In homotopy theory, a branch of mathematics, a Quillen adjunction between two closed model categories C and D is a special kind of adjunction between categories that induces an adjunction between the homotopy categories Ho(C) and Ho(D) via the total derived functor construction. Quillen adjunctions are named in honor of the mathematician Daniel Quillen.

Formal definition
Given two closed model categories C and D, a Quillen adjunction is a pair
(F, G): C  D
of adjoint functors with F left adjoint to G such that F preserves cofibrations and trivial cofibrations or, equivalently by the closed model axioms, such that G preserves fibrations and trivial fibrations. In such an adjunction F is called the left Quillen functor and G is called the right Quillen functor.

Properties
It is a consequence of the axioms that a left (right) Quillen functor preserves weak equivalences between cofibrant (fibrant) objects. The total derived functor theorem of Quillen says that the total left derived functor
LF: Ho(C) → Ho(D)
is a left adjoint to the total right derived functor
RG: Ho(D) → Ho(C).
This adjunction (LF, RG) is called the derived adjunction.

If (F, G) is a Quillen adjunction as above such that
F(c) → d
with c cofibrant and d fibrant is a weak equivalence in D if and only if
c → G(d)
is a weak equivalence in C then it is called a Quillen equivalence of the closed model categories C and D. In this case the derived adjunction is an adjoint equivalence of categories so that
LF(c) → d
is an isomorphism in Ho(D) if and only if
c → RG(d)
is an isomorphism in Ho(C).

References

 Philip S. Hirschhorn, Model Categories and Their Localizations, American Mathematical Soc., Aug 24, 2009 - Mathematics - 457 pages

Homotopy theory
Theory of continuous functions
Adjoint functors

Quillen adjunction


The London Metal Exchange (LME) is the world's largest market in metals. The activities are organised into categories.

The main categories are forward contracts, futures contracts and options on base metals. Forward contracts decide the price at a time in the future. Futures contracts set the price for delivery at a specific time, but is between parties not yet known to each other. Options are the right but not the obligation to buy or sell.

The Exchange also offers contracts on ferrous metal (iron(II) oxide) and precious metals. The LME also allows for cash trading. It offers hedging, an investment to avoid loss, worldwide reference pricing, and the option of physical delivery to settle contracts.

Select traders do go into a ring (of seats), and round the ring are a couple of dozen other traders. These days there are people on phones and many trades are done electronically. "Open-outcry" is the oldest method of dealing, and it is done along with all the modern methods. This qualified to deal in the ring are a select group of nine companies. About 100 other companies do trade at the LME.

References

Metals
City of London
Financial organizations

London Metal Exchange


City Garden is a private housing estate in Fortress Hill, Hong Kong. It was built from 1983 to 1986 by Cheung Kong Holdings Limited. It consists of 14 blocks, each 28 storeys tall. Part of the site was occupied by the North Point Power Station before 1983.

Structure
City Garden is located at 233 Electric Road, Fortress Hill, Hong Kong. It is located beside Victoria Harbour. It consists of 14 residential buildings with 28 levels each. Phase 1 includes Block 1–6 while phase 2 includes Block 7–14. There are 2,393 residential units which accommodate more than 9,000 residents. City Garden's lot is approximately  in size. City Garden Road is a two-lane road which serves as the main thoroughfare through City Garden.

Facilities
City Garden facilities include:
 3-level basement carpark
 Park
 Residential club, which has an indoor swimming pool, a fitness room, squash courts, sauna room, and a guest club
 Shopping mall
 Wellcome supermarket
 City Garden Hotel, Hong Kong

Security
Cayley Property Management Limited provides 24/7 security service for City Garden. Security guards are allocated at each residential building's lobby, the park and the basement carpark. A password, set by management, is needed to enter the residential buildings. As of 1 March 2007, a registered Octopus card can also function as entrance permit into the residential building.

Transportation
MTR Exit B of Fortress Hill station, which is on the Island line is the MTR station for City Garden.

Tram
Fortress Hill Road stop serves City Garden.

Bus
There are many bus routes, both local and cross-harbour, that service City Garden. They include,
 Routes: 2, 2A, 8H, 8S, 8X, 10, 18, 18P, 18X, 19, 19P, 23, 25, 25A, 27, 38, 41A, 42, 42C, 63, 65, 77, 81, 81P, 85A, 99, 102, 106, 110, 112, 116, 307P, 601, 603A, 619, 619X, 671, 678, 680, 680A, 680B, 680P, 690, 962E
 Overnight routes: N8, N8X, N72, N118, N122, N619, N680, N691, NA11
 Airport Bus: A11, Electric Road Market bus stop (18th) city-bound; Fortress Hill Station bus stop airport-bound
 Disneyland Resort route: R11, Electric Road Market bus stop (17th) city-bound; bus runs frequently after 8 pm; R8, Lantau Link Toll Plaza stop, interchange to A11, Electric Road Market bus stop (18th) for whole-day service

Mini-bus
Mini-bus are another way of transportation. The routes that serve City Garden include 19S, 49M, 56, 69

Taxis The red taxi serve City Garden. There is a taxi stand beside City Garden Hotel.

See also
 South Horizons, built on the site of the Ap Lei Chau Power Station

References

External links

 City Garden Hotel Official Website

North Point
Private housing estates in Hong Kong

City Garden


Gregorios Xenopoulos (; December 9, 1867 – 14 January 1951) was a novelist, journalist and playwright from Zakynthos. He was lead editor in the magazine The Education of Children (Η Διάπλασις των Παίδων) during the period from 1896 to 1948, during which time he was also the magazine's main author. His was the trademark signature "Σας ασπάζομαι, Φαίδων"  ("Yours sincerely, Phaedon)", which he used in letters ostensibly addressed to the magazine. He was also the founder and editor of the Nea Estia magazine, which is still published. He became a member of the Academy of Athens in 1931, and founded the Society of Greek Writers (Εταιρεία Ελλήνων Λογοτεχνών) together with Kostis Palamas, Angelos Sikelianos and Nikos Kazantzakis.

Life
He was born on 9 December 1867 in Constantinople. His father, Dionysios, hailed from Zakynthos and his mother, Evlalia came from Constantinople. The family moved to Zakynthos soon after, where Gregorios spent his youth until 1883, when he enrolled in the University of Athens to study physics and mathematics. He never completed his studies: already in the first year, he had begun writing literature, which was his sole source of income at the time.

In 1892 he moved permanently to Athens and in 1894 he married Efrosini Diogenidis. They divorced one and a half years later, having already had a daughter. In 1901 he married his second spouse Christine Kanellopoulos, with whom he had two daughters.

He cooperated with several newspapers and magazines, in which he published many studies, articles, short stories and novels. In 1894 he became director of the Illustrated Estia newspaper and in 1896 the chief editor of The Education of the Children. From 1901 to 1912 he published literary works and studies in the Panathinaia, and from 1912 he cooperated with Ethnos newspaper, writing serialized novels. In 1927 he founded the magazine Nea Estia, whose director he was until 1934.

His house, including his library, was destroyed during the Dekemvriana clashes in Athens in 1944. He died in Athens on 14 January 1951 and was buried at public expense.

Works

Prose
Xenopoulos was a prolific writer. He wrote over 80 novels and a large number of short stories. He first became known to the literary world through his first novel: "Ο Άνθρωπος του Κόσμου" (O anthropos tou kosmou, "Man of the world"). This novel and his next one, "Nikolas Sigalos" (1890), written in the New Athenian style, were not successful. He then turned for inspiration to his birthplace, Zakynthos, and as a result wrote some of his best novels, such as "Magaret Stefa" (1893) and Κόκκινος Βράχος (Kokkinos Vrachos, "Red Rock", 1905). These were followed by further novels in the New Athenian style: "Ο πόλεμος" (O polemos, "War", 1914), "Οι Μυστικοί Αρραβώνες" (I mystikoi aravones, "The Secret Engagement", 1915) and the Ionian School novel "Laura" (1915), which was also one of his most admired. But his most ambitious work was the trilogy: "Πλούσιοι και φτωχοί" (plousioi kai ftochoi, "The Rich and the Poor", 1919), "Τίμιοι και άτιμοι" (Timioi kai atimoi, "The Honest and the Dishonest", 1921), "Τυχεροί και άτυχοι" (Tycheroi kai atychoi, "The Lucky and the Unlucky", 1924). Other novels include: "Αναδυομένη" (Anadyomeni, 1923), "Ισαβέλλα" (Isabella, 1923), "Τερέζα Βάρμα-Δακόστα" (Teresa Varma-Dakosta, 1925).

His novels are set in Athens and Zakynthos, and he is considered to be a proponent of the "urban novel".  The main theme of his works is love, particularly love between people of different classes. His work has been criticised for putting quantity ahead of quality, with many sequels, and for pandering to the tastes of his readers with scenes which were sexually provocative for the period.  However he has also been praised for his narrative strength and ability to hold the readers attention.

