Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

News from the front desk, issue 510: If youre a greenwash spin-cycle merchant of high order and you think 2020 was hard on the bones, get set for an even tougher year ahead.

From what we can tell from the tea leaves shaping up at the end of the year from hell (for most of us), 2021 will be the year that patience, excuses and moderation will be thrown out the window or at the very least made to perch precariously on a ledge at great altitude.

At close of year, we had one of the most admired sustainability architects on the planet, Norman Foster, forced to uncouple his studio from Architects Declare. The studio was a founding signatory.

The shock waves of this, from the agitation of younger radical architects forming a sub set or breakaway from the official AD, is a neat summation of whats going on here.

Like the biography of Jim Morrison (The Doors) says No-one gets out of here alive.

There is no excuse. If we dont pull out fingers out, we will end up with Morrison in a Parisian graveyard, dead from causes not quite specified.

This is serious.

Its the young people talking and quite frankly they dont care about the convenience or uniquity of our travel bug. They dont care about glamour or position or prestige or tradition. They just want to have a life, preferably one as close as possible to that of the older folk now defending their past habits of indulgence with a touch of indignant affront.

If its starting to look like the #MeToo moment for architecture and development, you might be right.

There are a thousand reasons to love and defend the work of Foster + Partners. And its not really about that studio at all.

This is about all of us and the decisions we each need to make. As the Australian arm of AD said, its about a journey we all need to take together and a conversation. As the British AD said, its not about berating anyone. We need to talk about sustainability.

In a recent survey of companies in the Asia Pacific, Sandpiper Communications and PublicAffairsAsia found a massive 74 per cent of corporate reputation managers face internal pressure to overpromote sustainability and ESG achievements, placing them at risk of mispresenting how sustainable they are.

Dont for a minute think that the greenwash police wont be watching closely.

Like most of us, Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility director of climate & environment Dan Gocher is happy to see the back end of 2020.

But from a government climate action perspective, its hard not to see momentum coming from the international commitments out of Japan, China, South Korea and now the US under President-elect Joe Bidens ambitious climate regime.

Gocher suspects resistance from the Australian government on a net zero target wont last much longer given these external pressures.

On the corporate side, theres been a wealth of companies committing to net zero, including the usual suspects such as Santos and Origin Energy. This is a promising development but the absence of short-term commitments to reduce emissions is a problem.

Many companies have declared where the finishing line is but not offered details about how they might iteratively get there.

From investors, Gocher expects more major investors to follow the lead of AwareSuper by divesting from carbon intensive companies. The unique move by the super giant last month slashed its emission by 40 per cent overnight by divesting from 60-odd companies.

I think youll see more of that from bigger investors. Weve already seen that from smaller funds, Future Super and the like, but [AwareSuper] is the first genuinely large investor.

But what exactly are our plans for avoiding temperatures so high it will be hard for humans to survive? In some tropical climates, for instance, even at moderate temperatures, high humidity can stop the human body from self-cooling by perspiration. Some wit in the New Scientist named this thermogeddon.

According to Rod Simpson who recently completed his term at the Greater Sydney Commission and is now running Simpson + Wilson architects, focused on work in Western Sydney, there are great plans for more trees to cool the vast districts, but we need to go further.

Trees might lower ambient temperatures by around 2 degrees, but in an area that experienced 50 degrees last summer at Penrith and 47 degrees last month in November at Badgerys Creek, that wont exactly turn the tide.

Its the impact on peoples health and on liveability that concerns Simpson most.

We already know about the food deserts in the sprawling western suburbs where there is take away food at one end, a megalithic shopping centre at the other, and pretty much nothing in between.

There needs to be a resilience plan, Simpson says. Does your building have battery backup if the grid fails? We need human emergency response plans to help vulnerable people.

Is there a cool refuge within walking distance, as in some countries, if your house fails to protect you? Maybe a pool.

Theres also the need for better insulated houses. So many vulnerable people live in houses built in the 60s that have poor insulation and are expensive to heat and cool.

Landcom earlier in the year brought out an encouraging and creative guide for cooling cities, covered in this article, Landcoms patterns for cooling the commons in Western Sydney. Among a range of ideas was the notion that outdoor activities could be refocused around cooler evening hours.

On the commercial front, Craig Roussac from Buildings Alive has been saying during the year and again this week that while the ambition from property companies to set net zero targets is impressive, clear pathways is what we need now.

Hes keen to see buildings and cities themselves to become part of the grid scale solution. That is using buildings to use most of their energy precisely when the sun is shining.

Point Advisory NSW managing director Alan Dayeh says 2021 will be the year where property companies might start taking a long cool look at their tenants and their connection to carbon intensive sectors.

How might this risk might affect rental streams and returns?

Dayeh reckons leaders will keep nudging into the tenant space to manage emissions profiles, which has not traditionally been an easy source of emissions to control.

Something else that will be watching with interest is how climate-ready asset portfolios will be valued going forward. His bet is a growing appetite to buy climate ready or resilient assets.

Another big watch factor is how property will contribute to the circular economy.

The sector has done well to ensure that construction waste is not going to land fill, that has been really good, the next frontier is the operational base, and how property companies are helping with that part of the puzzle.

Can we get material near to where we construct developments? Can we get waste materials used in road base? Can we use remanufactured materials for developments?

He also expects to see more businesses finding ways to make recycling and reuse a financially savvy option.

Matt Kean, fresh from his pinup status in the TFE offices for his great work on energy as the NSW energy and environment minister, has now been redeployed to lend some brand reconstruction to LNP stablemate John Barilaro, leader of the NSW Nationals.

The job seems to be to cobble up a koala rescue package along the lines that farmers will be paid to not chop down trees that these cuddly things need to survive (and hopefully to not shoot any more environmental officers trying to stop land clearing).

