Category Archives: Lifestyle

Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Tech

Tesla and Elon Musk are Smiling: Gas Pumps Out, Charging Stations In –

September 29, 2019 Kat Lee

Is this a Canary in the Coal Mine moment?

Say what you want about radical engineer Elon Musk, but his companies have certainly produced some very innovative products over the years. None are perhaps as revolutionary as Tesla’s line-up of wildly popular and stylish electric vehicles that require no gasoline.

This past weekend, a beacon of progressive light shone through the clouds as two gas stations on different sides of the world got rid of all their fuel pumps and transitioned entirely to EV charging stations. One of the gas stations is in Norway and it is a branch of the global Circle K convenience store company. The other is a local gas station in Takoma Park, Maryland called RS Automotives.

This is significant, not due to the world adding two more charging stations, there are many already and Tesla’s network of stations is truly remarkable. The news here, however, is that these are stations that have decided to abandon gas, oil and, presumably, gasoline-based auto maintenance for EV charging and convenience. This is a trend that, hopefully, will accelerate.

In the wake of the UN 2019 Climate Action Summit, these initiatives are but small victories in the fight for environmental reformation. Nonetheless, we can take these updates as signs of individual improvement and solace. Either they are money-driven transformations reflective of more people turning to electric vehicles, or they are examples of non-money driven actions that we may need businesses to make in order to shift consumers in the superior, ecologically sensitive direction.

While gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles have been around for a while with popular older models such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight, Tesla stands as the first widely popular electric car that runs on zero fluids excluding the windshield-wiper fluid (or tiny amounts for cooling batteries). Instead of filling it up with gas, you charge it up like a phone.

Admittedly, charging up a Tesla can, in some situations, take a while— close to an hour if fully discharged and topped off (Tesla suggests 80% maximum at any time to promote battery health and longevity). Although over half a million Teslas have been sold since their first all-electric Model-S debuted in 2012, some people still assume that the time it takes to charge one up is Tesla’s greatest weakness.

The “Range Anxiety” debate is not new, and not entirely real

This “weakness” is part propaganda, part wishful thinking and part scare tactic. The reality is, pumping gas also takes time and if you add in a bathroom break and a short stop to grab a drink to go, a supercharger can approximate, with ease, the turn-around time. Not to mention the peace of mind that comes with using a fill-up (charge up) as a break from driving rather than a hurried gas smelling pit-stop.

Charging stations have been popping up more frequently across the country and the world in the last few years. Tesla, Volkswagon and some venture capital-based start-ups have made initiatives to put up tens of thousands more EV charging stations along highways and roads.

This trend can be seen as a canary in the coal mine moment for the demise of fossil fuel based transportation and, ultimately, the fossil fuel based economic model. The looming climate crisis, breaking out virtually every day into the news, is but one reason to cheer this development. There are many more and many CitCM moments to come.

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Entertainment, Movies

Louie Schwartzberg’s Documentary, “Fantastic Fungi” Is A Psychedelic-Fueled Ecology Lesson

Video September 27, 2019 Kat Lee

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/independent/fantastic-fungi/fantastic-fungi-trailer-1_h1080p.mov

Official trailer for “Fantastic Fungi”

Natural Magic of the Unseen and Wonders beneath our feet

Louie Schwartzberg’s documentaries have always had to do with seeing the world through different lenses. From his independent shorts “Mysteries of the Unseen World” and “Moving Art: Forests” to his Disney-backed butterfly doc “Wings of Life,” Schwartzberg has been opening audience’s eyes to visual beauties hidden in plain sight.

His latest film, “Fantastic Fungi” takes this motif to the next level, as Schwartzberg not only uses his distinct visual style deliver a message, but that message itself is actually about our world beneath the surface and our minds beyond our senses.

The topic, of course, is mushrooms, or rather fungi of all sorts, the plantlike organisms that sprout from the earth and extend beneath our feet in all different directions. As Schwartzberg documents, fungi are of unparalleled importance to the natural world, and if used correctly, they could also help people improve their perception of life on the inside and out.

The movie starts out standard enough, with Schwartzberg’s signature time-lapses, landscape shots, and animations illustrating the awesome lives of mushrooms in the wild. Over interviews with ecologists, journalists, nutritionists, and more, the film shows how fungi’s roots are all connected beneath the surface, creating an enormous active network of billion-year-old ecological information that humans only understand the very beginning of.

