Climate Change, What Everyone Needs to Know

A new book makes the case that those who understand the basics of climate change and clean energy will be the “smart money” in the coming years. Those who don’t, however, will make bad decisions for themselves and their family. They might, for instance, end up holding coastal property after prices have begun to crash due to due the growing twin threats of sea level rise and storm surge.

In short, climate change isn’t just something every educated person ought to know about because it will impact future generations or because everyone will be talking about it during the upcoming Paris climate talks. It is something everyone needs to know about now because “Climate change will have a bigger impact on your family and friends and all of humanity than the Internet has had.”

“Climate Change, What Everyone Needs to Know” is part of the highly regarded Oxford University Press series of primers on subjects ranging from China to Islam, which all share the same subtitle. For its climate change book, Oxford chose Dr. Joseph Romm, the founder of the popular blog ClimateProgress.org. Romm, a physicist and former U.S. EnergyDepartment official, writes as easily on climate science as he does on solutions.

The book is written entirely in a Q&A format, which makes it a highly readable introduction to the subject. Romm answers such basic questions as, ‘Why are climate scientists so confident that humans are the primary cause of recent warning?’ ‘Which extreme weather events are being made worse by climate change and which are not?’ ‘Why did scientists and governments decide 2°C (3.6°F) was the limit beyond which climate change becomes “dangerous” to humanity?’. 

Even people who consider themselves science literate will learn from this book. Consider the question: “What fraction of recent global warming is due to human causes versus natural causes?” As Romm explains, “The best estimate from the world’s top scientists is that humans are responsible for all of the warming we have experienced since 1950.” 

On the solutions side, Romm offers clear and up-to-date explanations of the roles solar, wind, biomass, and nuclear power will play in the next quarter century. If you are wondering which alternative fuel will replace oil in our cars, Romm makes a compelling case why it won’t be hydrogen but will be electricity.

Romm examines one question that few people have even thought to ask, “Does carbon dioxide at exposure levels expected this century have any direct impacts on human health or cognition?”. The surprising answer is “yes” – a subject Romm has explored in more detail in recent weeks on his website. In the final chapter, Romm examines “How will climate change impact you and your family in the coming decades?”. Romm explains how U.S. government policies artificially inflate coastal property values and why climate change means that this trillion-dollar-bubble is going to burst in the foreseeable future. He looks at the question of how climate change should influence any decision about where to retire. He looks at what students should study today “if they want to prepare themselves for working in a globally warmed world” and maximize their future employability. 

“Climate Change, What Everyone Needs to Know” is a must-read for those who want to become climate literate and join the growing conversation about the greatest threat humanity faces today – or simply for those who want to be in on the “smart money” rather than the other kind.

FBI working to keep up with cyber crime

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In a world that's becoming increasingly digital, threats and the manner in which they are being carried out are changing. 

How to deal with those threats is part of the job of Kevin Perkins, special agent in charge at the Baltimore office of the FBI.

Perkins said the game has changed in battling crime as much of the bureau's job has moved to dealing with cyberspace.

"Whether they be terrorists, whether they be gang members, whether they be violent criminals, all of them are using this type of technology," Perkins said.

Keeping up with the technology and the evolving terminology that goes with it is a constant battle for law enforcement. It includes such terms as "going dark" as criminals move from communicating via social media to a more encrypted communication such as apps that don't keep a record of communications, making them impossible to trace.

"That is probably one of the biggest challenges to law enforcement and the intelligence community that this country's facing," Perkins said. "We're losing a little bit more of our ability to gather information and to be able to gather evidence to solve crimes and thwart terrorist attacks.

"When the attacks first became known in Paris, we immediately began checking with known sources in this area looking to see were there any known threats within the Maryland-Delaware regions that the FBI could address."

That includes keeping an eye out for what could quickly become a major local threat.

"Our biggest concern really is the homegrown violent extremist, that individual who is self-radicalized and (can) be moved to action just based on seeing what happened in Paris," Perkins said.

A new frontier that keeps getting newer means a shift in the way the FBI in Baltimore looks for candidates.

"Just like the terrorists, just like the gang members, we have to be able to keep that step ahead of everyone, or at least keep up with them as we go forward in order to protect the public," Perkins said.

Apple's iTunes is Alienating its most music

AT THE START of the millennium, Apple famously set out to upend the music business by dragging it into the digital realm. The iTunes store provided an easy way of finding and buying music, and iTunes provided an elegant way of managing it. By 2008, Apple was the biggest music vendor in the US. But with its recent shift toward streaming media, Apple risks losing its most music-obsessed users: the collectors.

