Do you act to produce short-term gains (at the possible expense of long-term gains) or long-term gains (with possible short-term pain)? That's the question at the heart of many leadership conundrums. Last week El Salvador became the first country to ban metal mining, of all types, within its borders in order to try to salvage its water supply. El Salvador is the second-most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere (after Haiti) yet more than 90% of its surface water is contaminated by toxic chemicals, waste, and heavy metals. www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/mar/30/el-salvador-makes-history-first-nation-to-impose-blanket-ban-on-metal-mining
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The integration of big data in real-time mapping is a new tool in the fight against wildlife poaching. Here is one example from a recent National Geographic article:
"It’s searingly hot in Kenya’s Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, and the ceiling fan ticks above a wall-mounted touch screen displaying a map with icons of elephants and rhinos scattered throughout the area. Selvam Velmurugan presses a finger on one of the elephant icons, and an information window pops open above it. 'These are live animals roaming the reserve as we speak,' he says. If one of the animals wanders past a border and into a human settlement, he explains, Lewa's managers are sent an alert on their phone so they can react immediately. 'It’s like we have a virtual data fence surrounding the reserve. We’ll know exactly where and when the animal has crossed by taking one look at the screen.' ... In Lewa, the system brings together in a single interactive viewing map GPS readings of animal movements, radio and vehicle trackers to follow anti-poaching teams in real time, camera trap photos, surrounding human settlements where poachers are likely to originate, weather conditions, and more. In this way it gives managers an integrated view of pretty much everything they need to know, minute-by-minute, in what may be a sprawling protected area. ... [T]he tool also has the potential to anticipate poaching incidents before they happen. His team is now feeding data into the system from past poaching incidents in Lewa, such as time of day, day of week, season, vegetation at the time, and rainfall. By crunching all this information, DAS will come up with potential sites where poaching is more likely to take place on any given day." news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/wildlife-watch-data-poaching-wildlife-trafficking Western Sahara and its Sahrawi people have been in the news lately. But what is Western Sahara anyway? Western Sahara is a region along the Atlantic Ocean claimed by Morocco and bordered by Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. It had been a Spanish colony (and may be shown as "Spanish Sahara" on older maps). However, when other European countries were under pressure to give up their colonies after WWII, Spain, governed by its long-time military dictator, Francisco Franco, did not. It was not until the month Franco died, in November 1975, that Spain finally agreed to relinquish its control of Western Sahara. Morocco and Mauritania immediately claimed portions of Western Sahara for themselves, over the objections of the native Sahrawi people. Morocco eventually won out, and tens of thousands of Sahrawi continue to live in refugee camps in Algeria, which has been a key sponsor of the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi resistance movement fighting for Western Sahara's independence. Western Sahara is the most populous territory on the United Nation's list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. c8.alamy.com/comp/GA4ER8/western-sahara-political-map-with-capital-laayoune-national-borders-GA4ER8.jpg
Ethical decisions posed by scientific advances are a fertile ground for philosophical discussion, and this month's issue of Philosophy Now includes a thoughtful "dialogue" about CRISPR gene-editing technology and so-called "designer babies":
philosophynow.org/issues/119/Are_Designer_Babies_Our_Future Here's an short excerpt: "Pat: Hold on right there! What right do we have to willy-nilly judge whether certain conditions are or are not okay? For example, I’ve seen people with Down’s Syndrome living happy, productive lives. Are you saying there will no longer be a place for them in your future world order? Sally: Not at all; different parents can always make their own choices for genetic intervention or not, for sure. But to claim that harmful inherited disorders must forever be part of, let’s say, human variation, strikes me as too single-minded. I disagree with you when you say we should leave well enough alone, when we have the tools to head off illnesses and disabilities in newborns. Pat: What I’m really getting at is that future generations might lose something important, such as being different from one another, as a result of us messing with our genes when we’re all chasing the same qualities. Variety is good. Sally: I seriously doubt we’ll all become cookie-cutter copies of each other! All I’m saying is that I want to increase the odds of my baby having the traits I, not anybody else, would prefer my baby to have – especially given that the traits I choose for my kids might even get passed on to my grandchildren and great grandchildren, and so on. ... Pat: Well, that might be great if you can afford the treatment. Sally: It’s no different than what parents do already. Mums and dads give their kids an edge by forking over money for training, in music lessons, or gymnastics classes, or math tutoring. Just so the kids can be accomplished and competitive, right? ... Pat: I’m still wary of the prospect for overreach. Let’s not gloss over the fact that things have gone seriously wrong with medicine, even in the recent past. The horrors of thalidomide are just one example. It hasn’t all been rosy, despite the assurances by scientists that scientists know best. Sally: It’s true that scientists get things wrong. But as for ‘playing God’, that phrase is itself an overreach for what we’re talking about. Transplanting human organs was once labeled ‘playing God’. The same goes for other medical interventions, like vaccinating children. What was once unnerving became almost ho-hum. ..." The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has released an interactive map that shows exposure to traffic-related noise -- cars, trucks, airplanes, ambulances, helicopters, etc. -- throughout the U.S. Zoom in to find your location: www.bts.gov/newsroom/national-transportation-noise-map%20 This is the transportation noise map for NYC, for example. (The darker the color, the higher the intensity of noise.)
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