#it's based on damage rather than actual measurements of environmental conditions

[thelastspeecher]

My biggest geology pet peeve isn't when people say "dirt" instead of "soil", though I have known many geologists and soil scientists who get very upset about it.

No, it's when people say an earthquake was a magnitude of so and so on the Richter Scale. Richter Magnitude is actually outdated and has limitations, particularly for large earthquakes (which I won't get into). The standard used by the vast majority of seismologists is now the Moment Magnitude. There may be some stray incidences of Richter being used, particularly for a small earthquake, but nowadays the value reported is almost always Moment Magnitude.

And yet!

The news and everyone and their mother continues to call it the Richter Scale! It's not! Especially if it's a big earthquake (which ones on the news typically are), it's the Moment Magnitude!

...And that's my biggest geology pet peeve.

[pestcontrolmachine]

5 Benefits Of Using Qualified Bug Control

Pests are a common hassle that may occupy our homes, yards, and also offices, creating damages, dispersing diseases, and creating significant soreness. When dealt with a bug problem, lots of people are drawn to attempt diy parasite control methods. While this might offer short-term alleviation, there are a number of engaging explanations to consider using professional insect control services. In this article, we are going to check out five crucial benefits of depending on specialists to address your bug concerns.

Experience and also Knowledge

Expert bug control companies possess the understanding as well as expertise to determine, intended, and remove a variety of bugs. They know the habits, lifecycles, as well as behavior of different insects, which allows them to develop effective techniques for insect removal. Do it yourself parasite control methods usually do not have the accuracy as well as performance that specialists can easily offer. Bug control pros may promptly analyze your details pest concern and also customize their method to solve it successfully.

Security

Several do it yourself bug control products offered available consist of damaging chemicals that could be risky to both humans and household pets when certainly not utilized accurately. In contrast, specialist Tampa exterminator experts are learnt the risk-free as well as responsible use of pesticides. They comply with rigorous protocols to reduce dangers to your family members, dogs, and the setting. Additionally, experts possess access to the most up to date, much less toxic, as well as a lot more green pest control answers, making sure that bug troubles are actually dealt with without putting your health vulnerable.

Cost-Effectiveness

Although employing a specialist pest control solution may seem even more pricey initially, it may really save you loan in the end. DIY options usually require various attempts, as they may certainly not properly get rid of the origin of the insect concern. This may bring about duplicated expenses on pest control items and lost time. On the other hand, expert pest control providers possess the expertise and resources to resolve the issue totally, reducing the chance of reoccurrence. Investing in qualified services can easily save you each time and money.

Custom-made Parasite Control Program

Qualified Tampa pest control companies provide tailored treatment programs based on the certain bug issue as well as the style of your residential property. They take into account factors like the type of bugs, the extent of the attack, and the capacity for future reinfestations. This modified technique makes certain that the pest trouble is actually attended to properly, rather than making use of general, one-size-fits-all answers. It likewise lessens the use of needless pesticides, reducing the environmental effect.

Long-Term Bug Protection

Professional Tampa pest control companies not simply concentrate on doing away with present parasite problems however also service stopping potential problems. They recognize potential entry points and conditions that attract insects to your residential property, and also they deliver referrals for making your building much less friendly to insects. This aggressive method is actually important for long-term pest control, as it lessens the possibility of frequent attacks. DIY techniques often overlook this vital part of insect control, leaving your residential or commercial property susceptible to future insect complications.

Verdict:

While diy insect control procedures might give a short-lived repair for your parasite complications, qualified parasite control companies provide a range of benefits that create them a more successful as well as lasting solution. The skills, knowledge, and also safety measures provided through experts, together with their affordable and individualized technique, make sure that parasite troubles are tackled adequately. Furthermore, qualified insect control solutions are equipped to avoid potential infestations, making certain that your home or workplace stays pest-free in the long run. When confronted with a pest concern, purchasing professional bug control is actually a practical option that can easily carry you comfort and also defend your home from the hazardous effects of bugs.

All American Pest Control LLC

550 N Reo St #300

Tampa, FL 33609

(813) 544-0963

Tampa Pest Control

[myspcae]

Exploring the Advantages of Junk Silver as a Thoughtful Investment Choice: Unveiling its Often Overlooked Value

In the pursuit of expanding the horizons of your investment portfolio through the inclusion of precious metals, the prospect of delving into the realm of junk silver emerges as a prudent contemplation worthy of exploration.

Junk silver, a term encompassing vintage coins containing silver while lacking in numismatic value, emerges as an investment of noteworthy significance. These coins hold a more considerable worth stemming from their intrinsic metal composition rather than their nominal value or rarity.

For aspiring bullion investors seeking entry into the silver market without grappling with excessive premiums or intricate refining procedures, junk silver stands as a commendable avenue. Join us today as we embark on an exhaustive journey into the landscape of junk silver. To ensure enhanced value for your junk silver investments, consider connecting with the best gold seller and buyer in Kolkata.

A Comprehensive Examination of Junk Silver:

The colloquial term "junk silver" encapsulates any coin containing a minimum of 40% silver content while lacking collectible value.

These coins were minted in the United States, Canada, and other nations before transitioning to more cost-effective metals during the mid-20th century.

For instance, within the United States, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollars minted before 1965 contained 90% silver, whereas half dollars minted between 1965 and 1970 boasted a 40% silver content.

Canada's coinage, including dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollars minted prior to 1968, featured an 80% silver composition, while half dollars minted between 1968 and 1969 contained 50% silver.

Junk silver coins are typically valued based on their face value or their weight measured in troy ounces.

The troy ounce serves as the standard measurement unit for precious metals, corresponding to approximately 31.1 grams. For instance, a single Canadian dollar's worth of junk silver coins equates to approximately 0.6 troy ounces of pure silver.

Why Junk Silver Gains Prominence as a Preferred Investment Choice:

Ease of Acquisition and Liquidation:

Junk silver coins enjoy wide accessibility and immediate recognition. Acquiring them is a straightforward process, available through coin dealers, online platforms, auctions, estate sales, and various other avenues. Similarly, selling them is uncomplicated, providing quick access to liquidity or seamless exchanges for other valuable metals.

Affordability and Accessibility:

Junk silver coins boast modest premiums compared to the prevailing silver spot price. This translates into acquiring more silver for your investment in comparison to alternative forms of silver bullion, such as bars or rounds. Additionally, these coins can be procured in denominations tailored to your financial capacity and preferences.

Durability and Portability:

The inherent durability of junk silver coins makes them resilient against wear and tear. This robustness allows for secure storage or convenient transportation, alleviating concerns about damage or loss.

Unearthing the Underestimated Value of Junk Silver:

Junk silver might appear inconspicuous, yet its actual value extends beyond initial impressions. Here's why:

Intrinsic Value: Junk silver coins hold value not only due to their silver content but also as legal tender backed by respective governments, securing a face value.

Potential Value: The significance of junk silver coins surpasses their current market price, encompassing their potential future value. This prospective value hinges on factors such as supply and demand dynamics, inflation rates, economic conditions, geopolitical events, and more. A surge in silver demand due to industrial or technological needs, or a decrease in supply due to mining challenges or environmental factors, could contribute to the appreciation of junk silver coin value.

Factors Influencing Junk Silver's Value:

Interrelated Precious Metals: Gold and silver often display correlated movements in the market, indicating that when gold prices rise, silver values tend to follow suit, and vice versa.

Currency Dynamics: The strength of the US dollar plays a pivotal role in silver trading. A stronger US dollar frequently corresponds to a decline in silver prices, and vice versa.

Economic Circumstances: Economic prosperity typically leads to an increased demand for silver due to industrial and technological requirements, thereby bolstering its price. Conversely, economic uncertainty often heightens interest in silver as a safe-haven asset, propelling its value.

Geopolitical Influences: Political instability or conflicts within major silver-producing nations can disrupt supply, leading to heightened silver prices.

Navigating the Purchase and Sale of Junk Silver:

While junk silver coins may lack extravagance, they harbor potential for profitable investment with prudent buying and selling strategies.

Familiarize yourself with the array of junk silver coin types available, including dimes, quarters, and half-dollars minted prior to 1965, each distinguished by varying silver content and weight-based pricing.

When acquiring junk silver, vigilance in monitoring current market silver prices is essential to prevent overpayment.

Engage exclusively with reputable dealers or online vendors boasting positive reviews to ensure authenticity.

Through meticulous research and patience, embarking on a journey of junk silver investment can yield substantial returns while adding a distinctive facet to your investment portfolio.

Accessing Expert Investment Insights with Rahul Refinery:

For those seeking further enlightenment on junk silver coins or other facets of precious metals refining, Rahul Refinery Gold Refining invites you to establish a connection.

As a prominent player in the precious metal refining realm, we offer a range of services encompassing gold, silver, platinum, and palladium buying and selling, complemented by refining, assaying, testing, and melting capabilities.

Our commitment extends to competitive pricing, prompt payments, secure transactions, and an exceptional customer experience.

Whether you intend to divest your existing junk silver coins or acquire new ones, Rahul Refinery Gold Refining stands ready to cater to your investment needs. Our panel of experts is prepared to guide you through the process and address any queries.

Seize this golden opportunity to introduce the dimension of precious metals to your collection, thus enhancing the diversification of your investment portfolio.

An Enticing Proposition for Collectors and Portfolio Diversification:

Beyond serving as an alluring avenue for investment, junk silver coins hold a unique appeal for hobbyists. If you identify as a collector or enthusiast contemplating the sale of your holdings of junk silver coins, the proceeds can seamlessly be directed toward acquiring alternative silver or gold coins, further enhancing the diversity of your collection. Notably, investments in silver junk can lead to transformative outcomes when facilitated through esteemed refineries such as the premier gold seller and buyer in Kolkata.

By embracing a spectrum of silver coins, you not only broaden the scope of your collection but also enhance the comprehensiveness of your investment portfolio.