Theatrical
His first theatrical play was: "Ο ψυχοπατέρας" (O Psychopateras, "The Stepfather"), which was first performed in 1895. He cooperated with the "Nea Skini" theatrical troupe of Konstantinos Christomanos. His most famous theatrical plays are: "Το μυστικό της Κοντέσσας Βαλέραινας" (To mystiko tis kontessas Valerainas, "The Secret of Countess Valerena", 1904), "Στέλλα Βιολάντη" (Stella Violanti, 1909, with Marika Kotopouli), "Φοιτηταί", (Foititai, "Students").

In all he wrote 46 theatrical plays. In 1901 he played a leading part with Kostis Palamas in establishing the theatre "Nea Skini" and because of his fluency in many languages, he was aware of important intellectual developments in major European countries at that time. In addition, he wrote introductions for Henrik Ibsen.  He also produced many translations.

His first play to be performed at the Royal Theatre of Athens (renamed after renovation in 1932 as the National Theatre of Greece) was "Ο θείος Όνειρος" (O theios Oneiros, "Uncle Dream").

Categories of works
He wrote dramas and comedies with the common subject, love. His work is a window into contemporary Greek society. His works are categorized by the place that they were written, some in Zakynthos and the rest in Athens. His work tried to find a balance between the Ionian School and the New Athenian School.
 Zakynthian: "Stella Violanti", "Rachil", "Fotini Saranti", "O popolaros", "The secret of Contessa Valeriana".
 Athenian: "Foititai", "Psychosavvato", "To anthropino".

Literary criticism
Xenopoulos is notable for his literary criticism. In the magazine "Panathinaia" ("Παναθήναια"), he published a lot of reviews of famous Greek writers, such as Alexandros Papadiamantis, Demetrius Vikelas etc. In 1903 he was the first to introduce Constantine P. Cavafy to the Athenian readership.

References

 Apostolos Sachinis, To neoelliniko mythistorima'', Galaxias ed., Athens 1971.

External links
Μουσείο Γρηγορίου Ξενόπουλου  (Museum Gregorios Xenopoulos in Zante).
Ε.Λ.Ι.Α. (bibliography).

Theatre in Greece
Greek male novelists
Greek dramatists and playwrights
19th-century Greek dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Greek dramatists and playwrights
Modernist theatre
People from Zakynthos
Members of the Academy of Athens (modern)
1867 births
1951 deaths
Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Greece
19th-century male writers
20th-century Greek male writers

Gregorios Xenopoulos


The Maruti Suzuki Alto is a city car manufactured and marketed by Suzuki through its subsidiary Maruti Suzuki primarily for the Indian market since 2000. The first-generation model was essentially the Indian version of the fifth-generation Suzuki Alto kei car (with larger engine options). The second generation was made as a standalone model, which was built on the same platform as the first generation. The third-generation model is built on the same underpinnings as the S-Presso.

Since 2006, the Alto has been India's best-selling car and crossed the 1 million production figure in February 2008 becoming the third Maruti model to cross the million mark in India after Maruti 800 and Maruti Omni and fourth overall joining Hyundai Santro.

First generation (RF; 2000)

The first generation was launched to the local Indian market on 27 September 2000 although the Alto nameplate had been successfully used to export the Maruti Suzuki Zen to Europe from India since around 1994, having captured over 40% market share in Belgium and 33% in Netherlands by 1998. The original Alto 800 carries the RF308 chassis code while the three-cylinder K10 is RF310; the four-cylinder export version is RF410.

The Alto was seen as a natural successor to the time-tested and equally popular Maruti 800 (MB 308). It contained all the plus points that the 800 offered Indian car-buyers, in addition to features such as power-steering, power-assisted braking and a 5th gear that the 800 did not normally have. The popularity of the Alto has steadily increased over the past few years, mainly due to the aggressive pricing. This reduction in prices has mainly come in due to the reduction in excise duty over time. Alto became the first car in India to sell over 200,000 units in a single financial year, the last 100,000 units being sold in 5 months. Alto was also the only car to sell over 22,000 units in a single month. Maruti's vast network of dealerships and Maruti Authorized Service Centers (MASS) have also contributed towards this massive popularity in the Indian entry-level automobile market.

Alto K10 (RF310)
Maruti Suzuki India launched a new version of the first generation Alto in the Indian auto market in August 2010, the Alto K10. The new Maruti Alto K10 is equipped with the company's 1.0-litre, K-series DOHC inline-three petrol engine which also powered the Celerio and Wagon R, mated to a five-speed manual transmission. The  K10B engine delivers  of maximum power at 6200 rpm with  of maximum torque at 3200 rpm. The K10 has a redesigned front end, with more sculpted headlights. This spelled the end for the F10-engined model, while the F8-engined Alto was replaced by the all-new Alto 800 in late 2012. The Alto K10 remained in production until 2014.

Europe
This model, using the fuel injected 1061 cc F10D engine, entered the European market at the March 2002 Geneva Motor Show. Being built in India by Maruti, it was only available with five doors, unlike earlier Maruti Zen-based Altos in Europe. Unlike in India, European model Alto was available with a 3-speed automatic transmission option. The car was discontinued in 2006.

Specifications
Until the late 2010 introduction of the K10 Alto, it was powered by a three-cylinder  gasoline engine with four valves per cylinder, MPFI and a 32-bit ECM. All models have a five-speed manual transmission. There also used to be a VX/VXi model (RF410) with a four-cylinder 1061-cc engine with  and  torque, launched in April 2001. This has now been discontinued, although it was sold for longer in certain European countries. The VX model also featured a tachometer not found in lesser Altos.

Alto 800 (RF308):

 Maximum Power:  at 6200 rpm
 Torque:  at 3000 rpm
 Acceleration 0–100 km/h: approximately 20 seconds
 Top Speed:

Alto 1.1 (RF410):

 Maximum Power:  at 6000 rpm
 Torque:  at 3200 rpm
 Acceleration 0–100 km/h: approximately 15 seconds
 Top Speed:

Alto K10 (RF310):

 Maximum Power:  at 6200 rpm
 Torque:  at 3200 rpm
 Acceleration 0–100 km/h: approximately 13 seconds
 Top Speed: approximately

Safety

The Indian-made K10 version in its most basic Latin American configuration with no airbags was crash tested by Latin NCAP in 2013. It received 0 stars for the adult occupant and 3 stars for child occupant. The car is not equipped with airbags, front seatbelts with pretensioner, ISOFIX or ABS.

Gallery

Second generation (AOD; 2012)

A new version of the Alto called the Alto 800 was released in the Indian car market on 16 October 2012. The Alto 800, model code AOD308, is still based on the previous generation's platform (which is still based on the 1998 Alto kei car) has all-new bodywork and interior. It replaced the first generation Maruti Alto (although the predecessor continued to be produced for a little longer), and while keeping the  engine, there have been several modifications. The price of the Alto, already India's best-selling car, was actually lowered with the model change. Various methods were found to lower the price, including the lowering of the weight of each individual component by one gram each, and also by building their own robots for manufacturing the car. This is also sold as the Suzuki Alto 800 in many export markets. In May 2016, refurbished version of Alto 800 has been introduced with notable changes to the exteriors, interiors, features and specifications. The new Maruti Alto 800 comes with an improved fuel efficiency. It is now capable of returning a mileage of 24.7 km/L. In April 2019, the car received another improvement. In 2023 Alto 800 was discontinued due to BS6 Phase 2.

Alto K10
Maruti Suzuki then launched a K10-powered version of the second generation Alto (AOD310) on 3 November 2014. Introduced at a base price of Rs. 3.06 Lakh, the next gen Alto K10 comes with multiple exterior and interiors updates, however mechanically it remains same. The car is a somewhat upgraded version of the Alto 800 with a new front fascia comprising a new chrome fitted front grille, new swept back headlamps, and a redesigned bonnet line. There are also amendments for tail lights, restructuring of bumpers, 13-inch wheels, door mirrors, door moulding and some other minor modifications. Interiors too have been updated, with a new dashboard, three-spoke steering wheel, refined upholstery, black finished music system and a better looking instrument cluster. Other added features inside the car include front power windows, 12 V power socket, internally adjustable door mirrors, headlamp warning buzzer, key off reminder and gearshift indicator.

Powering the 2015 Alto K10 is the same 1.0-litre K10B engine that also powers the Celerio and Wagon R. However, this time it has been tuned to provide better fuel economy, and the new Alto K10 returns an ARAI-certified fuel economy of 24.06 km/L, 15 percent better than the outgoing model. The Alto K10 facelift is available with two different transmission; 5-speed manual and 5-speed Auto Gear Shift (AGS) transmission. The AGS is an automated manual transmission technology, which shifts gear with the help of an ECU mapped actuator on pre-defined engine speeds. It also allows driver to shift gears when required.

The Alto K10 was discontinued in 2020, being temporarily replaced by the S-Presso. The 800 cc variant was later discontinued in 2023 due to new emission standards.

Safety
In 2014, an Alto 800 with no airbags and no ABS was crash tested by Global NCAP (similar to Latin NCAP 2013). The car received 0 stars for adult occupant and 2 stars for child occupant.

