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This paper written in 2012 and used for staff training of Environmental Rights Action
Climate impacts on Africa and other vulnerable regions are not matters of speculation. The impacts are real. Failing rains, failing crops, increased desertification and population displacements are some of the manifestations. These impacts are not letting up and will not diminish until something is done. The big question is will something be done?
For Africa, perhaps more than anywhere else, climate impacts are not merely environmental. Climate change impacts diverse realms of life and living. These include poverty, hunger, peace, security, human rights, health and socio-economic aspects.
Globally, the causes of global warming are generally understood. It is also generally agreed that the phenomenon is a global one that requires global action. The big gulf is with regard to what actions must be taken to fight the menace. The blockage to needed for action appears to be erected by the perceived sense of inbuilt resilience by the rich and industrialised nations who feel they can withstand the ravages of global warming over several decades, making it easy for policy makers to delay action while hoping that their grandchildren would help themselves when the tide eventually threatens to swallow them up. Another factor is the strong grip of the fossil fuels sector over policy structures. Through well-orchestrated spin they sell the idea that the continuation of the fossil fuel path is inevitable. They dismiss examples being shown that renewables can and must replace the fossil driven mode of production and consumption. Policy makers who swallow the deception of the fossil fuel sector would do well to pay attention to what analysts have said of the critical need for urgent transition. Any delay is just that, a delay. The problem is that some people must pay the cost. And the most vulnerable, the victims, will bear that cost through their blood, miseries and tears.
In the words of Hermann Scheer:
If the transition from the nuclear and fossil to renewable energy is only carried out in a piecemeal and gradual manner, then it is highly likely that world civilization will be thrown into a staggering crisis affecting everyone and everything: dramatic climate change threatens to make entire habitats unfit to live in and to trigger mass misery and the migration of hundreds of millions of people.[1]
The addiction to fossil fuels path is leading to desperations in the oil fields with oil companies moving into more fragile ecosystems, into deeper offshore and extending their claws into the Arctic. These moves are already accompanied by more polluting accidents that compound the environmental crisis. Meanwhile oil companies dither to squeeze the last drop from their oil concessions, the last coal from the mines and engage in dangerous extraction of shale gas as well as tar sands.
There is no disputing that the upsurge in global temperatures is due largely to the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. Carbon is a basic building block in every living thing, plant or animal. Our soils are loaded with carbon and so is our air and oceans. We take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants do the reverse and we coexist happily supplying each other's carbon dioxide or oxygen needs. The problem is that over the last two centuries humans have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. It is estimated that about 26 billion tones equivalent of CO2 is released this way yearly. One way to visualise how CO2 plays a vital role in the climate equation is to see the gas as enveloping the entire earth, occupying a belt around it, so to speak, in the lower atmospheric regions. Now, there are several other gases there, but the essential difference is that this gas, along with other greenhouse gases, allows the energy from the sun through to reach the earth but slows down the escape back into space of the energy reflected from the earth's surface. This build up of energy is the greenhouse effect.
It is not difficult to fully grasp the importance and magnitude of hydrocarbons. Modern urban life is petroleum-based: it depends on it for electrical power and transportation, and releases petroleum in its 300 million tons of waste annually. Modern life is petroleum-based: it depends on machinery, agrochemicals such as the 136.44 million tons of fertilisers plus millions of tons of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemicals used annually, as well as the transportation of agricultural products. Healthcare and food systems are becoming ever more petroleum-based as food and health sovereignty are increasingly abandoned. In the United States alone, coal is the source of half of all the electrical power generated.
Climate change is fundamentally a systemic crisis that cannot be tackled through palliatives. It is a crisis of a civilisation built on the rapacious destruction of nature through massive consumption and waste of resources. It is the consequence of ruinous production and consumption patterns that are blind to the fact that planet earth is finite and that there must be a point when such a path becomes unsustainable in many ways.
Adaptation and mitigation action taken to tackle climate change impacts are nothing more than palliatives–a term most Nigerians have come to grips with as something done to ease pains inflicted on the peoples by acts of poor governance as well as institutionalised perfidy. These palliatives do not in any way solve the problem; they only help to cope with certain degrees with the crisis.
Systemic challenges, systemic solutions
The global nature of climate change necessitates actions of global proportions and across the earth. Climate change is a crisis of capitalism and its attendant creed of expansion and unlimited economic growth and profits. The current inability to confront this crisis is due mainly to the vice grip on the global systems by the powerhouses of imperialism. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was set up to provide guideposts and to urge nations to act together in everyone's common interest for the survival of the planet as we know it. The conferences of parties (COP) to the convention have quickly turned into talk shops for nations to display their power, arm-twist the poor and evade action. This became most obvious at COP15 in Copenhagen and became entrenched at COP16 in Cancún. What happened at COP17 in Durban must take the medal as a conference whose critical achievement was the blatant postponement of action while the earth burns.
Climate justice activists saw the Durban debacle as one where ordinary people were unabashedly let down by governments. Leading the betrayal were the governments of the USA, Japan, Australia, Canada and other developed nations who reneged on their promises, weakened the rules on climate action and strengthened those rules that allow their corporations to profit from the climate crisis.
At the close of the Durban meeting, Sarah-Jane Clifton of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) explained for example that the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding framework for emissions reductions, survived in name only, and
The ambition for those emissions cuts remains terrifyingly low. The Green Climate Fund has no money and the plans to expand destructive carbon trading move ahead. Meanwhile, millions across the developing world already face devastating climate impacts, and the world catapults headlong towards climate catastrophe. It is clear in whose interests this deal has been advanced, and it isn't the 99 percent of people around the world.The noise of corporate polluters has drowned out the voices of ordinary people in the ears of our leaders.[2]
While Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid saw the Durban outcome as "… a compromise which saves the climate talks but endangers people living in poverty," the UNFCCC secretariat saw COP17 as a great success and indeed called it
… a landmark historical COP – not just the longest but also the decisions here have really marked a completely new trajectory for the climate regime. It has guaranteed a second commitment period but it has also laid the path for a broader regime applicable to all in a legal way and provided mechanisms for developing countries to address their needs of mitigation and adaptation.
The response of analysts such as Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia, was clear and to the point: 'It is false to say that a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has been adopted in Durban. The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP, with no commitments for emission reductions from rich countries. This means that the Kyoto Protocol will be on life support until it is replaced by a new agreement that will be even weaker.'[3]
The descent into non-binding pledge-and-review system places the world on the way to warming by as much as 4 to 7 degrees C above preindustrial levels. If that happens, Africa will be cooked because the continent experiences 50 per cent more than average global temperature levels. The reluctance of rich and highly polluting nations to take real actions on climate change has rightly been described as a form of apartheid. This is apartheid against Mother Earth and the species that she bears.
While the people see the outcomes of COPs 15, 16 and 17 as off the mark, officials insist that sitting in the driving seat is not the same as being in the passenger's seat. They say that reaching those conclusions in a conference of so many governments ought to be applauded. The views of key players at the conference are revealing. Let us look at samples of these:
For Maite Nkoana-Mashbane, the president of the Durban conference: 'We have taken crucial steps forward for the common good and the global citizenry today. I believe that what we have achieved in Durban will play a central role in saving tomorrow, today.'[4] The executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres was no less upbeat: 'I salute the countries who made this agreement. They have all laid aside some cherished objectives of their own to meet a common purpose — a long-term solution to climate change. The South African presidency steered through a long and intense conference to a historic agreement that has met all major issues.[5]