Fungi’s potential is thus unpredictable. The natural sophistication of mushrooms could make them an inherent resource for health, sustainability, medicine, nutrition, and more. Their relationship with people is a beautiful example of humans not just learning about, but learning from a different form of life in its untouched place on earth.

Despite the intriguing topic, though, this first part of the movie still feels kind of like a simple National Geographic special or something cut out of a “Planet Earth” episode. “Fantastic Fungi” really distinguishes itself in its second and third acts. After Schwartzberg introduces us to fungi in the wild, he then delves into the ways humans use the organism for their own advantage.

Here, the film obviously looks at the ways mushrooms can be used as food and medicine, but it also talks about the ways that fungi preserve water and adapt efficiently, making them potentially valuable resources in creating revolutionary environmental progress.

Additionally, the film digs into the psychedelic aspects of mushroom consumption, interviewing mental health councilors and patients who use fungi as therapeutic tools. This is where the film becomes meta, as the experience of taking psychedelic mushrooms is meant to play with perception and ultimately make people feel extra clam or enlightened.

https://fantasticfungi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/FF.mp4

Clip from “Fantastic Fungi”

Maybe there’s more to Fungi if we Become One with them?

Perhaps gratuitously, this raises the question of what it would be like to watch “Fantastic Fungi” under the influence of these mushrooms. Certain films, particularly movies with intricate colors or visuals, are known for being extra interesting when watched on psychedelics. Because “Fantastic Fungi” has some very cool, high-resolution visuals as well as an illuminating message, one could expect that watching the film with a mushroom-tinted consciousness might be a transcendent existential experience. Given the subject matter, we cannot help but wonder whether or not this was aesthetically intentional all along.

The film was featured at the Maui Film Festival’s Celestial Cinema screenings. Along with Louie Schwartzberg as the movie’s director, Brie Larson narrates the film and Mark Monroe of “Before the Flood” and “The Cove” wrote the screenplay. Monroe has written many documentaries that have to do with environmentalism and the human body, most notably perhaps the Oscar-winning “Icarus,” which started as a film about athletic doping in Russia, but eventually escaladed into a political thriller.

“Fantastic Fungi” looks like it will be leaving politics at the doorstep, though. Except for maybe a brief conversations regarding the legality of psychedelics, the film looks will probably be a happy and hopeful movie, one that not only teaches us an interesting lesson in ecology, but like a mushroom trip itself, will open up our minds to possibilities we never considered before.

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, Movies

‘Anthropocene: The Human Epoch’: Documentary shows Reality of Climate Change

Video September 25, 2019 Madison Santel

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/independent/anthropocene/anthropocene-trailer-1b_h1080p.mov

Official trailer for “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch”

A Growing Urgency and yet Denial Remains a Stubborn Reality

Coincidentally or not, corresponding with week’s nationwide climate strike, Mercury Films is releasing an environmental documentary focusing on the human impact on the planet. In “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch,” filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas de Pencier travel to twenty countries across six continents to show the irreversible effects that human beings have had on the natural landscape.

While many environmental documentaries with such a global scale might focus on the earth’s beauty in order to get audiences to appreciate the planet, “Anthropocene” takes the opposite route, and looks at the some of Earth’s least flattering, most unnatural images. Rather than taking us to the mountains, prairies, or deep seas, the film shows us landfills, mines, power plants, refineries, and junkyards on both land and water, revealing the Anthropocene’s unavoidable and unattractive reality.

Anthropocene as a term denotes a new geological age, or epoch, in which humans are the primary influence on the natural world. With today’s hot debates about climate change and global warming, Anthropocene has become somewhat of a buzzword, but the term dates back to the 1980s when scientists Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer first coined it. Evidently, the process has been going on for a while, but in the current day and age, the Anthropocene is increasingly hard to ignore, as the human footprint eats up more of the natural world and the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly tangible.

Where are the Solutions and what can any of us do to Slow Down the Juggernaut?

The question on everybody’s mind, then, is how do we combat climate change? It is a lofty question that even the brightest of scientists and the most ambitious of politicians struggle to find consensus on. At the most basic, humanistic level, the answer might start with everybody doing their parts to live sustainably and spread awareness of the issue. From an artist’s perspective, that means of spreading awareness might come in the form of a painting, a novel, or a film.