Gallery

Third generation (2022)

The third-generation Alto K10 was launched in India on 18 August 2022. It is built on the HEARTECT platform shared with the S-Presso.

Safety
Maruti Alto K10 Rated 2 star in  Global NCAP

References

Cars introduced in 2000
2010s cars
2020s cars
City cars
Front-wheel-drive vehicles
Hatchbacks
Alto
Global NCAP superminis
Latin NCAP superminis

Maruti Suzuki Alto


In January 1978, a stolen 1974 Dino 246 GTS was discovered buried in a yard in Los Angeles. The find gathered extensive national media attention, although the origins and fate of the car remained a mystery for some time. The car was eventually revealed to have been involved in a more complicated and fraudulent scheme than was first thought.

Incident
Some children playing in the dirt reportedly discovered something shallowly buried. They alerted sheriff's deputies Joe Sabas and Dennis (misreported as Lenny) Carroll, who had a team investigate the object, which proved to be a Ferrari Dino. It was initially reported that the car had been stolen in 1974, as had been reported, and buried by the thieves. The thieves had clumsily attempted to preserve the car by covering it with carpets, but left the windows open.

Later it transpired that the owner, plumber Rosendo Cruz, apparently conspired to commit insurance fraud with the supposed thieves. They were supposed to take the Dino to a chop shop to be broken up for parts, but instead hid it, intending to dig it up later, and forgot where it was buried.

Aftermath
Real estate businessman Brad Howard purchased the car from Farmers Insurance, to which ownership had defaulted, and had it restored by Ferrari expert Giuseppe Cappalonga. Due to the drought conditions during the car's burial, there was relatively little rust. As of 2019, it was in perfect running condition in Howard's possession. It was easily restored and has been very active since 1978 when he purchased it.  The owner continues to drive it regularly, and even takes it to shows and classic races.

References

Ferrari
Fraud in the United States

Insurance fraud

Buried Dino 246 GTS incident


Beaver Pond was a pond located in the Jamaica section of Queens, New York. Water flowed out of the pond through Baisley Creek towards Baisley Pond. From there, it flowed through Cornell Creek into Jamaica Bay.

The stream was formed by beavers prior to human settlement. The local Lenape native word for beaver, Jameco, became the namesake of the English settlement to the north of the pond, which became known as Jamaica. Beaver Pond's namesake animal was a vital component in the colonial economy. Beaver fur attracted Dutch colonists to the region and the animal appears on the seal of New York City. English settlers arrived in the area in 1656, with permission from the New Netherlands government to build Rustdorp. Following the English takeover of the colony in 1664, the popular name Jamaica became official and the town became the seat of Queens County in 1683.

The pond's oldest neighbor is Prospect Cemetery, which accepted its first interment in 1668 and continued to perform burials until 1988.

Later, the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line and Atlantic Branch were built in Jamaica. By 1834, when the railroad was constructed, the pond was considered the town's center.

In the last decade of the 19th century, the pond was used by the American Ice Company as an ice harvesting site. City authorities considered the industrial use of Beaver Pond a health hazard as its outflow contributed to the Brooklyn Water Works. In April 1906, a grand jury in Queens recommended that the city fill in this "menace to the community and a drawback to the material progress of that section of Jamaica." Although Beaver Pond was filled, land atop the site remained undeveloped for another couple of decades. It is zoned for manufacturing with auto repair shops, slaughterhouses and undeveloped lots used to store car parts. Beaver Road, which follows the former pond's northern shore is the only physical reminder of this body of water.

References

Lakes of Queens, New York
Former lakes of the United States
Jamaica, Queens

Beaver Pond (Queens)


Zabardust Khan or Zabardust Khan Tanoli also known by his nick-name Suba Khan Tanoli (died 1797) was a chieftain of the Hindkowan Tanoli tribe, of Hazara region, in 18th century India. This area is now part of North-West Pakistan.

Zabardust Khan was appointed a nazim (area administrator) in upper Hazara, Kashmir by the Afghan King Taimur Shah Durrani (or Abdali) in 1775 or 1776. This name "Suba" was given by Afghan King Ahmed shah abdali know as (Khan of Suba) i.e Subahdar. He was a good administrator at a very violent and bad time in history. He tried his best to help people, ensure peace in his area and control prices of food and other goods. For this reason, he is still remembered by people in that area today.

Zabardust/Suba Khan Tanoli died in 1797. He is not to be confused with a Pathan soldier called Zabardast Khan, who fought at the Third Battle of Panipat.

Tomb location

A crumbling structure adorned with faded frescoes, enclosed by an imposing boundary wall is all that remains of Subah Khan's mausoleum in the quiet village of Pohaar, about 36 kilometres north of Haripur in KP. It took around 40 minutes to reach there from Haripur, through a scenic route along the Tarbela Lake known as Chappar Road.

History

Subah Khan was born to Bahadar Khan Tanoli in the hilly trans-Indus region of Tanawal in KP in the first half of the 18th century. According to reliable oral traditions, Subah Khan's ancestral elders from the Tanoli tribe had attracted the wrath of the mighty Mughal Empire by launching attacks on imperial forces and convoys in the region from their remote villages in Tanawal.
Subah Khan Tanoli's elders held out in fortified mountain villages during Emperor Aurangzeb's rule.
As the Mughal Empire's control weakened, communities across the subcontinent found themselves with more political space and economic freedom to assert their power in ways that had not been possible earlier.

When Ahmad Shah Abdali announced his plans to invade Hindustan, he found in Subah Khan a young warrior who was keen to join his army with his clansmen.
Stories of Subah Khan's adventures and valour in the Battle of Mathura, fought between Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Hindu Jats in 1757, live on through folklore in the villages of Tanawal.
On more than a few occasions, I met old men recounting tales of how their elders carried zamburaks (swivel guns) to battle alongside the Afghan king. Some of these centuries-old zamburaks are still scattered around the region.

A centuries-old zamburak (swivel gun) used by Subah Khan Tanoli's clansmen while fighting alongside Ahmad Shah Abdali at Mathura in 1757.
Descendants of Subah Khan  It was a certificate from the Afghan king to Zabardast Khan Tanoli, conferring on him the title of Subah Khan for his support in the Indian campaigns, particularly in the fighting around Mathura.

According to the aging manuscript, Abdali awarded Subah Khan Rs12,000 and an annual jagir (grant) of Rs2,000, along with the right to tax caravans travelling between Kabul and Kashmir on the Tanawal route.

This can also be corroborated by the independent travel accounts of the British East India Company officer George Forster. While travelling through the region in July 1783, Forster saw trade caravans being taxed on the orders of Subah Khan's son.

The Third Battle of Panipat (1761) between Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Marathas.—Courtesy British Library
Firsthand accounts from Abdali's own army offer grim portraits of the battle and subsequent sacking of the city of Mathura in 1757:

"Wherever you gazed you beheld heaps of the slain; you could only pick your way with difficulty, owing to the quantity of bodies lying about and the amount of blood spilt. At one place that we reached we saw about two hundred dead children lying in a heap. Not one of the dead bodies had a head. The stench and effluvium in the air were such that it was painful to open your mouth or even to draw breath."

Although Abdali's patronage elevated Subah Khan's status to one of Hazara's most powerful chiefs, the scenes he witnessed in the wars were to leave a long-lasting impression on him.

After returning home, he donated all the land in his capital at Mangal (on the skirts of modern-day Abbottabad) to a Sufi mystic and made the mountains his home.

Subah Khan dedicated the rest of his life to building new towns at Birkund and Bir (in districts Mansehra and Haripur). The new settlements were named after Bir Deva, the mythical Gandharan ancestor of the Tanoli tribe.

According to Hazara's first historian, Lala Mehtab Singh (1846), after returning home from the Indian campaigns, Subah Khan settled a large number of Hindu and Sikh Khatri merchant families in Bir to develop his new town as a hub for trade and commerce.

On one occasion, when the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh citizens of Bir celebrated the birth of a child in Khan's family, they were told that the news of a new settler in Subah Khan's town would be more welcome to him than the expansion of his own bloodline.

Mehtab Singh's records also mention that Subah Khan's son, Gul Sher Khan, donated Rs2,000 to help the Hindu families in Bir build a place of worship for themselves.

The town of Bir was founded by Subah Khan after he returned from Abdali's India campaigns.
The Indus at Amb-Darband, the now-submerged capital of the state of Amb.
Abdali's invasions are a polarising topic of discussion in India and Pakistan today. Nationalist historians and commentators on both sides prefer viewing the conflict as a simplistic clash of faiths, rather than as a violent competition for power and resources.

This binary view of history makes it hard to capture the nuances and human stories of the participants and victims of the wars.

The substantial economic and political concessions granted by Abdali to Subah Khan enabled his descendants and clansmen to consolidate their power in Tanawal.

In the decades following Durrani rule, they would fiercely resist both the Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa and Islamist reformer Syed Ahmed Barelvi's attempts to control the region.