The water and environment affairs minister of South Africa, Edna Molewa, waxed superlative in her summation of the COP: 'After a year of intensive negotiation, the final outcome of Durban is historic and precedent-setting, ranking with the 1997 conference where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted. In the dying hours of this watershed conference, we were able to agree on a comprehensive deal.'[6]
The successes of the Durban conference alluded to:
- Agreement to set up a Green Climate Fund
- Agreement to negotiate a binding emissions reduction by 2015 and bring it into force by 2020 (an 'agreement to negotiate' is a quaint form of agreement)
- Not burying the Kyoto Protocol (but merely leaving it on life support)
- Jettisoning of equity aspect of the Kyoto Protocol (by erasing the common but differentiated responsibilities provisions)
- Agriculture got mentioned in the outcomes (for carbon credit purposes opposed by farmers and mass movements)
Would you trust a COP?
In To Cook A Continent, I noted:
The question that confronts humanity is how to tackle this carbon in the atmosphere. What should people do? Do we stop releasing carbon into the atmosphere? What would that entail? Are there acceptable levels that we can keep to so as not to reach the point of no return with a runaway climate change? These questions have engaged the imaginations of many and a variety of solutions have been offered.
One interesting proposed solution that has come up is that of carbon sequestration. In this scenario you could keep up with business as usual, releasing as much carbon as you please, only ensuring that the carbon is captured and stored or sequestered. Technologists have been at work on carbon sequestration technologies with some already undergoing tests, but with none likely to be ready for practical use until about 2020. Meanwhile carbon offset is gaining ground in some quarters with the proposition that one could pollute in part of the world, and then have the pollution offset in another part of the world. For example, a company in Europe could keep on stoking the atmosphere with carbon, but plant a tree plantation somewhere in Africa and since the trees absorb carbon, the company can feel satisfied that they are carbon neutral. It is a convenient fictional scenario. The company cleans up its conscience; those setting up the plantation get paid. Communities whose lands are taken up to set up the plantations may get jobs as plantation hands and perhaps receive some form of compensation for lost farmlands.[7]
The COP17 outcome seeks to include developed and developing nations in set emissions reduction targets. But it would only negotiate such a new legally binding agreement in 2015. And whatever this agreement turns out to be, it will only take effect after 2020. This means that from now until 2020, nations would cut emissions based on their own national pledges, which are voluntary and not legally binding.[8]
Thus the Durban conference eliminated any sense of equity and fairness predicated on the common but differentiated responsibility in the efforts to tackle climate change.This was done despite the fact that the rich industrialised countries are responsible for three quarters of all emissions historically whilst hosting only 15 percent of the world's population.
The Durban outcome showed no sense of urgent action in the face of the planetary emergency— just a promise to start a whole new round of negotiations on a whole new treaty, delaying action until 2020— by which time we may already have irreversible crisis on our hands.
The entire foundation of the climate regime was pulled apart, and those to blame for this destruction are the governments of United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and the other rich industrialised nations who worked hard to avoid their legal and moral obligation to make deep and urgent emissions reductions to help the world avoid the onset of runaway climate change.
By forcing the so-called Durban Platform through the UN process, the United States and the EU led the charge in shifting the burden of tackling climate change squarely onto the shoulders of countries in Africa and the global South.
While countries dither about what can be done globally to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures others have learned from the Katrina floods that showed the soft underbelly of the USA that no one is immune to what is coming in the future. Thus, Germany is spending 600 million Euros on one new sea wall for Hamburg while The Netherlands plans to spend 2.2 billion Euros on dykes between now and 2015. These measures may be inadequate considering they are indicators of what rich nations are capable of doing in a bid to survive the coming floods. The question is, what will happen to the poor? What is the response to the cries of the Small Island States such as Tuvalu whose citizens are already becoming climate refugees?
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is one mechanism that allows polluters to keep polluting, take no action to reduce emissions but rather buy carbon credits that enable them to carry on with business as usual. Many observers including the Durban Group for Climate Justice exposed this loophole and denounced REDD as a false solution. In 2009 at Copenhagen the Durban Group stated:
Like Clean Development Mechanism credits, they exacerbate climate change by giving industrialised countries and companies incentives to delay undertaking the sweeping structural change away from fossil fuel-dependent systems of production, consumption, transportation that the climate problem demands. They waste years of time that the world doesn't have. Worse, conserving forests can never be climatically equivalent to keeping fossil fuels in the ground, since carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels adds to the overall burden of carbon perpetually circulating among the atmosphere, vegetation, soils and oceans, whereas carbon dioxide from deforestation does not. This inequivalence, among many other complexities, makes REDD carbon accounting, impossible, allowing carbon traders to inflate the value of REDD carbon credits with impunity and further increasing the use of fossil fuels.[9]
REDD does not seek to halt deforestation as it rather focuses on what the promoters believe is the carbon stock in the trees. In this process, forest communities suffer evictions and exclusion from their territories and forest resources. Moreover, the United Nations sees monoculture plantations as forests, making it attractive for carbon speculators to convert forests into plantations in efforts to disconnect indigenous communities from ever claiming titles over their patrimony. REDD is a major driver of land grabbing that is impoverishing already poor communities and deepening the food crisis by converting arable lands for cash cropping and related projects aimed at the export markets.
While communities stand to lose, big companies are raring to go in their carbon cash dash. Big polluters investing in REDD include Shell, Rio Tinto and Chevron-Texaco who see this as an avenue for buying their way out of reducing their greenhouse emissions at source by supposedly conserving forests. The oil giant Shell (well known for its role in the environmental destruction of Nigeria's Niger Delta), Gasprom and the Clinton Foundation are funding the landmark REDD Rimba Raya project in East Kalimantan in Indonesia.[10]
Agrofuels – the new fossil fuels?
In 2006 the former president of Senegal proposed the creation of what he termed a 'green' OPEC expected to be the Pan-African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP). President Abdoulaye Wade, in an article titled Africa Over the Barrel, envisioned the body as one that would aspire to 'become leaders in the field of biofuels and alternative energy strategies, following in Brazil's footsteps.'
The notion of a green OPEC suggests a propensity for commodity cartelisation as well as a fixation on a model dependent on fossil fuels. With fifteen countries already on board and meetings already held, the PANPP dream may wax strong. At the founding meeting, twenty-five countries participated, with fifteen endorsing the founding charter. The countries included: Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Zambia.
The concerns are whether its activities will help or worsen the food crisis and land conflicts on the African Continent.
We were very disappointed that the Copenhagen conference attempted to impose the adoption of an accord on the COP following an undemocratic process.The Copenhagen Accord attempted to eliminate the Kyoto Protocol and ignored concerns already well shown by science and equity to be critical for the survival of the earth and her peoples. The 'Accord' does this mainly through the negation of the principle of aggregate emissions reduction target for rich nations. By promoting voluntary emissions targets, the Accord has so far pointed at a possibility of a temperature increase of over 4 degrees Celsius – a clear notice to Africa that she should prepare to be incinerated. Comparable extreme fate awaits small island and Arctic states if that scenario is allowed to stand.
The Peoples Agreement, a key outcome of the Cochabamba conference, demands that countries cut their emissions by at least 50 percent on 1990 levels at source in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2017), without recourse to offsets and other carbon trading schemes. These market mechanisms such as those in CDM and REDD sell false solutions to speculators who are happy to do nothing while exposing the earth to grave danger through unabated greenhouse gas emissions.
In terms of finance, the Peoples Agreement demands that developed countries commit 6 percent of their GDP to finance adaptation and mitigation needs. The financial suggestions of the Copenhagen Accord are a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to secure vulnerable peoples and nations.
The peoples of the world also affirmed that there is a climate debt that must be recognised and paid. The payment is not all about finance but principally about decolonizing the atmospheric space and redistributing the meagre space left. Developed countries already occupy 80 percent of the space.
The climate debt is also about taking actions needed to restore the natural cycles of Mother Earth and one clear way of achieving this will be through the proclamation of a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth with clear obligations on humans.