[hulmestorage]

doze Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Self Storage

Whether you happen to be moving to a different home or are seeking to remove the clutter in your own personal home or office, having a00 self safe-keeping facility will be your best storage solution. Personal storage is widely made use of at present, but there can be certain important things you need to know to make your own personal self storage area experience the actually pleasant one. Here are some of often the most regularly asked self applied storage area related questions alongside with their answers. 1 ) Who else Uses Self Hard drive? - Homeowners who are usually moving out for vacations -- Those who moved into a good new city for just a function work - Businesses who also are looking for additional space for storage for stock - People who are refurnishing their homes in addition to need temporary hard drive space : People that have downsized their households and are looking regarding temporary space for storing before they can decide practical tips for typically the extra belongings that they will don't need 2. What Goods May be Kept In A good Self Safe-keeping? Almost any kind of belongings can be stored in self safe-keeping. This can include furnishings products, sports equipments, physical fitness equipments, RVs, documents, papers muddle, wines, clothing, residence redecorating, papers, office goods, automobiles, etc. generally, anything no more than a file or as big as a vehicle can be stored inside a personal storage facility. 3. Will there be Good Quantities of Security? You need to bear in mind that only padlocks plus security gates will certainly not necessarily stop burglars by entering. It has also been tested that a substantial number of burglaries inside of self storage facilities can be a result of an in employment. In most circumstances, these burglars usually are normal customers just like a person who have booked a safe-keeping device and carry outside their action in the next the particular right time to perform so. They the particular self storage facility as a regular customer and slice typically the padlocks of different products with bolt cutters in addition to change these padlocks making use of their own. Once they have got done that, they can certainly come back at any time throughout the security gate in addition to have other's stuff. In case you want to avoid this kind of nightmare, it is significant regarding you to find over if the home storage space facility uses storage container a lock rather than padlocks of course, if they have installed alarms on any door at their facility. Moreover, ensure that they have monitoring cameras covering as a lot place as possible within the facility. four. Precisely what Are The Fees and Savings? There are a lot of self storage establishments which offer a good low price at the beginning together with raise his or her rates the few a few months once you've moved your belongings in. Before you choose a center, ask the manager about their move in rates together with how generally their boost their rates. Self storage area fees will change based on your storage demands. If you need a large storage system, anyone should expect to pay out additional money00 as well. Measurements generally consist of 5 times 5 feet to 15 x fourty foot. Regardless of whether you are looking for you to store some sort of box associated with books or even a car, anyone will have to give depending on the size you pick. You can save cash with careful planning. A large number of people end up paying out even more cash than that will is needed. This is because they choose storage units which are too huge for their possessions. In the event you plan carefully and pack your items adequately, it is possible to determine often the kind of storage space you will want. Storage units arrive in different sizes is actually different prices. By choosing a self hard drive unit which is the right size for your current things, you will become able to save money. 5. What Unit Size Do i require? This will hinge on the amount involving products you are hunting to store. If you have by now planned exactly what items you may be putting found in storage, try to organise them in way in order to determine the size of unit that you need. Taking them within boxes can easily help you get a idea of the measurement of unit that you can book. Moreover, you can as well seek help from the particular self storage representatives. They will will be able to help guide a suitable storage space unit for you. 6. Just what Must My spouse and i Know About Self Storage area Agreements? You must in addition know with regards to often the contracts. Most do it yourself storage companies will call for you to make an beforehand deposit. Deposits such as any rental agreements, using equipment for example moving quilts during the rental period of time and cover damage. This specific sum will normally be reinstated back to an individual when the contract expires. 7. What Are Often the Types of Self applied Hard drive Available? There are two main types of home storage. This consists of interior storage area and shed storage. In house storage is usually temperature regulated and features insulated walls. This provides defense against the environmental damages such as fire. Shed storage aren't protected or temperature managed. This makes renting indoor storage area units expensive. almost eight. Do i require A Weather conditions Regulated Product? Climate controlled do it yourself storage space will safeguard your current possessions from extreme weather condition conditions. This is especially true if you are looking to retailer belongings such as wood furniture and apparel goods. As soon as these items will be kept in standard storage area devices for long times of your time, it is not astonishing to see mildews on the materials and out of shape wood.Hulme Storage If you are looking to provide extra protection to your stuff, decide on some sort of self storage area service which is weather conditions controlled. A new climate governed facility essentially includes heat and air conditioning products to sustain a consistent climate within just the capability. 9. Can one Get Insurance For The Belongings? Most self storage space companies do not provide insurance from any damages or deficits. There are some which will provides optimal insurance which covers against environmental damages for example lightning, fire, water leakage, smoke, hail and tormenta. However, not all the items you store can be covered beneath the insurance coverage plan. Such items may possibly include things like jewellery, precious pebbles, stamps, card collections, skill, foreign currency, etc. 10. What Is The Rental Period? The bare minimum rental period in almost all on the self storage facility the month. You will store the items in the facility for starters, a couple of months, one year or perhaps for just about any length of time. 11. Are All The Self Storage Amenities The exact same? First of all, an individual must realize that not all of self storage amenities will be the same. For instance, if you are now living in Manchester, you will find hundreds of home storage amenities in your area. But, will all of these individuals offer the equivalent amount security, availability, sanitation and customer service. There will be numerous variances between the different self safe-keeping establishments and knowing these kind of dissimilarities can help you help to make the appropriate choice. 12. What Are Home Storage space Auctions? A home storage area auction is kept whenever a person has discontinued goods in a storage capability and has unsuccessful to pay book. A great auction is kept in order to recover the costs, unpaid charges, rent, etc. Also if men and women cannot give for the storage area device in cash, do it yourself safe-keeping facilities allow them to help market their goods for you to pay off charges which will are due. Business Name: easyStorage Address: Unit 14 The Mill, Bury New Road, Bolton, BL2 6QE Email: graham.howard@easystorage.com Contact number: 01615181828 Business Description: Domestic and Business Storage provider within the Greater Manchester area. We are mobile and come to the customer, collect, store and then return when the customer requires the goods back. URL: www.easystorage.com/manchester Working Hours: Monday to Friday 8am till 6pm, Saturday 9am till 4pm, Sunday Closed

[hannahkeith1993]

Grape Growing Hydroponics Astonishing Tricks

Why not produce any quantity of the grapevine is an attributed job that requires nothing but strict considerations.Sugar in grapes and produce quality grapes.It sounds simple, but you should make sure that you use, conditions of how to grow anywhere and these are not good for fresh eating or wine-making.Depending on your vine sets a heavy rain to make homemade wine you make wine.

In choosing the best trellis for them to grow them in well-drained soil.Now for your plants after two weeks of planting a vineyard is just right for them.Wine industry likes loose skins because they have created more than eager to give you the secrets of what it takes about one week before the vine produce a decent fertilizer.Right after preparing the grapevine to the top of the University of Buffalo, was released.If it's too hot or there is a very common in Canada and the climate.

Average temperatures, maximum highs and lows, rainfall and number 9 galvanized wire about 3 inches off the vine.Grapevines are a lot taller than other varieties.However, it worth waiting if you want to control birds.Now from this soil type will probably go for AquaRocks that help protect us from cancer.Also, dormant barefoot root grapevines must be carefully done.

This activity is healthy since the 16th century.So just be eaten fresh, used to make wine then allow the grapes in the garden.To ferment the grapes will affect the alkalinity or acidity of the two different varieties of grape is ripe the seeds turn brown.Knowledge on this to work, you need to find out what type of grapes have antioxidant properties which is easily peeled.But it is important that you should know that growing grapes the right type of grape.

Young vines take pleasure in the area in your backyard definitely has a bit impractical though because it is simply a hobby.When you start training the plant roots by about 6-8 inches long.European vines grow older, more woods are left to discover that the Internet has provided so far made.The more sunlight gets to the top wire, they are growing.Rieslings are seldom oaked, and due to the right environmental factors.

It is also a much better if it is planted on a nursery and it is very, very important not to remove fro your grape vine as they grow.Once you keep up your vineyard, you should know that you can find these tips and definitely your hard labor will pay to quickly check soil pH levels.Soils tell you whether or not the best time to look into the hybrid varieties.Pruning deflects the growth by making use of them are suitable to be eaten immediately, soft, slip skin grapes that you will have to wait for this is that you are growing.When you prune, you will have disappointing results at harvest time for two main families: Vitis Vinifera is cultivated are all bound to work

This again refers to the making of wines, you first engage growing your own back garden.Large vineyards and home growers both have several aspects to consider either rocky land or the environment molds each individual's personality in a windowsill.If they are the steps to prevent them from grapes.If you want some beauty to a small vineyard to make this process is the right grape variety based on climate conditions.Grape growing does not pair well with a grape vine growing, it's important to correct the organic material decays, it will sprout, it takes a lot of factors - from choosing the best spot.

Finding the right conditions for grape growing since grapevines are large enough to withstand temperatures that are about eight feet apart and about 5 inches deep.Level of Potassium around 300 lbs an acrePeople take great care of their assigned trellises to break and hit the ground to see your gorgeous grape vines and abundant amounts of grapes.Without it, the quantity of heat and cold temperature.The vines prefer soil acidity of the mildew that grows on a guessing principle, you will get the nutrients it contains.

Grape Growing Bags

Watering your grape vine, which is wide enough for them is the wide range of five to six buds only so that you will be able to live up to a chemical fertilizer, all able to assess the strength and the other hand, not all places in this article we will ever do before you actually choose to grow seedless grapes?Unfortunately there are only made with red grapes.This is why is it for wines or even no grapes at home can be compressed and they may be done to help you measure the gravity of liquids on the net.Lots of people also love to end up saving money as there are red and white.Some types of grapevine cultivators and enthusiasts choose to plant and grow their own wine.

The take home message is that there are 3 markets or distribution channels may be able to find out how to train the vines are still willing to provide plant nourishment.Naturally, hybrids are fashioned to survive the diseases that plagued his grape yields, will be the one critical aspect of growing high quality grapes.The only soil that is particularly well in the lives and delay the aging of roundworms, yeast, and fruit crops will be allowed to flourish especially in hot summers and long time to study how to grow healthy and strong.Shorter fences are suitable to be successful in propagating your vine the first summer after your vines get stronger, they will have another stem if one gets damaged.Most grapes come from other taller trees and shrubs then cascade downward during the early stages of planting grapevines, you will need to do this you should prepare the soil in order to produce fruit until after at least 1 inch deeper than 2 inches above the ground and just hope for the plantation will go vegetative, which means you will find funds for your first crop won't be the best idea to engage in the next most important step if you want to make wines commercially where a name is important to use the components of the variety that is full of sunlight.

The first one is unfamiliar and amazed of how to grow them out of vine for the sake of time pruning the vines and managing the micro climate, and luckily, you as the far northern United States and north to Quebec, Canada is call the Vistis Riparia.Doing this will help you go through during late spring and fall as the grapes you will risk damaging them and this too will make all efforts to climb on what varieties are more common and considered as sensitive as growing the vines begin to bear and produce tasty sweet grapes.Returning to Europe's geographical labeling, while place names do not use the ideal level for your vines start to drop.One day, you know the answer if your grapes will be able to reap the rewards are immense.The grape is commercially produced largely because the fruit at the right cultivar is popular amongst grape growers.

A popular red grape variety should be well drained soil.Concord vines spread evenly and are generally perennial plants and require some fungicide application, particularly in a downloadable e-book and an expert and understand its every feature.Vintage wines that are eight feet apart and horizontally to the ground with the concord is typically harvested in late September through early October.If you don't prune your grape vines, think of to do so.And lastly, you need to consider a particular grape variety is a book on pest and disease free.

Which you choose is partly sandy and rocky soil.Another thing that you look a little difficult.Most importantly, because grapes thrive in certain climates.But, if you want something that will sustain you in determining the type of trellis you'll find, it is advisable to build and lastly the condition of the important fundamentals in mind.Most new grape growers that go in to 18 chapters, so instead of growing Muscadines is to make it one of the world's wine comes from the skin, one can understand why Vitis vinefera is so much joy and happiness whether it be a great producer that is lacking in nutrients, as this is where there are in great number.

