Hasta La Gadget!

There are many people out there who are required to take a daily dose of medication to help with certain health complications. However due to their busy nature, stubbornness, or just plain forgetfulness, some people end up not taking their meds. In fact it was discovered that about a third of those prescribed blood pressure medication actually don’t end up taking their pills.

However interestingly enough, a recent study has shown that by actually texting patients and reminding them to take their meds, these patients will end up complying. The study involved 300 patients which were then split into two groups – one that received text messages and one that didn’t.

About 25% of the ones in the group that did not receive text messages ended up not taking their medication completely, or less than 80% of it. However those in the group that received the messages ended up taking their meds, with only 9% who did not or who took less than 80% of their prescribed medication.

According to Dr. David Wald, cardiologist, Queen Mary University, “An important and overlooked problem in medicine is the failure to take prescribed medication. The results of this trial show that text message reminders help prevent this in a simple and effective way. More than just a reminder, the texts provided the link to identify patients who needed help.”

Perhaps with this new discovery, hospitals or clinics could come up with some kind of system that would send out automated text messages to patients who have been put on a regimen of medication to remind them to take it. What do you guys think?

Study Finds Text Message Reminders Helps Patients With Their Medication Regimen

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I was fourteen when my parents found death in the conflict, the horrible wars in our country.
With the help of a neighbor, I fled my country for Mauritania
where I found my paternal uncle thanks to UNHCR and ALPD.
At seventeen, my ordeal began.
It was decided that I would marry a man, to whom I said no.
Pressured by my uncle, I accepted to marry this man who was not my age.
Imagine! Oh, imagine!
Married life at my young age and with my inexperience,
Every day in charge of cooking, cleaning the house, looking after my children and my husband,

Beaten up, humiliated, and threatened with death if I ever dared to raise my voice.
Imagine! Oh, imagine!

Don’t I have the right to speak out?
Don’t I have the right to protection?
Don’t I have the right to an education?

If only you could imagine.
Imagine! Imagine! Imagine!

This heartrending poem was penned by a refugee child from the Central African Republic now living in Mauritania.

Sadly, her plight is far from uncommon. In fact, 15 million of our world’s children are married — against their will as, by definition, a child is unable to provide consent — every year.

Marriage before the age of 18 is a fundamental violation of human rights — yet it remains shockingly prevalent the world over. Per the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, globally:

– About 1 in 4 women were married before age 18.

– Among women aged 20 to 24, approximately 1 in 3 were child brides.

– 1 in 6 adolescent girls (aged 15 to 19) are currently married or in union.

Given the pervasiveness of this harrowing practice, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)–also known as the UN Refugee Agency — has specifically targeted it for this year’s ongoing 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The UNHCR theme is: “Protecting Rights and Preserving Childhoods: Working Together to Address Child Marriage.”

To dig deeper into this global atrocity, I reached out to Francis Markus of UNHCR for more details on the destructiveness of this practice and what was being done to draw attention to and battle what seems to be an insurmountable morass — a trifecta of economic duress, sociocultural normalization and systemic violence.

The Crux Of The Issue

“Child marriage, however you look at it, is a form of sexual and gender-based violence. In fact, in many situations, it is tantamount to rape.” And it’s “found in all corners of the world” with “tremendous consequences for the girls involved — and of course often for their children.”

A Deprivation Of Childhood

“We are talking about young people who are forced into union with men who may be decades older than themselves, who often treat them with great cruelty. The fact that these girls are usually forced into these relationships, often amid situations of dire family poverty, deprives them of any chances, any choices, any childhood. They may have all sorts of hopes and interests and desires for education and a career, but they end up with babies and housework.”

Markus further explains that in addition to robbing them of their precious childhood, it also forces children to participate in perpetuating the very system they abhor and are taken advantage by:

“For their young bodies, the physical and health consequences of pregnancy at 15 or even younger can be disastrous. From the perspective of their psychological development, they are being forced to live an adult, mothering role, when what they need is mothering themselves and what they want is still to play as children themselves. Of course this has consequences for the development of the children they’re bringing up as well.”