Most of iTunes’ latest enhancements exist solely to promote the recommendation-driven Apple Music, app downloads, and iCloud. Users interested only in iTunes’ media management features—people with terabytes of MP3s who want a solid app to catalog and organize their libraries—feel abandoned as Apple moves away from local file storage in favor of cloud-based services. These music fans (rechristened “power users” in the most recent lingo) are looking for alternatives to Apple’s market-dominating media management software, and yearn for a time when listening to music didn’t require being quite so connected.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Rips

For longtime customers, threats of “I’m quitting Apple” are the digital equivalent of the eternal promise to ditch Manhattan, San Francisco, or fill-in-the-blank for someplace more affordable and tolerable. But unlike moving out of town, moving out of iTunes is feasible. TJ Connelly—a DJ for the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, WZBC, and elsewhere—wrote the impassioned step-by-step manual “I Deleted My Entire iTunes Library and You Can Too!”

When iTunes, started, he says, it was essentially a music player. That changed with iTunes 4.0 in 2003. “You got the music store, and that was awesome,” he says. But the iTunes Store introduced a new set of concerns and UI decisions. To prevent piracy, Apple made it impossible to move music from an iPod or iPhones or iPad back to a computer. More controversially, the iTunes Store locked all files with DRM from 2003 until 2007, when Steve Jobs personally lobbied for its removal.

But Connelly, who’s been an Apple user since the 1980s, understands all that. Where it started to go wrong was with the extras no one asked for, and few used. Genius. Ping. Movies. Podcasts. Ringtones. iTunes University. “They just kept adding more crap into the app,” he says. “I don’t even know how many things just showed up in the task bar that I had to turn off. Then [with an iPhone] mobile apps also end up in the music player to control your phone.” (Apple declined to comment in any way for this story.)

For music collectors looking for an effective tool to play and manage audio files, Apple’s mission creep has long been an irritation, and random burps like cross-branded mandatory downloads by a certain stadium rock band given to bouts of self-importance have been easy to LOL away. But Apple’s latest attempts to back up users’ libraries to iCloud proved outright dangerous. Some users who checked the wrong boxes found their MP3s overwritten with replacement files encoded with digital rights management or with alternate versions of the same songs(Apple forgot to use iTunes Match, according to Connelly). At least one saw his entire collection copied over with 6 million copies of Lorde tracks. Others found themselves blocked from listening to their MP3s on their iPhones until they docked the phone to their computer and renewed the license agreements—even if they hadn’t purchased a single track through the iTunes Store. Many waited for the bugs to work themselves out, blinked at the EULA, sighed, and carried on with the updates.

Others are taking more drastic action.

iAlternatives

Connelly’s escape route led him to Swinsian, one of the many music players available for the Mac. Many iTunes alternatives work fine as music players, but few are built for long-term file management. The JRiver Media Center offers a PC-like interface for audio organization that can be awkward for Mac users. In a move that sounds familiar, the latest update to OS X no longer supports MediaMonkey, a popular PC alternative to iTunes. There are some open-source alternatives, but for a Mac user seeking a fully operational iTunes-like app that will manage files with the same ease, Swinsian leads the pack. It aims to replicate iTunes’ most elegant functions, strip away the bloat, and add some extra tools.

“I first started writing [it] in 2010, which was before some of the more recent big changes to the iTunes interface,” says James Burton, the UK developer who built Swinsian. “The performance of iTunes at the time (when you had a lot of tracks) and the lack of support for formats like FLAC were probably the biggest motivations. It also contained a lot of features that I didn’t use and that weren’t to do with music. I think by then it already had sections for managing TV shows, movies, books, and apps.”

But, as Burton and others have discovered, many aspects of Apple’s software seem trivial until they’re missing.

One glaring omission is the ability to sync music directly with an iPhone or other iOS device. Some of the most serious collectors can’t pack their libraries onto a puny 128GB iPhone anyway, but for most, this remains the biggest thing keeping them trapped in iTunes. If you like your iPhone to stay synced and up to date, you have to stick with Apple.

Another essential iTunes function missing from many alternatives is an equivalent for the preference to “Keep iTunes Media folder organized,” whereby the software directly manages files on the hard drive, moving them to correct new folders when a user edits an MP3’s metadata tags. This feature pops up in Swinsian and JRiver Media Center, but Burton only added it to the $20 Swinsian recently.

“My excitement at finding something that works this well has given me a renewed sense of faith in the Swinsian dude that I haven’t had in a long time in Apple,” says Connelly. Because of iTunes’ dominance and the unflashy function of the software, there is perhaps little market for alternatives, especially considering the committed digital super-collectors, while sometimes vocal, make up a small percentage of the user base. It’s a niche market, and the apps are niche too; Swinsian is a full-time job for Burton, but he is the company’s only employee.