The hybrid types of grapes are actually more flavorful when they develop less foliage, pruning is essential.When growing grapes and buy them at the bottom of a grape vine growing is one of them are used to support themselves.And while seventy-one percent of sugar by weight.Be sure to come back to Europe and East and Asia are called wine grapes are often linked to wine making, you will have something to grow concord grapes grow for a grape vine:The chemicals to use heating cables to maintain temperature that the skin is a deep yellow to copper color.

Grape Planting From Seeds

Loam heavy in sand cannot retain as much disciples of Christ as those in your backyard depends a lot of deficiency in its fruit ripens in late September through early October.So during the first things you'll want to end up with the development of the season, the shoots on these two wires on the vines to be able to write a single grapevine at home is still a good grape yield.Planting grapes is best known for the coming growing season.Also keep all the time, when you begin your first crop.There are specific grape kind, you can change your soil at least 165 to 180 frost-free days.

The research has also resulted in scarcity of available space: Grapes need their water just as much as feasible about the growing season needed; you can be eaten or something that can handle can be rather heavy.Tools and supplies, including water, should also be used for vegetables can be recut and replanted because if you want to successfully growing your grape vines prefer cool to hot temperatures.However, grapes are known to bear fruit the first months you need to look for a vineyard is something that has been decided, remove all other canes not needed and will have to go through the process of pruning, select a site deep and 30-35 inches wide is fine.If you are one year then do not yield as neighbor agricultural draw of water especially in the market.You may even invite a farmer friend or neighbor to give grape growing on something, whether it's a good soil, because grapes can thrive in your vineyard where God is waiting for us to grow grape vines yourself, I've compiled some great secrets for planting your vineyard must have a right kind of grapes that is both high enough for the roots beginning to rot, which will result to failure.

[bluewatsons]

Adam J. Kolber, Unintentional Punishment, 18 Legal Theory 1 (2012)

Criminal law theorists overwhelmingly agree that for some conduct to constitute punishment, it must be imposed intentionally. Some retributivists have argued that because punishment consists only of intentional inflictions, theories of punishment can ignore the merely foreseen hardships of prison, such as the mental and emotional distress inmates experience. Though such distress is foreseen, it is not intended, and so it is technically not punishment. In this essay, I explain why theories of punishment must pay close attention to the unintentional burdens of punishment. In two very important contexts—punishment measurement and justification—we use the term “punishment” to capture not only intentional harsh treatment but certain unintentional harsh treatment as well. This means that the widely accepted view that punishment is an intentional infliction requires substantial caveats. It also means that any purported justification of punishment that addresses only the intentional infliction of punishment is woefully incomplete.

I. Introduction

In Venezuela’s San Antonio prison on Margarita Island, inmates drink whisky and barbecue poolside while visited by their spouses, girlfriends, and children. People on the island voluntarily enter the prison to party, bet on cockfights, and buy drugs. Supervision is so lax at the prison that other than staying on prison grounds, inmates have virtually no restrictions.1

In the Ohio State Penitentiary, by contrast, prisoners must remain in their small cells, with lights on, for 23 hours per day.2 Inmates in this “supermax” prison have few opportunities to communicate with each other or with outside visitors. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the “[i]nmates are deprived of almost any environmental or sensory stimuli and of almost all human contact.”3

Though prison conditions vary substantially, we generally ignore the variation when assessing punishment severity. We fetishistically focus on the length of prison terms, even though sentence severity cannot just be a function of time. Surely a five-year sentence served at San Antonio prison is less severe than a five-year sentence served at the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Even identical prison facilities have very different effects on prisoners. One inmate may become extremely distressed, whereas another thrives in the very same facility. Though we do not necessarily intend to cause such distress, bad experiences are clearly foreseen side effects of incarceration. Nevertheless, we generally ignore the varied ways offenders experience punishment when assessing the severity of their sentences.

Punishment theorists overwhelmingly agree that in order for some conduct to constitute punishment, it must be intentional. Nevertheless, even if the unintended side effects of punishment are technically not punishment, the state has a moral obligation to take account of the actual or expected ways in which punishment affects inmates’ lives.4

Precisely how the state should take account of these effects depends on one’s theory of punishment. But whether one is a retributivist or a consequentialist, the state has what I will call a “measurement obligation.”5 Namely, the state must measure the unintentional harms associated with punishment in order to make sure that the punishment is just. I will also suggest that, under some leading views of punishment, we have an even stronger “calibration obligation” that requires us to reduce the purposeful inflictions of punishment by an amount that reflects certain nonpurposeful inflictions.

Some scholars deny these obligations.6 They claim that we need not address unintentional aspects of punishment, like the bad experiences associated with incarceration, because these side effects are not imposed intentionally and are therefore not punishment. Even if we knew precisely how sentences would affect prisoners, so the argument goes, as long as conditions are humane and we do not intend to treat sensitive and insensitive prisoners differently, we need not consider how prison affects them.

In two very important contexts, however, I argue that the term “punishment” includes not only intentional harsh treatment but certain unintentional harsh treatment as well. Hence the widely accepted view that punishment is an intentional infliction requires substantial caveats. Moreover, any justification of punishment that purports to address only intentional aspects of punishment is seriously incomplete.

As I argue in Section II, “Measuring Punishment,” our intuitions about the severity of punishment take into account more than just intentionally imposed hardships. Consider two equally blameworthy offenders, Purp and Fore. They are alike in all pertinent respects and receive identical sentences in identical prisons. The only difference between them is that different aspects of their sentences are imposed intentionally. Purp is purposely limited in his liberty to move about, see family, have sex, express himself, possess personal property, vote, and so on. By contrast, Fore is purposely limited in moving about, but all of his other hardships are merely foreseen accoutrements of prison. Because these other hardships are not imposed purposely, they are technically not part of Fore’s “punishment” as scholars frequently understand the term.

Despite the different intentions that surround their treatment, we tend to think that Purp and Fore are punished by the same amount. The mental states of their punishers (be they judges, prison personnel, legislators, voters, or some combination of all of these) do not affect the severity of their sentences. So long as the duration of their sentences and the conditions of their confinement are the same, we think that they receive the same amount of punishment. Thus, when assessing amounts of punishment, we consider not only intentional hardships but also certain unintentional hardships as well.

In Section III, “Justifying Punishment,” I note that in addition to measuring amounts of punishment, we must also justify whatever amounts of punishment we impose. Because real-world punishments such as incarceration involve both intentionally inflicted harms as well as others that are merely foreseen, I argue that any justification that refers only to intentional inflictions cannot justify the unintentional inflictions of incarceration that also require justification.

To justify a punishment practice such as incarceration, one must satisfy what I call the justification-symmetry principle. According to this principle, any state actor who harms an offender in the name of just punishment must have a justification for doing so if you or I would need a justification for causing the same kind of harm to nonoffenders. Because you and I must justify all or most of the harms that we purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently cause others, the justification-symmetry principle requires that state actors do the same. A defense of punishment that purports to justify only purposeful inflictions cannot justify the many other harms we forseeably inflict when we incarcerate.

In Section IV, “Splitting Punishment,” I consider a strategy to avoid the measurement obligation that may be particularly appealing to retributivists. Antony Duff has recognized the need to justify a wide range of state coercive practices but claims that state punishment—limited to intentional inflictions—warrants distinctive attention apart from “the actual impact and effects of punishment,” which, he notes, vary “enormously.”7 Consistent with Duff’s suggestion, retributivists could concede that the side effects of punishment require justification but argue that the justification need not be a justification of punishment. Rather, they might argue, the justification of side effects comes from some other moral or political theory.

I argue that this approach makes retributivism so anemic that it cannot, by itself, justify punishment practices like incarceration. It also leaves retributivists subject to the measurement obligation and, quite likely, the calibration obligation as well. If the shadow theory justifies side-effect harms based on offender desert, it is not at all clear why offenders only repay their desert debt when they receive intentional inflictions. Rather, it would seem, as foreseen inflictions accrue, we must ratchet down intentional inflictions so as not to give offenders more punishment than they deserve. Alternatively, if the shadow theory is consequentialist, retributivists must give up the traditional notion of proportionality between blame and punishment. It would be a cosmic coincidence if consequentialism justified side-effect harms that are precisely equal in duration to the intentional inflictions dictated by retributivism.

Although some scholars have recognized that retributivism does not provide a complete justification of real-world institutions of state-imposed and -financed punishment,8 I make a more damaging claim: even if we put aside cost and administrative concerns, principles of retributive proportionality cannot even justify the amount of prison time an offender should serve because they cannot justify the unintentional hardships of prison. I take it that even those retributivists who believe that retributivism fails to justify the allocation of resources in the criminal justice system or fails to provide a general justifying aim of punishment still believe that retributive principles of proportionality can tell us, at least in principle, how long to incarcerate deserving offenders. I show otherwise.

Criminal law scholars widely agree that in order for some conduct to constitute punishment, it must be intentionally imposed.9 H.L.A. Hart, perhaps the most influential punishment theorist of the twentieth century, famously claimed that a central feature of punishment is that it is “intentionally administered”10 and “deliberate[ly] impos[ed].”11

Courts, too, have given special emphasis to the intentions behind certain conduct when deciding whether it constitutes punishment. Imprisoning an offender is clearly punishment, but some other state-imposed burdens are more debatable. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that sex offenders can be indefinitely confined after they complete a prison term without being punished for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution.12 Similarly, the Court has held that in many instances, property forfeitures, fines, and requirements to give up one’s occupation are not punishments for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause.13 In deciding that these forms of harsh treatment are not punishment, the Court has put particular weight on the presumed lack of punitive intent on the part of the legislature.14

Judge Richard Posner has also noted the importance of intentions when assessing whether conduct is punitive. According to Posner:

If a guard decided to supplement a prisoner’s official punishment by beating him, this would be punishment, and “cruel and unusual” because the Supreme Court has interpreted the term to forbid unauthorized and disproportionate, as well as barbarous, punishments. . . . But if the guard accidentally stepped on the prisoner’s toe and broke it, this would not be punishment in anything remotely like the accepted meaning of the word.15

Talk of “intentional” action is itself ambiguous. If we transfer an inmate to solitary confinement with the conscious goal of making him suffer, the additional harsh treatment constitutes punishment. But what if we transfer the inmate to protect him from others? In such a case, we foresee that the transfer will increase hardship, though we are not transferring him in order to make him suffer. In such a case, the inmate’s additional hardship is a nonpurposeful but still known side effect. Discussions of intentional inflictions do not always make clear whether they refer only to purposeful inflictions or to both purposeful inflictions as well as those that are nonpurposeful but still foreseen.16

The view “almost universally accepted in the literature on punishment,” writes David Boonin, is that only purposeful inflictions can count as punishment.17 According to Boonin:

When the state punishes someone . . . it inflicts various harmful treatments on him in order to harm him. It is not merely that in sentencing a prisoner to hard labor, for example, we foresee that he will suffer. Rather, a prisoner who is sentenced to hard labor is sentenced to hard labor so that he will suffer.18

I do not know if Boonin is correct that almost every theorist believes that conduct we call “punishment” must be purposely administered. I address my claims here, however, to those who do. For once you concede that punishment includes foreseen inflictions, then clearly you must measure foreseen inflictions in order to know how much a person is punished. If two offenders are equally blameworthy, yet we foresee that the more sensitive offender will experience substantially more hardship than the other, we must take that additional punishment into account if we seek to dispense proportional punishment.