Film has certainly had its bouts with addressing climate change in the past. Many documentaries from Al Gore’s revolutionary “An Inconvenient Truth” to Leonardo DiCaprio’s foreboding “Before The Flood,” have zeroed in on the issue. On the complete opposite side of the cinematic spectrum, the concept has even made its way into recent blockbuster movies such as “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Mission Impossible: Fallout,” both of which had eco-terrorists as their main villains.

It almost seems impossible to make a movie about the world and not have it relate to climate change in some way. Animal-focused docuseries like BBC’s “Planet Earth” or Netflix’s “Our Planet” may avoid people altogether, but their subject-matter always comes back to anthropogenic preservation. Similarly, documentaries working in other sectors of environmentalism, such as the recent “Supersize Me 2: Holy Chicken!” or “The Game Changers,” which focus on diet and nutrition, all circle back to the correlation between consumption and climate in one way or another. Clearly, the issue is deeply engrained in any conversation we might have about the environment, and with eco-criticism becoming a growing sector of theory and thought, audiences will start to notice the topic emerging in even more ways.

https://movietrailers.apple.com/movies/independent/anthropocene/anthropocene-clip-excavator_h1080p.mov

Clip – Excavator from “ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH”

Watching “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch,” however, does not require a lot of deep thinking to realize that it is addressing global warming. The subject is made quite clear through the documentary’s unambiguous and straightforward expository mode.

Directors Baichwal, Burtynsky, and de Pencier are no strangers to this blatant style of informative documentary that focuses on pressing issues. The three have collaborated before on the award winning documentaries “Watermark” and “Manufactured Landscape,” both of which covered environmental topics. But while these two earlier films only touched on the concept of climate change and its effects, “Anthropocene” goes full-throttle, traveling far and wide to illustrate the harrowing impacts of this new epoch. It shows urban floods, melting glaciers, excavated canyons, and poached animals on the edge of extinction, all aiming to evoke an emotional response from viewers—none of whom are blameless for or exempt from this planetary phenomenon.

What does it take to Wake Up a Population that Sleeps as the Threat keeps growing?

Nevertheless, as effective as “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” might be in pulling on our heartstrings and making us fear for the future, one must question weather the environmental documentary is as impactful as people often make it out to be. Fourteen years have gone by since Al Gore warned us about global warming in “An Inconvenient Truth,” and since then countless documentarians have approached the topic from several different angles. Sadly, though, we are hardly any closer to an environmental reformation. The general public may have caught on to the issue’s severity, but many people—particularly people in power—still refuse to even acknowledge climate change.

This is not to say that “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” or other films in the same vein are futile gestures. They are compelling and will likely inspire many people to live more environmentally consciously. However, as a society—or rather, as a human species—we should probably be past exposition and be making more progress in combating and adapting to the changes already going on in the world around us. As a film, “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” is bound to be captivating and informative. As a piece of activism, though, the odds are unfortunately against it.

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Entertainment, Lifestyle, Tech

Apple TV+ – Preview Clips and All That’s Been Revealed So Far about the Upcoming Launch

Video September 2, 2019 Danny Leeds

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-tv-plus/2019/c5a05301_ed18_47f6_a7f8_bba47bf3e0f4/films/sneak-peek/apple-tv-plus-sneak-peek-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080h.mp4

Secretive Media Giant about to Awaken?

Although it’s been quietly hovering in the shadows since WWDC in May, Apple TV+ is about to explode onto the scene very soon, it would appear. As can be seen in the various teasers we’ve assembled here – big, nay, huge names and stars are onboard.

What’s not so well known, is that there are many, many productions already in the pipeline, presumably to be released over the next year. How many? Already outlined in available information are over 30 original series or features that are at various stages of production.