In 1858, the British would formally recognise the region as the state of Amb, a semi-independent tribal princely state along the Indus with its capital at the now submerged towns of Amb and Darband.

Tomb of Suba Khan

The last of Subah Khan Tanoli's mid-18th century mausoleum.

Crumbling Tomb of Suba Khan.

Grave View of Suba Khan.

Entrance gate of Tomb

Tomb of Suba Khan Tanoli badly damaged under sikh invasion.

References

1797 deaths
Indian Muslims
18th century in India
18th-century births

Zabardust Khan


The Book of Cuanu is a lost Irish Annal, which referred to events from the fifth to seventh centuries. It is referred to on over a dozen occasions in the Annals of Ulster, its entries having been terse accounts of battles or notable deaths.

In a short study concerning it, Eoghan O Mordha states that

"... by making use of the specific placename evidence in the entries attributed to the Book of Cuanu, it can be argued that, because the Cuanu entries display a bias towards recording events which took place for the most part in Lagin or the midlands, the entries can be regarded as being written somewhere in this general area."

The identity of Cuanu is uncertain.

See also

 Irish annals
 Chronicle of Ireland

References

 The Placenames in the Book of Cuanu, Eoghan O Mordha, in Seanchas: Studies in Early and Medieval Irish Archaeology, History and Literature in Honour of Francis John Byrne, pp. 189–191. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2000.

External links
 http://evergreen.27names.org/academia/historicity.html

Irish chronicles
Medieval Ireland

Book of Cuanu


Lt.-Colonel The Hon. Sydney Robert Bellingham (August 2, 1808 – March 9, 1900) was an Anglo-Irish businessman, lawyer, journalist, military and political figure in Canada East. He served as a captain with the Royal Montreal Cavalry during the Lower Canada Rebellion and represented Argenteuil in the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1867 to 1878. After the deaths of his three elder brothers he inherited Castle Bellingham and returned to Ireland to administer the estate

Early years

Born at Dunany House, Castlebellingham, County Louth, he was the fourth son of Sir Alan Bellingham (1776–1827) 2nd Bt., and his wife Elizabeth (1788–1822), daughter of the Rev. Rees Edward Walls of Boothby Hall, Lincolnshire. Sir Alan Bellingham was heir to his uncle, Sir William Bellingham M.P., but survived him by less than a year.

By 1824, Sir Alan Bellingham had run into financial difficulties and leaving his family in Ireland, he fled his debtors to France, taking up residence at Châtillon-sur-Loire. Then just fifteen years old, Sydney came to Canada alone to seek his fortune. Arriving in Quebec, he travelled widely throughout Upper Canada until 1827 when he took a job in the timber business at Montreal under another Anglo-Irishman, the brother of George Hamilton. A few months before his marriage, he started an import-export business with his friend James Wallis (1807–1893), formerly of Drishane Castle, County Cork, who had settled at Fenelon Falls.

In 1831, Bellingham married Arabella Holmes (1808–1887), to whom he was related through his grandmothers family. She was the youngest daughter of one of his father's friends, William Holmes of Quebec. Her family were well-connected in the Canadas and in addition to that she was the heiress to  of land in the counties of Buckland and Bellechasse. After the failure of his business with Wallis, aided by his wife's money, Bellingham entered Canadian politics.

Canadian Politics, Business & Military
In 1834, Bellingham was an unsuccessful candidate in Montreal East for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. He opposed the reforms to government being proposed by the Parti Patriote. He was named a Justice of the Peace in 1837. During the Lower Canada Rebellion, Bellingham served as a captain with the Royal Montreal Cavalry and the aide-de-camp to Lt.-Col. George Augustus Wetherall. As a civil magistrate he led many daring raids deep into Patriote territory to arrest the rebel leaders during the war.

He studied law with Alexander Buchanan, and was called to the Lower Canadian bar in 1840, entering into practice with William Walker at Montreal. He also edited the Canada Times, a reform-oriented newspaper. Bellingham supported the reforms proposed by Lord Durham but opposed the union of Upper and Lower Canada. In 1843, he became editor of the Times and Daily Commercial Advertiser. Bellingham was a proponent of annexation with the United States and served as secretary of the Montreal Annexation Association. In 1853, he co-founded the Montreal and Bytown Railway.

In 1853, he bought a tract of land on the north brow of Mount Royal overlooking Montreal, where he and his wife made their home, Dunany Cottage, named for the house in which he grew up at Castlebellingham. In 1854, Bellingham was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada for Argenteuil. He bought 21,000 arpents of land there, bringing many settlers, both French and English to the area, aiding them to farm successfully. He was also made a colonel of the local militia, the Argenteuil Rangers. However his election was declared invalid twice after it was alleged that he had used intimidation and bribery but he was re-elected in the by-elections that followed and he finally took his seat in May 1856. He was elected again in 1858, his election was overturned in 1860.

After Confederation, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec. In 1871, he criticized Joseph-Édouard Cauchon, another member of the assembly, for the deplorable conditions in his asylum which received government grants; this led to Cauchon's resignation. In 1871, he became editor of the Daily News of Montreal. Originally elected as a Conservative, Bellingham became a Liberal following the Tanneries scandal in 1874.

Return to Ireland
Bellingham was recognized as 'one of the best political writers in Lower Canada'. In 1877, he was appointed president of the Lovell Publishing Company of Montreal, but the following year he and his wife returned to Ireland to take up residence at his ancestral home, Castle Bellingham, which he had inherited in 1874 after the deaths of his elder brothers. His ties with Montreal remained strong, always keeping abreast of Canadian politics. In 1895, he dictated his Canadian memoirs to his nurse, and they were published privately the year after his death by his nephew. He and his wife lived at Southgate House, Castlebellingham, where he died 9 March 1900, without children. In his will he left the Castlebellingham estate to his nephew, Sir Henry Bellingham 4th Bt., and all his personal effects to Edward Graves Meredith, the eldest surviving son of his niece, Lady Meredith.

External links
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

1808 births
1900 deaths
Politicians from County Louth
Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from Canada East
Conservative Party of Quebec MNAs
Irish emigrants to pre-Confederation Quebec
Immigrants to Lower Canada
Anglophone Quebec people
Lower Canada Rebellion people
People from Castlebellingham

Sydney Robert Bellingham


The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, human-caused climate change. The nature of the effects of humans on Earth can be seen for example in biodiversity loss, climate change, biogeography and nocturnality parameters, changes in geomorphology and stratigraphy (sedimentological record, fossil record, trace elements).

Various start dates for the Anthropocene have been proposed, ranging from the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution 12,000–15,000 years ago, to as recently as the 1960s. The ratification process is still ongoing, and thus a date remains to be decided definitively, In May 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) voted in favour of submitting a formal proposal to the ICS by 2021, locating potential stratigraphic markers to the mid-20th century of the common era. This time period coincides with the start of the Great Acceleration, a post-WWII time period during which socioeconomic and Earth system trends increase at a dramatic rate, and the Atomic Age.

Although the biologist Eugene F. Stoermer is often credited with coining the term anthropocene, it was in informal use in the mid-1970s. Paul J. Crutzen is credited with independently re-inventing and popularising it.

, neither the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) nor the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has officially approved the term as a recognised subdivision of geologic time, although the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the ICS voted in April 2016 to proceed towards a formal golden spike (GSSP) proposal to define the Anthropocene epoch in the geologic time scale (GTS) and presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in August 2016.

Development of the concept

An early concept for the Anthropocene was the Noosphere by Vladimir Vernadsky, who in 1938 wrote of "scientific thought as a geological force". Scientists in the Soviet Union appear to have used the term "anthropocene" as early as the 1960s to refer to the Quaternary, the most recent geological period.

Ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer subsequently used "anthropocene" with a different sense in the 1980s and the term was widely popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen, who regards the influence of human behavior on Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch. Stoermer wrote, "I began using the term 'anthropocene' in the 1980s, but never formalised it until Paul contacted me." Crutzen has explained, "I was at a conference where someone said something about the Holocene. I suddenly thought this was wrong. The world has changed too much. So I said: 'No, we are in the Anthropocene.' I just made up the word on the spur of the moment. Everyone was shocked. But it seems to have stuck."

In 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions. A majority of the commission decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies have begun to determine whether the Anthropocene will be formally accepted into the Geological Time Scale.

The term "anthropocene" is informally used in scientific contexts. The Geological Society of America entitled its 2011 annual meeting: Archean to Anthropocene: The past is the key to the future. The new epoch has no agreed start-date, but one proposal, based on atmospheric evidence, is to fix the start with the Industrial Revolution c. 1780, with the invention of the steam engine. Other scientists link the new term to earlier events, such as the rise of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution (around 12,000 years BP).

Evidence of relative human impact – such as the growing human influence on land use, ecosystems, biodiversity, and species extinction – is substantial; scientists think that human impact has significantly changed (or halted) the growth of biodiversity. Those arguing for earlier dates posit that the proposed Anthropocene may have begun as early as 14,000–15,000 years BP, based on geologic evidence; this has led other scientists to suggest that "the onset of the Anthropocene should be extended back many thousand years"; this would make the Anthropocene essentially synonymous with the current term, Holocene.