And all too often, the crippling nature of this practice is grossly misrepresented in the media.

“More thought is needed about what it actually represents. There have been many reports about its prevalence among Syrian refugees, for example, with parents claiming it’s a way of protecting their daughters. But this is a grotesque distortion of the whole meaning of protection in a rights-based context. The positive side of that is that while the whole displacement experience for millions of people is unbelievably traumatic, it is such a radical shakeup in people’s lives that can also provide opportunities for changes of attitudes and social values on issues like this.

And this is where we have to make maximum efforts to incorporate this into our protection work in the communities. Of course we have to go about this not by attacking people’s traditional values, but for example by making them see all that is to be gained by enabling girls to have an education and by doing whatever we can to help provide opportunities for that to happen.”

There are other damaging misconceptions as well.

“Another issue that sometimes gets misrepresented is the extent to which refugees want to marry their daughters off. Though child marriage can be a long-standing practice that is carried into displacement, it is at times also a desperate coping mechanism of families who feel they have no other choice. What is needed, therefore, is more economic opportunities and access to services, including education, to present these families with alternatives to resorting to such practices.”

What’s Being Done to Combat Child Marriage

Having read that the UNHCR offices across the world would be holding a range of activities to mark the 16 Days of Activism, I asked Markus what was being done to draw attention to and battle this heinous epidemic.

One tactic was for the UNHCR office in Geneva to collect “stories and drawings from refugee children around the world, giving them the chance to express their fears and experiences of early marriage.” A girl in Uganda “drew a picture about a 60-year-old man who came to a 15 year-old girl’s family home with a briefcase of money, a goat, and a car full of items such as salt, pepper and oil. She sits in the corner crying, while her parents welcome the man. She cannot do anything; her parents have decided to marry her to this man.”

Such efforts, to collect and illuminate the experiences of those whose lives have been torn apart by child marriage, represent one of the main ways to tackle the issue: Raising awareness “about the risks and negative effects this has on children. This is an effort to change the way this is viewed by those who promote and facilitate it.”

There is hope that efforts battling this issue are working — much of the solution lies in prevention.

“We have been undertaking many awareness-raising campaigns throughout the 16 Days, to educate people about girls’ rights and the risks associated with child marriage. This has included debates in refugee communities, events in schools, parades, plays, dances, film screenings, and radio and television segments. One important goal of the campaign is to work with men and boys — they are usually the ones who make decisions in the family, including when a girl will marry.

For example, in Uganda, a mass sensitization competition was held to promote male engagement in the elimination of sexual gender-based violence with the theme ‘Real men don’t defile and marry young girls. Are you a real man?’ Groups of men participated through music, dance, drama, stories, poems and posters demonstrating the dangers of child marriage and promoting girls’ education. Everyone from the settlement gathered for the competition.”

Only time will tell if the UN Refugee Agency’s critical efforts will have the potency and persuasion to effect systemic change among these communities, but during these 16 Days of Activism — and indeed, every day — we’re thankful for every effort that combats this violence perpetuated against the world’s most innocent and vulnerable populations.

This story by Kelley Calkins first appeared on Ravishly.com, an alternative news+culture website for women.

Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

And They’re All the Same Age! Not. But a new study indicates that El Nino, which is exacerbated by climate change, can stunt kids’ growth. The grandmother of these kids, though, wonders what future awaits them in a climate change world.

OO Another Side Effect Of Climate Change And El Niño Events? Shorter Kids.

OO Polar Bears Die Off by 40%

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OO Protect Bristol Bay from Offshore Drilling

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SOLAR KEEPS RISING

OO Iowa Conservative Farmers Find New Cash Crop: Solar Power with the help of a popular tariff program, forming the most successful US community-based solar energy programs.