The Peoples Agreement recognises that the causes of climate change are systemic and that systemic changes are needed to tackle them. On this note, the model of civilisation that is hinged on uncontrolled development can only compound the crisis. The world needs to move towards living well and not continue on the path of domination of others and of conspicuous and wasteful consumption.
An area glossed over in the UNFCCC negotiations is the role of industrial agriculture in climate change. The Peoples Conference debated this key sector and reached the agreement that the way to a sustainable future is through the enthronement of food sovereignty based on agro-ecological and peasant based agricultural systems.Water is a public trust and an inalienable human right and the continued global destruction of the world's water and its commodification was clearly rejected in the Peoples Agreement.
In all, the Peoples Agreement recognises that real strategies to tackle climate change must be based on the principles of equity and justice in dealing with the structural causes. Without climate justice it will clearly be impossible to achieve the much talked about Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Cochabamba resonated with calls for urgently securing the rights of Mother Earth as a means of reconfiguring our relationship with the earth and with each other— in a way that respects the past, today and the future. All these will be a pipe dream unless peoples' sovereignty is supported, restored and built across the world. Cochabamba was a turning point in the march to transform our world from the paths of conflicts, competition, exploitation and domination unto a path of solidarity and dignity.
As representatives of peoples from across the world we urge the United Nations system to embrace the contributions captured by the Peoples Agreement and other outcomes of the Cochabamba World peoples Conference on Climate Change and to use them as the key to untangle the gridlock that is keeping the world on the path to even more climate chaos.
In a presentation to the UN Secretary General, Meena Raman asserted that 'The Peoples' Agreement from Cochabamba has called for a global referendum or popular consultation on climate change, should the process of future climate meetings not deliver the aspirations of the Peoples' Agreement.'[11] She noted that a key outcome at the next COP must be an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period from 2013-2017 for developed countries to agree to domestic emissions cuts of at least 50 percent from 1990 levels excluding carbon markets or other offset mechanisms. She stressed that the Kyoto model is superior because it mandates an aggregate reduction target for Annex I parties, it mandates each Annex I country have an adequate target which is also comparable with one another, and that these are legally binding. Under the Copenhagen Accord, there is no aggregate target, and each country only pledges what it wants even if it is not adequate. Under the Accord the pledges as you know are grossly inadequate, adding to only a 11-18 percent cut compared to the 40 percent cut needed. Raman concluded that the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol was imperative and noted that developed countries, through the Copenhagen Accord, were attempting to 'kill' the KP.
The negotiations at the UNFCCC COPs continue to drag away from real solutions and instead move deeper into offset regimes, depending on market forces that have clearly driven the world into financial, economic and political crises. Larry Lohmann[12] reminds us that when Sir Nicholas Stern, climate change advisor to Tony Blair's government, famously said in 2007 that global warming was 'the greatest market failure the world has ever seen', the implication was that, given the proper price signals, addressing it could be a market success.
Lohmann adds that with that mindset, predictably, Sir Stern became a climate entrepreneur, serving also as advisor to IDEAcarbon, a company whose ambition is to provide 'ratings, research, and strategic advice' on carbon commodities and finance to 'buyers, sellers and hedgers'.
We need to evaluate the creed that presents the market as holding the solution to every problem and the key to human progress and happiness in the face of the crises it has spawned. Humans cannot trade their way out of the impending climate catastrophe.
The fossil fuel sector needs to be reined in. In particular, the oil sector that most entrenches the production and consumption patterns that aggravate global warming is very closely interwoven with the military industrial complex. The intertwining is so deep that a map of flash-points in the world would almost equal one of crude oil and gas fields. Thus, when the UNFCCC creates a climate account with no cash in it rich countries are busy investing billions of dollars in destructive wars and selling weapons to struggling economies with no need of standing armies.
Less than ten per cent of the budgets lavished on wars by rich nations would more than take care of helping vulnerable nations build resilience as well as adapt to the unfortunate situation they are driven into. The same can be said of the funding of the MDGs.
It is time for world leaders to listen to their people. Climate change does not divide the peoples of the world. It unites them in more sense than one. It offers a clear opportunity for solidarity actions to stem the tide and show the present generation of humans cares about the future.
The current trend wherein development is measured in terms of pollution must be halted. Levels of carbon emission should be a measure of irresponsibility and not one of well-being. The more polluting a country is, the more irresponsible it should be seen to be and such countries should be held accountable for their impacts on the planet.
The real solution to climate change is the cutting of emissions at source rather than wasting resources on untested technologies such as those of carbon capture and storage and geo-engineering.This is the time for the world to quickly move away from the fossil fuels driven civilisation.The equation of energy security to national security will continue to lead some nations into military adventures that, apart from being destructive, themselves consume huge fossil fuels and compound the problems of climate change. The neoliberal system permits the World Bank to parade itself as a climate bank while it keeps funding dirty energy projects such as the Eskom coal plant in South Africa and a number of other fossil fuels projects elsewhere. It is time for the overturning of corporate power and halting of its erosion of peoples' sovereignty.
The world needs urgent actions to ensure rapid transiting from the current fossil fuels driven path and build transformation solutions on a renewable and sustainable path. The key nodes of this agenda will include:
- Reclaiming peoples control over their resources
- Building progressive people-oriented governments and power structures and shifting away from destructive modes of relations
- Redirecting military budgets for climate change mitigation and adaptation
- Legislation – such as the Rights of Mother Earth
- Recognition of ecocide as an international crime and the commencement of the prosecution of eco-criminals akin to what happens at the current International Court of Justice, but not allowing any nation or corporation to opt out.
- Leaving fossil fuels in the soil
- Having binding agreements for emissions reduction, and jettisoning carbon offsetting as a means of tackling global warming.
- Scheer, Hermann (2012) The Energy Imperative – 100 Per Cent Renewable Now, London, Earthscan, p.3 ↵
- Friends of the Earth International (2011), 'Reaction to Durban climate talks', 11 December, http://www.foei.org/press/archive-by-year/press-2011/reaction-to-durban-climate-talks (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- Focus on the Global South (2011), 'CJN: COP17 succumbs to Climate Apartheid. Antidote is Chochabamba Peoples' Agreement', http://focusweb.org/content/cjn-cop17-succumbs-climate-apartheid-antidote-cochabamba-peoples-agreement (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- Conway-Smith, Erin (2011)'China Says Rich Countries don't care Enough About Climate Change To Do Anything', Business Insider Australia, (12 December), http://www.businessinsider.com.au/china-says-rich-countries-dont-care-enough-about-climate-change-to-do-anything-2011-12 (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- United Nations (2011) 'Durban conference delivers breakthrough in international community' response to climate change' https://unfccc.int/files/press/press_releases_advisories/application/pdf/pr20111112cop17final.pdf (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- Bond, Patrick, 'Durban's conference of polluters, market failure and critic failure', ephemera, http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/durban's-conference-polluters-market-failure-and-critic-failure (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- Bassey, Nnimmo (2012) To Cook A Continent – Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa, Oxford, Pambazuka Press, pp.105-106 ↵
- This emissions pledges and non-committal choreography was confirmed at COP20 and COP21 ↵
- See 'The Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD', (07 December 2011), at http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/ceesp/?8786/The-Global-Alliance-of-Indigenous-Peoples-and-Local-Communities-against-REDD (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- Lang, Chris (8 September 2010). Shell REDD project slammed by indigenous Environmental Network and Friends of the Earth Nigeria. www.redd-monitor.org/2010/09/08/indigenous-environmental -network-and-friends-of-the-earth-nigeria-denounce-shell-redd-project/ (accessed 28 May 2016) ↵
- See the Submission by the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action at http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/ad_hoc_working_groups/lca/application/pdf/bolivia_awglca10.pdf (accessed 7 June 2016) ↵
- Larry Lohmann. 28 October 2011. The Endless Algebra of Climate Markets. http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/sites/thecornerhouse.org.uk/files/LohmannCNSarticle.pdf (accessed 7 June 2016) ↵