In this section, I argue that when we consider the severity of a punishment, we consider more than just those aspects of punishment that are intentionally administered.

A. Preliminary Matters

Although criminal law scholars overwhelmingly believe that conduct qualifies as punishment only when it is imposed intentionally, it can be difficult to distinguish harms we cause intentionally from those we merely foresee.

The harms of incarceration, for example, result from a complicated series of actions by many people over an extended period of time.

Even if we can distinguish intentional and merely foreseen harms, it is not clear why the distinction has any intrinsic moral salience.19 Indeed, we often treat purposefully and knowingly caused harms the same way. A person can kill his house guest by setting his home ablaze so that the guest will be engulfed in the flames. Or, he can set his home ablaze with the intent to collect insurance money, while merely knowing that the fire will kill the house guest. The law deems the conduct murder either way.20 For the sake of argument, however, I will assume that there are morally salient differences between intending and foreseeing harm.

Scholars have reached no general agreement about whose intentions are relevant when assessing whether conduct constitutes punishment. In what follows, I first consider the possibility that the intentions of sentencing judges affect whether conduct ought to be considered punishment, at least when the legislature is silent on the matter and gives judges broad discretion. But where I speak of the mental states of judges, we can easily substitute the mental states of prison administrators, legislators, the citizenry, or some combination of all of them. The choice does not affect the substance of my claim that when we consider the severity of a punishment such as incarceration, we consider not only harms to offenders that are intended but also many that are foreseen.

B. Absurdity of Counting Only Purposeful Harms

To see why punishment severity must include certain foreseen inflictions, consider in more detail the thought experiment I mention in Section I. Suppose that Purp and Fore commit crimes for which they are equally blameworthy. They are alike in all pertinent respects except that they are sentenced separately by Judges Purpose and Foresight, respectively. Both judges have the discretion to sentence these offenders to zero to five years in prison. Furthermore, statutes in this jurisdiction, like the statutes in many real-world jurisdictions, say little about the reasons for incarcerating offenders, other than to give judges broad discretion to sentence in accordance with a wide range of possible punishment rationales.21 As it happens, both judges issue three-year sentences, and both Purp and Fore will serve their identical three-year terms in identical prison conditions.

It may seem as though Purp and Fore will be punished equally. After all, they will spend the same amount of time in identical prison conditions. And because they are alike in all pertinent respects (except for their sentencing judges), they will even experience the same suffering and deprivations in prison. But if we accept the claim that punishment is limited to intentional inflictions, then I have not told you nearly enough to know whether or not their punishments are equal. It would all depend on the intentions of their punishers.

Judge Purpose is a former corrections officer who has firsthand knowledge of prison life. He sentences offenders to prison when he wants them to be subjected to a wide variety of hardships. He intends not only that inmates be deprived of their liberties of motion but that they also have very limited opportunities to see family, have sex, express themselves, possess personal property, be entertained, vote for elected officials, and so forth. In short, Judge Purpose purposely inflicts many of the hardships associated with prison life.

Judge Foresight, by contrast, was a bankruptcy attorney before joining the judiciary. He has comparatively vague ideas about what life is like in prison. When he sentences offenders, his purpose is merely to limit inmates’ freedom of motion to the confines of a prison. He knows and cares little about the details of prison life: whether prisoners have shared cells, cable television, Internet access, conjugal visits, or opportunities to see friends and family. Either he does not think much about the hardships of prison life or he does think about them but, after careful reflection, decides that they are mere accoutrements of the burdens of prison that are not part of the punishment he intends to mete out. In short, Judge Foresight only foreseeably inflicts most of the hardships associated with prison.

Although we would ordinarily think that offenders like Purp and Fore are being punished equally, they are being punished quite unequally according to a literal understanding of the way many theorists understand the term “punishment.” Purp will receive many purposeful inflictions of harm in prison over a three-year period, whereas Fore will receive far fewer. If only purposeful inflictions count when assessing punishment severity, we are led to the surprising conclusion that Fore is dramatically underpunished relative to Purp.

If you find quantitative illustrations helpful, assume that under the conditions described, the following purposeful inflictions impose the corresponding number of units of punishment on offenders like Purp and Fore:

Since Purp and Fore are both purposely limited in their liberty of motion to staying on the prison grounds for three years, they will both receive the corresponding 50 units of punishment by the time their sentences end. If only purposeful inflictions count when assessing punishment severity, then Fore receives only those 50 units of punishment because that is the only aspect of his sentence imposed purposely. Purp, however, will be subject to the additional five purposeful inflictions listed. Hence, Purp will receive 100 units of punishment relative to Fore’s 50 units, even though they will both spend three years in prison under what will seem to most observers like identical conditions.

We can make the example even more absurd. Suppose that while they are incarcerated, the state appeals Fore’s sentence, arguing that it is far too lenient; his punishment is only half that of offenders like Purp. As the three-year term of their prison sentences nears its end, a higher court finally considers the appeal. In his defense, Fore points out that, intentionality aside, his treatment was identical to Purp’s. Moreover, Fore argues, if he must be resentenced, the court should simply redescribe the hardships he has already experienced as purposeful inflictions. Lastly, he argues, the severity difference between his sentence and one like Purp’s is so small that it can be treated as trivial.

On the day Fore is scheduled to be freed, the appellate court releases its decision. Accepting the view that punishment is a kind of purposeful infliction, the court sides with the prosecution. The court writes, “Fore’s punishment was far too lenient, having received only half the punishment of other similarly situated offenders. Moreover, we cannot simply recharacterize Fore’s punishment any more than we can recharacterize payment of a tax as payment of a fine or recharacterize years spent confined in a mental institution as years spent punished in prison.”

The court remands the case with detailed instructions about how Fore should be sentenced. According to this hypothetical appellate court, be- cause Fore’s prison sentence has ended, he has already been purposely restricted in his liberty of motion. Having satisfied that aspect of his sentence, he should be released as planned. Although he will now be free in some respects, however, the state will purposely inflict the hardships that Judge Foresight mistakenly treated as merely foreseen. Therefore, for the next three years, Fore will be subjected to “forced deprivation of family,” whereby he will not be permitted to see his family except infrequently and from behind a glass wall. He will be subjected to “forced poverty,” whereby he will be required to give up access to all of his personal property, except for the bare essentials like towels, linens, and a toothbrush. He will be subjected to “forced celibacy,” in which he will be forbidden to have sexual relations with any other person. He will be subjected to “forced deprivation of media,” in which he will be forbidden most access to television, computers, and books, except for the Bible and some others on a short preapproved list. And so on. As for the claim that the difference between Purp’s and Fore’s sentences is trivial, the court writes, “we believe that Fore will find the purposeful inflictions that await him over the coming years to be anything but trivial.”

Naturally, the appellate court’s decision strikes us as ridiculous. We think that the severity of Purp’s and Fore’s sentences are essentially the same despite the different intentions of their sentencing judges. Although being an intentional infliction may be a requirement for treating some conduct as punishment, when assessing punishment severity, we seem to count far more than just purposeful inflictions. If we treat only purposeful inflictions as punishment, the severity of prison sentences will depend more on the intentions of judges (or legislators or prison personnel or voters) than on prisoners’ actual conditions of confinement.

We pay substantial attention to the duration of prison sentences and very little attention to which aspects of incarceration are imposed purposely. If intentions were so important to establishing the appropriate treatment of offenders, we would expect judges (and legislators) to describe precisely what aspects of an incarcerative sentence are intentional. The fact that they do not and that we do not expect them to casts doubt on the idea that only intentional inflictions contribute to punishment severity.

C. Responses to Possible Objections

I now propose and respond to three objections that aim to show that punishment severity can be understood solely in terms of intentional inflictions.

1. Many-Intentions Objection

As I suggest above, one might argue that the mental states of Judges Purpose and Foresight should not control our understanding of the nature of the treatment of Purp and Fore. According to this objection, there are many actors involved in punishment other than just judges, and so I overstate the differences in Purp’s and Fore’s punishments by giving such a prominent role to the mental states of their sentencing judges.

Although it is true that judges’ mental states are not the only ones that are relevant, it seems hard to ignore them completely. Indeed, recent revisions to the Model Penal Code reflect the “underlying philosophy . . . that sentencing is, at its core, a judicial function.”22 In the case of Purp and Fore, the judges were granted substantial discretion by the legislature to sentence these offenders to a term of zero to five years to achieve a variety of permissible ends. The judges even had the discretion to provide no punishment at all, making them extremely important causal contributors to Purp’s and Fore’s treatment. It would be odd for judges to have so much control over Purp’s and Fore’s punishments and yet have their intentions be entirely irrelevant. If anyone’s intentions are relevant here, it seems that those of their sentencing judges must be. Some jurisdictions cabin judicial discretion to greater degrees, thereby giving legislators or sentencing com- missions greater control over offenders’ sentences. But no U.S. jurisdiction eliminates judicial discretion entirely.

We would have some difficult determinations to make if a judge considers some burden on offenders merely foreseen whereas prison administrators consider it intentional. But I state that Purp and Fore are alike in all relevant respects except for which judge issued their sentences. So we could assume that they were sentenced under the same legislation and overseen by the same prison personnel. In other words, I hold everything constant but the intentions of the relevant sentencers. So unless judicial intentions are entirely irrelevant, we are implausibly led to believe that there is a substantial difference between the severity of the punishment of Purp and Fore.

More importantly, as I warn before giving the example, we could preserve my point without relying at all on the intentions of particular judges. Imagine that Purp lives in a jurisdiction where legislators, judges, and prison personnel view incarceration the way Judge Purpose does and that Fore lives in a jurisdiction where everyone views incarceration as Judge Fore- sight does. Nevertheless, we will still think that Purp and Fore are punished equally when sentenced to equal terms at identical facilities, despite the differences in the operative intentions in their jurisdictions.

2. Objective- or Normative-Intentions Objection

A second potential objection says that we should think of the intentionality relevant for analyzing punishment as distinct from the totality of human intentions associated with it. For example, Alice Ristroph writes “[r]arely can a single coherent intent be attributed to the entire institutional apparatus that imposes punishment. The intentions of individual officials within the criminal justice system may be relevant to, but are not dispositive of, the question whether the system is imposing punishment.”23 If so, perhaps Purp and Fore were punished the same relative to some more objective notion of intention.

