Hasta La Gadget!

By Ruben Dieleman

Over Budget – Mathis Wackernagel loves the outdoors. As a sustainability advocate, he travels the world to inform audiences about the global ecological footprint concept. How does he balance his travel schedule with his urgent call for less emissions in the world?

Mathis Wackernagel, President of the Global Footprint Network, has been preaching his message about humanity’s ecological footprint and what he calls “ecological overshoot” for more than a decade. These concepts both relate to the consequences and effects of economic growth worldwide. The ecological footprint, conceived by Wackernagel, is a tool that measures economic supply and its demand on nature.

Humanity’s demands have been exceeding the biosphere’s supply since the 1970s, a phenomenon called ecological overshoot. Each year, the day on which humanity’s resource consumption for the year exceeds the planet’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year moves earlier on the calendar. In 2015, it was August 13. This year, it is August 8.

What does this mean? “It means that overshoot is structural. It now takes the Earth more than a year and a half to regenerate what humanity uses in a year,” Wackernagel says. “Even if the date of Earth Overshoot Day stayed the same, that would not be helpful. That it keeps coming earlier means that we have not bucked the trend yet,” Wackernagel says.

This trend cannot go on for ever. “Will we get out of overshoot by design or by disaster? That is the big question,” Wackernagel says. According to him, humanity still has a choice. “But we are not choosing wisely. I think we can still take fate into our own hands. It is like with money: why we cannot choose the same way we do about resources? Why can we work with budgets for money, but not for natural resources?”

Can humanity as a whole really decide to take natural resources into account? Even Wackernagel admits we cannot afford to stop expanding, but unrestrained consumption of natural resources is not the way to do it. “We do not produce anything when we extract natural resources,” Wackernagel says. “It is like moving money from your savings account to your checking account, and considering it to be newly earned money. Of course, it is not.”

Still, Wackernagel is no pessimist. “I have total faith in humanity’s ability to deal with it. It is not like an asteroid that will hit us. We can transform our systems. It is technically and financially possible.” The Swiss-born scientist proclaims that he is a technological optimist, but technology on its own will not change the trend yet. “What holds us back – despite urgent warnings from the UN, for instance – is that we do not see it for the true challenge it is. We cannot see beyond growth, even though we cannot go on forever like this. What happens if we cannot have growth? We are not thinking imaginatively enough about it.”

Many initiatives surrounding sustainability nowadays are about “awareness.” “I still do not entirely understand what this means,” Wackernagel says. “I wonder if it really changes our fundamental behaviour. The values we have, about growth for example, do not shift easily, even if they are not based in reality anymore.”

Wackernagel hopes that his Work Session at the 46th St. Gallen Symposium may have contributed to the shift. “I hope that people have been a little bit disturbed, but not so much that they have been disgusted. And intrigued enough that my talk stuck with them, that it kind of nags and makes them ask themselves: what shall we do? What are the possibilities now?”

Even for someone like Wackernagel, making a real difference feels like a challenge. Take travel: A rough calculation by the magazine suggests the cumulative distance travelled by all the symposium’s visitors amounted to flying around the world 50 times over.

Wackernagel flew from his home in California to be at the symposium. “I have solar panels at home. We have LED lights. We separate trash. I try not to waste any food. But I should have 6 times more solar panels just for my flight to Zurich, to compensate for my impact on the environment,” he admits. “Let’s be honest: I am adding to the problem. We could do so much better, we could achieve so much more.”

The sustainability advocate is suddenly pensive. “That is why I ask myself every day: am I adding value?”

Mathis Wackernagel, President, Global Footprint Network, shared his insights on sustainability in the context of this year’s St.&nbspGallen&nbspSymposium&nbsp(11–13 May 2016) held on the topic “Growth – the good, the bad, and the ugly“.

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WASHINGTON — Americans who don’t need to worry about health insurance premium increases on the Obamacare exchanges are worried about them anyway. That could spell headaches for Democrats.

More than 8 in 10 people surveyed by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation this month have followed the news that rates on the Affordable Care Act health insurance exchanges will rise faster next year.

The trouble is, just over half of those believe this is about all insurance rates, not just those for people using the exchanges. Just 10 percent correctly understand what’s really happening. 

In other words, about 90 percent of Americans who’ve heard about it misconstrue what’s happening with health insurance premiums. 

Whatever may be going on in the Obamacare exchanges affects a small fraction of the country, not those who are insured by their employers’ plans or covered by government programs like Medicare or Medicaid.

Although rates for employer-based benefits are expected to rise as usual next year, they won’t to anywhere near the same degree as individual plans.

There are some eye-popping Obamacare rate increases coming next year and broad analyses predict the average premium hike could reach double digits.

But that has nothing to do with what will happen for workers and families covered by employers. More than three times as many Americans get their insurance this way than through an exchange or directly from an insurer or broker.

For employers, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey shows, health insurance costs have been climbing at historically low rates, a trend that the consulting firm expects will continue in 2017.

What the Kaiser Family Foundation findings suggest, however, is that the public is primed to be misled that any increases in their job-based health benefit costs stem from the same conditions triggering rate hikes in the remade market for individual, non-group insurance. 

The Affordable Care Act continues to be seen unfavorably by a slightly larger percentage of the population than views it favorably. The final premiums for people who get health insurance through the exchanges will come out this autumn, shortly before Election Day — around the same time most people with job-based coverage will learn about their options and costs for the following year.