But what if the farmers soon decide that they will chop down all the trees unless paid not to? Its these kind of twist to a well meaning idea that we need to be careful of.

The alternative is to simply stop people chopping down trees.

But where would this leave a political agenda that refuses to impose any rules on anything unless its to stop the banks avoiding fossil fuel investments?

This kind of dilemma is not one faced by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler, who says that for now hes posting photos of shoddy work he comes across in his inspections online.

Next year, he will publish the names.

Chandler, in case youve been asleep for a few years, is the man whos single handedly starting to reverse the shoddy building practices that have plagued consumers since they removed council building inspectors and allowed the cowboys of the industry to self-regulate.

We say single handedly because any number of previous government inquiries or ministers or government officials have failed to shift the dial even a fraction on this issue. And Chandler is starting to have real impact.

In a recent social media post, Chandler pinged what should be unpingable peoples toilets. Yes, he did folks. He went into a site in eastern suburbs sanctuary for the elite Bellevue Hill to photograph site toilets and dumpsters. Why? Because it tells him so much about the attitude of the builders.

Builders who do not care about their workforce are unlikely to care about compliance with design and Australian Standards, he says.

Readers should be in no doubt about how forcefully I expressed my dissatisfaction with the amenities present on this site. All were paraded through both portaloos I inspected. Most wonder why I go straight to site amenities and rubbish dumpsters to form my initial and mostly, lasting impression of a site. When site facilities are offered in this condition guess?

In this instance there was no water for hand washing, and in the other toilet the waste tank was full.

Was it unseemly or unfair to point out one bad site among many?

Get used to it, says our next contender for the pinup board.

At the Green Building Council of Australia theres a positive expansionary mood afoot.

Davina Rooney who took the reins as CEO in June 2019 is well on the way to throwing open the doors of sustainability to housing and the consumer market. A big focus is making tools easier to access and when we spoke to her last week shed just concluded a partnership agreement with Microsoft to digitalise the back end of Green Star.

During the year, she said there was demand for more urgent action on climate change and if we want to grow at scale, we need to take everyone with us.

The big questions are how to broaden things and make offerings more relatable.

Especially in a time when so many people are talking about healthy buildings. Its about reaching the consumer through the broad scale housing mark and Rooney for one is excited to be involved in the consumer side of sustainability. Which essentially means taking the friction out of participation and making things easier for everyone, she says.

Children and schools will be a bigger focus. Can we expect better homes and better schools when people spend 90 per cent of their time indoors?

We should be setting up a future where things are better, Rooney says.

In the new year this will include a television show, which will clearly make green buildings even more aspirational.

If you read the global tea leaves, the big question is where is sustainability going globally and how does that relate to Australian pathways?

Personally, were looking at you, PM Scott Morrison.

ClimateWorks Australias CEO Anna Skarbek is another keen observer whos finishing the year more upbeat than she expected.

Theres good momentum in the finance sector, she says, after sitting on the steering committee for the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative, which delivered the Australian Sustainable Finance Roadmap last month.

This includes great recommendations such as transforming remuneration to align with sustainable long-term outcomes, implementing product design principles and improving climate risk disclosure.

It will be useful resource that follows the lead of other jurisdictions around the globe, Skarbek says.

Shes also hopeful about decarbonisation given every sector has the technology it needs to get to net zero,including the built environment.

What technology needs is a bit of market momentum and then it can keep going.

Theres already consumer sentiment, where they do prefer a carbon neutral option, and the theres a net zero emission option in every sector.

So the task now is to normalise it, and make it widespread. That will take some proactive buyer and policy settings in the coming few years.

She might be optimistic but shes still realistic about the scale and urgency of the challenge.

If we miss this moment, weve really locked in more emissions than is safe, so if we can get that moment converted into serious momentum, Im actually quite optimistic.

To those who point to the cost of saving the planet, we say this. After the financial tsunami of losses caused by the pandemic on the earths inhabitants and that of the GFC, you are hereby silenced.

What was the impact? Not much. We learned to print money and woke up to the magic (it must be said) of modern monetary theory (MMT) and wondered why no-one thought of it earlier.

Just make sure youre printing the money yourself, not borrowing from some pugilistic nation with lots of guns, make sure you have a robust central bank with firm control of the interest rate levers to stem inflation if it should rear its ugly head. And make sure you control the script writers of the hieroglyphics of debt formulae.

As one economist told The Fifth Estate on the eve of the GFC, debt, in theory, can be extrapolated out to hundreds of years if not infinity.

Think about it: whats stopping us doing that, if people lender and borrower can each live, be housed, clothed and fed, and can then be free to spend the bulk of their energy and creativity defending the planet.

Santa, all we want for Christmas is some MMT.

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On why 2020 was just practice for the 2021 greenwash police and better news - The Fifth Estate

Cars

Published on December 25th, 2020 | by Johnna Crider

December 25th, 2020 by Johnna Crider

The folks over at Tesla Magazine,a France-based news site that covers all of Elon Musks companies, recently got to experience and test drive the Ford Mustang Mach-E. Armand Taeb, CEO of Tesla Magazine, told me that their full review will be out next month, but was delighted to share a sneak preview with CleanTechnica as well as his thoughts on Fords newest electric vehicle. (Side note: We missed an opportunity to test drive the vehicle in California and are in the process of arranging a test drive in Florida.)

The car has a unique interior. The arrangement of the door handle to enter the vehicle is striking because of its particularity: you have to press a button which unlocks the door the small handle is only used to pull the door. Inside, Ford has tried to minimize buttons, but not as much as Tesla in its Model Y. Most of the controls are through the large center display in the center of the dashboard, with fabric accents on top, Taeb told me in an email.