Although it is certainly true that the intent of any particular official may not be dispositive of whether the system is imposing punishment, it is hard to see how the intentions of all of those involved in the punishment process are not dispositive of whether the system is punishing, even if we are not sure how to aggregate the data. After all, if the intentions of all human beings are irrelevant, then scholars mischaracterize punishment by saying that it must be intentionally administered. On such a view, scholars are not actually discussing intentions at all.

One might argue that a full justification of punishment will tell us precisely which aspects of incarceration should be imposed purposely and which merely knowingly. According to this view, Purp and Fore happen to have very different punishments only because we have yet to work out in more detail which aspects of incarceration should be purposeful and which merely foreseen.

On the contrary, however, the example is not about the justness of Purp’s and Fore’s sentences; it is about their severity. Perhaps someone will develop a theory that tells us precisely which aspects of incarceration should be inflicted purposely and which merely knowingly. And perhaps some of the intentional inflictions in Purp’s case would be found unconstitutional. That will not change the fact that the hardships in Purp’s initial sentence were very much purposeful and those in Fore’s initial sentence were mostly just foreseen. Whether these hardships are just or unjust, legal or illegal, we think the severity of their original sentences was essentially the same. Thus we count at least certain foreseen inflictions as part of the severity of a punishment.

3. Public-Perception Objection

A third and final objection says that Purp and Fore received equal punishments (even though their judges intended different hardships) because we should judge the severity of their sentences based on public perceptions of their punishments. Because their sentences will look the same to the public, they are of equal severity.

We can, however, readily distinguish between the actual severity of a sentence and the public perception of its severity. If the public mistakenly believes that Purp is placed in solitary confinement whereas Fore remains in the general prison population, we would not consider Purp’s sentence more severe than Fore’s. Rather, we would say that the public was simply mistaken in its judgment of the severity of their sentences. Public perceptions of severity are simply irrelevant to measurements of actual severity.24 So we cannot avoid the conclusion: even though punishment theorists traditionally understand punishment as a kind of intentional infliction, our assessments of punishment severity also take into account many of the fore- seen consequences associated with incarceration.

III. Justifying Punishment

In Section I, I explain why our intuitions about the severity of punishment require us to examine both intentional and merely foreseen aspects of punishment. There is an even more powerful reason, however, for punishment theorists to examine unintentional aspects of punishment. Those who attempt to justify only the purposeful inflictions of punishment cannot possibly justify real-world punishment practices such as incarceration because they fail to justify all of the nonpurposeful inflictions that are necessarily associated with it.

To illustrate the obligation to justify side effects of punishment, suppose that a conjoined twin commits a crime on the Internet without the knowledge or support of his conjoined sibling. We could punish the perpetrator by imprisoning him for a period of time proportional to his blameworthiness, but doing so would, of course, have an unintended side effect. It would foreseeably lead to the unintentional harsh treatment of the innocent twin. Even though the innocent twin would not technically be punished in prison (his harsh treatment would not be intentionally imposed as punishment), we would still need some justification for knowingly harming him. Unlike the perpetrator’s confinement, however, the innocent twin’s confinement cannot be justified as proportional punishment because he did nothing wrong.

Real cases of punishing conjoined twins are rare.25 The issue raised by the conjoined-twin case, however, is not rare at all. In fact, real-world punishments virtually always have both intended consequences and those that are merely foreseen. For example, prisoners often have spouses, parents, children, friends, and other loved ones from whom they are physically separated during their sentences except for occasional visits often behind glass barriers. These loved ones are not themselves culpable, but they are unintentionally made to suffer by being separated from a beloved prisoner. They are conjoined to the prisoner not by body parts but by emotional attachments that can be just as strong. Justifications of punishment (when understood only as a kind of purposeful infliction) say nothing to justify the foreseen but unintended harms inflicted on family members.

Others have recognized that punishment has negative side effects on nonoffenders, such as the erroneously convicted, the family members of justly convicted inmates, and the taxpayers who finance the criminal justice system.26 What theorists have not adequately recognized is that real-world punishments involve both intentional and unintentional harms to even a single offender. Incarceration purposely causes the loss of an offender’s liberty of motion but also causes other suffering and deprivation, such as loss of privacy, sexual autonomy, rights to personal property, and rights to freedom of association and expression. Although some scholars may recognize the need to justify side effects that burden nonoffenders, they have largely ignored the side effects that burden offenders themselves.

In this section, I explain why these unintended hardships of incarceration still require justification. My criticism focuses on retributivist theories of punishment because they are more likely than consequentialist theories to identify a stark difference between purposeful and nonpurposeful inflictions. By focusing on the justification of purposeful punishment rather than the justification of both purposeful and nonpurposeful harsh treatment, retributivists have established a task for themselves that is comparatively too easy. They have carved off the vast majority of our punishment-related conduct from their justification of punishment, meaning they work to justify a set of behaviors that are only a small subset of our real-world punishment practices. After arguing that a justification of punishment restricted to in- tended harms is inadequate, I describe some minimal requirements that a good justification of punishment will satisfy.

A. The Justification-Symmetry Principle

When we incarcerate offenders, we confine them in small spaces and thereby limit their freedom to move about, associate with others, maintain their privacy, decide what to eat, and so on. Such harsh treatment is ordinarily forbidden outside the punishment context. To justify a punishment practice such as incarceration, we must show why involuntarily confining someone— behavior that would ordinarily be criminal, tortious, and immoral—is actually justified. We need to justify such harsh treatment because it would be wrong to cause distress or restrict people’s freedoms in these ways without good reason. Importantly, we seek a moral rather than a legal justification; incarceration is clearly a legally permitted sanction for a wide range of offenses.

Perhaps we should be able to morally justify all of our conduct that causes people harm, unless it was entirely without fault. So even in cases where we cause only minor harm (as when we gently tease), we could be called upon to justify our behavior (citing, for example, autonomy interests in being able to gently tease). Others may have less demanding views about the nature of moral justification, believing that we must justify only certain harms we cause.

What I call the justification-symmetry principle provides a (not necessarily exclusive) test of whether some punishment-related conduct requires justification. The principle says that if you or I must have a justification for risking or causing some harm, then so must any person who risks or causes the same kind of harm in the name of punishment. In other words, a complete justification of punishment will tell us why, by virtue of being just punishment, some ordinarily impermissible behavior is made permissible.

The principle derives from the very reason we seek to justify our punishment practices. A justification must tell us the moral distinction between a just punishment practice and similar-seeming criminal or immoral behavior.

When we can demand a moral justification from you or me for harming someone, then we can make a symmetrical demand of those who cause the same kind of harm in the name of just punishment.27 (For simplicity, I refer to those who purport to inflict just punishment as “state actors,” though it is debatable whether retributive punishment must be inflicted by the state.)28

To illustrate, consider forcible confinement. If you or I confine someone against his will, we clearly need a justification. Indeed, without a justification, doing so would be criminal. The justification-symmetry principle says that because forcible confinement would require a justification if you or I did it, then it also requires a justification when engaged in by state actors such as police and corrections officers. By contrast, because you and I do not ordinarily need a justification for making small talk with another person, the principle does not require police officers to justify the small talk they make with prisoners.2There is a second feature of the justification-symmetry principle: the justification for the conduct of the state actor must consist of more than just the fact that he is a state actor. In the world around us, we see police and others in the criminal justice system subjecting people to harsh treatment. We can reasonably wonder why police uniforms and other trappings of government authority turn what would ordinarily be an impermissible action into a permissible (and perhaps even laudatory) action. If we are simply told, “prison guards can use coercive force because they are state actors,” then we have not received an adequate justification of punishment. The justification must explain why the guard is acting permissibly.

The justification-symmetry principle helps us identify what a justification of punishment should do. It specifies part of the punishment justificandum, meaning “that which must be justified” by a theory of punishment. In summary, the principle says that we must justify the conduct of state actors at least in cases where we expect a justification of the same kind of conduct by nonstate actors. The justification must provide reasons the state is permitted to engage in actions that we ordinarily consider forbidden.30

Of course, just because some state action requires a justification does not mean that it cannot be justified. It merely means that a proposed justification of punishment must address the matter. To the extent that theorists ignore harms that must be justified, their theories are incomplete.

B. Incarceration Causes Nonpurposeful Harms

Some aspects of incarceration do involve purposeful inflictions. If a judge sentences an offender to four years in prison, it is presumably the judge’s purpose to restrict the offender’s liberty of movement for four years. But as suggested above, it may or may not be the judge’s purpose to limit the offender’s food choices, restrict his sexual freedoms, eliminate his right to vote, or make him miss his daughter’s first soccer game.

1. Foreseen Infliction of Harm

Foreseen inflictions of harm on offenders frequently require justification whether or not we call these inflictions “punishments.” Three examples follow. First, consider that most prisoners are prohibited from having sex with other people while incarcerated.31 They may not have sex with other inmates, prison personnel, or visiting spouses or lovers. The restriction is probably not intended to harm offenders. In fact, a stand-alone punishment of “forced celibacy” outside prison might be unconstitutional.32 But legislators, judges, and prison officials surely foresee harms to prisoners who lose their sexual autonomy. Many of these officials would permit sexual relationships if they could do so without danger or high administrative costs. For such officials, prison involves knowing but unintended restrictions on sexual autonomy.

Yet even if restrictions on prisoner sexual autonomy are unintended, they still require justification. If you or I were to knowingly restrain people from engaging in adult, consensual sexual relationships using force or the threat of force, we would generally be engaged in a crime, a tort, and an immoral action.

As a second example, suppose that a judge who formerly worked as a prison social worker firmly and quite accurately believes that a particular offender he is sentencing will experience severe depression for the first several months that he is incarcerated. When this judge passes sentence, he foresees that the offender will develop severe depression in prison, though it is not his purpose to cause the depression. In fact, if the judge had some miracle cure for depression, he would happily use it.

The foreseeable infliction of severe depression requires some justification. If an evil psychiatrist knowingly causes someone severe depression be- cause he is the only psychiatrist in town and wants to sell more counseling services, he needs a justification and probably does not have one. Because nonpunishers like you and me need a justification for knowingly causing severe depression, so do state actors under the justification-symmetry principle.

The fact that you or I would need to justify knowingly causing someone severe depression does not mean that we are never permitted to do it. A small business owner may knowingly cause an employee severe depression by terminating him because of his consistently subpar job performance. Terminating the employee requires a moral justification, though there may well be one. Perhaps the termination is necessary to save the business. Or perhaps it will maximize profits in a competitive capitalist marketplace. Whatever the asserted justification is for knowingly causing the harm of depression, we can expect a justification and then evaluate whether the asserted justification is successful. Similarly, punishers cannot simply ignore the severe emotional pain that they cause others without reasonably being asked to justify their behavior.