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Meet the 20-year-old fighting to end food waste while taking finals
When she's not in between classes at American University, college sophomore Maria Rose Belding is busy in America.
At 20 years old, she's the founder and CEO of MEANS Database, an interactive site that's helping reduce food waste and feed the hungry by connecting thousands of food pantries, soup kitchens, and other nonprofit groups with donors giving away excess food. Belding was one of ten finalists in the 2015 L'Oreal Women of Worth contest, which honors extraordinary women making a difference in their respective communities. She's also the 2015 Clinton Hunger Leadership Award winner and the author of over a dozen nationally published articles on hunger policy, her first major piece published when she was 15.
Registered users post to Belding's site what food they want to get rid of and MEANS immediately notifies registered food banks and pantries, which can claim the donation. MEANS Database has already helped save an estimated 4,000 pounds of food across 26 states, and connected more than 200 large-scale food banks.
"We doubled our user count in October, and since then seen this steady incline in our site members," Belding told TakePart.
Belding and her team, which consists mostly of undergraduate students, along with two professional programmers and co-founder Grant Nelson, have seen anything from canned beans to bacon and eggs posted to the site. The most unusual donation they received, Belding said, was 3,600 hot dog buns and 3,600 lunch bags—each filled with a cookie, a bag of chips, condiments, and a plastic fork.
The donation came from a charity event in Maryland; planners had overestimated turnout. Though they managed to get all the hot dogs eaten, the lunch bags and hot dog buns went unused, causing charity organizers to turn to MEANS (Matching Excess And Needs for Stability) Database for help. A homeless shelter ended up claiming the donation.
"They posted it Sunday and it was claimed that same day, and then by Monday it was going to places on the street," Belding said. "That was really validating for me. I just sat in my room crying and thought, 'We did it, we did it.' I thought this was initially just for food banks, but Grant convinced me there was so much more we can do."
Nelson, a third-year law student at George Washington University, agreed to help Belding build the program for MEANS Database when they first met about a year and a half ago. At the time, Belding was just starting out as a college freshman. She had conceived of MEANS Database three years prior, but without any knowledge of coding, she wasn't able to create it herself.
"It's taken five years to get this off the ground," Belding said.
Growing up, Belding and her mom often volunteered at local soup kitchens near their home in Iowa, but it wasn't until she was 15 that Belding felt compelled to find a solution to food waste. Another church had donated 10,000 boxes of mac and cheese to her church's soup kitchen, though it already had more than staff could distribute on their own.
The director of the soup kitchen even brought many of the boxes with her on vacation to give to a food kitchen out of town. "I started to think, 'there's got to be a better way,'" Bedling said.
It's estimated that 40 percent of food in the U.S. goes uneaten every year. That's about $165 billion worth of food that Americans are throwing out, a lot of which ends up rotting in landfills instead of feeding the families who struggle daily to put dinner on the table.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are said to be among the worst holidays for food waste. Food banks get a surplus of donations over the holidays.
"It's great in one aspect because people want to give during the Christmas season, but most food pantries are in need during Fourth of July and St. Patrick's Day," Bedling said.
In terms of a solution to seasonal food waste, Bedling says people should really think about how much food they're making and how many people they're going to be serving during the holidays.
Find out what the government's goal is in terms of reducing food waste:
Related stories on TakePart:
One Kitchen Aims to Upcycle Food Waste and Employ the Poor
Proposed Law Would Cut Back on Food Waste From Farm to Fridge
Need $13,000 Worth of Chocolate Health Bars? Dumpster Dive