The quality of the finishes is clear nothing to complain about on that side. In addition, the driving position of this model is lower than an SUV, which gives the impression of driving a bigger car. Finally, with an average consumption of 23 kWh per 100 km, the 88 kWh battery would give a range of 382 kilometers.

Taeb also spoke about some of the nuance of the vehicle. Fords Mustang Mach-E allows you to drive with just one pedal, limiting the use of the brakes, as you can with a last-generation Nissan Leaf an interesting option, which can be turned off. Just like the sound produced by the car: in Unbridled mode, a synthesized engine sound is heard when you accelerate. It can be off to appreciate the silence of electric driving.

Earlier this month, our own, Steve Hanley shared his thoughts on Autoblogs experience with Ford Mustang Mach-E, pointing out that even though it could be considered a worthy competitor for the Tesla Model Y, it probably wont suck sales away from Tesla in a notable way. On the other hand, if Ford produced enough, it could really cut into the sales of some gasoline-powered crossovers, like the Ford Edge.

All photos, including the featured image, are courtesy of Tesla Magazine and are used with permission.

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Tags: Ford, Ford Mustang Mach E, Ford Mustang Mach-E Reviews, Tesla Magazine

Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, member of the International Gem Society, and a Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to Believe in Good. Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter at all hours of the day & night.

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Early Test Drive Of The Ford Mustang Mach-E From Tesla Mag - CleanTechnica

The Trump administration doubled its orders from Pfizer and Moderna this month to 200 million doses each. But both vaccines are given as two doses per person, meaning the U.S. supply will only cover 200 million of the nation's 250 million adults. Authorizing more vaccines for emergency use could immediately increase that stockpile, and also help ensure sufficient vaccine when inoculation is allowed for teens and children.

Johnson & Johnson is preparing to release the first efficacy data on its shot, which is given as a single dose, in January. AstraZeneca could also release more data as early as next month from its late-stage trials, officials with the federal government's Operation Warp Speed said recently. (The company said in a statement that it has "no further updates on the US specific trial.")

An early frontrunner in the global vaccine race, AstraZeneca has sold more shots worldwide than any other manufacturer. Between agreements with the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation and the Serum Institute, a mass manufacturer in India, the British drugmaker has promised nearly 1 billion shots to other countries not including the 300 million it pledged to the U.S.

AstraZenecas vaccine is vastly cheaper than others and much easier to ship and store than vaccines such as Pfizers, that require ultra-cold freezers or dry ice. That makes it an appealing option for hard-to-reach areas in the U.S., as well as lower-income countries with less advanced infrastructure.

But the outlook for the company's vaccine is hazy after AstraZeneca reported last month that nearly 3,000 trial volunteers in the U.K. were accidentally given a half-strength first dose. The regimen proved 90 percent effective in early data, beating the 62 percent efficacy of two standard doses. Some vaccine experts think the lower dose's success could be a statistical fluke, since 3,000 people is a small slice of the tens of thousands of people enrolled in the company's trials; others say it could indicate a clearly better option.

AstraZeneca would still have to fully test the lower dosing regimen before applying to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorization. The agency is also requiring that drug companies follow at least half the trial volunteers for two months after their last dose.

A company spokesperson said that there is "nothing to share on U.S. filing plans at this time."

But the FDA's minimum criteria for seeking authorization do not tell the full story of a vaccine's value, said Peter Hotez, a virologist and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

Initial efficacy over the first two months is only one of several aspects that requires consideration," said Hotez, who is also developing a potential coronavirus shot with partners in India. Other vaccines may offer advantages in terms of durability of protection, tolerability, safety, suitability for children or adolescents, and for that well require additional vaccines.

Pfizer and Moderna only recently started studying their vaccines in children as young as 12 years old, and no manufacturer has begun trials in children even younger. Regulators have also called for more data in pregnant women and for certain risk factors like heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses that could affect the immune system. Health experts say that a vaccine that may only work moderately overall may be best for key subpopulations, such as pregnant women.

The latest news in health care politics and policy.

And some of the vaccines still in development may prove easier to manufacture, transport or administer than the Pfizer and Moderna shots.

Both of those authorized vaccines use relatively new messenger RNA technology to instruct cells to make a protein found on the virus, which revs up the body's immune system. J&J and AstraZeneca use a more traditional method, in which small bits of DNA from the coronavirus are edited into a weakened version of another virus called an an adenovirus. When the adenovirus enters cells, they read its DNA and produce a protein found in the coronavirus.

One theory about the AstraZeneca dosing confusion is that a full dose of the adenovirus triggered too big of an immune response so the body didnt have time to learn much about the coronavirus it was meant to protect against, said Rasmussen. There is still value in having that information, because maybe [AstraZeneca] can start assessing that half-dose regimen.

But the AstraZeneca data could present a quandary for FDAs independent vaccine advisory panel, which has been meeting publicly to discuss each candidate in a bid to boost transparency and public confidence. The company has said that combined results so far from its Phase III trials show its vaccine to be 70 percent effective. But the two dosing regimens tell different stories: 90 percent is basically comparable with the existing vaccines; 62 percent is not.

You cant reasonably combine data from two different dosing strategies, two different dosing intervals and two different placebo groups, Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the University of Pennsylvania who sits on the FDAs expert panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

It also presents a sticky situation for the largest national vaccination plan in history. While the two vaccines authorized now have nearly identical efficacy and safety profiles and use the same technology, having a more varied roster of vaccines would be harder to distribute fairly.

There are obvious ethical issues: If one vaccine is more effective than the others, who gets what, right? said Philip Landrigan, director of the global public health program at Boston College, who stressed the importance of clear federal planning if that happens. Transparency and openness have another benefit beyond just ensuring that the system works well it could persuade people who are reluctant to get the vaccine.