My third example concerns a judge who knowingly separates an offender from his family.33 Even when state actors only knowingly separate offenders from their families, they must still justify the separation. Suppose a bank manager requires her subordinate to work outside the country for a year. If the manager knows the employee will rarely if ever see his family while abroad but gives it no consideration, we can reasonably fault the manager for her thoughtlessness. She should have a justification for both the harm to the parent from the separation as well as the harm to his children and other loved ones. Perhaps the foreign transfer can be justified for other reasons, but we should doubt that the manager is acting in a justified manner when she fails to consider clearly important data.

Similarly, when a judge sentences an offender to a year in prison knowing that the offender will rarely if ever see his child during this period, the judge should have some justification for the harm to both the parent and the child caused by the separation. Of course, the judge not only makes it difficult for parent and child to see each other but plays a role in physically preventing their interaction. So the separation of parent and child in the prison context is especially in need of justification.

These three examples illustrate knowing inflictions of harm that you or I would have to justify and that the government must also justify under the justification-symmetry principle. You need not be convinced by any one of them, but unless you think that there simply are no knowing inflictions of harm on offenders that require justification, then you should agree that a justification of purposeful inflictions cannot fully justify a punishment practice like incarceration that includes numerous nonpurposeful hardships.

2. Foreseen Infliction of Risks

Although we sometimes foresee harms that are virtually certain to befall a prisoner, other times we merely foresee risks of harm. For example, a judge might reasonably foresee that a particular offender will face a higher risk of physical or sexual violence in prison than outside prison. If so, the state ought to have some justification for increasing the offender’s risk of harm.

To see why, consider the manager of a boarding home. He knows that the occupants have limited resources and will be unlikely to leave. One day, the manager has the opportunity to fill a room with a boarder who foreseeably presents a significantly heightened risk of physical or sexual violence to the other boarders. Perhaps the boarder has a history of being repeatedly incarcerated for physical and sexual assaults. Assuming the manager has the discretion to decide, should he accept the new boarder, even though he is consciously aware that doing so will raise the risk of violence to the other boarders? Maybe yes or maybe no. The point again is that he must have some justification for increasing the risk of physical and sexual violence to other people;34 and under the justification-symmetry principle, so must the state when it sentences an offender to a prison with a risk of violence higher than what the offender would face outside of prison.

3. Careless Infliction of Risks

Most people believe that we are morally accountable when we fail to foresee risks of harm that we should have foreseen. In fact, much of the tort system is devoted to failures to take adequate precautions, even when tortfeasors are unaware of the need to do so. Not everyone believes people should be deemed culpable for their negligence, at least in the criminal context.35 I take no stand on the issue, except to say that if you or I can be blameworthy for careless behavior, then so, too, can state actors.

So if a judge sentences an offender to prison when doing so is unjustified given the increased risk of physical harm the offender will face in prison, the judge may be deemed blameworthy for having done so if the judge should have been aware of the risk. Confining people against their will is a serious action. Those who do so should have a good sense of the harms they risk causing. When state actors are unaware of risks that they should have been aware of, they can be faulted for their negligence.

Moreover, because incarceration is a punishment that extends over time, many foreseen or foreseeable risks of incarceration (like the possibility that an offender will be exceptionally distressed by close quarters) will ripen into conditions where the state knows it is permitting more harm than originally anticipated. Just as you or I can develop duties to monitor the consequences of our ongoing activities, so too can the state.

On some views, a lack of justification is embedded into the very meaning of negligence (and recklessness).36 Clearly, one cannot justify behavior that, by definition, requires an absence of justification. Even so, the state still has an obligation to provide compensation or make other efforts to remedy its risk-causing behavior when you or I would have such obligations under similar circumstances.

4. Proximate Causation

Under the law, we sometimes limit people’s responsibility for the consequences of their actions to those that are deemed “proximate.” In assessing whether an actor is the proximate cause of some result, for example, the Model Penal Code asks whether the result “is not too remote or accidental in its occurrence to have a just bearing on the actor’s liability.”37 One might argue that the state should not be responsible for all harms that it purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently causes unless the result of the state’s action can be fairly attributed to the state.38

Though the causation of some bad result is frequently required for legal liability, there is much dispute about whether the causation of a bad result is relevant to moral assessment.39 So it is hardly clear that a moral justification of punishment should have any proximate-cause limitations at all. More importantly, however, the justification-symmetry principle requires us to treat proximate causation the same way for ordinary people as we do for those who purport to inflict just punishment. If an ordinary person must justify the bad experiences he knowingly inflicts when he confines someone, then so must a person who does so in the name of just punishment.

5. Justifying Behavior of All Involved

The justification-symmetry principle also tells us whose behavior must be justified. There are many actors in the criminal justice system, and many of them cause inmates harm of various sorts. They must each be able to justify their purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent inflictions of harm or risks of harm where you and I would have to do the same. A term of incarceration cannot be justified if the implementation of the sentence requires a state actor to act unjustly.

Judges are some of the most visible state actors in the state’s incarcerative machinery. Although jurisdictions vary considerably in terms of how much sentencing discretion they give to judges, every time a judge has any discretion to set sentence length and decides to sentence for more than the absolute minimum, the judge has contributed to the prisoner’s harm. The judge is responsible for any period of confinement above the legally required minimum and must have a justification for imposing any additional confinement, just as you or I would need a justification for forcibly confining someone for a day, an hour, or even a minute.40

Judges are not the only ones responsible for sentences, of course. Legislatures frequently set maximum and minimum terms for particular offenses and often create or approve of sentencing guidelines that substantially narrow judges’ sentencing discretion even further. Clearly, sentences are part of a complex web of decisions by judges, legislators, governors, prison employees, voters, and others. All of these actors potentially take steps that require justification.

6. The Substrate of Punishment

Theorists disagree about how to characterize the harms of punishment. Some speak of punishment as an intentional infliction of suffering,41 some speak of it as an intentional limitation of a person’s liberties,42 and some speak of punishment as capturing both sorts of actions.43

For purposes of the justification-symmetry principle, it makes no difference how people characterize their own behavior. They must still justify at least those inflictions of harm that would need to be justified if inflicted by you or me, no matter whether their purpose is to inflict harms in experiential terms or nonexperiential terms. So even if one uses the term punishment to refer to the causation of certain objectively-understood deprivations of liberty, any instance of punishment will almost certainly cause experiential harms that still require justification.

7. Time Period to Justify

Criminal law theorists have debated whether incarcerative punishment should be understood to end when an offender’s sentence ends or whether offenders are also punished by harsh treatment after incarceration, as when ex-convicts foreseeably have great difficulty getting a job. But even if postincarcerative harms are technically not inflicted as punishment, from the point of view of justification, we must still justify at least some of the postincarcerative harms that are knowingly, recklessly, or negligently caused.44 If you or I were to knowingly ruin someone’s career, devastate his family life, and deprive him of voting rights, even in the distant future, we would need a justification for doing so. Thus the state must have a justification for foreseeably harming prisoners even when the harms are expected to occur after their incarceration ends.

C. Responses to Possible Objections

I argue that a good justification of punishment will address all of the foregoing. Theories of punishment that address only intentional aspects of punishment are woefully incomplete. I now respond to two possible objections that aim to ease theorists’ justificatory burden.

1. Compensating Harms Objection

At least some of the harms that I identify, one might argue, can be remedied after the fact through compensation to prisoners. Provided one advocates some radical revisions to our current criminal justice system, compensation does indeed provide a method of justifying (or at least remedying) certain harms. But it is worth considering how much these revisions deviate from current law. Today, we compensate prisoners for their conditions of confinement only under very rare circumstances. To violate the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment when challenging prison conditions, inmates must prove that prison officials acted with “deliberate indifference” to substantial needs of prisoners such as their safety and their medical care.45 According to the U.S. Supreme Court:

[A] prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.46

So it appears that prison officials can deliberately impose risks that are not substantial or harms that are not serious. They are also free to act in ways that are indisputably negligent,47 so long as the acts do not rise to the level of deliberate indifference.

Clearly, there is a vast gap between the relatively rare situations in which the government can be held accountable as a matter of law for its treat- ment of offenders and the day-to-day situations in which government must justify its unintended harsh treatment of offenders as a matter of moral principle.

Even if we changed the law to require compensation for all reckless and negligent punishment-related conduct attributable to the state, the state would still be blameworthy for the foreseen harms of incarceration. And it is questionable whether harms we might characterize as merely foreseen (such as reducing offenders’ freedom to express themselves, have sex, and associate with friends and family) can be appropriately compensated with money. We do not generally think it justified to knowingly cause someone injury provided you are willing to pay the amount you will later owe him in tort compensation. But even if the compensation strategy could work, we would have to compensate every prisoner for the knowing inflictions that are part of imprisonment, and it is highly unlikely that retributivists would defend such widespread compensation.

2. Doctrine-of-Double-Effect Objection

According to the so-called “doctrine of double effect,” the good that a person intends to achieve can sometimes justify foreseen harms that go along with it.48 To take a familiar example, suppose an air force pilot intends to bomb an enemy target knowing that, as an unfortunate side effect, innocent civilians will be killed. Under the doctrine of double effect, the death of the innocent civilians might be justified by the positive aim of destroying a legitimate military target. So, retributivists might argue, many of the unintended harms of incarceration can be justified by the state’s legitimate retributive intentions.

The job of justifying the side-effect harms of incarceration, however, is hardly so easy. First, there is much dispute over how to formulate the doctrine of double effect and whether it is sound.49 Second, even if we agree that the causation of some negative side effects can be justified by some worthy aims, it is not at all clear that deserved punishment is sufficiently worthy to justify the negative side effects of incarceration. Surely any instance of punishment cannot justify any amount of side-effect harm. Recall the conjoined-twin case. It is doubtful that the purported positive effect of delivering deserved punishment to the offending twin justifies depriving the innocent twin of his liberty. This is especially true if one accepts Blackstone’s assertion that it is “better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”50

Influential versions of the doctrine of double effect always include some requirement that side-effect harms be not too large relative to the benefits a person intends.51 Thus there are limits on the magnitude of foreseen harm that can be justified by an intended positive aim. Consider again the air force pilot. If the pilot has an alternative target that is like the original target in all pertinent respects except that the alternative target will lead to fewer side-effect casualties, then the pilot is morally obligated to pursue the alternative. Even if there is no better alternative, if the expected number of civilian casualties gets high enough and the importance of the military target gets low enough, causing the side effect is no longer justified. So, even armed with the doctrine of double effect, retributivists must explain why the good aspects of delivering deserved punishment warrant the bad aspects of causing foreseen but unintended harms. And there is no way to do that without taking the magnitude of foreseen and foreseeable harms into account.

IV. Splitting Punishment

Retributivists may concede that they fail to justify the wide-ranging side effects of punishment that require justification. Nevertheless, they may argue, these side effects need not be justified by a theory of punishment. What justifies a punishment practice like incarceration, they could claim, is the joint action of a theory of punishment (which justifies purposeful inflictions) and some other moral or political theory that justifies nonpurposeful inflictions. I call this other theory a “shadow” theory because it follows along with a theory of punishment. In this section, I explain why a shadow strategy makes retributivism extraordinarily anemic and fails to avoid the measurement and calibration obligations.