The Big Apple

Apple’s priorities are unlikely to change. While it might be more user-friendly to separate iTunes’ music management functions from its phone software, sales mechanisms, publisher relationships, and other considerations, Apple’s clearly decided to go in a different direction. One reason to keep these functions bundled, Connelly suggests, is because the proprietary iTunes software remains the company’s only guaranteed foothold in the Windows world. (Again, Apple declined to comment on this story.)

The fact Apple is so entrenched in our devices makes it well-positioned to expand its music empire even further. Apple is hoping to shine a light on new stars in a way its predecessors were never quite able to muster. With the company’s latest forays in the platform wars—including the exclusive debut of Apple Music partner Dr. Dre’s long-awaited Compton—the battle takes on a cyberpunk sheen, the old world mirrored in the new.

Paris attacks: developments

Two Air France flights headed for Paris -- AF55 originating in Washington's Dulles Airport -- and AF65 from Los Angeles -- were diverted to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Salt Lake City, respectively, following bomb threats, officials say. 

"Several law enforcement agencies are working to determine the nature of the threats which caused the aircraft to divert," FBI Special Agent Todd Palmer of the Salt Lake City division said.

It is unknown whether the same individual called in the two threats.

No U.S. military aircraft were scrambled in either of the reported Air France incidents, NORAD spokesman Preston Schlachter said.

The validity of the threat is not known at this time, but given the events in Paris Saturday, in which 129 people were killed, officials were taking extra precautions by diverting the flights. 

"Diversion of flights are the most draconian response to a bomb threat," CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem said. "I think right now we take this seriously until we hear some explanation to the validity of the bomb threat."

ORIGINAL STORY:

A Renault with Belgian plates and a cell phone containing a chilling message were among the focuses Tuesday in the sweeping multinational investigation into last week's terror attacks in Paris that killed 129 people. 

French President Francois Hollande says his country "is at war" after three teams of gun-wielding ISIS suicide bombers hit six busy locations. His military backed up the statement by pounding ISIS targets in Syria with airstrikes. Russia launched airstrikes and cruise missiles there. 

Meanwhile, a glimmer of hope for Syria's civil war, as America's top diplomat says a ceasefire could be on the horizon. 

Here's the key information at this stage:

The latest

-- NEW: As a growing number of U.S. governors said they don't want Syrian refugees in their states, President Barack Obama fired back. 

"I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for (ISIS) than some of the rhetoric that's been coming out of here during the course of this debate," Obama told reporters. Arguments that there should be a religious test before refugees are admitted or that only Syrian Christians should be allowed in are "offensive" and "contrary to American values," he said.

-- NEW: Obama accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of going after the wrong target in Syria, saying Russia has been more focused on propping up President Bashar al-Assad's regime than on fighting ISIS. "If, in fact, he shifts his focus and the focus of his military to what is the principle threat, which is (ISIS), then that is something that we very much want to see," Obama said.

Why Facebook’s ‘Safety Check’ deployed in Paris — but not in Beirut, Garissa or Ankara

On Friday, Nov. 13, in the wake of a string of brutal attacks that left 129 people in Paris dead, Facebook did something extremely unusual: It activated its much-hyped “Safety Check.”

“Safety Check” notifications, which let users in disaster zones alert friends and loved ones that they’re safe, have become common sights in the wake of catastrophic typhoons and earthquakes.

But this is the first and only time that Facebook has activated the tool in response to a conflict situation, despite the many conflict situations where it might have been of use.

Facebook did not, for instance, activate Safety Check the day before the Paris attack, when 43 people were killed in a pair of suicide bombings in Beirut. Nor did it activate the tool in Ankara, Turkey, on Oct. 10, when 102 died at the hands of extremists; nor in Maiduguri, Nigeria, on Sept. 20, when bombs at a market and a mosque killed 145; nor on April 1, at Kenya’s Garissa University, when al-Shabab militants killed 147.

Why, demanded some Facebook users, were the Paris attacks the breakthrough event? “Facebook safety checks are trivial,” said Elie Fares, a popular Lebanese blogger. “[But] they’re indicative of a bigger problem.”

Depending on who you speak to, in fact, Facebook’s selective activation of the Safety Check — and it’s less utilitarian cousin, the solidarity photo filter — indicates one of a whole host of problems. (Facebook, we should point out here, did not respond to requests for comment.)

One of those, Fares argues, is how the West sees countries like his, if it sees them at all: Lebanon has a reputation for violence in the West, he said, which makes distant observers prone to dismiss it. (In a statement, Facebook’s Vice President of Product Growth, Alex Schultz, implied that Safety Check wouldn’t be of much use in places where “there isn’t a clear start or end point” to crises, or where “terrible things happen with distressing frequency.”) That characterization is untrue and unfair, Fares said; Beirut is actually safer than many major cities in the United States.