Read more:
The first Covid vaccines were triumphs. What if the next are only OK? - POLITICO

Coronavirus has changed lives and industries across the UK, accelerating fundamental shifts in behaviour and consumption that were already on their way. Debates about home working, preserving local high streets and the ethics of air travel were bubbling away before coronavirus rampaged across the world, but the consequences of the worst pandemic in more than a century have either settled those arguments or boosted the momentum behind certain lifestyle changes. Here we look at how those debates have been changed or resolved by Covid-19.

Coronavirus wont kill cinema, but it will forever change the movie-going experience. This year the global box office is likely to be just a quarter of the record $42bn (31bn) set in 2019 and UK cinema admissions are set to hit their lowest level since records began.

At the start of the pandemic theatre owners were confident that once the virus had been tamed, the blockbusters and their fans would return. However, Hollywood studios, fearful of empty seats making for box office flops, spied an unprecedented chance to bypass cinemas and make films available via streaming services. This has broken the sacrosanct tradition of months of big-screen exclusivity, outraging theatre owners who rely on that model to make their businesses viable.

Warner Bros has said its entire slate of 21 films, from Dune to The Suicide Squad, will debut on its streaming service, HBO Max, at the same time as in US cinemas next year. The same thing has already happened to Wonder Woman 1984, which was simultaneously released to US theatres and living rooms on Christmas Day. A precedent has been set over separating cinema release from streaming availability.

Cinema still has a role to play. The economics of blockbusters, which cost hundreds of millions to make and distribute, means films of such scale need the multimillion-dollar returns from the big-screen global box office. But in the future it is likely that movie fans will no longer have to wait endless months before streaming the latest blockbuster from their sofa. Mark Sweney

Rail was regarded as a privatisation too far even by Margaret Thatcher, before her Conservative successors went ahead in 1994. Then state spending on the industry vastly increased after Railtrack collapsed and the infrastructure behind it was brought under government control as Network Rail, although the franchise owners who operated the trains remained privately controlled.

Private train operators liked to take credit for the passengers who flocked back in record numbers; but most voters still backed nationalisation, polls showed. Even though a decade of intermittent franchising troubles showed reform was desperately needed, and the government had to step in twice to take over the east coast mainline, only Labour under Jeremy Corbyn gave a full-throated commitment to return the rest of rail into public hands.

But Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions meant passengers all but disappeared for parts of 2020. Following years of unresolved debate and inquiry over the best format for the industry, franchises were summarily scrapped overnight in March. Emergency contracts are more or less embedded until 2022: the industry now runs on Treasury cash, and is likely to do so for some time to come. British Rail may be history but nonetheless, by July the Office for National Statistics had reclassified the industry as, de facto, renationalised. Gwyn Topham

At the start of the millennium the Labour government concluded expansion of Heathrow was the answer to airport capacity constraints, granting planning permission which was overturned by the coalition in 2010. After another commission re-examined all the options, a third Heathrow runway was again approved by MPs in 2018.

A legal challenge to the policy on environmental grounds was first rejected, then upheld on appeal, before finally being dismissed by the supreme court this month.

In the long term, the climate crisis arguments might indeed prove the most compelling. But for now it is coronavirus that has all but swept aside the arguments for expansion. At its peak, Heathrow was constrained to its maximum permitted movements: a plane taking off or landing every 45 seconds, and passenger numbers growing beyond 70 million a year only through bigger, fuller planes.

Yet Novembers traffic figures showed only a tenth of the usual number of passengers passing through, leaving the airport using only one runway. Given the potential for a permanent decline in long-haul and business travel since the world turned to Zoom, the airport may struggle to present a compelling business case for expansion for some time to come. Gwyn Topham

The tumbleweed bowled down high streets this year as home working supercharged the growth of online shopping, with Debenhams and Topshop-owner Arcadia among the big casualties. And the shift is clear. In the third quarter of this year, 27% of retail sales were online compared with 18% the year before, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The pandemic pressed fast-forward on the painful restructuring process of an industry where fewer stores are needed to meet the needs of shoppers in the internet age. With each year more clothing, homeware and food will be bought online. This will create jobs for delivery drivers and in warehouses but not in shops, which employ around 3 million people across the UK.

What will happen with these empty stores? Rents have fallen sharply as landlords adjust to the post-pandemic reality, and changed working patterns show how neighbourhoods can blossom when people live and work nearby. This creates opportunities for businesses with the right offer and cost base. For instance, empty department stores are being converted into flats, food halls and crazy-golf courses. The high street is dead, long live the high street but not as we knew it. Zoe Wood

Technology rode to the rescue for British businesses when they had to send their staff home in the spring. High-speed internet, video-conferencing, chatrooms: everything required to work remotely was already widely available.

As a result, the year of working from home has generally been considered a great success. Banks are leading the drive for a permanent shift with Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays reviewing the amount of office space they use and Standard Chartered permanently shifting to flexible routines. Google and Facebook, which have substantial workforces in the UK, will embrace partial homeworking permanently.

But working from home isnt without its challenges. The impact on creativity, loss of interaction and serendipitous conversations, and lack of support for younger staff, are all cited as good reasons to return to offices. Workers juggling childcare and their job, and employees living in cramped flats, have also missed their desks.

Nonetheless, it appears that home working has been a bigger hit in the UK than elsewhere. British office workers were spending an average of 2.7 days per week at home in November, according to the US bank Morgan Stanley, compared with 2.1 days in France and Italy, and slightly less than that in Germany and Spain. Research found that UK workers spent just over a third (39%) of their working hours in the office in November, lagging the European average of 56%. The trend looks set to continue, with UK employees expected to request flexible working for 2.3 days per week, more than in the other four European nations. Joanna Partridge

Any lingering doubt that the UKs wind turbines and solar farms can provide a backbone for the electricity system were cast aside during the pandemic as renewable energy set new records through the year.

