger August 19th, 2017 - 12:45 PM

A new video for Monster Hunter World from Capcom has veteran hunters pretty excited.Capcom released this video Friday showing the new area, Wildspire Waste, along with a whole host of the monsters that make their homes there.

The Wildspire Waste features a vast sandy desert with areas of muddy marshes where it connects with rivers from the Ancient Forest ecosystem that was initially shown. The dry sand and wet areas make it a great analogue to the sandy beaches and oasis of previous games. Hunters are encouraged to stock up on Cool Drinks and get ready to see some old (and new) friends waiting for them in this new ecosystem.

We cant wait to see how these monster interact within the sandy Wildspire Waste ecosystem, and what new challenges await players as they venture further into Monster Hunter World.

Capcoms video postcan be found here.

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New Ecosystem and Old Friends Join Monster Hunter World - mxdwn.com

16 August 2017 | On July 17, California legislators voted to continue the states cap and trade program until 2030. With this 10-year extension, the California Air Resources Board will oversee a program that reduces greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. Notably, eight Republicans joined with Democrats in support of the bill.

Though widely touted by the press as a victory in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, AB 398 makes several significant changes to the program, and in doing so adds a bitter element into the mix.

Perhaps the bitterest pill was handed to forest owners through the change in how carbon offsets can be used by capped industries (called covered entities) to achieve required emissions reductions. Under the current program, which runs through 2020, covered entities can use carbon offsets to meet 8% of their emissionsthe other 92% comes from the sale of allowances, which are periodically auctioned off by ARB.

Among approved offset sectors, forestry dominates with more than 65% of offsets being generated from U.S. forest projects. While not surprising given the role forests play in sequestering and storing carbon, this is also no small achievement. Specifically, forest projects have issued 43.2 million offsets since the program has been in place, and as the price of offsets has increased, more and more forest owners have started to look at carbon offsets as a real source of revenue.

Most of the forest projects that have been developed to date have carbon stocks that are well above the defined baseline levels. This means that the projects are issued a large volume of offsets during the first crediting period. This in turn provides the project owners with a substantial amount of revenue early on in the project lifespan.

However, over the last 6 months, The Climate Trust has been approached by a number of forest owners who have property where carbon stocks are at the regional baseline. These projects are not eligible for a quick payment, and instead have to generate carbon revenue through annual forest growth over the 25-year crediting period. In other words, these land owners are interested in reducing harvest levels in order to increase carbon sequestration and storage in their forests.

The reasons behind this vary. In some instances, a decline in markets is motivating landowners to look for additional sources of revenue. As carbon offsets increase in value, growing trees for carbon becomes competitive with harvesting them for low-value wood products.

In other cases, landowners have been open to discussing how carbon revenue might help pay for forest thinning projects. Big trees store substantially more carbon than small trees, so while thinning small diameter trees does not have a big impact on carbon stocks, it does promote forest health and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Still other forest landowners have been looking at carbon offset revenue as a possible way to help with intergenerational land planning. The appeal lies in the potential for offset revenue to provide modest annual income. The encumbrance that comes with the 100-year commitment to the program may reduce the tax value of the land as well.

Unfortunately, the changes in AB 398 will likely make it more difficult for most forest owners to pursue carbon projects. Under the new bill, which goes into effect in 2021, covered entities can only use offsets to meet 4% of their emissions reductions (just half of what was previously permitted). Furthermore, half of this reduced limit must come from California-based projects.

To a large extent the evolution of this policy is understandable, as payments for California offsets will be more likely to stay within California. The problem is that this reduction is likely to have an extremely negative impact on the offset market and risks undermining the program itself, as offsets will have a reduced role as an upfront cost containment tool, as originally intended. Early analysis suggests that the program will be significantly more expensive and that there is already enough supply from existing projects to meet the 2% out-of-state volume. If this proves to be the case, it is unlikely new projects will commit to the program in the face of such market uncertainty.

Furthermore, the changes leave current out of state forest projects in the lurch. Forest owners agreed to a 100-year commitment to maintain or increase carbon stocks. The ability to sell those offsets for the duration of the 25-year crediting period factored into that decision. Despite their willingness to sign on to Californias program, currently there is no guarantee they will be able to continue selling offsets to covered entities in California.

At the end of the day, the decision to extend the cap and trade program to 2030 is a big win in the fight to mitigate climate change. However, California legislators failed to see the positive ecological impacts associated with forest offset projects. In an effort to compromise with different stakeholders, they significantly weakened a program that was just beginning to reach a point where it could have meaningful ecological benefit on a landscape scale.

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A Missed Opportunity in California's Climate 'Victory' - Ecosystem Marketplace