OO Solar Power As Next Industrial Revolution – Led By China

Globally, China’s delay on some solar projects means that Japan might be the biggest solar market in 2015, with a predicted installation of 10-12 gigawatts. But a new study indicates that China can get 40% of its energy from renewables by 2040, economically.

Iran plans to double its wind and solar power production, as does India, which plans to boost its renewables to 15% of total energy supply by 2020.

Check it out here, right now!

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GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OO Energy Efficiency May Be The Key To Saving Trillions

OO Solving The Climate Crisis By Making You Comfy – with smart software that allows office workers to adjust their immediate working climate; it seems to be working.

OO Canada: ‘Accessible’ Geothermal Resources Are Cheaper Than Hydro

OO Scotland: Renewables Now Largest Source of Power

OO Norway Fund Targets $3 Billion In Green Technology

OO Germany’s Largest Utility Gets Out Of The Fossil Fuel Business – in favor of expanding wind and solar power interests.

OO China Outcompetes US As Clean-Energy Market Frontrunner

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WHAT WORKS

Speaking Out:

Talking Climate Change With Family Deniers Over the Holidays:
Some Pointers
reports Ryan Koronowski at Climate Progress, include:

* Cold weather? The planet is warming and that’s changing climate, causing both extreme hot AND cold weather. But the number of new heat records are far outpacing the cold records.

* There is no “pause” in the warming; some of the heat started going more into the oceans, but it’s still incoming, and 9 of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2000.

* Forget conspiracy: there is broad consensus among scientists that climate change is happening, mostly because we burn fossil fuels.

Warm weather might sound nice, but climate change affects us all, including our food as this interactive shows.

What You and Your Conservative Family Can Agree On:
Some Pointers
reports Emily Atkin at Climate Progress, include:

* Let’s keep emotions out of it, and stick to the facts: refuse to be baited.

* Climate action is economically good and patriotic: clean energy is becoming as cheap as, and less economically volatile than, fossil fuels, and builds US energy independence.

Peter Essick

* Carbon is bad, because of the sickening air pollution, and it can cause harmful irreversible effects that are economically damaging. Adaptation can only do so much.

* Carbon emissions threaten property rights: letting companies emit carbon that ultimately raises sea levels and floods coastal properties is not fair.

* Carbon emissions threaten homeland security, says the US Department of Homeland Security, because of the resulting harmful effects: damaging extreme weather, rising sea levels and more.

Wikipedia

OO Pope Francis Issues Call For EU Green Jobs Creation

OO George Shultz Defies GOP In Embrace Of Climate Adaptation

OO Republican Senator: GOP Needs Real Position On Climate Policy

OO Groups Sue US Interior Dept
Over Climate Impacts Of Coal Leasing Program – burning the coal leased under this plan would unlock almost an estimated 17 billion tons of carbon pollution.

OO Other Texas Towns Join Denton In Challenging Fracking

OO EPA Rejects Texas Clean-Air Plan,
Orders Upgrades On Some Big Coal Plants

OO California: Climate Change Lawsuits Press County Leaders

Where the drilling was stopped: a view from Burnaby Mountain, where protestors stopped a company from drilling. Diane Worth/Flickr

OO Canada: Protestors Force Company to Stop Drilling

OO Canadians Want Action On Reducing Greenhouse Gases,
Poll Shows

Insights:

Recent Warming Trends: Significant, Paused – Or What? Here’s how to interpret the temperature records for the planet, writes Stephan at RealClimate, where climate scientists explain the climate science.

As he summarizes: “since the 1970s we simply are in an ongoing global warming trend which is superimposed by short-term natural variability.”

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Where Do We Go From Here? Carbon Emissions Past, Present and Future This interactive shows how fast we are plowing through our planetary carbon budget that avoids a dangerous rise in temperature, and how we can extend it dramatically.