The collapse in energy demand following the lockdown of office blocks, schools and restaurants combined with the UKs bright, breezy weather helped renewable energy make up almost half of all electricity in the early months of the year. New records for solar power and wind generation followed in June and December respectively.

Stephen Stead, a director at energy provider SSE, said the low electricity demand levels in 2020 gave us an unprecedented peek at a future electricity market dominated by renewables and we learned that we can do it.

Wind and solar power will be able to play an even greater role in the future as investment in battery storage and flexible energy use becomes the norm. But in 2020 renewables proved they are already prepared to exceed expectations. Jillian Ambrose

The move to cashless payments accelerated this year, partly because so much spending moved online, and partly because of fears of infection through notes and coins. The contactless limit was raised to 45 and many outlets went cash-free.

According to the ATM provider Link, in the first full week of the spring lockdown withdrawals fell by 57% in value compared with the same week in 2019. Numbers went up as restrictions were eased, but by October the value of cash withdrawals was still down by 30% year-on-year.

However, throughout the year there have been queues outside banks, and the Bank of England has reported that the value of notes in circulation has increased since March, to approaching 80bn. In the days prior to Novembers lockdown, cash withdrawals surged.

There is still a core of people who use and depend on cash, and holding physical money seems to be a safety measure for some. Early on in lockdown, a Link survey found 14% consumers were keeping more cash at home in case of emergencies. The decline of cash as a payment method has been speeded up, but there is still a long way to go before we give it up. Hilary Osborne

Read more here:
Future shock: how will Covid change the course of business? - The Guardian

The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent centuries and decades, but these have stood the test of time and remained relatively unscathed. They are difficult to access, and some have been officially protected since the 1920s. And yet their protected status is no longer enough: satellite data show they are now being cut down at an increasing rate.

In May, Mongabay reported on the dire situation in Tsaratanana Reserve. Since then, deforestation has continued apace, both in Tsaratanana and a neighboring protected area called COMATSA. Levels of deforestation have spiked since September, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland (UMD) visualized on Global Forest Watch. The dry months of September and October are normally peak season for slash-and-burn, and sources say the clearing is especially severe this year due to economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts say the forests are being burned and cleared primarily to make space for fields of marijuana, vanilla, and rice. The scale of the biodiversity loss is immeasurable, conservationists add.Many of the forest areas are so remote that their flora and fauna have not yet been surveyed.

[This] is a loss for everyone, Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences who has worked in the region, told Mongabay after looking at satellite images that show the deforestation. It hurts my heart to see these patches. It hurts because I know that the value of the forest as a forest is so much more.

Tsaratanana, which means good place in Malagasy, has a certain mystique among scientists. Its a magical forest the most mysterious place in the entirety of Madagascar, Maria Vorontsova, a botanist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who has worked in the reserve, told Mongabay.

Its now unclear how long the reserve will remain in good health. Tsatanananas river valleys, where species richness is especially high, are being stripped of their forests, more so than in past decades, when they did face some threats. Meanwhile, at higher altitudes, once-continuous forest is being threatened for the first time as clearing advances upward; Mongabay has identified several recently deforested areas at elevations higher than 1,600 meters (about 5,200 feet), which researchers say marks the threshold for habitat that is particularly important for the regions endemic, endangered wildlife.

The change did not come overnight. Deforestation levels in Tsaratanana inched up in recent decades, then exploded in the last few years. Between 1996 and 2006, Tsaratanana lost only about 0.1 % of its forest cover to deforestation per year; things got worse from 2006 to 2016, when the level of deforestation increased to about 0.5 % per year, according to a three-volume compendium of Madagascars protected areas published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018. Since 2016, the rate has been 1.3% or higher every year, according to Madagascar National Parks (MNP), a semi-public agency that manages the reserve. Government data for 2020 is not yet available, but preliminary satellite data from UMD visualized on Global Forest Watch indicate the deforestation rate in 2020 may be higher than in years past.

The double whammy of deforestation and climate change could have a severe impact on wildlife populations, scientists warn. Tsaratananas elevational range makes the area suitable for a diverse set of plants and animals, including, for example, four genera of endemic bamboo (Hickelia, Oldeania, Sokinochloa and Nastus) and 15 species of tenrec (family Tenrecidae), a shrew-like animal. The reserve also provides crucial habitat for several threatened species found nowhere else in the world, including at least four endangered frog species: Rhombophryne guentherpetersi, Rhombophryne ornata, Rhombophryne tany and Cophyla alticola.

Many species will likely have to shift upslope as the area warms. Indeed, the warming is already pronounced the protected areas average temperature increased by 2.4 Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit) between 1985 and 2014, according to the compendium and some species have already shifted. If their habitats become fragmented by deforestation, they may have nowhere to go to escape the heat.

The primary cause of deforestation in Tsaratanana is marijuana cultivation, according to MNP. The area is reportedly attractive to marijuana growers and smugglers because of its remoteness. Marijuana cultivation is illegal in Madagascar, regardless of protected area status, and Tsaratanana is one of only two major production areas.

Some of the marijuana product is exported via Nosy Be, a coastal city in the northwest, to nearby Indian Ocean islands. It fetches high prices in the island of Mauritius: an average of about $67 per gram, according to a forthcoming report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Marijuana is also consumed in Madagascar. The price there is low about $0.03 per gram but its still considered a profitable domestic business.