In January 2015, 26 of the 38 members of the International Anthropocene Working Group published a paper suggesting the Trinity test on 16 July 1945 as the starting point of the proposed new epoch. However, a significant minority supports one of several alternative dates. A March 2015 report suggested either 1610 or 1964 as the beginning of the Anthropocene. Other scholars point to the diachronous character of the physical strata of the Anthropocene, arguing that onset and impact are spread out over time, not reducible to a single instant or date of start.

A January 2016 report on the climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores suggested the era since the mid-20th century should be recognised as a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene.

The Anthropocene Working Group met in Oslo in April 2016 to consolidate evidence supporting the argument for the Anthropocene as a true geologic epoch. Evidence was evaluated and the group voted to recommend "Anthropocene" as the new geological epoch in August 2016. Should the International Commission on Stratigraphy approve the recommendation, the proposal to adopt the term will have to be ratified by the IUGS before its formal adoption as part of the geologic time scale.

In April 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) announced that they would vote on a formal proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, to continue the process started at the 2016 meeting. In May 2019, 29 members of the 34 person AWG panel voted in favour of an official proposal to be made by 2021. The AWG also voted with 29 votes in favour of a starting date in the mid 20th century. Ten candidate sites for a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point have been identified, one of which will be chosen to be included in the final proposal. Possible markers include microplastics, heavy metals, or radioactive nuclei left by tests from thermonuclear weapons.

In November 2021, an alternative proposal that the Anthropocene is a geological event, not an epoch, was published and later expanded in 2022. This challenged the assumption underlying the case for the Anthropocene epoch - the idea that it is possible to accurately assign a precise date of start to highly diachronous processes of human-influenced Earth system change. The argument indicated that finding a single GSSP would be impractical, given human-induced changes in the Earth system occurred at different periods, in different places, and spread under different rates. Under this model, the Anthropocene would have many events marking human-induced impacts on the planet, including the mass extinction of large vertebrates, the development of early farming, land clearance in the Americas, global-scale industrial transformation during the Industrial Revolution, and the start of the Atomic Age. The authors are members of the AWG who had voted against the official proposal of a starting date in the mid-20th century, and sought to reconcile some of the previous models (including Ruddiman and Maslin proposals). They cited Crutzen's original concept, arguing that the Anthropocene is much better and more usefully conceived of as an unfolding geological event, like other major transformations in Earth's history such as the Great Oxidation Event.

In July 2023, the AWG chose Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada as a site representing the beginning of the proposed new epoch. The sediment in that lake shows a spike in levels of plutonium from hydrogen bomb tests, a key marker the group chose to place the start of the Anthropocene in the 1950s, along with other elevated markers including carbon particles and nitrates from the burning of fossil fuels and widespread application of chemical fertilizers respectively. If approved, the official declaration of the new Anthropocene epoch will take place in August 2024, and its first age may be named Crawfordian after the lake.

Proposed starting point

Industrial Revolution

Crutzen proposed the Industrial Revolution as the start of Anthropocene. Lovelock proposes that the Anthropocene began with the first application of the Newcomen atmospheric engine in 1712. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes the pre-industrial era (chosen as the year 1750) as the baseline related to changes in long-lived, well mixed greenhouse gases. Although it is apparent that the Industrial Revolution ushered in an unprecedented global human impact on the planet, much of Earth's landscape already had been profoundly modified by human activities. The human impact on Earth has grown progressively, with few substantial slowdowns.

Mid 20th century (Great Acceleration)

In May 2019 the twenty-nine members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposed a start date for the Epoch in the mid-twentieth century, as that period saw "a rapidly rising human population accelerated the pace of industrial production, the use of agricultural chemicals and other human activities. At the same time, the first atomic-bomb blasts littered the globe with radioactive debris that became embedded in sediments and glacial ice, becoming part of the geologic record." The official start-dates, according to the panel, would coincide with either the radionuclides released into the atmosphere from bomb detonations in 1945, or with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

First atomic bomb (1945)
The peak in radionuclides fallout consequential to atomic bomb testing during the 1950s is another possible date for the beginning of the Anthropocene (the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 or the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963).

Etymology
The name Anthropocene is a combination of anthropo- from the Ancient Greek  () meaning 'human' and -cene from  () meaning 'new' or 'recent'.

As early as 1873, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and effect of humanity on the Earth's systems and referred to an 'anthropozoic era'.

Nature of human effects

Biodiversity loss

The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the primary attributes of the Anthropocene. Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction. Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction. The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction.

Anthropogenic extinctions started as humans migrated out of Africa over 60,000 years ago. Increases in global rates of extinction have been elevated above background rates since at least 1500, and appear to have accelerated in the 19th century and further since. Rapid economic growth is considered a primary driver of the contemporary displacement and eradication of other species.

According to the 2021 Economics of Biodiversity review, written by Partha Dasgupta and published by the UK government, "biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history." A 2022 scientific review published in Biological Reviews confirms that an anthropogenic sixth mass extinction event is currently underway. A 2022 study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, which surveyed more than 3,000 experts, states that the extinction crisis could be worse than previously thought, and estimates that roughly 30% of species "have been globally threatened or driven extinct since the year 1500." According to a 2023 study published in Biological Reviews some 48% of 70,000 monitored species are experiencing population declines from human activity, whereas only 3% have increasing populations.

Biogeography and nocturnality

Studies of urban evolution give an indication of how species may respond to stressors such as temperature change and toxicity.  Species display varying abilities to respond to altered environments through both phenotypic plasticity and genetic evolution. Researchers have documented the movement of many species into regions formerly too cold for them, often at rates faster than initially expected.

Permanent changes in the distribution of organisms from human influence will become identifiable in the geologic record.  This has occurred in part as a result of changing climate, but also in response to farming and fishing, and to the accidental introduction of non-native species to new areas through global travel. The ecosystem of the entire Black Sea may have changed during the last 2000 years as a result of nutrient and silica input from eroding deforested lands along the Danube River.

Researchers have found that the growth of the human population and expansion of human activity has resulted in many species of animals that are normally active during the day, such as elephants, tigers and boars, becoming nocturnal to avoid contact with humans, who are largely diurnal.

Climate change

One geological symptom resulting from human activity is increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide () content. This signal in the Earth's climate system is especially significant because it is occurring much faster, and to a greater extent, than previously. Most of this increase is due to the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

Geomorphology
Changes in drainage patterns traceable to human activity will persist over geologic time in large parts of the continents where the geologic regime is erosional. This involves, for example, the paths of roads and highways defined by their grading and drainage control. Direct changes to the form of the Earth's surface by human activities (quarrying and landscaping, for example) also record human impacts.

It has been suggested that the deposition of calthemite formations exemplify a natural process which has not previously occurred prior to the human modification of the Earth's surface, and which therefore represents a unique process of the Anthropocene. Calthemite is a secondary deposit, derived from concrete, lime, mortar or other calcareous material outside the cave environment. Calthemites grow on or under man-made structures (including mines and tunnels) and mimic the shapes and forms of cave speleothems, such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone etc.

Stratigraphy

Sedimentological record
Human activities like deforestation and road construction are believed to have elevated average total sediment fluxes across the Earth's surface. However, construction of dams on many rivers around the world means the rates of sediment deposition in any given place do not always appear to increase in the Anthropocene. For instance, many river deltas around the world are actually currently starved of sediment by such dams, and are subsiding and failing to keep up with sea level rise, rather than growing.

Fossil record
Increases in erosion due to farming and other operations will be reflected by changes in sediment composition and increases in deposition rates elsewhere. In land areas with a depositional regime, engineered structures will tend to be buried and preserved, along with litter and debris. Litter and debris thrown from boats or carried by rivers and creeks will accumulate in the marine environment, particularly in coastal areas, but also in mid-ocean garbage patches. Such human-created artifacts preserved in stratigraphy are known as "technofossils".

Changes in biodiversity will also be reflected in the fossil record, as will species introductions.  An example cited is the domestic chicken, originally the red junglefowl Gallus gallus, native to south-east Asia but has since become the world's most common bird through human breeding and consumption, with over 60 billion consumed annually and whose bones would become fossilised in landfill sites. Hence, landfills are important resources to find "technofossils".

Trace elements
In terms of trace elements, there are distinct signatures left by modern societies. For example, in the Upper Fremont Glacier in Wyoming, there is a layer of chlorine present in ice cores from 1960's atomic weapon testing programs, as well as a layer of mercury associated with coal plants in the 1980s.