Here are just a few headline titles:

Amazing Stories (Spielberg revisits classic series from his childhood)
The Morning Show (see above, all star cast: Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell and Billy Crudup)
See (directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2), production budget rumored at $15 million per episode)
Little America (topical series of human stories that feature immigrants)
Helpsters (An educational entertainment series aimed at pre-schoolers)
Little Voice (J.J. Abrams executive produced comedy/drama series)
Truth Be Told (10-episode series based on the bestselling book: Are You Sleeping: A Novel)
Servant (produced by M. Night Shyamalan, 10 episode drama series)
Dickinson (comedy series about the early life of Emily Dickinson)

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-tv-plus/2019/ca7883f2_885a_42c7_b0cc_529b287c1925/films/morning-show/apple-tv-plus-morning-show-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080h.mp4

Preview Trailer for “The MOrning Show”, Starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon (Apple)

The service will be available in over 100 countries world wide, and the production war chest is rumored to be upwards of Six Billion Dollars.

The size and scope of this “hobby” project, as Steve Job’s once called the Apple TV device, is far larger, from all indications, than the somewhat underwhelming reactions from the press would have one believe.

“There’s truth pumping through your veins and into the story that you’re telling”
– Jennifer Aniston

Although there has not been much noise or hoopla yet, there are many indications that this could be a sleeping giant. Not necessarily an overnight success, but a long grinding campaign that will eventually reach higher and further than anyone is imagining at present.

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-tv-plus/2019/c5a05301_ed18_47f6_a7f8_bba47bf3e0f4/films/creative-minds/apple-tv-plus-creative-minds-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080l.mp4

The Evolution of an Ecosystem, Decades in the Making

Sharing the “plus” with its smaller sister Apple News +, it looks like the plus designation will mark the first foundational bricks of a possible future media empire, while in hardware everything “pro” begins to emerge.

Current rumors indicate that a new “pro” model iPhone is imminent to go along with the already established iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac Pro and newly updated Mac Pro.

It would stand to reason, therefore, that, in the very near future, the “gang of Pro” will meet up with the Plus sisters, and a new extended services based media, software expansion will unite with the upper echelon hardware empire, and, if successful, will reveal a truly balanced spectrum of offerings.

“A story should make you forget your surroundings, forget your agenda, your day and, hopefully, makes you forget yourself”
– Steven Spielberg

And for a company that invented desktop publishing, pushed digital music transmission and photography into the mainstream, not to mention, put the smart into smartphone, there is an unavoidable logic and symmetry that is emerging. As Apple increases its focus on service income, original entertainment and educational production a balance across all sectors begins to take shape.

Naturally, coming “late” on the heels of the extremely successful growth of Netflix Original productions, Amazon, HBO, Hulu and now Disney’s Streaming Service, many will say that Apple is behind the curve and not likely to dominate.

Now, it would be wrong to mention Nokia, Blackberry, or Steve Ballmer, and say that Apple is not a company that you’d be wise to underestimate, but, after all, coming “late” with a significantly better product is what Apple does best.

“Life often makes no sense. There is something about stories, that brings a sense of order and purpose to the world and allows us to live other lives than the life we’re living”
– J.J. Abrams

The hardware, software, media content production and distribution networks are, over a period of decades, evolving into the only ecosystem that has a benign, if not heroic purpose in it’s relationships with its user base as well as its professional partnerships.

Constant complaints that Apple earns too much money or somehow takes advantage of customers often have a hollow ring. When you look at the innovative accomplishments and world changing technology created, and compare that to empty, corrupt almost meaningless advertising empires such as FaceBook or Google, somehow it seems a different level of trust has been earned.

Yes, in a sense Apple is following the lead of other tech behemoths that have upended the Hollywood Power structure, but, at the same time, one gets the sense that the slow, deliberate moves can be traced all the way back to Steve Jobs, his days at Pixar and that, somehow, his superior vision guides the entire evolution, even the new “plus” wing, of the ecosystem to this very day.

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-tv-plus/2019/c5a05301_ed18_47f6_a7f8_bba47bf3e0f4/films/o/apple-tv-plus-o-tpl-cc-us-2019_1920x1080l.mp4

In then end, the broad array of product and service offerings that Apple is building, now being expanded into the realm of not just entertainment and educational distribution (as iTunes has had in place since 2001), but also into the production and financing of original programming, marks the beginning of a more complete and potentially better functioning ecosystem.

Overall, this is extremely positive, not only for Apple’s financial health but, indeed, for the vast legion of Apple adherents around the globe.

