Is Ecosystems Services a Good Enough Approach to Remedy the Planet's Eco-crisis?

 I have a few more remarks and observations about ecosystem services efforts to halting the spoiling of the planet and the ongoing mass extinction. The ecosystem services approach is being used by one group in more than 30 countries. I am not sure that its enough, or even the right approach politically to tackle the issues.

Protecting coastal regions is important of course, yet creating management plans for poor countries or tropical countries combining tourism, fishing and other natural capital using interests isn't enough to change the declining health of the oceans. Can ecosystem services approaches work in the Arctic with the United States and Russia at odds over Ukraine and also seeking to develop militarily on the Arctic littoral because so many want 'wilderness' resource above and below the ground and sea? Canada is also involved as are Finland, Denmark, Norway and, Sweden. Is Sweden's 30 billion dollar coastal autobahn going to improve the ecosphere much? I believe that business interests dominate over actual good-for-the-ecosphere planning, although the worst sort of development is generally a thing of the past.

Is offshore oil drilling, mining, Northwest and Northeast Passage shipping and building in the high Arctic along the coasts going to keep Narwhals, Polar Bear and benthic life alive and uncontaminated by the vast chemical soup of the seas?

The entire planet has an integrated ecosphere. Different nations go about polluting it and killing off species in different ways. Some nations intentionally may not care about harming the ecosphere, others may care and develop frown lines (not really), some are too poor to care and accept help that improve things ecospherically yet economically too. The oceans have vast, slow currents at depth and long memory of insults such as pollutants or acidification that won't respond well in the short run to human remediation. If one were to measure on a global scale the realistic present efforts' success at restoring the ecosphere to health the improvement rating probably would be less that zero. For example, is China concerned with ecospheric coastal management of the Taiwan Strait these days or for invasion of Taiwan? Human concerns tend to develop the ecosphere and prioritize the human politics and all of the social forces ratcheting up force-pressure to have the bureaucratic way consummated in consolidating power. Is the Ukrainian President pressuring the British P.M. for more help in making a Ukrainian ecosystem service plan or for being giving F-!6 fighter aircraft and more tanks?

I believe its good that some poorer countries are funded by various groups at a reasonable price and able to improve their situation economically without needing to go full metal jacket industrialization with dirty effluence. In the rich nations I think its still the money talks and BS walks politics that really dominate and will continue to do so. At least the media is owned by plutocrats and properly supports feel good propaganda about how everything is wonderful or at least getting better thanks to major corporations.

Ecosystem Services and Shadow Governance

 In my course on ecosystem services the 5th module is devoted to government and how to form international networks to bring new laws that support ecosystem services approaches. I found that less than useful. I know what governance is. Building layers of bureaucrats who rule society as a sluzhba while slopping the masses and owning allegiance to plutocrats is less than good.

Interestingly a square meter of Danish soil may have more than 15 million organisms in it and billions of individual bacteria. Alaska has some areas comparable to Denmark I would think. Ecosystem services is a term mentioned in scholarly articles yet promulgating laws in Alaska with that term is not established. Plainly defense of the natural ecosphere is a vital interest of the human species yet the ecosystem services approach may be too bound up with the established political economy to accomplish that. The entire module on governance in this ecosystem services course is somewhat concerning and less than useful as it seems the course is instructing methods for building political structures and even sedulous international political networks rather than instructing on how to implement ecosystem service analyses scientifically, practically.

We were asked to look into national government laws that use the term 'ecosystem services' and send in the findings to an international database. The title of the discussion prompt was 'Global database on emerging laws on Ecosystem Services'

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18uu-PGp9g6UHCBUt_Ug6BtKaQASP6VUErFqGwCuSo2o/edit?usp=sharing

There is already a surfeit of government bureaucrats and careerists affiliated with movements of various kinds that don't actually get things done yet do tend to take over governments and make them ineffective. Building international shadow governments with however honorable an operating premises is still inimical to democratic, national government.

I have written before that combining ecospheric rescue and restoration efforts with a particular divisive political agenda is a sure way to lose much support. Because the players involved have drank the same kool aid they fail to understand the problem. At the least it will waste a lot of time and create the externality of opportunity costs concerning failure to find an actual efficient plan that a democracy could consider and vote to use.