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A Colorful History of Our Planetary Carbon Emissions: this interactive shows, through the floating, changing bubbles of Han Rosling’s famous and fascinating moving charts the expansion and ever-changing players that emit carbon on our planet. Although the US is a dominant culprit, China and India are now major players as they burn coal to develop.

OO How Global Warming Is Making Heat Waves And Precipitation More Extreme

Good Ideas:

OO The Intelligent Light Switch That Saves Energy – Remotely

Think of it as a giant heating brick for your home: the German company Cloud and Heat is happy to heat your homes free by storing its heat-generating servers there. Cloud and Heat

OO This German Data Center Wants To Heat Your House With Its Servers

OO France To Stop Credits For Coal Projects In Developing Countries – vive la France!

OO Financial Systems Must Consider Extreme Weather,
Or Risk Condemning Millions To Die A new Royal Society report calls for changes to global financial accounting and regulation to ensure extreme weather risk is correctly accounted for.

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WHAT DOESN’T WORK

Fossil Fuel Follies:

Wikipedia

OO Fracking Risk Compared To Thalidomide, Asbestos
In UK Report by chief national scientific advisor.

OO India: World’s Most Polluted City Urged To Close Schools On Bad Air Days – as fossil fuels worsen air quality to critical levels.

OO Air Pollution Costs Britain £10 Billion A Year, a European Union agency report shows, and costs Europe up to £149 billion a year.

OO Climate Funds For Coal Highlight Lack Of UN Rules

Population Matters:

OO Overpopulation Merges With Antibiotics to Create Spreading Epidemic – and pull resources away from addressing another byproduct, climate change. Overpopulation in developing nations also hampers the source of funding, the economy.

OO Green Revolution Trebles Human Burden On Planet – US researchers say seasonal swings in temperatures and CO2 levels are evidence of how agricultural advances and the population explosion have tilted nature’s balance.

Consumerism:

Prisoner541 at Flickr

‘A Quarter Of The Energy We Use Is Just In Our Crap’:
Black Friday And The Destruction Of Planet Earth – Black Friday, notes Joe Romm at Climate Progress, has become an orgiastic celebration of unbridled consumerism. It’s a good time to look at how the global economic system is a Ponzi scheme, an utterly unsustainable system that robs our children’s future to pamper our present lifestyles.

Denial, Even As You Bake:

Australians protest their government’s head in the sand approach to climate change.
David Gray/Reuters

Australia Govt Ignores Climate Change, Even With Its Hottest Spring and November Yet

Clueless Leadership:

OO Careless About Climate Change Congress: GOP Leaders of Climate Denial, Skepticism – from left to right, Roy Blunt, unknown, John Barrasso, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, and lastly, Jim Inhofe, in line to be head of the House Committee on Environment… so much for Congress acting on climate in 2015… David Gray/Reuters, Wikipedia.

OO Florida OKs Plan To Gut Solar, Conservation Incentives – hang on, isn’t that the state whose bustling tip is being eaten away by rising sea levels? Way to go, Florida!

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WHY WE SHOULD ACT NOW: RISING RISKS

Daily Climate Change: Global Map of Unusual Temperatures, Dec 6, 2014

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Looking above at recent temperature anomalies, much of the US and the waters surrounding it are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures: despite the rain reaching California, it is still in the depths of a severe drought.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

Social Repercussions:

OO Climate Change Poses Deadly Threat To Elderly who are an expanding part of the population.

OO Climate Change Forces The Alps To Adapt By Moving Villages away from flooding, and contemplate defenses against landslides.

OO Water War Amid Brazil Drought Leads To Fight Over Puddles!

OO UN Climate Talks Begin As Global Temperatures Break Records

Endangered Nature:

Extinction Is Not A Pretty Picture: many beautiful animals and plants face extinction from human activities, and the climate change that results from them.

