First of all, thanks for a great article! Scary how an outbreak of a virus can cause such difference; and personally unfortunately I believe this prospected figures are a bit 'optimistic'. As there are highly possible negative 'domino' effects on any society when such/this virus strike! We can see such 'side-effect' even in developed countries as U.S, and similar social unrest movements will highly possible also increase in the less developed nations! There are several side-effects that will 'drip-down' to the family/individual level - family members who support their younger/older members dies of this virus, and therefore cause a negative effect on that whole household/family/individuals. Further, social unrest and struggle for the (food/job) resources starts a power struggle also on the national level and individuals/groups with 'simple' radical solutions comes into power (elections/violently or part of both). Also, to consider what 'Poverty' is. Is it based upon solely an amount of a certain degree of money or also included a certain amount of 'nutrition' any human need to have to not only survive but live a healthy life! Thus, exposing figures on how 'poverty' is decreasing might fill a good purpose, but believe we also need to be clear on what it really means! From my understanding 100% humanity do Not live a Healthy life with 1 small bowl of rice/potato and 1 litre of semi-polluted water(!) a day! Still not mention the simple fact of maximum working hours! Even developed countries, as Japan, Korea and USA force huge part of their labor-force to work 12-16 hours a day, whereas they often simply economically survive - pay their monthly-life costs!In short, your figures are based upon a less complex one-dimensional view point, on how this virus will affect poverty. If we consider a more interlinked 3-dimensional view (.) we might highly possible see a much higher decline of an ability to support oneself from an individual, family and national level.
Most U.S. adults think human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, contributes a great deal (49%) or some (32%) to climate change. About two-in-ten (19%) say human activity contributes not too much or not at all to climate change. Views on this question are about the same as they were last fall.
South Africa’s human impacts: Too Much Too Many
Americans continue to be deeply politically divided over how much human activity contributes to climate change. About seven-in-ten Democrats (72%) say human activity contributes a great deal to climate change, compared with roughly two-in-ten Republicans (22%), a difference of 50 percentage points.
There also are significant differences in these views among Democrats by race and ethnicity. Overall, 80% of white Democrats and 70% of Hispanic Democrats say human activity contributes a great deal to climate change. By contrast, black Democrats are much less likely to take this view: 49% believe human activity contributes a great deal to climate change.
Providing prisons with adequate funding is not about numbers and figures. It is not about marginal change. It is not about making prisons into 5-stars hotels, or even 1-star hotels! In the current context, given the situation in so many countries, it is about human rights.
Paradoxically, while prisons are a financial burden for many governments, imprisonment remains the primary and sometimes sole response to criminal behaviour. The consequences of mass incarceration, in this context, are logic: the more people are imprisoned, the less sustainable for countries it becomes and the more severe the human consequences are.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has shed light on the prison crisis, sometimes amplified it, and sometimes, with mass releases and a sudden more extensive use of alternatives in many places, provided a glimpse of what distancing from imprisonment as the only response to crime may look like. On all accounts, as much operationally as morally and financially, it is worth building upon.
Recurring failed rainy seasons have made it impossible for many African farmers and herders to keep up their livelihoods. Cyclones, floods, and swarms of desert locusts also increased humanitarian needs in eastern and southern Africa.
There are many ideas about the role of the environment in human evolution. Some views assume that certain adaptations, such as upright walking or tool-making, were associated with drier habitat and the spread of grasslands, an idea often known as the savanna hypothesis. According to this long-held view, many important human adaptations arose in the African savanna or were influenced by the environmental pressure of an expanding dry grassland.