Without Three-point Shots NBA Scoring Leaders Would be Different

 The N.B.A. was forced to introduce three-point shots to the game in 1979 because the A.B.A. with a red, white and blue basketball, Dr. J and three-point shots was becoming too popular. The introduction of three point shots changed the game and the list of career scoring leaders.

Lebron James is a great basketball player and may pass Kareem tonight in his ascent to the number one spot of career scoring leaders. Yet Oscar Robertson and John Havlicek each scored 28,000 points before 1979 and would probably be at number one and two instead of 13 and 15 respectively. All of the players career totals above then were complied in the three-point era.

N.B.A. scoring records complied after 1979 are a little like baseball records set after steroids reached American shores and became used by pro athletes; they are tainted with suspicion. In 1973 East German women won 10 of 14 medals at the World Swimming championships; it was believed the swimmers were using steroids. Steroids were banned from the Olympics in 1975.

https://www.si.com/more-sports/2008/03/11/steroid-timeline - notes Hitler's use of steroids and mental state consistent with heavy steroid use including suicide

Lebron James is a naturally healthy guy who might not have used steroids to promote his scoring. Havlicek and Robertson given three point shots might have scored 7000 more points and Lebron James without three-pointers about 2500 fewer. James made about 7000 points with three-points shots.

Robertson and Havlicek played guard (Havilcek was primarily a forward though). They were strong from the three point range- Kareem made just a single three point shot out of eighteen attempts so his total wouldn't have changed without three point shots, so in effect Kareem is the real scoring leader by a country miles in a scenario without three-pointers ever entering the N.B.A. If some of the value of James' threes are subtracted so a real comparison is possible he would have about 2500 fewer points.

In my opinion, if the three point shot existed in from 1960 the NBA career scoring leader would be Oscar Robertson, Lebron James, Kareem and Havlicek. If the three point shot never existed the leader would be Kareem followed by Robertson, James and Havlicek.

Is it true to say that Patrick Mahomes is Black?

A sports broadcaster said this morning that the upcoming Superbowl is the first to have two black quarterbacks starting. I was reminded of Mitchner's book Caribbean wherein the racial categorizing ideas of one French slave owner of Haiti were described. A black was said to be anyone to have 1/256% African black ancestry.

having painted hundreds of buildings over the years I tend to object with calling a color something other than what it is. Patrick Mahomes' skin simply isn't black. Wal-mart paint departments ( I am not making a recommendation here) generally have laser paint color identifiers that can detect the angstrom wavelengths of light reflect off a color sample fairly accurately. If the Walton group that bought the Denver Broncos used their paint sample analyzer on Patrick Mahomes I am certain that it would not report the finding 'black'.

In my opinion it is wrong to continue to use slave-era color generalities for television analysis classifications of players. If a player if coffee with cream colored the sportscaster should say that the Superbowl is the first to have a coffee colored with cream quarterback vs a somewhat black quarterback.

Creamed coffee color is not the best term. I am sure the Wal-mart paint analysis laser would have a more accurate term. The genome of Americans with African black ancestry is 24% European and nearly 1% American Indian. Muhammad Ali was probably more than 50% Euro and perhaps was 75% Euro, Mahomes probably is more than 60% European ancestrally speaking, so why the inaccuracy anyway. Get the paint machine out there and sample everyone's derm and get the HTML color code chart out for better verbal communication.

To Draft Richardson or SignCarr is the Question

 Trading away Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos provided the Seattle Seahawks with a few opportune choices to build their future. In ten days Derek Carr of the Vegas Raiders will become a free agent. He has more come from behind wins than any other QB playing today, possibly because the Raiders often weren’t well positioned to win a game the past several seasons. The Raiders, like the Jets when Geno Smith played there, were not a very good team. If Seattle signs Carr for a couple of years they may advance farther into the playoffs.

Yet the Seahawks have two first round draft choices in April and should be able to pick a franchise quarterback. Three qbs are available that appear to be outstanding prospects and Anthony Richardson is most likely to be available at number five and twenty. Richardson would need to learn the position for a couple of years from the bench since he is just 18 years and was a college freshman. A very talented though untrained and unseasoned draft prospect. Smith or Carr could start for two or three season while Richardson learned the pro style.