subset: commoncrawl


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There is a disturbing new report out about children ingesting rare-earth magnet sets at an accelerated rate since 2016, when the industry overturned a federal sales ban in court. The magnet industry now markets these powerful cluster sets to adults, but children continue to swallow them. Parents can take precautions by double checking holiday gifts and discarding any of these products.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a rule banning the small rare-earth magnet sets in 2014 after hundreds of children reportedly ingested the magnets. The rare-earth magnets were (and still are) about 10 times as strong as other magnets. The CPSC's ban required magnetic parts to have a lower force of attraction of 50 kG² mm² or less.
According to The Washington Post, child ingestions had dropped after the ban was implemented. Injuries dramatically rose between 2017 and 2019, with an estimated 1,580 ingestions this year.


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Justin Bieber is still one of the most famous celebrities of pop music. The young Canadian has become a star, not only because of his music but also for his behavior on the stage and outside of it.
For all of those who still admire Justin Bieber, we share ten of his best pictures circulating online. You can use them freely to create memes or to decórate your own room.
If you like Justin Bieber, you need to have your own folder with pictures and files about him. Share it with other believers and make Justin known around the world as the teenager music star he truly is.


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Modern mobile devices like iPhone and Android smartphones are useless without having mobile apps in them. The demand for mobile apps has grown a lot hence developers build unique and profitable apps. If you are an app developer and want to make your mobile application a success then you need to promote it so that it reaches to large number of people.
Hence building a website for your app will help you to showcase your app. This website can introduce your app to the public. Also your target users would first want to know more about your app before they download it from the app store. If you have created a dream mobile app and now you want to present it before the world then you don't need to spend time on creating a website or landing page for it. There are several WordPress themes available in the market which can do this job effectively. These beautifully designed marketing pages can increase the number of visitors and the sales you get. These pages give the confidence to the visitors to go ahead and use the app as they think that the app must also be well designed as its website.
When you are designing a website for a mobile app – whether it is an iPhone app or an Android app, your main goal is to encourage the visitors more and more to download and install the app. If you keep just this one goal in mind then your efforts will be more focused and the targeted website/landing page will have attractive, simple and well created designs. In this article we are going to tell you about the Top App Showcase WordPress Themes. You don't need to hire a professional web developer just to build the website for your mobile app. We will tell you about the app showcase WordPress themes which are specially designed for your apps requirements. These themes have great features to efficiently tell about the positive points of your app and encourage people to purchase or download your mobile app. Below is the list of Top app showcase WordPress themes.
If your mobile app is ready to launch and you want to do some marketing of it then you can go for the theme, Stratus which is focused on lead generation and showcasing your mobile app. Theme customizations can be done from dashboard admin panel with a drag and drop page builder which enables you to create any layout. Header customization is also not difficult. Stratus theme also has more than 25 shortcodes to include more functionality including tabs for FAQ segment, Google Map embeds and image boxes for creating galleries. Stratus theme also has a downloadable Photoshop file for site mockups and also a child theme so that the customizations are not overwritten by theme updates. Stratus is a theme which you can easily use for showcasing your latest mobile app.
Massive Dynamic
If your app is ready to be launched and now you want to create its showcase website then you can use the Massive Dynamic theme which can help you to convert leads into sales. It is rightly called Massive Dynamic as it has 70 shortcodes to build your page, along with a drag and drop layout creator called Massive Builder for more customization. Massive Dynamic enables you to create page widths of any size and not just the fixed full-width designs in other themes. This theme also has the plugins namely bundled MailChimp and Contact Form 7 which means the email addresses which you will collect from customers can be managed and accessed directly from your WordPress dashboard easily.
Jevelin is a latest, creative, customizable, rapid and responsive WordPress Multipurpose website theme. Jevelin has been created by a dedicated team of developers which are committed to provide the ultimate multipurpose experience to website owners. Javelin use combination of perfect demo websites and page templates with high resolution images which are ready for deployment and included in the theme. Javelin theme also supports the customization of visual and graphical elements of your website without writing any programming code i.e. using just drag and drop interfaces alongwith the admin panel controls. Jevelin theme is a leader in running landing page websites and mobile app websites across all kinds of fields and sectors. Jevelin is smooth and loads fast and can handle large traffic without any issue while its mobile friendly feature make it cross-compatible with browsers and devices around the globe.
MobileApp is an ultimate mobile app theme for WordPress created by MyThemeShop. It has an ultra-responsive design which offers you lots of amazing features to help you in creating a professional looking website in very short time. Using this theme, you can create as many sections in your site as you want as per your requirement and showcase your app with a screenshot and other information including a button to download the app. You can get 6 different mobile devices images to make your users know that your app works perfectly on so many devices. You can turn on or off the main navigation to redirect all pages to the homepage. You also have flexible parallax effect option. It also has unlimited color option. Hence you can style your website as much as you want.
MyApp is a amazingly looking latest app showcase theme developed by Templatic. Using this theme, you can create a custom site to showcase your app with front-end drag and drop builder which is very easy to use. MyApp theme has a drop down menu inside it where you can see several options to customize the look and feel of your website and you can also see the real time preview of it. You can also choose the color and typography to make it look as per your requirements. In this theme, the visual composer is very powerful and you can change almost each element of the theme from the front-end. For this you just need to hover over the text or the image which you want to change and then you can see the required interface right there to change it. It has fully responsive design which makes your website looks perfect even in small screen mobile devices. It also gives you unique content blocks which you can easily move to create a unique website as per your requirements.
App Mojo
App Mojo is an attractive and responsive single page product promotion theme for WordPress. You can use this theme to promote any of your mobile app as it has all the features which are required to do so. This theme has many features to customize your website. Popular plugins like Layer Slider and Revolution Slider are included in this theme package and it looks to be a perfect theme for promoting apps to attract more customers. This fully responsive theme is developed using HTML5 and CSS3 which makes it a fully modern design which is also quick and user friendly. You can use any of the amazing 600+ Google fonts to style your website. You can also make your website full width or boxed layout as per your requirement.
If you have created your mobile app and now want to launch it in the market then first creating a website to promote your mobile app is the best way to start the process. We have discussed some of the most popular app showcase WordPress themes for you. You can select anyone of them to build your site. These themes have many inbuilt features to help you in the promotion process, provide best platform to attract your visitors and give them all the required information about your mobile app being launched. Hence have a perfect website for your app using the above app showcase WordPress themes and make your app a success in the market.


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More than just a HOMEThis immaculately presented property, boasting dual level home and landscaped gardens is located in the whisper quiet pocket of Casula.
Embrace a life of carefree tranquillity with the stylishly convenient glass sliding doors that open out to a soothing space of alfresco dining. This home provides private and intimate outdoor entertaining.
Architecturally designed home first time being offered
Master bedroom with oversized walk-in and en-suite
Well appointed gourmet kitchen with gas cooking and a pantry to be envied
Undercover alfresco area ideal for the entertainer
Cul-de sac setting, with elevated positioning on a 690sqm+ parcel of land
Ducted air-con, alarm and double garage with internal access and workshop space
Within close proximity of local schools, shops, transport facilities and parks
This truly is a beautiful home with too many features to list. Come and see for yourself!
Contact Agent
Aaron Dunn
- 5
- 3
- 2
- Town: Casula
- Property Type: House
- Land Size: 690.5 m2