From the late 1940s, nuclear tests have led to local nuclear fallout and severe contamination of test sites both on land and in the surrounding marine environment. Some of the radionuclides that were released during the tests are Cs, Sr, Pu, Pu, Am, and I. These have been found to have had significant impact on the environment and on human beings. In particular, Cs and Sr have been found to have been released into the marine environment and led to bioaccumulation over a period through food chain cycles. The carbon isotope C, commonly released during nuclear tests, has also been found to be integrated into the atmospheric CO, and infiltrating the biosphere, through ocean-atmosphere gas exchange. Increase in thyroid cancer rates around the world is also surmised to be correlated with increasing proportions of the I radionuclide.

The highest global concentration of radionuclides was estimated to have been in 1965, one of the dates which has been proposed as a possible benchmark for the start of the formally defined Anthropocene.

Human burning of fossil fuels has also left distinctly elevated concentrations of black carbon, inorganic ash, and spherical carbonaceous particles in recent sediments across the world. Concentrations of these components increases markedly and almost simultaneously around the world beginning around 1950.

Anthropocene markers
A marker that accounts for a substantial global impact of humans on the total environment, comparable in scale to those associated with significant perturbations of the geological past, is needed in place of minor changes in atmosphere composition.

A useful candidate for holding markers in the geologic time record is the pedosphere. Soils retain information about their climatic and geochemical history with features lasting for centuries or millennia. Human activity is now firmly established as the sixth factor of soil formation. Humanity affects pedogenesis directly by, for example, land levelling, trenching and embankment building, landscape-scale control of fire by early humans, organic matter enrichment from additions of manure or other waste, organic matter impoverishment due to continued cultivation and compaction from overgrazing. Human activity also affects pedogenesis indirectly by drift of eroded materials or pollutants. Anthropogenic soils are those markedly affected by human activities, such as repeated ploughing, the addition of fertilisers, contamination, sealing, or enrichment with artefacts (in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources they are classified as Anthrosols and Technosols). An example from archaeology would be dark earth phenomena when long-term human habitation enriches the soil with black carbon.

Anthropogenic soils are recalcitrant repositories of artefacts and properties that testify to the dominance of the human impact, and hence appear to be reliable markers for the Anthropocene. Some anthropogenic soils may be viewed as the 'golden spikes' of geologists (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point), which are locations where there are strata successions with clear evidences of a worldwide event, including the appearance of distinctive fossils. Drilling for fossil fuels has also created holes and tubes which are expected to be detectable for millions of years. The astrobiologist David Grinspoon has proposed that the site of the Apollo 11 Lunar landing, with the disturbances and artifacts that are so uniquely characteristic of our species' technological activity and which will survive over geological time spans could be considered as the 'golden spike' of the Anthropocene.

An October 2020 study coordinated by University of Colorado at Boulder found that distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth's rock layers began around the year 1950. The research revealed that since about 1950, humans have doubled the amount of fixed nitrogen on the planet through industrial production for agriculture, created a hole in the ozone layer through the industrial scale release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), released enough greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels to cause planetary level climate change, created tens of thousands of synthetic mineral-like compounds that do not naturally occur on Earth, and caused almost one-fifth of river sediment worldwide to no longer reach the ocean due to dams, reservoirs and diversions. Humans have produced so many millions of tons of plastic each year since the early 1950s that microplastics are "forming a near-ubiquitous and unambiguous marker of Anthropocene". The study highlights a strong correlation between global human population size and growth, global productivity and global energy use and that the "extraordinary outburst of consumption and productivity demonstrates how the Earth System has departed from its Holocene state since ~1950 CE, forcing abrupt physical, chemical and biological changes to the Earth's stratigraphic record that can be used to justify the proposal for naming a new epoch—the Anthropocene."

A December 2020 study published in Nature found that the total anthropogenic mass, or human-made materials, outweighs all the biomass on earth, and highlighted that "this quantification of the human enterprise gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced epoch of the Anthropocene."

Debates

Although the validity of "Anthropocene" as a scientific term remains disputed, its underlying premise, i.e., that humans have become a geological force, or rather, the dominant force shaping the Earth's climate, has found traction among academics and the public. In an opinion piece for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Rodolfo Dirzo, Gerardo Ceballos, and Paul R. Ehrlich write that the term is "increasingly penetrating the lexicon of not only the academic socio-sphere, but also society more generally", and is now included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. The University of Cambridge, as another example, offers a degree in Anthropocene Studies. In the public sphere, the term "Anthropocene"  has become increasingly ubiquitous in activist, pundit, and political discourses. Some who are critical of the term "Anthropocene" nevertheless concede that "For all its problems, [it] carries power." The popularity and currency of the word has led scholars to label the term a "charismatic meta-category" or "charismatic mega-concept." The term, regardless, has been subject to a variety of criticisms from social scientists, philosophers, Indigenous scholars, and others.

The anthropologist John Hartigan has argued that due its status as a charismatic meta-category, the term "Anthropocene" marginalizes competing, but less visible, concepts such as that of "multispecies." The more salient charge is that the ready acceptance of "Anthropocene" is due to its conceptual proximity to the status quo – that is, to notions of human individuality and centrality.

Other scholars appreciate the way in which the term "Anthropocene" recognizes humanity as a geological force, but take issue with the indiscriminate way in which it does. Not all humans are equally responsible for the climate crisis. To that end, scholars such as the feminist theorist Donna Haraway and sociologist Jason Moore, have suggested naming the Epoch instead as the "Capitalocene." Such implies capitalism as the fundamental reason for the ecological crisis, rather than just humans in general. However, according to philosopher Steven Best, humans have created "hierarchical and growth-addicted societies" and have demonstrated "ecocidal proclivities" long before the emergence of capitalism. Hartigan, Bould, and Haraway all critique what "Anthropocene" does as a term; however, Hartigan and Bould differ from Haraway in that they criticize the utility or validity of a geological framing of the climate crisis, whereas Haraway embraces it.

In addition to "Capitalocene," other terms have also been proposed by scholars to trace the roots of the Epoch to causes other than the human species broadly. Janae Davis, for example, has suggested the "Plantationocene" as a more appropriate term to call attention to the role that plantation agriculture has played in the formation of the Epoch, alongside Kathryn Yusoff's argument that racism as a whole is foundational to the Epoch. The Plantationocene concept traces "the ways that plantation logics organize modern economies, environments, bodies, and social relations." In a similar vein, Indigenous studies scholars such as Métis geographer Zoe Todd have argued that the Epoch must be dated back to the colonization of the Americas, as this "names the problem of colonialism as responsible for contemporary environmental crisis." Potawatomi philosopher Kyle Powys Whyte has further argued that the Anthropocene has been apparent to Indigenous peoples in the Americas since the inception of colonialism because of "colonialism's role in environmental change."

Other critiques of "Anthropocene" have focused on the genealogy of the concept. Todd also provides a phenomenological account, which draws on the work of the philosopher Sara Ahmed, writing: "When discourses and responses to the Anthropocene are being generated within institutions and disciplines which are embedded in broader systems that act as de facto 'white public space,' the academy and its power dynamics must be challenged." Other aspects which constitute current understandings of the concept of the "Anthropocene" such as the ontological split between nature and society, the assumption of the centrality and individuality of the human, and the framing of environmental discourse in largely scientific terms have been criticized by scholars as concepts rooted in colonialism and which reinforce systems of postcolonial domination. To that end, Todd makes the case that the concept of "Anthropocene" must be indigenized and decolonized if it is to become a vehicle of justice as opposed to white thought and domination.

The scholar Daniel Wildcat, a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, for example, has emphasized spiritual connection to the land as a crucial tenet for any ecological movement. Similarly, in her study of the Ladakhi people in northern India, the anthropologist Karine Gagné, detailed their understanding of the relation between nonhuman and human agency as one that is deeply intimate and mutual. For the Ladakhi, the nonhuman alters the epistemic, ethical, and affective development of humans – it provides a way of "being in the world." The Ladakhi, who live in the Himalayas, for example, have seen the retreat of the glaciers not just as a physical loss, but also as the loss of entities which generate knowledge, compel ethical reflections, and foster intimacy. Other scholars have similarly emphasized the need to return to notions of relatedness and interdependence with nature. The writer Jenny Odell has written about what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls "species loneliness," the loneliness which occurs from the separation of the human and the nonhuman, and the anthropologist Radhika Govindrajan has theorized on the ethics of care, or relatedness, which govern relations between humans and animals. Scholars are divided on whether to do away with the term "Anthropocene" or co-opt it.

"Early anthropocene" model

William Ruddiman has argued that the Anthropocene began approximately 8,000 years ago with the development of farming and sedentary cultures. At that point, humans were dispersed across all continents except Antarctica, and the Neolithic Revolution was ongoing. During this period, humans developed agriculture and animal husbandry to supplement or replace hunter-gatherer subsistence. Such innovations were followed by a wave of extinctions, beginning with large mammals and terrestrial birds. This wave was driven by both the direct activity of humans (e.g. hunting) and the indirect consequences of land-use change for agriculture. Landscape-scale burning by prehistoric hunter-gathers may have been an additional early source of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon. Ruddiman also claims that the greenhouse gas emissions in-part responsible for the Anthropocene began 8,000 years ago when ancient farmers cleared forests to grow crops.