To stop the clearing and burning, MNP is partnering with law enforcement, forming what it calls mixed brigades that descend into the depths of the forest. According to MNP, the brigades have conducted five missions this year, during which they arrested 13 people, destroyed dozens of camps and shelters, and incinerated several tons of marijuana that had already been packaged in bags and cans; they also destroyed 35 hectares (86 acres) of marijuana fields.

UMD satellite data show significant deforestation since September. When first contacted for this article, in October, MNP representatives indicated that the data were misleading that many of the recent tree cover loss alerts were showing deforestation from previous years. However, following brigade missions over the last three months, MNP has confirmed to Mongabay that many of the alerts from the satellite system reflect recent deforestation. Satellite imagery of locations corresponding with the alerts also confirms that much of the deforestation is recent, particularly in upland areas.

Tsaratanana is not the only protected area in the region facing deforestation pressures due to shifting agriculture. COMATSA, a protected area that abuts Tsaratanana to the east, has also seen an increase in deforestation this year and a spike in the last three months, especially in the east of the protected area.

In COMATSA, people are clearing the forest mainly to plant vanilla or rice, and there is also a very small amount of marijuana cultivation, according to Maeva Volanoro, a technical officer for WWF, which manages the protected area.

For many years, COMATSA was somewhat well protected, with deforestation rates at just 0.3-0.5% of the protected areas forest cover per year, according to WWF. But that has changed in the last three years.

Some of the change has been due to fluctuations in international commodities prices. Madagascar produces roughly 80% of the worlds vanilla, and much of it cultivated in the northeast. In 2018, vanilla prices were especially high, and this led to a demand for more land to grow the beans. Consequently, deforestation rates in COMATSA increased to 1.7%, which amounted to 4,224 hectares (10,438 acres) of forest lost that year, about one-third of which was in the hard-core zones designated to protect primary forest. As the vanilla price dropped, pressure on the forests went down by about half in 2019, but deforestation is on the rise again this year, despite low vanilla prices, Volanoro said.

The regional outpost of the environment ministry has attempted to control the spate of slash-and-burn in COMATSA, with three patrols since August. Its work on the ground has confirmed what the Global Forest Watch data show.

Like weve seen in the satellites, the situation is bad, Volanoro told Mongabay.

As in Tsaratanana, the deforestation poses a threat to COMATSAs biodiversity. Its one of the only homes of the critically endangered silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus), a large lemur with white fur. Its also a crucial link in the chain of mountainous forests running across northern Madagascar. Indeed, the name COMATSA is short for corridor Marojejy Tsaratanana; it was designed to connect Marojejy National Park in the northeast with Tsaratanana Reserve in the northwest. It became a fully fledged protected area in 2015. Officially, its two protected areas, COMATSA north and south, with slightly different conservation rules in each.

Unlike Tsaratanana, COMATSA has a mixed-use status that permits local people to pursue livelihoods such as farming and to use resources in the protected area (except in the hard-core zones that have stricter rules). Community groups from villages near the protected area help manage and patrol it, with support from WWF.

Despite the more flexible rules, all of the clearing detected in COMATSA is illegal: even in sections of the protected area where human activity is allowed, deforestation is not. Moreover, slash-and-burn farming violates national law unless a permit is issued.

The uptick in deforestation since September coincides with the regions dry season, which is normally the peak period for slash-and-burn activity. Fires are easier to set in the dry conditions, and cultivation isnt possible then, so people have time to clear the forest in preparation for the rainy season, which begins in November or December.

Economic pressures caused by this years global recession are exacerbating the seasonal trend, local conservationists say. A lack of tourism in Madagascar has rippled through the entire economy, leaving people who live near the forests with less money, and thus more need to exploit them. Meanwhile, MNP has missed out on nearly all of the revenue it earned from ticket fees at the 46 protected areas it runs: it took in $1.84 million in ticket fees in 2019, but only about 5% of that this year.

These multilayered conservation challenges will not be easy to solve, but the singular nature of the problem in Tsaratanana does lend itself to possible solutions. Conservationists told Mongabay that if marijuana cultivation laws were changed, a more transparent farming and management system could be put in place and people would have little reason to farm the crop in the depths of the forest. Madagascars environment ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article, including a question about whether such reforms are being considered.

Madagascars marijuana laws are a remnant of French colonialism and, perhaps, subject to change. Many countries around the world have reformed their marijuana laws in recent years, and a 2019 op-ed in La Gazette, a Malagasy newspaper, called for Madagascar to do the same. The author argued that legalizing the trade would benefit farmers, medical users, and the public purse. It might also help the tenrecs in the countrys northern forests.

Banner image of a silky sifaka adult and baby in Marojejy National Park by Jeff Gibbs via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Editors note:This story was powered byPlaces to Watch, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to quickly identify concerning forest loss around the world and catalyze further investigation of these areas. Places to Watch draws on a combination of near-real-time satellite data, automated algorithms and field intelligence to identify new areas on a monthly basis. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW is supporting data-driven journalism by providing data and maps generated by Places to Watch. Mongabay maintains complete editorial independence over the stories reported using this data.

Feedback:Use this formto send a message to the editorof this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

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A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it - Mongabay.com

London leavers bought 73,950 homes outside the capital in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic led the biggest exodus from London in four years.

People from London bought homes worth a collective 27.6bn over the course of the year the largest amount spent since 2007, according to research by the estate agent Hamptons.

The dash for property outside the capital was partly driven by a desire for larger homes with more space for home offices and gardens sparked by life under lockdowns. The same trend was experienced in other big cities across the country.

Sevenoaks, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Oxford were the three areas that experienced the biggest increase in the share of homes bought by Londoners, compared with 2019.

The stamp duty holiday, suspending payment of the tax on the first 500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland until April 2021, also helped to boost house sales.