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Finance, Lifestyle

Apple Card is Now Available: Daily Cash Expanded, All USA can Apply in Wallet App

Video August 20, 2019 Madison Santel

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-card/2019/c90ec3fe-63dc-4557-b1ea-50d7539c76bd/films/this-is/apple-card-this-is-tpl-cc-us-2019_1280x720h.mp4

Uber and Uber Eats added to Daily Cash at 3%, more vendors expected soon…

As with most things financial, there are lots of details, but some interesting perks, particularly for frequent customers of Apple products.

Immediate sign up on your iPhone

First perk: no lengthily complicated application process. According to the pre-launch information (see video above), just go to the Wallet app and tap on the Apple Card interface (once the Card is live) and go through the simple activation steps.

Using the Card

The card will function as would any other card in your wallet for Apple Pay. This includes online purchases and in-store checkout where you normally would use Apple Pay.

You can designate the Apple Card as your default payment method in your wallet for purchases using your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch.

https://video-lynxotic.akamaized.net/AppleCard_Keynote_M.mov

video of keynote announcing launch of apple card

The MasterCard Goldman Sachs Connection

The extended uses for the digital and physical version of the card are enabled through the partnership between MasterCard and Apple. You will be able to use the Apple Card anywhere that a MasterCard is accepted.

Goldman Sachs is the credit provider for your Apple Card and they will set your interest rate based, as would be expected, on your current credit score. Rates are projected to be in the range of 13.24% to 24.24% which is below the average in the US.

An extended fixed payment system is likely to be offered for large purchases according to the pre-release data.

Main Perks and Advantages

There are many unconventional and improved aspects to the use and especially the user experience associated with the new card. In the keynote announcement earlier this year (see video above) a great emphasis was made on the ways that the project was focused on improving the experience and helping users attain a healthier financial lifestyle.

This includes various features designed to help reduce interest charges, not only by offering lower overall rates, but by giving the user options and calculations that can provide payment alternatives to the traditional “minimum monthly” payment currently the norm.

Payments can be made from your linked bank account or can be transferred from Apple Cash in your Wallet app.

There is no annual fee for the card, no international fees and no fee for exceeding your credit limit or making a late payment. Also, there is not increased interest rate penalty, per se, for late payment, which is common in some other credit card accounts. Late payment will, naturally, result in interest accrual, but based on your current rate.

There is an separate app, particularly useful on iPad, which does not have the Wallet app, where data on transactions, payments and other details are provided. This, in typical Apple style, is far superior to any credit card app interface from banks and lenders.

Rewards and “Daily Cash”

Rather than a points system commonly seen on traditional credit card accounts, the Apple Card has a cash back system which can kick back up to 3% on a daily basis.

They call this “Daily Cash” and, as the name implies, your rebated cash will be credited to your account every 24 hours and be directly transferred to your Apple Cash account. If you do not sign up for Apple Cash, you will get your rebates sent to your bank account monthly.

Percentages vary, 3% is for all purchases made directly from Apple, 2% for all Apple Pay transactions and 1% for using the physical card at any non-Apple Pay retailer.

There is no cost to transfer your rewards cash to your bank account and this can take from one to three days. There will be an option to get instant transfers, which will incur a 1% fee. The transfers are done through the Apple Cash card from the Wallet app to the linked bank account.

Best Features and Conclusion

The overall sense is that this is going to be a very popular offering, based on the positive attributes of the card and the deal.

Although the terms are clearly slanted towards encouraging financial activity benefiting the emerging Apple financial eco-system, with the reward percentage on direct Apple purchases and Apple Pay coming in higher than the “out of network” transactions made with the physical card only, the rest of the perks are more than enough to pique the interest of a great number of iPhone users.

The titanium card appearance, styling and feel will attract many for that reason alone. Quel chic! And it is likely that the card will cause an increase in Apple Pay transactions, with double cash back for pulling out your iPhone instead of the physical card.

Ultimately, the software tools enabling privacy – no data to Apple and Goldman Sachs promising never to use or sell your data – along with the fantastic tools for tracking transactions, spend, payments and interest are perhaps the most likely to create love.

Who doesn’t hate dealing with credit card companies and their antiquated interfaces and systems? Some credit card providers do not even allow automatic payment scheduling, apparently hoping you will pay late so they can rack up those late payment penalty fees. Doing away with even the worst, most evil, aspects of credit card accounts is already a huge step forward.

Let’s hope that Apple will manage this as well as it appears. It looks like a top flight offering that has plenty of advantages that make it head and shoulders above the pack, and, for iPhone users it seems like a “must have” if there ever was one.