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Sam Phillips has been a Christian rock star, an acid-pop tunesmith, an acoustic troubadour, and scorer of the Gilmore Girls. Wherever she goes, excellent melodies and penetrating words are her companions. Phillips' most recent offerings are five digital EPs and an actual physical thing called Solid State from her web-based music and art installation, Long Play. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is raising a daughter with her former husband T Bone Burnett. We spoke on the telephone and again over lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Phillips enjoys the salads and the people-watching.
Q: So, I've been thinking a lot about midlife.
A: The first thing I think of when I hear that word, I don't know if you saw Carrie Fisher's "Postcards from Edge," is one line where the mother character, the Debbie Reynolds character, says she's middle-aged, and Carrie Fisher says, "Oh, mom, you're not middle-aged. I'm middle-aged. How many 140 year old people do you know?" It was so funny because it's so true. I see them all the time in L.A. These broads who can be 70, 80 years old and they're just getting to middle age. It's a mental state. I read a horrible book a few years ago that a friend had given to me and I'm blanking on the name and the author, I think on purpose. It basically said, just give up. You're old. You're 40 and hey, it's great you don't have to think about those annoying things like men and living life. And I thought, whoa, no, I have a 12-year-old daughter, and we're all wondering, how do you do this? How do you navigate the second half? There are things I want to learn so my daughter can have an example. So I can leave some sort of trail.
Q: Has the way you make things changed over time?
A: I had a big shift, and maybe this puts me into midlife earlier than most people, when I had my little girl about 13 years ago. I couldn't write at all for that entire year. In a way I think absence makes the heart grow fonder. I was dying to write once I had her and we got on our way as a little family. I kind of went back to square one. Before, I hadn't played a lot of guitar on my records and T Bone and I had more heavily produced the albums. We took a long time. But I did an about face. I even, and this sounds odd, stopped playing guitar with a pick. I started playing with my hand so that I could create the rhythms I wanted. The pick was always a hindrance, getting between me and the guitar, because I started out playing classical guitar with my fingers. I went back to that, and also stripped down the kind of music I was making. I was making pop music, and then I signed with Nonesuch out of New York and started making albums that – T Bone called them severe. And they have evolved into some other thing. It marked a time when I began to stand on my abilities as a guitar player, however slim those were. I wanted to start from the ground up. I'm having a hard time describing this because I haven't really put it into words.
Q: Are you familiar with the idea of Beginner's Mind?
A: I know it's a wonderful concept. When you have a certain amount of disappointment by the time you've hit the middle of life, that may be one of the things that cuts creativity. You get cynical or discouraged. Not to get sidetracked, but someone who would be wonderful to talk to would be my ex-husband T Bone about this. He started early on but didn't start having the run of his life until about 1993-94, when he was in his mid-'40s. He just didn't give up. He took a sock in the stomach but kept going and kept believing. He's one of the most remarkable people I know. It's weird to feel this way about your ex-husband but he's one of my heroes. The way I've seen him proceed in his life, with belief and love and kindness and commitment to his work, with all the crazy things that happen when commerce and art have to live together.
Q: Yeah, we also live in this incredibly youth-centric culture and it seems that can't help but have an impact as we grow older.
A: I think that's part of it too. Sometimes people lose their energy or nerve or heart. I'm still feeling the ground shake underneath me. I'm not all that settled on that. I've always felt a little removed from the culture, a little bit of a stranger, and very stubborn about going my own way musically. So I've been prepared for it all my life, in a way. Finding my own little corner and camping out. I'm not worried that a 21-year-old is going to take my place, because I'm writing things I couldn't have written at 21, and couldn't have written at 30. I think you have to live a certain amount of years to write certain things. I can't really explain it to you. I just feel it to be true. I also feel like when I did make that turn after I had my daughter, I'm most proud of the songs I've written after she was born. I might add that I'm not touting the wonders of motherhood. That was a very, very hard time in my life, on my body, on my emotions. There was post-partum stuff, then my marriage broke up a few years later. But the songs came out of that rough time, and the shaky ground of wondering who am I. What value do I have? Now that I'm getting older, if you're taking away a layer of youth and sex appeal, how do I move around in the world and relate to other people? All those meanderings, all those questions and complications, make fertile ground for writing songs.
Q: Tell me about The Long Play, your recent year-long art and music installation on the web. What did you set out to accomplish?
A: For a lot of reasons, including my own enjoyment and creativity, I wanted to push myself to write and get out five EPs and a record over the course of a year, while blogging a little bit, doing audio logs, video, some little art pieces. I was trying to get all the creative juices flowing and let people into my process, as far as that was entertaining. There were times when things didn't get finished the way I wanted them to get finished, maybe a lyric wasn't quite as good I wanted it to be, but I wanted to keep on going. I felt that setting that limit was important and I'm very pleased with how it's gone. I actually have started another record that will be released at large next year. I did a lot of writing and recording, which I think I needed to do. When I ended my work with the "Gilmore Girls", where you really had to work on deadline, I was used to that pace, even though we were doing tiny bits of music.
Q. Have your interests changed over time as a songwriter? Are you drawn to different topics?
A. I think in one sense I've always wanted to talk about the same things. When I was a teenager, instead of experimenting with drugs and sex I wanted to experiment with spirituality and religion. I completely worked through that, as I had a little bit of success in that area. [Phillips started out as a Christian artist]. It started feeling hollow and I was seeing a lot of hypocrisy and politics. I felt I needed to get out of that and start over, which I did, and I'm so glad, because I was able to salvage my spiritual life, as well. I think fundamentalism helped me, coming from a family that was a little dysfunctional, put some things together, but to continue on would have been unhealthy for me. That was a whole other thing. I've always loved pop music. At first, coming out of gospel music I was fascinated with so many different kinds of songwriters and lyrics and I really wanted to be funny, be clever, try all that out. As I got further and further and as I changed musically in the sense of production and how I wanted to arrange and perform the songs, I felt that everything needed to be more simple. It's much more of a challenge to be able to say something simply. I strive for that. A lot of times I envy people who do stream-of-consciousness songs. I will write throwaways just to be not so uptight and hard on myself and severe. Just be dumb. I think there's something important about that. But I'm not going to show that necessarily, and I made that decision with The Long Play not to put a lot of that stuff out. Before the Internet, I always thought a horrible fate would be for a camera to be on you 24/7. But people love that. Privacy is not an issue and to me that's jail. I think also just discovering yourself and finding secrets and clues to your life and your path and what you love. We had to go on a hunt a little more. Maybe that's a good thing they have access to things more easily. Maybe it's not such a good thing.


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We honor the extensive history of the Novato Youth Center and Novato Human Needs Center since 1966. Both organizations were created by concerned residents who wanted to provide programs and services to address important community needs. We are extremely grateful to our past leadership, including Board Presidents and Executive Directors, who have helped navigate the organizations through strategic planning to effectively serve the community over the past 45+ years.
Novato Youth Center History Summary
In 1966, the Novato Youth Center began as a dream. Our founding families hoped to someday create a safe and nurturing place for Novato's youth. A decade later, after lots of community organizing, the doors to our new facility opened and was first called the Novato Boys Club. Our Center evolved and grew through several name changes and building expansions and additions to become the Novato Youth Center, a nonprofit organization offering a wide range of educational and enrichment activities to support the healthy development of youth and their families. Our Center grew from serving 250 children in our first afterschool program to now reaching more than 2,700 youth and families annually.
Novato Human Needs Center History Summary
The Novato Human Needs Center was founded in 1972 when three people, a single mom, local pastor and small business owner, wanted to help brighten the holidays for their neighbors who were less fortunate. Volunteers first worked out of a garage collecting holiday gifts and food. Shortly after this first holiday share, the first paid staff and volunteers moved offices to an older house on South Novato Blvd. paying the City of Novato annual rent of one dollar. In 1985 following a successful local community-wide fundraising campaign and completion of construction, the new resource Center was opened at 1907 Novato Blvd. NHNC grew from assisting 50 families to more than 3,000 of Novato's low-income children, adults and seniors, providing a full array of critical basic services.
Novato Youth Center (NYC) and Novato Human Needs Center (NHNC) Detailed History Timeline
1966-1976: NYC: The Center began as a dream for parents and community members, who fundraised for 10 years, and constructed the 680 Wilson Avenue building that opened in 1976.
1972: NHNC: Founded when three people, a single mom, local pastor and small business owner, wanted to help brighten the holidays for their neighbors who were less fortunate. They first worked out of a garage collecting holiday gifts in the initial years.
1983-1999: NHNC: Outreach to Latino/Hispanic populations to provide support for newly settled immigrants; operated "Kinship Hotline" a suicide hotline during this period utilizing staff and volunteers to manage phones.
1976-1982: NYC: Initially opened as the Novato Boys Club, with drop-in recreation services, sports and classes; membership based services to 300 youth ages 6 to 18 in the first year. Bingo was the primary fundraiser.
1983-84: NYC: Renamed to the Novato Youth Center to expand services (501c3 non-profit organization (tax ID# 94-1735064); opened the first licensed school age childcare center in Marin County; launched winter Indoor Soccer league and first collaborative program with NUSD, Recreation Unlimited (an enrichment program for students with learning differences).
1985-2008: NHNC: New Center opened May 1st 1985; the second Thrift Store was created to provide low cost furniture, clothes, and household items for clients and the community.
1987-88: NYC: Launched Tutoring Program and educational workshops; launched the Youth and Family Counseling Program and started NUSD school-based counseling services.
1990: NYC: Remodeled and expanded the 680 Wilson Ave building from 14,000 sq. ft. to 23,000 sq. ft., enabling an increase in school age licensing capacity from 85 to 150 participants.
1984-2013: NHNC: Created the Senior Transportation Program to transport Novato Seniors and Disabled people to medical appointments and other critical services using paratransit vans driven by friendly drivers.
1992: NHNC: Created the Amigos de la Familia Program as a contract with County of Marin Children and Family Services to provide in-home parenting support to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. The program includes both Spanish and English speaking families served by NHNC bilingual seasoned case managers.
1993-1996: NHNC: Created the Summer Youth and Training Program for low-income youth between the ages of 14 and 21 to receive job coaching and counseling, vocational guidance and career planning.
1993-2004: NHNC: Became part of School linked Services Program at Lynwood and Hamilton Schools.
1994: NYC: Strategically shifted from facility-based services only to offering programs throughout Novato. A second collaborative program with NUSD, Adventures In Learning, began serving high risk students from all 8 elementary schools. Bingo fundraiser ended.
1994-2015: NHNC: Launched shower services 4 days/week to support homeless clients.
1996: NYC: Expanded licensed childcare to add Infant and Preschool Programs; Counseling services were provided on all three NUSD Middle schools with the support of Marin Community Foundation.
1999-2004: NHNC: Launched Families Made Whole Program a comprehensive family support program to enhance socioeconomic status and well-being of low-income families in Novato (later became The Thriving Family Program).
1999: NYC: Launched Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program served on NUSD school campuses.
2001: NYC: 25th Anniversary Luncheon Celebration.
2002: NHNC: 30TH Anniversary Luncheon Celebration.
2003-04: NYC: Launched Parent Project and Novato School Readiness Program.
2004: NHNC: Thriving Families Initiative launched as part of a grant by Marin Community Foundation to link safety net together as part of a networked antipoverty program.
2006: NYC: 30th Anniversary Gala; opened the Novato Wellness Center to provide reproductive and mental health services to adolescents.
2007: NHNC: 35th Anniversary Dinner and Live Auction.
2007-2009: NYC: Wilson Ave building kitchen remodeled to commercial size; launched Parent-Child Interaction Therapy; installed new school age playground; launched Vibrant Novato/health education program.
2009-2010: NYC: Launched new mission "to inspire and prepare youth to succeed" with tagline "Success Starts Here". Received Novato Chamber of Commerce Large Business of the Year and the Bank of Marin Spirit of Marin awards. Launched Promotores Program. Become fiscal sponsor to Novato Blue Ribbon Coalition for Youth.
2009: NHNC: Total clients served grew to over 4,500 during the peak of the recession.
2011: NYC: 35th Anniversary Luncheon celebration.
2014: NYC: Adopted new organizational values that guide our daily work, and our employees and volunteers continuously strive to demonstrate them. 1. Collaboration and Teamwork; 2. Cultural Competence; 3. Excellence; 4. Integrity; 5. Learning and Continuous Improvement.
2015-16: NYC: Promotores Program expansion; 40th Anniversary Luncheon celebration.
2017: NHNC 45th celebrates 45th Anniversary. NYC and NHNC Board of Directors unanimously voted in November to merge the two organizations.
2018: NYC and NHNC merged and renamed to North Marin Community Services on January 1st. Launched new vision and mission