Despite Covid-19 closing the housing market for seven weeks, the number of homes bought by Londoners outside the capital has risen to the highest level in four years, said Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons.

While leaving London has been a rite of passage for many, often families reaching life-stage milestones, the effects of lockdown and the desire for space seems to have heightened this drift.

Meanwhile, the lure of a stamp duty holiday acted as an impetus for more buyers to bring future planned moves forward. The prospect of homeworking more regularly has also meant that London leavers are moving further than ever before. The average London leaver moved 10 miles further than in 2019 as buyers favour space over commutability.

The research found that the average distance moved by a Londoner buying outside the capital hit 40 miles for the first time in more than a decade, up from 28 miles during the first three months of the year.

This means the average person leaving London from May onwards travels as far as Cambridge to the north, Colchester to the east, Brighton to the south or Didcot to the west.

Hamptons said first-time buyers tended to stay closer to London than those selling up their capital home for a lifestyle change. Since May, the average first-time buyer leaving the capital bought 26 miles away.

Conversely, someone selling a home in London tends to sever their ties more deeply by moving much further, the agency said. The average person selling their London home to buy outside the capital travels 41 miles, 57% further than a first-time buyer. These numbers are reflected in the sorts of homes leavers buy, with someone buying a two-bed property moving an average of 34 miles, while someone buying a four-bed travels 43 miles.

This year, 62% of homes in Sevenoaks were bought by a Londoner, 39% higher than in 2019. Windsor and Maidenhead (+27%), Oxford (+17%) and Rushmoor (+15%) in Hampshire followed.

In the first half of 2020, London leavers bought 6.9% of homes sold outside the capital, equating to 24,480 sales. However, in the second half of 2020, this figure rose to 7.8% and twice as many sales (49,470). In the final six months of 2020, Londoners bought 18.4bn worth of property outside the capital, more than in any full year between 2008 and 2013.

Beveridge said she expected the outmigration trend to continue next year. But usually as prices in the capital begin to flatline, which we forecast to happen in the second half of 2021, more Londoners decide to stay put, she said. Even so, given the housing market has been anything but normal since the onset of Covid, we expect to see the total number of homes bought by London leavers next year to hit 2016 levels.

The average price of a UK home started the year at 239,927, according to the mortgage lender Halifax, dropped to 237,00 after the first lockdown, then rocketed to 253,243. Between the end of June and the end of November, prices experienced the fastest five-month gain since 2004.

The pandemic triggered some clear changes in what people wanted in a home. The website Zoopla analysed searches by buyers and found that open-plan living was sharply down in popularity as more people worked from home while a home office or study and gardens became the priority. Detached, rural and secluded became Zooplas fourth, fifth and sixth most common search terms, as greater numbers of people shunned metropolitan living.

Sevenoaks: 39% increase.

Windsor and Maidenhead: 27% increase.

Oxford: 17% increase.

Rushmoor: 15% increase.

Eastbourne: 15% increase.

Wokingham: 13% increase.

Stevenage: 12% increase.

Luton: 10% increase.

Epsom and Ewell: 10% increase.

Brighton and Hove: 10% increase.

Excerpt from:
Covid led to huge London property exodus, says Hamptons - The Guardian

President-elect Joe Biden gave a sobering year-end message, particularly about the challenges remaining in the Covid-19 crisis and in the impact of the massive cyberattack on U.S. government agencies.

Biden said that there was hope with a new vaccine, which he received on Monday, but that the virus is still raging out of control, with more than 3,000 deaths per day.

Here is the simple truth: Our darkest days in the battle against covid are ahead of us, not behind us. So we need to prepare ourselves, to steel our spines. As frustrating as it is to hear, its going to take patience, persistence and determination to beat this virus.

The major news networks and NBC and ABC carried the remarks. CBS streamed the remarks on CBSN.

Related StoryUnemployment: Benefits End For Millions, Future Stimulus Funding Uncertain

Biden praised Congress for working together to pass another Covid-19 relief bill, but said that additional measures will be needed, including money for vaccine distribution and additional stimulus checks to boost the economy.

He criticized President Donald Trump for his response, or lack of response, the the cyberattack. Ive seen no evidence that suggests its under control, Biden said, adding that the Defense Department wont even brief us.

Biden said that Trumps failure will land on my doorstep, and he cited comments from some members of the administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr, who have said that Russia likely was behind it. Trump, though, has cast doubt on that assessment and pointed to China as a culprit.

The truth is this, the Trump administration failed to prioritize cybersecurity, said Biden, adding that Trump has been engaged in an irrational downplaying the seriousness of the hack.

Asked whether he thought that he would get a honeymoon period when he takes office, or a period in which politicians of both parties tone down their rhetoric and work together, Biden said, I dont think its a honeymoon. I think its a nightmare that everybodys going through, and they all say, Its got to end. Its not a honeymoon. Theyre not doing me a favor.

After he took a series of questions, Fox News Peter Doocy asked Biden whether he thinks the stories about his son, Hunter Biden, that came out during the campaign were Russian disinformation and a smear effort.

Yes, yes, yes, Biden said. God love you. Youre a one-horse pony.

He added that his Justice Department will be totally on its own in making judgments about how they should proceed.

Hunter Biden revealed earlier this month that he was under a federal investigation of his taxes.

Read the rest here:
Joe Biden, In Year-End Message, Warns That Our Darkest Days In The Battle Against Covid Are Ahead Of Us - Deadline

There've been considerable advances in mobile homes over the past couple of decades, but public perceptions are often based on the mobile homes of the '80s. Case in point are jokes such as this: Definition of a mobile home: Your house moves, but your 12 cars don't.

The reality is that mobile homes have seen advances over the years, but what people think about them impacts their value and popularity. That could be changing, though, as some signs point to an improved perception.

