Daily Archives: March 16, 2016

Η Δανία υποσκέλισε την Ελβετία από την πρώτη θέση της κατάταξης με τις ευτυχέστερες χώρες στον κόσμο, σύμφωνα με έκθεση που κατατάσσει στις τελευταίες θέσεις τη Συρία, το Αφγανιστάν και οκτώ χώρες της υποσαχάριας Αφρικής.

Τις δέκα πρώτες θέσεις καταλαμβάνουν η Δανία, η Ελβετία, η Ισλανδία, η Νορβηγία, η Φινλανδία, ο Καναδάς, η Ολλανδία, η Νέα Ζηλανδία, η Αυστραλία και η Σουηδία.

Τις τελευταίες δέκα θέσεις καταλαμβάνουν η Μαδαγασκάρη, η Τανζανία, η Λιβερία, η Γουινέα, η Ρουάντα, το Μπενίν, το Αφγανιστάν, το Τόγκο, η Συρία και το Μπουρούντι.

Οι ΗΠΑ βρίσκονται στην 13η θέση, η Βρετανία στην 23η, η Γαλλία στην 32η, η Ιταλία στην 50ή και η Ελλάδα στην 99η θέση σε έναν κατάλογο 157 χωρών.

Η έρευνα πραγματοποιήθηκε από το Sustainable Development Solutions Network και το Earth Institute του Πανεπιστημίου Columbia.

«Η χώρα μου, οι ΗΠΑ, στέλνει ένα πολύ ισχυρό μήνυμα: είναι μία πολύ πλούσια χώρα, και έχει γίνει πολύ πλουσιότερη τα τελευταία 50 χρόνια, αλλά δεν έχει γίνει ευτυχέστερη» δηλώνει ο καθηγητής Τζέφρι Σακς, επικεφαλής του Sustainable Development Solutions Network, εκ των συντακτών της έκθεσης που παρουσιάσθηκε στη Ρώμη.

Η έκθεση, που δημοσιεύεται για τέταρτη χρονιά και έχει ως στόχο να ερευνήσει τις επιστημονικές βάσεις μέτρησης και κατανόησης της υποκειμενικότητας στην ευημερία, κατατάσσει 157 χώρες βάσει του επιπέδου ευτυχίας χρησιμοποιώντας παράγοντες όπως το ΑΕΠ και το προσδόκιμο υγιούς ζωής, αλλά και το να έχει κανείς κάποιον για να στηριχθεί, καθώς και τον βαθμό της διαφθοράς στη διακυβέρνηση και την επιχειρηματικότητα.

Η πρώτη έκθεση δημοσιεύθηκε το 2012 για να υποστηρίξει διάσκεψη του ΟΗΕ για την Ευτυχία και την Ευημερία.

Πέντε χώρες και περιοχές -το Μπουτάν, το Εκουαδόρ, η Σκωτία, τα Ηνωμένα Αραβικά Εμιράτα και η Βενεζουέλα- έχουν πλέον ορίσει υπουργούς Ευτυχίας επιφορτισμένους με την προώθησή της ως στόχο πολιτικής.

Η έκθεση του 2016 δείχνει ότι τρεις χώρες ιδιαίτερα, η Ιρλανδία, η Ισλανδία και η Ιαπωνία, κατόρθωσαν να διατηρήσουν τις θέσεις τους παρά τους κραδασμούς από τις συνέπειες της παγκόσμιας χρηματοπιστωτικής κρίσης και τον σεισμό του 2011, χάρη στην κοινωνική υποστήριξη και αλληλεγγύη.

Ο καθηγητής Σακς χρησιμοποιεί ως παράδειγμα την Κόστα Ρίκα, η οποία βρίσκεται στην 14η θέση, πριν από πολλές πλούσιες χώρες, ως παράδειγμα υγιούς, ευτυχισμένης κοινωνίας, αν και δεν είναι ισχυρή οικονομική δύναμη.

Πηγή:in.gr

Police sources on Greece’s northern frontier with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on Tuesday told Kathimerini that some 1,000 migrants and refugees who managed to breach the sealed border on Monday were being returned without formal consent from the Greek government.

Greece’s deputy defense minister said on Tuesday he could not confirm nor deny whether hundreds of migrants who left a Greek transit camp and crossed into FYROM on Monday had been returned back to Greece.

“What I know is that any procedure will take place via the usual diplomatic means,” Dimitris Vitsas told Greek TV when asked about a Reuters report citing police sources in FYROM saying 500 migrants were returned to Greece.

Police sources at the transit camp in Idomeni on Greece’s northern border said on Tuesday that FYROM authorities have been returning migrants back into Greece via unofficial routes.

“They take them by car through paths in forested areas where there is no fence and dump them back onto Greek territory,” a source who declined to be named told Kathimerini.

According to migration rules, FYROM has the right to return refugees and migrants crossing its borders illegally, but diplomatic sources stress that this needs to be done through official channels.

source:ekathimerini.com

And another one bites the dust. The year 2014 was the warmest ever recorded by humans. Then 2015 was warmer still. January 2016 broke the record for the largest monthly temperature anomaly. Then came last month.

February didn’t break climate change records – it obliterated them. Regions of the Arctic were were more than 16C warmer than normal – whatever constitutes normal now. But what is really making people stand up and notice is that the surface of the Earth north of the equator was 2C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. This was meant to be a line that must not be crossed.