For example, the zebra Equus oldowayensis had large and tall teeth specialized for eating grass. Its last known appearance in the fossil record of southern Kenya is between 780,000 and 600,000 years ago; it was replaced by Equus grevyi, which can graze (feed on grass) as well as browse (feed on leaves and other high-growing vegetation). The fossil baboon Theropithecus oswaldi, which weighed over 58 kg (over 127.6 pounds), lived on the ground exclusively; it had very large teeth and consumed grass. It also went extinct between 780,000 and 600,000 years ago. Its extant relative, Papio anubis, is omnivorous and moves easily on the ground and in trees. Two other large-bodied animals that specialized in eating grass, the elephant Elephas recki and the ancient pig Metridiochoerus, were also replaced by related species that were smaller and had more versatile diets (Loxodonta africana and Phacochoerus aethiopicus). The aquatic specialist Hippopotamus gorgops was replaced by the living hippopotamus, which is capable of traversing long distances between water bodies.
Evidence of the human capacity for communication using symbols is apparent in the archeological record back to at least 250,000 years old, and probably older. The use of color, incised symbols, decorative objects, and language are part of this capacity for communication. Symbolic communication may be linked with information storage. Language is an essential part of modern human communication. Language makes it possible to convey complex ideas to others. Communication of ideas and circumstances via language would have made survival in a changing world much easier. However, there is no fossil evidence for words and grammar that are the direct hallmarks of human language.
Neanderthals and modern humans had different ways of dealing with environmental fluctuation and the survival challenges it posed. Modern humans, Homo sapiens, had specialized tools to extract a variety of dietary resources. They also had broad social networks as shown by the exchange of goods over a long distance. They used symbols as a means of communicating and storing information. Neanderthals did not make tools that were as specialized as those of modern humans who moved from Africa into Europe sometime around 46,000 years ago. The Neanderthals usually did not exchange materials over so wide a distance as Homo sapiens. They occasionally produced symbolic artifacts. Despite many climatic fluctuations, modern humans were able to expand their range over Europe and Asia, and into new areas such as Australia and the Americas. Neanderthals went extinct. This evidence suggests that adaptability to varying environments was one of the key differences between these two evolutionary cousins.
Since South Africa attained democracy in 1994, the nature and magnitude of its migratory flows have changed significantly. The new government enabled many migrants to come to the country from other corners of Africa as well as Asia, particularly the Indian subcontinent. The new government had to grapple with managing these changed patterns of migration. Whereas historically immigration had been dominated by low-skilled laborers coming to work in the mines and other sectors, the post-1994 migration regime has allowed for a much more diverse set of immigrants and travellers. The end of apartheid also ushered in closer economic ties between South Africa and its continental neighbors. As a result, the proportion of arrivals from elsewhere in Africa rose.
Smuggled migrants are often subject to grave human rights abuses. While they might initially agree to be smuggled into another country, the journey can turn into anything but a consensual one. During the trip, people might be squeezed into exceptionally small spaces in trucks or onto unseaworthy boats in order for smugglers to maximize their "cargo". Migrants might be raped or beaten en route or left to die in the desert. Once they reach their destination, many find that they (or their families) are the victims of blackmail or debt bondage. The latter can involve migrants paying huge sums of money to criminals in order to settle near-impossible levels of debt out of fear of violence or fear of being deported by the authorities, which can result in them becoming victims of human trafficking.
[6] The Role of Organized Crime in the Smuggling of Migrants from West Africa to the European Union. Available from www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/migrant-smuggling/the-role-of-organized-crime-in-the-smuggling-of-migrants-from-west-africa-to-the-european-union.html.
While there are many topics that can be studied under human health and heat, our study is framed around existing indicators on human health and heat. These indicators specifically informed data collection tools as well as the study approach. Key human health-heat indicators from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), United States of America Centres for Disease Control (US-CDC) Environmental Public Health Tracking, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Public Health England, National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), the Global Heat Health Information Network and the World Health Organisation were searched. Existing literature on heat-health indicators from other countries also helped in framing our study (English et al., 2009; Cheng and Berry, 2013; Navi et al., 2017; Ebi et al., 2018). The human heat-health indicators from these institutions as well as the 2020 Lancet Countdown Report are shown in Table 2. 2ff7e9595c
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