Ruddiman's work has been challenged with data from an earlier interglaciation ("Stage 11", approximately 400,000 years ago) which suggests that 16,000 more years must elapse before the current Holocene interglaciation comes to an end, and thus the early anthropogenic hypothesis is invalid. Also, the argument that "something" is needed to explain the differences in the Holocene is challenged by more recent research showing that all interglacials are different.

Homogenocene
Homogenocene (from old Greek: homo-, same; geno-, kind; kainos-, new;) is a more specific term used to define our current epoch, in which biodiversity is diminishing and biogeography and ecosystems around the globe seem more and more similar to one another mainly due to invasive species that have been introduced around the globe either on purpose (crops, livestock) or inadvertently.  This is due to the newfound globalism that humans participate in, as species traveling across the world to another region was not as easily possible in any point of time in history as it is today.

The term Homogenocene was first used by Michael Samways in his editorial article in the Journal of Insect Conservation from 1999 titled "Translocating fauna to foreign lands: Here comes the Homogenocene."

The term was used again by John L. Curnutt in the year 2000 in Ecology, in a short list titled "A Guide to the Homogenocene", which reviewed Alien species in North America and Hawaii: impacts on natural ecosystems by George Cox. Charles C. Mann, in his acclaimed book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, gives a bird's-eye view of the mechanisms and ongoing implications of the homogenocene.

Society and culture

Humanities
The concept of the Anthropocene has also been approached via humanities such as philosophy, literature and art. In the scholarly world, it has been the subject of increasing attention through special journals, conferences, and disciplinary reports. The Anthropocene, its attendant timescale, and ecological implications prompt questions about death and the end of civilisation, memory and archives, the scope and methods of humanistic inquiry, and emotional responses to the "end of nature". Some scholars have posited that the realities of the Anthropocene, including "human-induced biodiversity loss, exponential increases in per-capita resource consumption, and global climate change," have made the goal of environmental sustainability largely unattainable and obsolete.

Historians have actively engaged the Anthropocene. In 2000, the same year that Paul Crutzen coined the term, world historian John McNeill published Something New Under the Sun, tracing the rise of human societies' unprecedented impact on the planet in the twentieth century. In 2001, historian of science Naomi Oreskes revealed the systematic efforts to undermine trust in climate change science and went on to detail the corporate interests delaying action on the environmental challenge. Both McNeill and Oreskes became members of the Anthropocene Working Group because of their work correlating human activities and planetary transformation.

Popular culture
 In 2019, the English musician Nick Mulvey released a music video on YouTube named "In the Anthropocene". In cooperation with Sharp's Brewery, the song was recorded on 105 vinyl records made of washed-up plastic from the Cornish coast.
 The Anthropocene Reviewed is a podcast and book by author John Green, where he "reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale".
 In 2015, the American death metal band Cattle Decapitation released its seventh studio album titled The Anthropocene Extinction.

See also
 e

References

External links

The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history?, The Guardian, 2019
 Drawing A Line In The Mud: Scientists Debate When 'Age Of Humans' Began. NPR. 17 March 2021.
  (lecture given by Professor Will Steffen in Melbourne, Australia)
 8 billion humans: How population growth and climate change are connected as the 'Anthropocene engine' transforms the planet. The Conversation. 3 November 2022.

Holocene
Human impact on the environment
Human ecology
1960s neologisms
Events in the geological history of Earth

Anthropocene


Sal Amendola (born 1948, in Italy) is an Italian American comics artist and teacher primarily known for his association with DC Comics.

Career

Sal Amendola graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1969 with the school's then offered 3-year certificate. He eventually returned, with Robert McGinnis as his thesis adviser, to earn his MFA in illustration. Sal started his comics career in 1969, drawing stories for editor Dick Giordano's The Witching Hour, and becoming Giordano's assistant editor in 1970. At DC, Amendola worked in the production department, where he did coloring, inking, lettering, and page headings. He provided artwork on such features as "Green Arrow" in Action Comics and "John Carter, Warlord of Mars" in Weird Worlds. He drew spot illustrations for an Aquaman text story in Super DC Giant #S-26 (July–August 1971).

Amendola left DC for Marvel Comics in 1972, where, as an associate editor, he worked on letters pages, coloring, and backgrounds. Unhappy at Marvel, Amendola soon returned to DC. He plotted and pencilled the Batman story "Night of the Stalker!" based on an idea by Neal Adams, but the story was rejected by Batman editor Julius Schwartz. Several years later, Schwartz was succeeded by Archie Goodwin, who asked Amendola to show him the story, and accepted it. It was finally published in Detective Comics #439 (Feb.–March 1974), with dialogue and captions by Steve Englehart, and inks by Dick Giordano. It is considered one of the greatest Batman short stories ever.

In 1976, Amendola was part of the Crusty Bunkers, a group of comic book inkers who assisted Neal Adams on various projects.

Amendola eventually became an editor and talent coordinator at DC, where he stayed until 1986. He edited the New Talent Showcase and Elvira's House of Mystery titles. He inked Curt Swan's pencils on the comic book adaptation of Superman III in 1983 and was one of the artists on World's Finest Comics #300 (Feb. 1984).

In the mid–1970s, Amendola wrote and drew for Archie Comics and did storyboard art for movies. He began teaching at New York's School of Visual Arts in 1974, and later at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Bibliography
Amendola's comics work (interior art) includes:

Archie Comics

 Archie & Friends Double Digest Magazine #15 (2012)
 Archie Double Digest #237, 243, 271 (2013–2016)
 Archie's Double Digest Magazine #111 (1999)
 B&V Friends Double Digest Magazine #237 (2014)
 Everything's Archie #53 (1976)
 Jughead and Archie Double Digest #6 (2014)
 Jughead's Double Digest #199 (2014)
 Mad House #96 (1974)
 World of Archie Double Digest #15, 22, 55 (2012–2016)
Laugh #300 "Ski-cart Catastrophe" (1975)
Pep #312 Dilton in "Switch Hitter" (1975)
Laugh #304 Archie in "The Promise" (1976)
Mad House "Jungle Jangle" (1976)
Laugh #303 Archie in: "Lost and Found" (1976)
Archie and the Gang Presents: "Childhood Snaps" (1976)
Reggie and Me in: "No Contest" (1976)
Laugh #310 Betty and Me in: "Freebie Jeebies" (1976)
Archie and Jughead in: "Tweet Heat" (1976)
Laugh #306 Betty and Veronica in: "A Fella for Cinderella" (1976)
Laugh #305 Archie in: "Anything to Help" (1976)
Pep #317 Archie in: "The Great Deal" (1976)
Laugh #310 Reggie in: "Once Upon a Time"  (1976)
Laugh #306 Archie in: "All Worked Out" (1976)
Laugh # 310 Archie in: "The Allergy" (1976)
Archie in: "Another Man's Shoes" (1976)
Pep #317 Archie in: "Extra Special Evening" (1976)
Mad House Mad House Presents: "Colonial Calamity" (1976)
Mad House Mad House Presents: "Still More Wasted T.V. Commercials" (1976)
Mad House "Professor Transistor Presents: The Discovery of the Mouth" (1976)
Archie's Pals and Gals #110 Dec. Chuck in: "The Fishy Facts" [pencil and inks by Amendola, one panel inked by Jack Abel]
Archie in: "The Collection" (1976)
Archie in: "Hairpiece Hassles" (1976)
Pep #321 Archie in: "Partners" (1976)
Pep #342 Archie in: "The Specialty" (1976) [written by Jim Ruth and Amendola, pencilled and inked by Amendola]
Archie in: "The Last Ride" (1976)
Archie and the Gang in: "Soccer Rocker" (1976)
Pep #327 Archie in: "The Part Owner Partnership" (1976)
Everything's Archie #73 Archie in: "Try This One" (1976)
Archie in: "Slave Trade" (1976)
Archie's Pals and Gals #113 Chuck in: "Minority Gripe" (1976)
Everything's Archie #71 Archie in: "Coach Reproach"
Everything's Archie #63 Archie in: "Big Fuss"
Pep #325 Archie in: "Busy Bee"
Archie's Pals and Gals #120 Archie in: "Just Like That" (1976)
Pep #332 Archie in: "To Be or Not" (1976)
Everything's Archie #63 Archie in: "Special Date" (1976)
Archie and Me in: "Slave Knave" (1976)
Archie and Me in: "Surprise Prize" (1976)
Chuck in: "Training Session" (1976)
Archie's Pals and Gals #113 Betty and Me in: "Inflation Jubilation" (1976)
Pep #333 Archie in: "English Lesson" (1976)
Archie in: "The Latest Thing" (1976)
Archie in: "The Hunt" (1976)
Archie's Pals And Gals #117 Archie in: "Double Trouble" (1977)
Pep #333 Archie in: "One Day Last Summer" (1976)
Archie in: "Determined Man" (1976)
Archie in: "Giving In" (1976)
Archie's pals and Gals #119 Archie in: "Too Good to Be True" (1976)
Pep #327 Archie in: "What Did You Bring?" (1976)
Archie's Pals and Gals #128 Dec. 78 Archie in: "The Other One" (1977)
Mad House #110 Mad House Presents: "Transistor Mister" (1977)
Archie's Pals and Gals #119 Archie in: "Zoo Stew" (1977)
Everything's Archie #70 Archie in: "Very Impractical" (1977)
Everything's Archie #66 Jul. 78 Archie in: "The Substitute" (1977)
Archie's Pals and Gals #135 Archie in: "Popular Choice" (1977)
Everything's Archie #68 Archie in: "The Foul Ball" (1977)
Betty in: "Common Cause" (1987) [written and penciled by Amendola]
Everything's Archie #134, Mar. Archie in: "Twin Turmoil" (1987)
Archie in: "Mood Food" (1987)