OO Animal Extinctions From Climate Rival Asteroid Extinction of Dinosaurs

Starfish are disappearing as a wasting disease decimates them along the Pacific northwest coast.
Credit Jonathan Martin

OO Scientists: Climate Change Means Sicker World For Sea Life– rising temperatures likely will make ocean disease outbreaks worse in the future.

OO California: Large-Scale Die-Off Of Small Seabird Along Coast – starving as ocean warming decimates their food source, ocean krill.

OO Sharks To Decline Under Climate Change – as fewer sharks survive a warmer, more acid infancy, research indicates; bad news for magnificent creatures already endangered from overfishing.

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KEEPING CARBON STORED: FORESTS UPDATE
Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

Mongabay.com

OO Indonesia Cracks Down On Deforestation In Symbolic U-Turn

OO Indonesia To Audit Licenses Of Palm Oil Companies
That Clear Carbon Rich Peatlands the cheapest way to store carbon underground – short of leaving coal and oil unmined.

OO Former Malaysian Chief: Legal Logging Also ‘Destructive’ Of Forests – and is calling for limits on legal logging in the Southeast Asian nation.

“I’m wild about my home!” Besides storing carbon, the forests of Guyana are home to amazing wildlife, like this hawkhead parrot.
Source: www.guyanatimesinternational.com

OO South America: Chinese Logging Company Takes Over Guyana’s Forests – paying lip service to national laws as they plunder the forests and add to climate change worldwide.

A forest massacred: when forests are destroyed, we all lose.
Mongabay

OO Progress Being Made In Curbing Illegal Timber Imports – says a new series of reports.

OO Amazon Deforestation Moratorium Extended 18 Months – by the Brazilian soy industry, formerly accounting for up to 20% of recent deforestation.

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” , at WordPress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by these chanterelles I harvested and photographed one summer. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are freely available.

The last couple of months have brought to light a series of events that question the essence of what makes us such a great nation; that universal truth, endowed by our Creator, that all men are created equal.

The hard reality in all of this is the fact that those very words are being threatened every moment and instant that we allow events like the ones that recently occurred in Ferguson and Stanton Island to continue.

The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner are just a set of recent examples that have surfaced in large part due to our advances in technology and our ability to easily access a cellphone with video and photography capabilities within a second’s reach.

And the scariest thing in all of this is the fact that these sort of incidents are happening a lot more than we all would like to admit.

The abuse of power used in Eric Garner’s death couldn’t be clearer: The man screamed eleven times, “I Can’t Breathe.” Further, Mr. Garner’s actions did not constitute an imminent threat to the group of cops that were surrounding him at the time.

During the entire interaction, Mr. Garner did not show any signs of resistance or posed an immediate threat on any of the officers present.

So if the evidence was so clear, why did the grand jury fail to indict the law enforcement officer responsible for Eric Garner’s death?

Quite simply, the truth is that parts of our legal system are broken.

Lawyers often say that a “prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich”, pointing to the fact that it is usually very easy to convince a grand jury to formally accuse a person with committing a crime.

And although this all depends on the type of crime that a person is being accused of, often prosecutors will throw as many crimes as they can to the jury, hoping that one of them will stick.

In our current legal system, the prosecutor of the case carries a lot of influence and power in terms of what evidence is admitted into the case and what the grand jury gets to hear and see before making their decision.

Often, prosecutors have prior relationships within law enforcement agencies, as they usually work together within the same system of government. As a result, this makes it difficult for fairness and justice to be served when dealing with these types of issues.

As a society, we often give law enforcement officers a great amount of credibility and trustworthiness just because of the type of job that they are in. This is a dangerous generalization and goes to show why some law enforcement officers are able to get away with abuse of power.

However, there is no question that a majority of law enforcement officers do an admirable job in protecting us. But for the few that abuse our system, they must be held responsible for their actions.

But in order to do that, we must change part of our legal system so that its truly equal, fair, and just.