Before we get into what's new about mobile homes and public perception, let's define what we're talking about, as the terms "mobile," "manufactured," and "modular" homes tend to get lumped into the same category.

Mobile homes, also called trailers, are attached to a chassis, and people can move them from place to place. They can be taken off the chassis and moved to a permanent foundation if the owner likes. They're typically small, referred to as single-wide homes, and run 500 to 1,200 square feet, with one or two bedrooms and one or two bathrooms.

"Manufactured" is the newer term for a mobile home. Like a mobile home, a manufactured home is built off-site in a factory and put on a chassis. The difference is that this type of home must now adhere to standards from the HUD Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Program.

These homes can be single-, double-, or triple-wide. Double-wide homes are typically 1,000 to 2,200 square feet, with two or three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and triple-wide homes are over 2,000 square feet with three or more bedrooms and two or more bathrooms.

Modular homes are built in a factory off-site like mobile and manufactured homes, but the sections are brought to a home site and are put on a permanent foundation.

The name change from mobile to manufactured isn't only for image's sake; it represents a new type of home the mobile home has become.

Because of HUD's Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards Program, standards have been raised regarding the "construction, design, performance, and installation of manufactured homes to assure their quality, durability, affordability, and safety." And as mentioned, these homes can be quite big. Plus, they're no longer flimsy homes that can be swept away by a minor windstorm; they're more solid now.

Then there's the decor. Fireplaces, open kitchens with islands, stainless steel appliances, recessed porches, luxury-style bathrooms, numerous large windows to let in light, and high ceilings are now associated with manufactured homes.

Some mobile home parks have amenities such as walking paths, swimming pools, pool tables, and exercise equipment. Some are 55-plus communities popular with people who wish to downsize.

Sometimes it's the industry, not the product, that gives mobile/manufactured homes a bad reputation. There can be bad customer service, for one. And getting mobile home builders to repair problems can be difficult; the profit is in selling the homes, not repairing them.

In addition, some homes might not sit level and therefore have problems such as leaky windows, floors that creak, and doors that don't shut properly. It's the complaints that people hear about more than the benefits of these homes.

So, should you invest in mobile homes or mobile home parks? If you want to buy a mobile home for you or a loved one to live in, there's a good possibility you can find something you like. And because the product is better now than in the "bad old days," people are buying them. As of June 2018, 17.7 million Americans lived in one, and about 70% of people who live in a mobile home own it.

If you want to get into the business, you should probably invest in a mobile home park, renting out spaces to people who own a mobile home. This is definitely a market worth looking into.

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Mobile Homes Have Come a Long Way. Here's What's Holding Them Back - Motley Fool

ANDERSON One person died and another was hospitalized after a fire destroyed a house trailer in the Shady Rest Mobile Home Park on the citys north side late Friday evening.

Units with the Anderson Fire Department responded to the park, 325 W. Cross St., about 8:50 p.m. and found the home fully engulfed in flames with the front of the structure already collapsed, according to Anderson Fire Chief Dave Cravens.

Sometimes these mobile homes have extremely flammable material, and they burn hot, Cravens said.

An elderly man was pronounced dead at the scene. Madison County Coroner Danielle Noone said efforts to identify him were ongoing and expected to take a few days.

Whenever we have any fatality, its always hard for the guys, Cravens said. They wish they could have gotten there and done more.

Another person with minor burns was taken to a nearby hospital, he added.

Firefighters remained at the trailer for about three hours before turning the scene over to investigators from the Anderson Police Department and the Madison County coroners office.

Cravens said the cause of the fire remained undetermined as of Saturday morning. An autopsy on the victim is pending.

Follow Andy Knight on Twitter @Andrew_J_Knight, or call 765-640-4809.

Read more here:
One person killed in Anderson mobile home fire - The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON The Madison County Coroners Office has identified Robert Hacker as the man who died in a fire that destroyed his mobile home.

Hacker, 64, died Friday in the fire that consumed his home in the Shady Rest Mobile Home Park in the 300 block of East Cross Street.

Hackers neighbors said he was a good neighbor who kept to himself. He was a veteran.

Josh Whitehouse said he knew Hacker for about seven years and knew him pretty well.

He was a pretty nice guy, Whitehouse. He gave and gave. It was a shame the way he died. Kept to himself.

Whitehouse said he was at home at the time of the fire and could see the flames shooting through the roof.

We tried to get him out, but couldnt get into the trailer, he said. It was way too hot and went up fast.

Neighbor April Arms said Hacker was a good neighbor and kept to himself.

We went out to eat and when we got home the trailer was on fire, she said.

Arms said Hacker would make sure her daughter would get on the school bus and invited them over for dinner several times.

He used to allow my daughter and niece to come over to watch cartoons because he had cable television, Arms said.

Anderson Fire Department Chief Dave Cravens said Wednesday that Hacker was the first fire fatality in the city this year.

Cravens said there was one fire related death in the city in 2019.

Units with the Anderson Fire Department responded to the park about 8:50 p.m. Friday and found the home fully engulfed in flames with the front of the structure already collapsed, according Cravens.

Sometimes these mobile homes have extremely flammable material, and they burn hot, Cravens said.

Whenever we have any fatality, its always hard for the guys, Cravens said. They wish they could have gotten there and done more.

Another person with minor burns was taken to a nearby hospital, he added.

Firefighters remained at the trailer for about three hours before turning the scene over to investigators from the Anderson Police Department and the Madison County Coroners Office.

Cravens said the cause of the fire remained undetermined and the investigation is ongoing.

Follow Ken de la Bastide

on Twitter @KendelaBastide,

or call 765-640-4863.

Continued here:
Man killed in trailer fire identified, remembered as a good neighbor - The Herald Bulletin