Health care care costs are a big concern for American households, which have endured decades of rising expenses for insurance and medical care, the Kaiser Family Foundation also reports. 

What’s lost in the projections of average premium increases, for both segments of the market, is the wide variation. There will be big price hikes for some people — and smaller or no increases for others — no matter where they get their insurance

But that doesn’t necessarily mean Obamacare premiums can turn presidential or congressional races, considering the other issues at stake this year — and the so-far large polling lead that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has over her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, according to HuffPost Pollster.

Nevertheless, Democrats from Clinton on down won’t welcome the barrage of attacks from Republicans, who are unified in their aim to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

Based on projections by the Congressional Budget Office, 149 million U.S. residents will have health insurance offered by their employers next year, which amounts to about 46 percent of the population.

By contrast, 45 million will be covered by insurance obtained either on the exchanges, directly from a health insurance company or through a broker, which is just 14 percent of U.S. residents.

The employer-based health insurance market has always been more stable than the one for individuals and families buying on their own. The upheaval that the Affordable Care Act caused when it remade the latter and created the health insurance exchanges seems to have exacerbated the difference.

In the so-called Obamacare market for individuals and families, many health insurance companies have suffered financial losses during the first three years of the new system, mostly because they enrolled fewer people and sicker people than they had anticipated before enrollment began in October 2013. 

That’s causing a few insurers, like UnitedHealth Group, to withdraw from the individual market or at least to reduce their exposure. Others are calling for rate hikes — some that are alarmingly large.

Higher premiums pose a significant challenge for the health insurance market for individuals and the viability of the exchanges, but there are critical mitigating factors.

Foremost is that the eye-popping numbers cited by Obamacare opponents aren’t representative of the prices for coverage overall, but usually apply to a single product sold by a single insurer, not the entire market.

And exchange customers may be able to avoid the highest rates by shopping around. For this year and 2015, two-thirds of customers using HealthCare.gov, which serves 38 states, switched plans, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Plus, 83 percent of health insurance exchange consumers received tax credits to reduce their costs. Because these subsidies cap premiums at a percentage of income, eligible enrollees can be protected from price increases.

That leaves the remaining 17 percent of exchange customers — about 1.8 million people as of the end of the 2016 enrollment period — and the more than 20 million people who buy insurance directly or through a broker exposed to these rate hikes.

That’s a lot of voters who might be angry enough to vote against Obamacare-supporting Democrats. But that’s dwarfed by the nearly 149 million who get health benefits from employer-based insurance, which isn’t facing the same cost issues as individual insurance — even if workers mistakenly believe it is.

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Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah delivered a forceful response when asked on Wednesday why he hasn’t endorsed Donald Trump.

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Could Apple be gearing up for a new batch of Apple Watch bands? The company in the past has stated that their plan is to create a seasonal cycle, similar to fashion design where every season we would be treated to new designs, thus keeping the watch’s look fresh and fashionable for users who care about these kind of things.

That certainly appears to be the case here because according to reports, many have started to notice that Apple’s website has started to list many of its Apple Watch bands and the various Apple Watch bundles as being “sold out”. Now it could be speculated that Apple might have run into supply issues.

However as you can see in the screenshot above, it states that it is “sold out” versus the “temporarily unavailable” message that when we get when we see products that are short on supply, and when Apple is waiting for new stock to arrive. It has also been noted that even some of the pricier Hermès bands are listed as sold out.

It is unclear if this could mean more, but we have heard the rumors that Apple is planning on unveiling the second-gen Apple Watch later this year, but it does seem to be a bit long to remain out of stock on bands. Either way we’ll keep our eyes peeled and will update you guys accordingly.

Many Apple Watch Bands And Bundles Are Being Listed As ‘Sold Out’ , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S.-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against Islamic State around the city of Fallujah on Wednesday, U.S. officials told Reuters, with one citing a preliminary estimate of at least 250 suspected fighters killed and at least 40 vehicles destroyed.

If the figures are confirmed, the strikes would be among the most deadly ever against the jihadist group. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the operation and noted preliminary estimates can change.

The strikes, which the officials said took place south of the city, where civilians have also been displaced, are just the latest battlefield setback suffered by Islamic State in its self-proclaimed “caliphate” of Iraq and Syria.

The group’s territorial losses are not diminishing concerns about its intent and ability to strike abroad though. Turkey pointed the finger at Islamic State on Wednesday for a triple suicide bombing and gun attack that killed 41 people at Istanbul’s main airport.

CIA chief John Brennan told a forum in Washington the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic State “depravity” and acknowledged there was a long road ahead battling the group, particularly its ability to incite attacks.

“We’ve made, I think, some significant progress, along with our coalition partners, in Syria and Iraq, where most of the ISIS members are resident right now,” Brennan said.

“But ISIS’ ability to continue to propagate its narrative, as well as to incite and carry out these attacks — I think we still have a ways to go before we’re able to say that we have made some significant progress against them.”

On the battlefield, the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State has moved up a gear in recent weeks, with the government declaring victory over Islamic State in Fallujah.

An alliance of militias have also launched a major offensive against the militant group in the city of Manbij in northern Syria.

Still, in a reminder of the back-and-forth nature of the war, U.S.-backed Syrian rebels were pushed back from the outskirts of an Islamic State-held town on the border with Iraq and a nearby air base on Wednesday after the jihadists mounted a counter- attack, two rebel sources said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)

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