On top of that, there’s a problem more specific to the tech industry: the unspoken, secondary motivation behind tools like Safety Check. Yes, initiatives like this fill a critical need, leveraging a for-profit platform for social good in a time of crisis. (As anyone with a friend in Paris right now can tell you, Facebook has succeeded with that.) But the tool also serves an important PR function, and it does Facebook no good to deploy it in situations that are messy, drawn-out, under-covered or overtly political — most conflict situations, in other words, in most parts of the world.

In a conversation with The Post in September, a senior official at one international aid group, who was not authorized to speak on the record, sharply criticized companies like Facebook for cherry-picking straightforward, apolitical tragedies that made them look good when they helped.

“That’s fine,” he acknowledged. “But if it’s PR, let’s call it PR. If it’s bulls–t, let’s call it bulls–t.”

Facebook, for its part, is calling the Paris activation a “policy change”: In the future, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised, the company “will work hard to help people suffering in as many of these situations as we can.” Schultz implied that the company will begin activating the tool more frequently in other conflicts.

That’s good news for the millions of people in countries that Facebook has left out of its Safety Check: Turkey, for instance, has an estimated 39 million Facebook users; Nigeria and Kenya, Facebook’s largest African markets, have almost 20 million between them. In Lebanon, where Fares lives, Facebook is used by 35 percent of the population.

“Doing something — anything — to express solidarity can go a long way,” he said by e-mail. “[No], it doesn’t affect policy, but showing that you care about a people, regardless of color/location/religion/etc, can go to great lengths in making sure that people [are] not dehumanized or devalued based on their location, religion, or color.”

BMW Invests $417 Million in South Africa

BMW AG will invest more than 6 billion rand ($417 million) in the carmaker’s South African operations to start production of the newest model of its X3 sport-utility vehicle.

The X3 will replace the assembly of the German company’s 3-Series sedan at the Rosslyn plant north of Pretoria, the automaker said in a statement on Monday. It will be the first time the SUV has been produced outside the U.S., and the model will be sold locally and exported, including to other African countries, according to BMW South Africa Managing Director Tim Abbott.

BMW’s South Carolina plant, which produces all X models, will be at full capacity in 2016, Abbott said. The company wants to make sure production meets demand, which it expects to grow to be “substantial” in Africa, he said. Carmakers are expanding in South Africa even as economic growth slows and after strikes forced production halts in the last two years.

“28 percent of all the cars we sell around the world are X models, virtually one in three,” Abbott said in a phone interview on Monday. “We see the X3 as being, long-term, a high-demand vehicle in countries like Nigeria or Kenya or Tanzania.”

South Africa’s automotive-incentive program has attracted companies such as BMW, Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG to set up and invest in factories in the country. The government’s statement this month that support will be extended beyond 2020 “was very important to us,” Abbott said.

Production Rising

The number of vehicles produced in Africa’s most industrialized economy is projected to rise to 622,000 this year, according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa. The percentage of car exports will probably rise to 68 percent this year, the body said, compared with 55 percent in 2014.

BMW will spend more than 3 billion rand on the Rosslyn factory, plus an additional 3 billion rand on suppliers, startup costs and training. Production of the 3-Series will continue at Rosslyn until the end of the current model’s lifecycle, after which the switch will be made to building the X3, Abbott said, without providing a timeline.

The automaker will continue to produce X3s at its South Carolina plant, which is also earmarked to build the planned X7 model. While the company hasn’t announced projected production volumes for the X3 from Rosslyn, the additional potential markets in Africa will help prospects, Abbott said.

“A lot depends really on the success of X3 worldwide,” Abbott said. “Obviously it’s not our intention to go backward here, we want to be a more successful plant in terms of volume.”

BMW’s Rosslyn facility was the company’s first foreign plant when it was established in 1973. The factory is expected to produce about 70,000 3-Series vehicles this year and produced its one-millionth vehicle in February.

MTN in 'leniency plea' over Nigeria fine

Nigeria's telecom regulator says it is looking into MTN's plea for leniency after imposing a $5.2bn (£2.7bn) fine on the South African-owned mobile firm for failing to disconnect unregistered line, Reuters news agency reports.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) spokesman Tony Ojobo said the mobile phone giant had written a letter on 2 November admitting failure to disconnect unregistered Sim cards and pleaded for leniency, it reports.

The NCC said the fine remained in place but MTN's appeals may affect the payment deadline, which was set for today, Reuters adds.