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If you've watched "The Lord of the Rings" or many other visual effects-driven Hollywood films, you have seen Massive Software's 3-D animation software at work.
The New Zealand company's technology is the reason why the hordes of orcs and warriors who cross swords in the screen versions of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tales do so in such a remarkably lifelike, non-uniform way.
The software allows developers and designers to give 3-D characters -- dubbed "agents" in Massive's parlance -- the ability to react to their surroundings based on factors including sight, touch and hearing. When scaled into a crowd, the agents interact with each other, creating a more realistic result.
The company is showcasing its software at Cebit in Hanover, Germany, this week. The appearance at Cebit represents the company's "soft launch" into new potential areas of business, which for now include engineering, architecture and robotics, according to CEO Diane Holland.
Massive sees the software being used for safe-building design, disaster scenarios, traffic and municipal planning, and possibly for scientific research into the behavior of species.
At heart, the software is an "AI authoring system," Holland said. "There is no actual, wired-in AI that comes in Massive. It's a blank canvas, because we wanted to use it for any kind of character and didn't want it to be constrained whatsoever by some predetermined AI."
A number of the program's tools center on 3-D design tasks like the characters' appearance, but the agents' AI (artificial intelligence) characteristics get fined-tuned through a node-based interface called a "Brain Editor."
Massive also employs fuzzy logic to make characters' reactions more natural "than the on/off robotic results of binary logic," the company's Web site notes, as well as "rigid body dynamics," which the site describes as "a physics-based approach to facilitating realistic stunt motion such as falling, animation of accessories, and projectiles."
Massive claims it can run simulations using hundreds of thousands of simple agents. "Large numbers of more complex agents, such as typical humanoid agents, can be done in multiple passes, by simulating agents in groups of about 10,000 to 20,000, with each subsequent group able to see and react to the previously simulated groups," its site states.
Anticipating its push into new verticals, the company added a 'memory' capability to its software, Holland said. Agents running within a short film or TV clip don't need to recollect much, she said, "but when we're talking about a 45-minute fire-evacuation scenario, you've got to have them be able to remember 'what was the exit I came in, where did i come from, what sign did I see,' and that sort of thing."
While Holland stressed the extensibility of the Massive platform, the company sees a need for some prebuilt agents. They will have a "pedestrian" model ready for market within a year, she said.
"We realized that architects don't have the time to build all these characters and put them in," she said. "They can certainly modify it, but we've got some basic behaviors that are already built in."
It's unclear how many markets Massive's technology could serve, according to Holland. "If you can accurately simulate what we as human beings think and do, [the possibilities are] absolutely endless."
For example, someone planning a grocery store could build a simulation using the behavior and motion patterns of retail customers to determine how best to place certain products on the shelves, she said.
In the meantime, the software is helping power a robot, Zeno, now in development as a consumer product.


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Being a Nottingham lad I don't very often extol the virtues of another county but...
Lincolnshire is a fab county to live in - great schools, low crime rate, reasonable house prices etc. and of course we have the Lincolnshire Riviera of Skegness (see image on right), Mablethorpe and Anderby Creek.
The downside is that the county has had a reputation of being a provincial backwater unlike say Nottinghamshire who are seen as a regional leader. However the big chiefs in Lincolnshire are getting their act together in terms of IT and the internet and have realised that broadband is crucial for rural businesses in Lincolnshire.
We are in the process of obtaining advanced broadband with a low contention ratio. Allow me to explain..
Think of broadband as a pipe delivering to your house. At the moment what comes down the pipe is a lot slower than what you can send up the pipe. This makes downloading quick but sending information slower. Advanced broadband has the same speed up and down. It comes from a signal rather than a phone line and the maximum number of people you can share the signal with is 10. The number of people that share broadband is called the contention ratio. The less people the better the speed.
Because the speed is so fast it can handle phone calls as well as normal stuff like email. This is called VOIP or voice over internet protocol. My personal slant is that VOIP is coming but we aren't quite ready yet.