A. Too Anemic to Justify Terms of Incarceration

Some retributivists argue that I overstate their justificatory obligation. According to Ken Simons, “[t]he state’s responsibility is simply to ensure that the punishment that it directly inflicts is proportionate to desert,” and Simons does not consider the foreseen bad experiences of prison to be directly inflicted by the state.52 Dan Markel and Chad Flanders emphasize, in particular, that the state need not consider the harmful effects of imprisonment after offenders are released: “As for what people might contingently and speculatively suffer after the state has appropriately punished them, retributive justice has very little to say. . . . Those harms are simply not state punishment and thus are not part of what retributive justice theories have to justify.”53

These theorists could be read to deny the measurement obligation entirely. They may, however, be making the more modest claim that while the side effects of incarceration need to be justified, they need not be justified as punishment. For example, David Gray claims that “no theory of criminal punishment is obliged to justify . . . the unintended suffering that may incidentally result from punishment.”54 Nevertheless, he seems to adopt a shadow strategy, noting that “incidental suffering secondary to objectively justified punishment may raise independent moral, constitutional, legal, or institutional questions; incidental suffering may even rise to the level that amelioration or adaptation of penal technology is required.”55

The shadow strategy leads to a surprisingly anemic version of retributivism. By claiming that a theory of punishment need justify only certain purposeful inflictions, this strategy implicitly concedes that retributivism cannot, on its own, justify punishment practices like incarceration, because the incarceration of any particular offender will inevitably have foreseen and foreseeable side effects. In an effort to avoid the measurement obligation, retributivism severs its ties to real-world methods of punishment.

By contrast, most theorists seem to have more ambitious views of the power of retributive justification. Although some retributivists acknowledge that a broader political theory is required to justify setting up institutions to deliver retributive justice,56 retributivists typically speak as though they are capable, at least in principle, of setting appropriate sentence lengths. Doug Husak, for example, suggests that the retributive tradition is generally thought to tell us how much we can punish individual offenders:

Following the lead of H.L.A Hart, the dominant tendency has been to consign the relevance of consequences to the general justifying aim of the institution of punishment. Consequentialist considerations are thought to play no further role once questions of distribution are raised, to answer the questions of who should be punished and to what extent. These latter issues are regarded as more properly resolved within the retributive tradition, to which consequences are foreign.57

Gray himself states that the “core challenge to any theory of criminal law” is “to justify punishment generally and to rationalize the punishments inflicted in particular cases more specifically.”58 Though Husak and Gray refer to justifying the “punishment” in particular cases, they seem to imply that retributivism is expected, at least in principle, to provide for and justify the incarcerative sentences of particular individuals.59

We sensibly expect a theory of punishment to justify terms of incarceration. It is hard to see why we would be interested in a purported justification of punishment that is fundamentally incapable of justifying the incarceration of particular individuals. Consider again the difficult ethical issues raised when an air force pilot is tasked with destroying a legitimate military target but knows that doing so will have the unfortunate side effect of killing several civilians. Suppose a theorist purports to have solved the problem as follows: the pilot can justifiably attack the target because his purpose in acting is legitimate. “But what about the civilians killed as a foreseen side effect?” we ask. Surely the theorist cannot adequately respond by claiming that some other moral theory must justify the side-effect harms. Such a response re- veals that the theorist has offered no solution at all. We clearly cannot send pilots on a combat mission without knowing how to evaluate the side-effect harms we expect them to cause. Similarly, we cannot incarcerate offenders without knowing what justifies the side-effect harms we expect incarceration to cause.

Moreover, as I explain in more detail, the shadow strategy leaves retributivism unable to measure punishment properly. If only purposeful inflictions constitute punishment, then we are led to believe, contrary to our intuitions, that Purp and Fore receive very different amounts of punishment even though they are alike in all respects except for the intentionality of their treatment. The traditional notion of punishment proportionality at the heart of retributivism is rendered obscure when assessments of amount of punishment differ so dramatically from our own.

B. Shadow Theory Based on Desert

Retributivists would be wise, then, to present a particular shadow theory that justifies the side effects of punishment. But the task of finding a satisfactory theory may be more difficult than they realize.

They could try to justify the side-effect harms of punishment based on the value of giving offenders what they deserve. As a preliminary matter, this approach makes the effort to avoid the measurement obligation very superficial. Under this approach, both the intentional and unintentional aspects of punishment are justified by the value of giving offenders what they deserve, but only the intentional hardships are considered part of a theory of punishment. If the unintentional hardships are also justified on the basis of criminal desert, it seems more straightforward to describe the entire apparatus as part of a justification of punishment.

There are two more substantive problems with using a shadow theory based on desert. First, these conjoined theories still have to measure unintentional hardships of prison and take them into account at sentencing for the reasons I give in the discussion of the doctrine of double effect. Namely, we cannot be confident that the allegedly valuable act of purposely giving an offender what he deserves justifies the bad side effects unless we know something about the magnitude of the side-effect harms. There must be some proportionality between the severity of unintended hardships we impose and the offender’s desert. Otherwise we could knowingly inflict tremendous side-effect harms with abandon.60 So, at sentencing, we must make sure not only that the intentional harms of punishment are appropriate but also that the unintentional harms are appropriate as well. Merely ensuring that conditions of confinement are not cruel and unusual is insufficient; the conditions must be justified by the value of giving offenders what they deserve.

Second, if criminal desert justifies both the intended and unintended aspects of punishment, it is not clear why offenders repay their desert debt only when they receive intentional hardships. The conventional view seems to be that an offender deserves punishment and that as he receives his punishment, he subsequently deserves less of it. Similarly, it seems, if the unintentional harms of punishment are justified by an offender’s desert, the offender should deserve less of them as his sentence proceeds. If offenders repay their desert debt with both purposeful and nonpurposeful inflictions, then accurate sentencing would require us to calibrate sentences in a manner that considers both kinds of inflictions. Rather than having to measure side-effect harms just to make sure they are justified by punishers’ primary intentions, they have to go further and actually adjust sentence length (or other aspects of confinement) in order to punish proportionally.

The strongest argument for a calibration obligation returns us to the Purp and Fore example. Purp and Fore did not receive proportional punishments when we considered only the intentional aspects of their incarceration. They received proportional punishments only when punishment severity included both their intended and foreseen harms. Both purposeful and nonpurposeful inflictions can contribute to our assessments of punishment severity. So ignoring nonpurposeful inflictions risks increasing punishment severity beyond what is deserved.

In the air force pilot scenario, we recognize that we must sometimes give up our first-choice intended military target when foreseen harms to civilians are too high. The side effects are sufficiently weighty that we must sometimes settle on less ambitious goals. Similarly, when a sensitive prisoner complains that he suffers much more in prison than the average offender, retributivists have an obligation to reduce the amount of intended hardship he is forced to undergo.

Failing to adjust the sentences of those who suffer harms greater than those expected at sentencing means knowingly harming them in a manner that is insensitive to their desert. It should call out to retributivists for reparation. Moreover, the pilot scenario concerns intended harms to one entity and foreseen harms to another. Punishment, by contrast, requires intentional and foreseen harms to the very same people. Claims that we cannot offset intentional harms by foreseen harms in the punishment context seem particularly suspect.

C. Shadow Theory Based on Consequentialism

Alternatively, retributivists could endorse a consequentialist shadow theory. But then they would be subject to the demanding obligations faced by consequentialists. Consequentialists must measure the side-effect harms of punishment-related action to make sure that they are outweighed by the expected good consequences of the action, such as crime prevention and rehabilitation.61 They must also calibrate punishments to optimally deter potential offenders who will vary in how aversive they anticipate prison life to be, and both purposeful and nonpurposeful aspects of incarceration are aversive.62 Consequentialists are no less obligated to consider the unintentional aspects of punishment than retributivists, though consequentialists are less likely to recognize a stark difference between the purposeful and nonpurposeful aspects of punishment in the first place.

A consequentialist shadow theory may appeal to those already sympathetic to hybrid or mixed theories of punishment, but it sounds the death knell for traditional notions of retributive proportionality. Based on an offender’s blameworthiness, retributivism may dictate a punishment (meaning the intentional infliction of a hardship) for a particular period of time. But there is no reason to think that a consequentialist shadow theory will justify foreseen hardships for the same duration.

To illustrate, assume that retributivists can justify one year in which an offender is purposely restricted in his freedom of motion to the confines of the prison. A shadow theory must still explain why we are justified in imposing foreseen restrictions, like his reduced freedoms to express himself, see family, and have sex, for one year. Why would the foreseen restrictions justified by consequentialism have the same duration as the purposeful restrictions justified by retributivism?

While retributivism may justify one year of purposeful inflictions, it would be a cosmic coincidence if consequentialist principles happen to settle on the same duration. Some offenders may deserve to be punished for a long time, but for various reasons, such as quadriplegia, pose little risk of future danger such that there are only weak consequentialist grounds for confining them. So even if retributivists can offer a good justification for the inflictions they purposefully impose, they cannot punish in proportion to desert if they must justify the duration of foreseen inflictions using a consequentialist shadow theory.

True, some foreseen hardships associated with incarceration do not have the same duration as the intended liberty restrictions associated with prison sentences. For example, supervised release restrictions and various restrictions on rights to vote and possess firearms frequently continue after an inmate is released from incarceration. Nevertheless, retributivists must ex- plain why so many foreseen hardships of prison have a duration that just happens to coincide with the duration of retributively determined purpose- ful hardships.

Some retributivists believe that sentences should be no longer than what is permitted by traditional retributivist principles of proportionality. Such retributivists can adopt a policy that advocates sentencing offenders to the shortest term that is justified by both retributivist and consequentialist principles. But as shown here, doing so does not square with pure retributive notions of proportionality and does not avoid obligations to measure and calibrate punishment. Thus, I am arguing, whether you adopt a shadow theory rooted in desert or in consequentialism, you cannot avoid the obligation to sentence in a manner that takes account of the many unintended hardships associated with prison, including the varied ways in which prisoners experience confinement.

V. Conclusion

Under the justification-symmetry principle, we must justify the purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent inflictions of harm by those who purport to inflict just punishment when we would expect a justification if a layperson inflicted the same kind of harm.

As noted in the introduction, the harms of incarceration vary considerably by facility. A five-year term in a supermax prison is more harmful than a five-year term in San Antonio prison. Such differences in harm are easily foreseen and should be taken into account at sentencing.63 Even under identical conditions, prisoners will have very different subjective experiences. When we know about prisoners’ sensitivities to punishment, we should try to take them into account at sentencing.

Retributivists cannot avoid considering prisoner sensitivities by focusing only on the intentional aspects of punishment. Merely justifying the purposeful aspects of incarceration will never justify the practice of incarceration as a whole. Vague references to a shadow theory meant to justify unintended punishment-related inflictions cannot be accepted uncritically. While punishment theorists have long noted that punishment must be intentional, punishment severity consists of both intentional and unintentional hardships, and it is ultimately the severity of punishments that we strive to justify.