Easy sign-up on iPhone
Accepted worldwide (wherever Mastercard is available)
Up to 3% cash back
Daily cash back
No fees
Engraved Titanium physical card with concealed numbers
Spending tracking
Clear transaction labeling with more data
Built-in Privacy

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology

July 2019 was the Hottest Month in Recorded History

August 6, 2019 Kat Lee

https://d21rhj7n383afu.cloudfront.net/washpost-production/Associated_Press_Caspar_Haarl_v_Into_the_Ice_/20190802/5d43fedc46e0fb0009401025/5d44896ccff47e000904484f_1509128713498-xfd55s_t_1564772740470_640_360_600.mp4

Video Clip / Associated Press/Caspar Haarløv Into the Ice

According the the Copernicus Climate Change Service, part of the Copernicus Earth Observation Program, of the European Untion, July was the hottest month in recorded human history.

The calculation of the average global temperature was arrived at by measuring data from satellites, buoys, weather balloons and various other sources, daily and hourly, and then inputting that information into proprietary computer models.

Next, the results were compared with other measurements taken by various similar climate research agencies around the world.

In case you are wondering, more modern and accurate global average temperature records have been kept for approximately 100 years. General record keeping goes back much further, for example, the recent heatwave in Europe broke high temperature marks dating to the 1500s, according to the Climatology Institute in Potsdam, Germany.

The warmest previous July in history was in 2016 and global average temperatures in July this year were at least as high, if not higher. Northern latitudes had particularly high temps, compared to the average from 1981-2010 including, Alaska, Baffing Island, parts of Siberia, and also, Iran as well as large parts of Antarctica.

Extreme Measures During Euro-Heatwave Required:

Heat across Europe was extreme and caused disruption and dismay during it’s recent severe heatwaves, in June and again in July.

It got so hot in Antwerp, Belgium, for example, that 2 suspected drug smugglers called the police to rescue them, after they accidentally locked themselves into a scorching hot shipping container, which also happened to be filled with cocaine.

Better than death by frying, apparently.

In areas of Germany, known for it’s stretches of autobahn without speed limits, limits were put in place, for the first time, in order to prevent cars from overheating and even damaging the roads themselves, while operating at high speeds.

In the Pairi Daiza Zoo in Belgium, bears were fed watermelons encased in blocks of ice, to keep them from potentially suffering heatstroke.

A wildfire burns in western Greenland on July 31, 2019. (Photo Credit / Orla Joelsen via Twitter)

Ice on Fire: This is Real

Arctic wildfires; yes, wildfires where there was once nothing but snow and ice, struck again. Again, that is, after a series of fires were reported in western Greenland in 2017.

Over 100 intense wildfires in the Arctic Circle were tracked by CAMS, part of the Copernicus program mentioned above, during June and July, 2019.

In June the fires caused 50 megatons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, as much as the total yearly emissions for Sweden. Shortly thereafter in July, during the European heatwave, melting ice, also in Greenland, sent 197 billion tons of water into the Atlantic.

They call this a “melt event” and this summer there have been several of the largest on record, since at least 1950. Not because there was more melting in 1950, but because records have only been kept since that year.

For those keeping track, this means the #Greenland #icesheet ends July with a net mass loss of 197 Gigatonnes since the 1st of the month. https://t.co/Qgwj6WtUzF
— Ruth Mottram (@ruth_mottram) August 1, 2019

The (Hopefully) Long Road to Redemption

It may well take years of these “melt events” to combine together and raise the world sea level, and endanger coastal cities around the globe, but if it is happening at all, that is alarming, in and of itself.

Since these kinds of ice melt events, such as we experienced this year, and a previous extreme event in 2012, are thought to occur only approximately every 250 years, therefore, already having seen two in less than a decade is a strong indicator that climate change is increasing the frequency of these, and many other anomalous weather patterns.

BBC Interactive Tool Showing Global Warming Status by Location

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Business, Lifestyle

Launch of Apple Card is Imminent: Here’s What You Need to Know

Video August 6, 2019 Madison Santel

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/apple-card/2019/c90ec3fe-63dc-4557-b1ea-50d7539c76bd/films/this-is/apple-card-this-is-tpl-cc-us-2019_1280x720h.mp4