Atlas/Seaboard Comics
 Phoenix #1–3 (1975)

DC Comics

Action Comics (Green Arrow) #421 (1973)
Adventure Comics (Doctor Mid-Nite)} #418 (1972)
Batman #296 (1978)
Detective Comics (Batman) #439–440 (1974)
Elvira's House of Mystery #4 (one-page foreword) (1986)
Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #14 (one-page foreword) (1974)
Heroes Against Hunger #1 (two-page story, among other artists) (1986)
House of Mystery #200 (one-page story with Joe Orlando) (1972)
Star Trek #5–6 (1984)
Super DC Giant #S–26 (Aquaman) (1971)
Superman ("Map of Krypton", two-page illustration) #239 (1971)
Superman III The Official Adaptation of the Movie! #1 (inks over Curt Swan) (1983)
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #153 (three-page story) (1972)
Weird Worlds #4–7 (1973)
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe (Johnny Cloud character profile, one page) #11 (1986)
The Witching Hour #27 (1973)
World's Finest Comics (Black Canary and Green Arrow) #247; (Superman and Batman) #298, 300 (1977–1984)

Other publications

Tarzan of the Apes/The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs (2012), full color cover, black & white interiors
A Pack of Trouble by James Gauthier (2011), full color cover, black & white interiors
Witnessed, the True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions by Budd Hopkins (1996) selected interior artwork
Left at East Gate by Larry Warren and Peter Robbins (1997) cover illustration
Streetwise edited by Jon B. Cooke and John Morrow, TwoMorrows Publishing; entry: "My Heroes Have Always Been Super", written, pencilled, inked by Amendola
 Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins On Stage volume seven, Classic Comics Press (2010); Introduction
Draw Comics with Dick Giordano (2005) Impact Books; Perspective drawing pages
The Illustrated Comic Art Workshop (1982) the pages on perspective, and some pages on figure drawing and hands

References

Notes

External links

 Sal Amendola at Mike's Amazing World of Comics
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies; Arts & Letters Council

1948 births
American comics artists
American storyboard artists
American art educators
Comic book editors
Comic book letterers
Comics colorists
Comics inkers
DC Comics people
Fashion Institute of Technology faculty
Italian emigrants to the United States
Living people
School of Visual Arts alumni
School of Visual Arts faculty

Sal Amendola


Ivan Ivanovich Ostromislensky (, also Iwan Ostromislensky) (9 September 1880 – 16 January 1939) was a Russian organic chemist. He is credited as the pioneer in studying polymerization of synthetic rubber as well as inventor of various industrial technologies for production of synthetic rubber, polymers and pharmaceuticals.

Early life
Ostromislensky was born in Oryol, Russia to a family of a nobleman, a poruchik of elite corps. He received his education first at the Moscow cadet corps and then, from 1898 to 1902 at the Moscow Technical School. After graduation, in April 1902, Ostromislensky went to Germany, and enrolled to the Technical School in Karlsruhe. There, he specialized in physical chemistry, organic chemistry and electrochemistry. In July 1906 he returned to Russia and in February 1907 was hired at the Moscow State University (MSU) as an assistant in the laboratory of inorganic and physical chemistry, led by Professor Sabaneev. In 1909, Ostromislensky became a privatdozent of MSU. During his work at MSU, he actively collaborated with Professor L. Chugayev, who headed the laboratory of organic and general chemistry, and started his work on synthetic rubber.

In 1912, after an internal quarrel, Ostromislensky resigned from the MSU. He continued his work on rubber (1912–1917) at Bogatyr (Russian: Богатырь), which was Russia's main rubber company. The company director showed great interest in the emerging synthetic rubber and readily financed the work of Ostromislensky, who was the pioneer of synthetic rubber in Russia.

In 1905, Ostromislensky started reporting his research on the polymerization of dienes and on the synthesis of the starting monomers for synthetic rubber. He had patented more than 20 ways to produce butadiene (buta-1,3-diene), which were implemented industrially in the Soviet Union. The butadiene production method, which was based on aldol condensation of acetaldehyde (1905), was also implemented on industrial scale in Germany in 1936. Another  method was based on passing vapors of ethanol and acetaldehyde at 440–460 °C over aluminium oxide (1915) and received industrial use in 1942–1943 in the United States. In 1915, Ostromislensky also synthesized isoprene via pyrolysis of turpentine and  polymerized it using light. Ostromislensky pioneered the studies of non-sulfur activators of vulcanization of rubber. He also proposed organic additions to rubber, such as toluidine and naphthylamine, in order to improve its properties. Those additives were later exploited by US companies, such as Union Carbide.

In 1913, Ostromislensky published a book on "Rubber and its analogs", which was the first Russian textbook on chemistry and technology of rubber. It summarized most available bibliography on the subject, including foreign patents which were inaccessible to most Russian readers. The book also described 16 original methods of industrial synthesis and polymerization of dialkenes (alkadienes).

In 1910s, Ostromislensky also started shifting his attention toward biochemical, immunochemical and pharmaceutical research, as indicated by that he had two doctoral degrees from University of Zurich, in philosophy and medicine. In 1913, he started his own company named "private chemical and bacteriological laboratory". There he performed a number of studies on the immunological specificity and chemical nature of antibodies and antigens and published the results in the Journal of Physical and Chemical Society in 1915. Ostromislensky investigated the possibility of synthesis of antibodies in vitro and proposed a theory of antibody synthesis, which is regarded as one of the first versions of the so-called matrix theory of antibody synthesis. The theory had strong influence on the development of immunochemistry, but was later proven incorrect. Medical interests of Ostromislensky are also illustrated by his essay on "dream in humans and animals", which examined the toxicological, immunological and physiological aspects of a dream. He considered sleep as a process of self-poisoning by some toxin, which shortens the lifetime.

Between 1918 and 1920, Ostromislensky headed a chemical therapeutic laboratory of the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Institute in Moscow. There he studied the structure and properties of the popular foreign drug Salvarsan and developed the method of manufacturing a domestic analogue called Arsol. Arsol was based on relatively cheap production of colloidal arsenic that was important in the time of the Civil Wars and economic crisis in Russia.

Life abroad
In October 1921, Ostromislensky left Russia and moved to Latvia. There he assumed a position of assistant professor at the department of organic chemistry of University of Latvia in Riga. There he taught two major courses, on chemistry of rubber and on chemotherapeutic drugs. In May 1922, at the invitation of Dr. A. Hopkinson from the US "Rubber Company" Ostromislensky moved to New York. There he continued his work on chemistry and technology of rubber and pharmaceuticals in two companies, United States Rubber Company and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. In 1925, he opened his "Ostro Research Laboratory", where he studied the pharmaceutical properties of various compounds based on arsenic and vegetable oils which were used to treat leprosy. He also advocated commercial production of chemotherapeutic drugs pyridium and pyrazolone. In 1928 he received a US patent for production of polystyrene which was used by US Rubber for the first commercial production of polystyrene in the early 1930s. He also patented his early work on the synthesis of polyvinyl chloride in the US.

In 1930, Ostromislensky received U.S. citizenship and was invited to work in the company Union Carbide to develop commercial production of butadiene from ethanol. The production ceased only after the World War II, because it could not compete with butylene-based technologies. In the US, Ostromislensky improved several industrial technologies of synthetic rubber production. He also developed a technology for producing safety glass for the automobile windshields.

In one of developed by him reactions, ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde, which reacts with additional ethanol over a tantalum-promoted porous silica catalyst at 325–350 °C to yield butadiene:
CH3CH2OH + CH3CHO → CH2=CH-CH=CH2 + 2 H2O

This process was used in the United States to produce government rubber during World War II, and remains in use today in China and India.

Death and legacy
Ostromislensky died at the age 58. His scientific work did not receive appropriate recognition during his lifetime, but was widely praised afterwards. He was among the first 5 scientists inducted into the International Rubber Science Hall of Fame.

References

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni
1880 births
1939 deaths
Chemists from the Russian Empire
American physical chemists
Organic chemists
Inventors from the Russian Empire
Electrochemists
Academic staff of the University of Latvia
20th-century American inventors
Soviet emigrants to the United States
20th-century American chemists

Ivan Ostromislensky