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Hello again! I've noticed a lot of people saying they don't decorate for fall because Halloween is right around the corner or the decorations are not their style. I made the most simple felt leaf garland that is super easy to customize by changing the colors to your favorite fall pallet.
Fall Leaf Garland
This craft could not be easier or cuter! I love how happy these colors play together. These colors were inspired by a jewel toned hat I'd gotten one year. I always buy amazing hats but never wear them. Maybe this year will be the year of hat wearing!
If you follow me on Instagram, you'd have already seen these. Some people had asked for a tutorial and I thought Dana's site would be the perfect place to share the love!
Materials Needed:
- Felt of your color choice
- A piece of sturdy paper (for leaf stencil)
- Scissors
- Chunky Yarn
- Tape
The first step is to cut out your leaf pattern and trace it onto your felt. Use fabric scissors for an easier cutting experience. Once all your leaves are cut, fold each leaf in half (hotdog style) and snip little holes down the middle of the leaf. I would start in the middle and cut 4 to the right and 3 to the left allowing my thread to start and finish on the same side of the leaf after it was threaded. I suggest to do small snips and make them larger if necessary to make it look like you really sewed the yarn through the leaves.
Once the leaf has it's holes, use a piece of tape to make an aglet on the end of the yarn for easier threading. String all the leaves on your yarn and hang! Seriously. It's that easy!
I also did the same method to make a mini garland for our family command center but cut the leaves in half.
The felt leaf garland was extremely simple to make but this bradded foam pumpkin was the easiest and fastest decoration I've ever made. I love his happy polka dots. It's a nice change of pace from the orange/red/yellow standard fall decor I see in stores.
I used 7 pieces of felt from the store which allotted several garlands. I even had enough to decorate my blog/craft desk! What'd you guys think? Simple enough? What colors would you use to match your fall decor? I think this would be a fun craft to do with your kids! Maybe use it as a count down or add a leaf for every book they read in the fall!
If you liked this post, check out these others:
Connect with Shelly here:
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- Fall Leaf Garland {contributor Shelly} - September 27, 2014
- Washi Tape Light Switch {contributor Shelly} - August 23, 2014
- DIY Scrapbook of Love Letters {contributor Shelly} - July 26, 2014
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The Court is a not-for-profit community arts and culture magazine. It is fully managed and administrated by Earl's Court Community Trust (ECCT), and the publication, and the initiatives that surround it, are a central part of the Earl's Court community. The accompanying website is www.thecourt.london.
The Court is a single focal point for local arts and culture, but is rapidly becoming a much needed opportunity for residents and businesses to promote their activities to external audiences – not just in the borough, but beyond to a broader London audience, with the business-generating benefits this entails.
- The Court reaches a total estimated physical readership of 7,296 people – almost equally divided between residents, those working in the area, and visitors
- The www.thecourt.london website has been re-imagined and re-launched as an impressive digital presence using cuttingedge online technology to support local business and the community it serves
- Email Direct Marketing broadcasts are distributed weekly to a database of 10,000 residents and businesses in the RBK&C area, promoting individual events and promotions for the week ahead
- The Court can facilitate relationships between local business and local community groups when the partnerships benefit the community


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For photos of this event please go to the gallery
Eat your heart out New Zealand, it's all happening here in South Bristol!!
The World Cup tag league organised by the Ashton Park SSP kicked off on Monday with 12 primary school teams showing off their rapidly improving skills in the first phase of the Tag Rugby league.
Teams got into the spirit of the event with snippets of different languages being heard from 'Allez La France' from St Paricks Primary to 'Iechyd da,' from Ashton Vale. We even got a rendition of the 'Haka' from New Oak aka the 'All Blacks.'
Our Knowle Park 'England team' not only excelled in their play on the pitch....but also off, and Ireland (Headley Park) proved that they are still a force to be reckoned with!!!
At the moment France and Ireland are unbeaten with Samoa (Luckwell) & the Italian Baa Baas not far behind.
The next phase is on Monday 7th November at Broadplain RFC 4 - 5.30pm under floodlights.
Posted on 11 October 2011,
Category: News


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Dickies has unveiled its 2019-20 catalogue, featuring a brand-new layout plus 17 new products including a selection of t-shirts and shorts in time for the summer season.
The catalogue is over 300 pages long – the largest ever published by Dickies – and the new design aims to make it simple for tradespeople and retailers to use. For example, footwear products are split according to safety classifications, while other sections include hi-vis, trousers and shorts, tops and outerwear for quick reference.
James Whitaker, marketing director, Dickies Workwear, said: "Workwear is constantly evolving and tradespeople demand more from their clothing and footwear than ever before.
"The new catalogue provides a greater level of technical information than previous editions – all presented in a manner that's easy to understand. This will help our customers to choose workwear that meets their requirements in terms of both safety and practicality, while new photography shows the products in context – especially important for tradespeople who are keen to buy products that will help to create a professional image."
New products include the Dickies GDT Premium Shorts, which are lightweight and easy to coordinate with other items within the GDT Premium range. Practical features include a hard-wearing Cordura pocket, plus wide belt loops and hip pockets.


text: Cable Ratings 2015: 'Walking Dead's' AMC, CNN Among 4 Channels to Gain Viewers as Rivals Drop 5:00 AM PST 12/17/2015 by Michael O'Connell FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Lewis Jacobs/AMC The networks — alongside a handful of others including HGTV and E! — saw primetime growth, while A&E, MTV, FX and USA trended in the opposite direction. A version of this story first appeared in the Dec. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. With rare exceptions, "fatigued" again was the watchword for cable networks in 2015. Ratings plummeted across the board, and with all but December taken into account, AMC stands as the lone top 10 net to post significant growth. "It could easily have gone as wrong as it did right," admits AMC and Sundance TV president and GM Charlie Collier, whose flagship net is up 10 percent in the key demographic thanks in part to the year's three biggest launches: Fear the Walking Dead (6.3 million adults 18-to-49), Better Call Saul (4.4 million) and Into the Badlands (4 million). "If I had to take anything away from 2015 and apply it to 2016, it would be to keep investing in that kind of creative." AMC also benefited from the launchpad of its megahit The Walking Dead. But the overabundance of scripted options, touted by FX chief John Landgraf in August, as well as the continued struggles of cable's unscripted bread and butter proved insurmountable for others. Executives continue to push time-shifting, noting many ratings losses have been recouped with live-plus-7-day returns, but most of the networks down in live-plus-same-day remain off by just as much once DVR views are tallied. (Comedy Central, which has seen primetime fall 27 percent in same-day, remains down 25 percent after a week of delayed viewing.) "There's a ton of viewership that's not being measured," says one exec in reference to piracy, streaming and other TV vehicles not folded into conventional ratings. "Every study says that hours of content is being consumed, but it's like we're saying people who watch a show on the eighth day don't matter." FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL ME Michael O'Connell email@example.com mikeylikestv


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Traditionally, if you were interested in getting a brand new Kia you'd more than likely buy one outright and pay upfront. Considering the recent financial climate however many people find themselves unable to take the outright purchase option. That's why Kia Leasing deals have risen in popularity lately.
This isn't the only reason though, many people enter a Kia Leasing deal simply because of how beneficial they can be – both in the long-term and short-term. For example, budgeting with a leased Kia is massively simpler than purchasing outright. Monthly payments are made instead of an upfront amount which makes this method less of a struggle financially.
Regarding the monthly payments, they're decided upon when the contract is being negotiated. A few aspects of the term and some answers to questions you're asked will determine the price set. Leasing companies take estimated mileage into consideration as well as factors like the value of the car at the end of the term and the initial deposit you pay.
During these negotiations it's best to discuss possible extras to your contract that can help out and be cost-effective. Road tax inclusion and maintenance cover costs can sometimes be added into a contract, depending on your situation these can prove to be immensely helpful.
It's no surprise that Kia Leasing is becoming so popular, considering just how much it can offer as opposed to buying outright it really is a worthwhile option to consider.
Information provided by Kia-leasing.co.uk – supplying vehicles and deals such as Kia Leasing Personal Contract Hire (PCH), Kia Leasing Business Contract Hire (BCH) and many more great deals to companies and private individuals throughout the UK since 1990.