For starters,prosecutors and grand juries should come from different communities. Our legal system must take the extra step to ensure that no biases exist that could potentially unjustly affect the outcome of a case.

As Americans, if we want to truly adhere to what our founders envisioned our country to be and continue working towards a more perfect union, we must come together as one nation to make sure this issue is resolved.

Let us take this opportunity to embrace what unites us, instead of focusing on what makes us different. Only then, will we be able to move our country forward.

In the days after Ferguson, and just before the Garner decision, I spoke with a group of high school students about race and the criminal justice system. A young black teen in the audience asked a devastating question: “How come we [the black community] always have to be the ones fatally shot?”

I was stunned and silenced by his question. He seemed to take for granted that black people would be shot by the police. And that all he could hope for was a world where black people would not be shot dead.

His question dripped with hopelessness — a thick, sticky hopelessness that felt near impossible to penetrate.

We can talk all we want about provocation and perception. About chokeholds and grand juries. About the militarization of the police.

But I want to talk about hopelessness. Particularly hopelessness in the criminal justice system.
Black communities have been ravaged by a criminal justice system that has had a far-reaching disparate impact on people of color. Just look at the numbers. 1 in 10 black men in their thirties is in prison or jail. That means 10 percent adult black men may face the heavy collateral consequences of those convictions: bans from federal public housing, reduced employment prospects, disenfranchisement, and ineligibility from poverty programs designed to provide a safety net and which, in their absence, only reinforce poverty and deprivation.

Prisons themselves are places of despair. They are full of filth, noise and violence, with limited access to health care and almost no educational programs or structural opportunities for self-improvement. Time passes, but the men and women inside are frozen in time. There is little room for personal growth and transformation. Prisons are places where people fester. And where hope goes to die.

The criminal justice system is broken, and broken in a way that has harmed communities of color much more than other communities.

But, as I said recently, it does not have to be this way.

When schools were formally segregated, and blacks were forced to attend dilapidated, under-funded, barely functioning schools, the situation must have felt hopeless to the thousands of black students and their families who were being systemically denied access to quality education. But in the face of that hopelessness, the United States Supreme Court intervened. And, in Brown v. Board of Education, the Court said loudly that segregation was wrong. And that it needed to be stopped. Immediately.

That was message of hope. That was a call for change. That was a rallying cry for action and an articulated vision of what is possible.

Today there is once again anger and hopelessness. But there are also small glimmers of change on the horizon. Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced his “Smart on Crime” initiative, designed to reduce prison populations, address racial disparities, and help men and women reenter society after serving their time behind bars. The federal government and some states are experimenting with reentry courts, designed to help the very people – formerly incarcerated individuals – who were put in prison by those same federal and state government agencies. New Jersey voted to amend its Constitution to reform its bail practices in ways that help the poor. California reclassified a number of felony offenses to misdemeanors. And states around the country are considering new policies that will help dramatically reduce prison populations.

These are good initial, steps for change.

But in the wake of Ferguson and Garner, where two unarmed black men died and neither white officer was indicted, we need more. We need desperately to build a broader consensus about race and justice.

And that is where I see the greatest spark of hope. Ferguson and Garner, despite their tragic dimensions, are generating a broader national consciousness. Wherever you turn, people are talking about race, often in thoughtful and heartbreaking ways that will reverberate for years to come. People who have not been part of the dialogue are now, sometimes for the first time, talking about these issues. People who have not been paying attention are now sitting up and paying attention, are now expressing concern that something is fundamentally not right.

To heal, we need hope. Hope that is born of an honest dialogue between whites and blacks, between communities and police departments, between policy makers and the constituents they are tasked to serve. Hope that seeks to remedy the harm caused by systems that simply do not work, that cause more poverty, and that create more distrust.

It may be too soon for this message of hope. Emotions may be too raw, pain may be too deep. But I am putting it out there now. Because hope is aspirational. And I do not think that we, as a society, can survive in a place without it.