The Broncos absorbed Russell Wilson's vast contract freeing up cash for signing prospects for the Seahawks. The Broncos also signed a real coach today; the tough guy Sean Payton, so they may be spending more too having discovered the futility of not having a proven winner arranging things.

Gambling on quarterback prospects has worked out badly for several teams picking one with their first round choice. Drafting the second best edge rusher in the nation is a more conservative choice that can pay off and isn't likely to fail. So the Seahawks may draft an edge rusher with pick five in the draft and hope Richardson is still available when pick twenty rolls around. Coach Carroll seems to be a one with a good eye for picking QBs and knowing when to release them.

Plainly drafting a quarterback with a team's first round pick also pays off. Mahomes was the first round pick of the Chiefs in 2017 at number ten. Burrows was picked by the Bengals in 2020 at number one. On the other hand, Jalen Hurts was draft by the Eagles in the second round at number twenty-one.

If the Seahawks can sign Carr maybe they change their draft priorities, and perhaps not; Richardson is 18 while Carr 31 and Smith is 32. Having a fellow who might be the number one quarterback selected in the draft if he remained in college through 2024 on the Seahawks bench is a rare opportunity for a time that isn't likely to have a losing record the next several years. Waiting for resolution of the circumstance to learn what coach Carroll chooses to do is one of the more interesting diversions of the season, especially since Geno Smith and the Seahawks went on a losing streak after playing a game against Tampa Bay in Munich last season yet still made the playoffs. If Smith isn't a reliable QB of the future for Seattle, could he mentor Richardson for two or three years and win enough to make the project profitable?

Ecosystem Services is a Developing Science FIeld

 Nearing the end of a course on ecosystem services I have discovered that much of the course is focused on how to get people interested in it rather than upon technical methods for evaluating ecosystem content. Since it is a growing field there can be much improvement in it from the scientific axis and that of politics and economics.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/ecosystem-services/home/welcome

It may be that ecosystem services approaches to discovering how the ecosystem is valuable to people may support the exploitation and optimal use of the ecosphere overall rather than restoring it to a fully healthy state that isn't suffering a mass extinction in progress. part of the problem of keeping biological pluralism alive on Earth is in accurately measuring the quantity and species of life in existence. When an ecosystem has a wealth of species they not only interact, some exist to adapt to any environmental changes on Earth basically. With few species the opportunities for successful biological responses to physical challenges are fewer. People need necessarily pro-life for midst the spectrum of living things are those that benefit humanity and all life by supporting the existence of life on a given day when a particular challenge is presented.

Below are a pair of interesting web sites that work toward mapping ecosystem services and biological pluralism.

https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-interactive-map

https://ipbes.net/

The Night of Living Dead Presidents

 In the year 2039 scientific medical breakthroughs enabled aged heroic Presidents to have their lives extended indefinitely in a semi-suspended animation period. Regarded as living dead mummies the first President to live to the age of one-hundred sixty had his blood removed and replaced with nanobytes of synthetic quantum data organelles receiving power from microwaves at low power penetrating the flesh of the cooled down leader enmeshed at two hundred degrees below zero fahrenheit with superconducting sensors penetrating his body.

The President was awakened from his dogmatic slumber on important occasions between snoozing for days in what became known as ‘The Hammock’. The Hammock was invented by a reclusive billionaire who owned outter space travel in effect after raking in trillions of dollars from high-energy electro-magnetic accelerators on Earth for orbital launches machine-gun quick and his network throughout the solar system that pushed and pulled space capsules to two thirds of the speed of light, The Hammock was a minor contribution of Bill Plates to the public welfare, and the President agreed with the program of Bill Plates to consolidate wealth safely into the hands of the man who bought the Earth’s ecosphere to regulate it at a constant, comfortable temperature of 68 degrees.

President Viden had served his nation for thirty two years in the highest office of the U.S.A. before the first rival to his power arrived; one Monica Hillary von Lubinwhurst, governor of Arkansaur. The resolution of the conflict between the two candidates for the 2073 general election will occur in two weeks when President Viden awakens from his nap to announce another run for the White House or retirement to his Presidential Library on Mars.