Two degrees was broadly interpreted as the temperature that could produce further, potentially runaway warming. You can think of it as a speed limit on our climate impact. But it’s not a target speed. If you are driving a car carrying a heavy load down a steep hill you’re often advised to change down from top gear and keep your speed low, as if you go too fast your brakes will fail and you will be unable to stop. Less braking means more speed which means less braking – a dangerous runaway feedback loop. Hopefully the hill flattens out and you have enough straight road ahead to recover. If you don’t then you will be stopping much more abruptly.

We are currently swamping the Earth’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases. 2015 saw the largest annual increase in carbon dioxide since records began – far higher than the Earth has experienced for hundreds of thousands of years.

More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means higher temperatures. There is already one positive feedback loop in operation; the extra warming from our emissions is increasing the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, which further increases temperatures. Fortunately, this is not a very strong feedback loop.

Unfortunately, there seem to be other, much more powerful ones lurking in the event of further warming. Tipping points such as the thaw of permafrost and release of the very powerful greenhouse gas methane in large quantities would drive world temperatures well beyond the 2C threshold.

Even if we came to our collective senses and rapidly reduced carbon emissions at that point, we would still have to revert to drastic geoengineering to rein in further warming. There is no guarantee that such climate brakes will work. If they fail, our civilisation would be on a collision course with a much hotter planet.

The safe–unsafe threshold of 2C recognises the significant amount of uncertainty there is over where dangerous warming really begins. It could be at more than 2C. Hopefully it is. But it’s not impossible that it is less. We need to bear in mind that it was only the northern hemisphere that crossed the 2C line. Also, we need to factor in the monster El Niño that is having an effect on temperatures across the globe. In 2014, I predicted that 2015 would break record temperatures. This is not due to any psychic powers on my part, but the then very clear El Niño signal that was emerging.

So while temperature records may continue to be set for the rest of 2016, by the end of this year the situation should have cooled somewhat. Right? At times, it feels as if such statements are offered up as prayers in the hope that we are not in fact witnessing the beginning of abrupt and sustained climate change. But what’s even scarier is the political, economic and social reaction to these landmarks in climate change.

Have you heard any political speeches referring to these recent climate change records? Not one of the major Republican presidential candidates even “believes” in human-produced climate change, let alone that it is something to worry about.

How was the stock market this morning? It appears febrile enough to lurch from euphoric boom to catastrophic bust on the basis of bland statements from central bankers but proves remarkably deaf to evidence that the entire industrial and financial system is headed for disaster.

Know what’s trending on Twitter as I write? A photoshopped giant dog, the latest Game of Thrones trailer and Kim Kardashian’s naked body. Actually, it’s mainly Kim Kardashian’s naked body and people’s responses to it. Followed by people’s responses to the responses.

It would be churlish of me to deny people the pleasure of looking at pictures of a photograph of a cuddly dog adjusted in order to make it appear both cute and monstrous. But we appear uninterested, either through denial or desensitisation, in the environmental changes happening right in front of our eyes.

There are sure to be more climate records broken this year. But we treat them as we treat new fashions, phones or films. More novelty, newer features, more drama. We seem unable to understand that we are driving such changes. Record breaking changes that will ultimately break our civilisation, and so scatter all that we obsess and care about.

source:theguardian.com

Greek Cyprus threatened on March 15 to derail a proposed EU deal with Turkey to curb the flow of migrants to Europe, insisting on longstanding demands including that Ankara recognize its government.

EU President Donald Tusk, meanwhile, said the deal needed to be rebalanced to be accepted by all 28 member states and EU institutions.

“Cyprus does not intend to consent to the opening of any new chapters if Turkey does not fulfil its obligations,” Greek Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades was quoted as saying by AFP on March 15 after talks with Tusk in Nicosia.

EU and Turkish leaders agreed last week to a tentative proposal including the return of migrants landing in Greece and a “one-for-one” swap of Syrian refugees.

Anastasiades said Greek Cyprus would not accept “Turkish demands without [the] implementation of Turkey’s long-pending obligations” in its EU membership bid.

Turkey expects the accord to lead to the opening of new chapters in Ankara’s longstanding EU membership bid and to ease visa requirements in Europe’s passport-free Schengen area.

Tusk, who headed to Ankara after meeting Anastasiades and was scheduled to hold talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu ahead of negotiations on the EU-Turkey proposal, admitted “we are not there yet” in terms of a deal.

“The Turkish proposal… still needs to be rebalanced so as to be accepted by all 28 member states and the EU institutions,” he told reporters.

The plan to expel migrants en masse from Greece has sparked international criticism, with the U.N.’s top officials on refugees and human rights questioning whether it would be legal.

Officials have also expressed concern over the potential need for compromise with Ankara, as fears grow over freedom of expression and rights abuses.

“One of the issues to be sorted out is the key question of legality,” Tusk said.

A Cypriot refusal of the migrant-swap deal would effectively block the largest diplomatic push yet to ease Europe’s burden of accommodating hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom enter the EU through Turkey.

The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops intervened in its north in response to an Athens-engineered coup attempt.

Turkey does not recognize the government of Greek Cyprus and Nicosia has blocked six key chapters of Ankara’s negotiations for EU membership since 2009, effectively halting the process.

Cyprus insists Turkey must first meet its longstanding demands for recognition, and to open up trade ties, ports and airports.

The Greek and Turkish Cypriot administrations are conducting U.N.-backed peace talks aimed at reuniting the island.

At one point last week in Brussels, Anastasiades was involved in a heated confrontation with five key European figures, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which he came under heavy pressure to back the accord, European sources told AFP.

Germany registered a record influx of asylum seekers that reached 1.1 million in 2015

source:hurriyetdailynews,.com