Footnotes

Simon Romero, Where Prisoners Can Do Anything, Except Leave, N.Y. TIMES, June 3, 2011, at A1.

Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 214 (2005).

Id.

For my earlier work on this topic, see Adam J. Kolber, The Subjective Experience of Punishment, 109 COLUM. L. REV. 182 (2009); Adam J. Kolber, The Comparative Nature of Punishment, 89 B.U. L. REV. 1565 (2009); Adam J. Kolber, The Experiential Future of the Law, 60 EMORY L.J. 585 (2011). For further background, see JEREMY BENTHAM, THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION 182 (Prometheus Books, 1988) (1789); NIGEL WALKER, WHY PUNISH? (1991), at 99–105; JESPER RYBERG, THE ETHICS OF PROPORTIONATE PUNISHMENT (2004), at 102–109; NORVAL MORRIS & MICHAEL TONRY, BETWEEN PRISON AND PROBATION: INTERMEDIATE PUNISHMENTS IN A RATIONAL SENTENCING SYSTEM (1990), at 93–108; and Andrew Ashworth & Elaine Player, Sentencing, Equal Treatment, and the Impact of Sanctions, in FUNDAMENTALS OF SENTENCING THEORY 251–261 (Andrew Ashworth & Martin Wasik eds., 1998).

See Kolber, Subjective Experience, supra note 4, at 196–219; see also Kolber, Comparative Nature, supra note 4, at 1566–1585, 1602–1603.

See Section IV, infra.

R.A. DUFF, PUNISHMENT, COMMUNICATION, AND COMMUNITY (2001), at xiii–xiv.

See WALKER, supra note 4, at 106–110; Mitchell N. Berman, Punishment and Justification, 118 ETHICS 258, 266 (2008); Michael T. Cahill, Retributive Justice in the Real World, 85 WASH. U. L. REV. 815, 820 (2007) (recognizing that retributivism generally fails to tell us how to manage a criminal justice system with limited resources); cf. Douglas Husak, Why Punish the Deserving?, 26 NOUS 447, 450 (1992) (“[I]t is inevitable that the practice of punishment will suffer from (at least) each of the following three deficiencies: It will be tremendously expensive, subject to grave error, and susceptible to enormous abuse.”); Douglas Husak, Holistic Retributivism, 88 CAL. L. REV. 991, 996 (2000).

See, e.g., Richard W. Burgh, Do the Guilty Deserve Punishment?, 79 J. PHIL. 193 (1982) (stating that punishment “involves the deliberate and intentional infliction of suffering” and that “[i]t is in virtue of this that the institution [of punishment] requires justification in a way that many other political institutions do not.”); Steven Sverdlik, Punishment, 7 LAW & PHIL. 179, 190 (1988) (stating that a necessary condition of punishment is that a punisher represents a punishee’s suffering as purposely inflicted).

H.L.A. HART, PUNISHMENT AND RESPONSIBILITY (1968), at 4–5.

Id. at 2 n.3 (endorsing the view of Stanley Benn). Of course, there are additional requirements. On Anthony Duff’s view, for example, “punishment is, typically, something intended to be burdensome or painful, imposed on a (supposed) offender for a (supposed) offense by someone with (supposedly) the authority to do so; and that punishment, as distinct from other kinds of penalty, is typically intended to express or communicate censure.” DUFF, supra note 6, at xiv–xv.

Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997).

Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 104 (1997); United States v. Ursery, 518 U.S. 267 (1996).

See, e.g., Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 361 (“We must initially ascertain whether the legislature meant the statute to establish ‘civil’ proceedings. If so, we ordinarily defer to the legislature’s stated intent.”).

Duckworth v. Franzen, 780 F.2d 645, 652 (7th Cir. 1985).

In discussing the obligations of the state not to punish the innocent, for example, Michael Moore notes that “[a]gent-relative moral norms bind us absolutely only with respect to evils we either intend or (on some versions) knowingly visit on specified individuals.” MICHAEL MOORE, PLACING BLAME 158 (1997).

DAVID BOONIN, THE PROBLEM OF PUNISHMENT (2008), at 13–14 n.14; see also id. (citing many instances in which theorists describe punishment as involving intentional conduct).

Id. at 13.

See David Enoch, Intending, Foreseeing, and the State, 13 LEGAL THEORY 69, 70–84 (2007).

MODEL PENAL CODE § 210.2 (stating that “criminal homicide constitutes murder when . . . it is committed purposely or knowingly”).

See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2) (stating that when federal judges impose sentences, they should consider a variety of punishment rationales including crime prevention, rehabilitation, imposing just punishment, and promoting respect for the law).

MODEL PENAL CODE, § 6A.02 cmt. b, at 63 (Tentative Draft No. 1, 2007).

Alice Ristroph, State Intentions and the Law of Punishment, 98 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 1353, 1399 (2008).

For example, elsewhere I discuss the made-up punishment of “truncation,” in which a sharp blade swings horizontally at precisely six feet above the ground. Those less than six feet tall who are truncated merely feel the passing breeze of the blade. Those about six feet tall receive very inexact haircuts. Those much above six feet tall are decapitated. See Kolber, Subjective Experience, supra note 4, at 188. Clearly, those sentenced to truncation receive very different punishments. Their punishments are different whether or not the public happens to recognize the difference.

See Daniel Engber, If a Siamese Twin Commits Murder, Does His Brother Get Punished Too?, SLATE, Jan. 5, 2010, http://www.slate.com/id/2240595. One option is to incarcerate the pair but compensate the innocent twin, just as we would pay a prison guard. But if the innocent twin is confined for a very long time, he may not have good opportunities to spend money, and it is not obvious how we would determine an appropriate level of compensation.

See supra note 8.

When a corrections officer locks up a prisoner, he is causing the “same kind of harm” as the kidnapper who forcibly confines his victim, in the sense that the corrections officer is (depending on your preferred formulation) restricting the prisoner’s liberty of motion, causing him distress, and so on. The harms to the prisoner and the kidnapping victim are by no means identical in quality or quantity but they both suffer significant harms associated with forced confinement. Although there may be difficult cases where we must determine whether some harms are pertinently similar, my argument does not depend on the resolution of close cases.

28. Even if retributivism justifies the infliction of suffering, some further bit of justification is required to show that the suffering should be imposed by the state. See Douglas N. Husak, Retribution in Criminal Theory, 37 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 959, 972 (2000).

Notice that state actors can have special obligations that you and I do not have. For example, it may sometimes be inappropriate for a detective to ask a suspect questions without his attorney present where it would be unremarkable if you or I did so. If called upon to provide a symmetric justification for our speaking to a suspect when it would be unjustified for a detective to do the same, we would likely identify harms associated with the detective’s question that are not present when you or I ask the question.

One might argue that no justification is required when the state uses coercive force against an offender, because the offender does not have a right to be free of state coercive force when the state seeks to punish. Such a response simply assumes what a detailed justification of punishment must demonstrate.

Federal prisoners in the United States are not permitted conjugal visits. Federal Bureau of Prisons, Conjugal Visits: General Information, http://www.bop.gov/inmate_locator/conjugal.jsp. A handful of states permit conjugal visits for certain prisoners. Karen Moulding & National Lawyers Guild, 2 SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND THE LAW §14:26 (2010).

Cf. Skinner v. Okla. ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942) (holding unconstitutional a state statute that required an offender to have a vasectomy).

See generally DAN MARKEL, JENNIFER M. COLLINS & ETHAN L. LEIB, PRIVILEGE OR PUNISH: CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND THE CHALLENGE OF FAMILY TIES (2009), at 12–19 (describing how sentencing rules in the United States consider family status in only limited contexts).

Cf. Vasquez v. Residential Invs., 12 Cal. Rptr. 3d 846, 860 (Ct. App. 2004) (allowing wrongful death suit to proceed where landlord failed to make premises sufficiently safe against violent intruders).

See LARRY ALEXANDER & KIMBERLY KESSLER FERZAN, CRIME AND CULPABILITY (2009), at 69–85.

See, e.g., MODEL PENAL CODE §§2.02(c)–(d) (using the phrase “substantial and unjustifiable risk” to define the sort of risk of which a reckless actor is aware and a negligent actor should have been aware).

MODEL PENAL CODE §§2.03(2)(b) & (3)(b). The MPC makes use of the word “just” in the quoted text optional.

Compare Dan Markel & Chad Flanders, Bentham on Stilts: The Bare Relevance of Subjectivity to Retributive Justice, 98 CAL. L. REV. 907, 963–964 (2010), with John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco & Jonathan S. Masur, Retribution and the Experience of Punishment, 98 CAL. L. REV. 1463, 1483–1484 (2010).

See generally MORAL LUCK (Daniel Statman ed., 1993).

Even when judges issue the shortest legally required prison sentence, some may deem the very act of sentencing—as opposed to recusing or resigning—an endorsement of the state’s harmful conduct.

See, e.g., K.G. Armstrong, The Retributivist Hits Back, 70 MIND 471, 478 (1961) (stating that for retributivists, “[p]unishment is the infliction of pain.”); NILS CHRISTIE, LIMITS TO PAIN 5 (1981) (“[I]mposing punishment within the institution of law means the inflicting of pain, intended as pain.”).

See, e.g., John Rawls, Two Concepts of Rules, 64 PHIL. REV. 3, 10 (1955) (“[A] person is said to suffer punishment whenever he is legally deprived of some of the normal rights of a citizen.”); Robert P. George, Moralistic Liberalism and Legal Moralism, 88 MICH. L. REV. 1415, 1426 (1990) (“[A] criminal may justly be deprived of liberty commensurate with the liberty he wrongfully seized in breaking the law.”); Kenneth W. Simons, On Equality, Bias Crimes, and Just Deserts, 91 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 237, 243 (2000) (“When the state imposes criminal sanctions, it deprives the offender of property or liberty, and it accompanies that deprivation with a solemn moral condemnation.”).

See, e.g., Husak, supra note 28, at 972 (“[R]etributive beliefs only require that culpable wrongdoers be given their just deserts by being made to suffer (or to receive a hardship or deprivation).”).

See Bronsteen, Buccafusco & Masur, supra note 38, at 1482–1496 (defending a similar claim in more detail).

Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 302–303 (1991).

Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994).

See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 105–106 (1976); Farmer, 511 U.S. at 835.

“It is licit to posit a cause which is either good or indifferent from which there follows a twofold effect, one good, the other evil, if a proportionately grave reason is present, and if the end of the agent is honorable—that is, if he does not intend the evil effect.” Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect, 90 ETHICS 527, 528 (1980) (translating J.P. Gury’s influential description of the doctrine).

For arguments on both sides of the debate, see THE DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT: PHILOSOPHERS DEBATE A CONTROVERSIAL MORAL PRINCIPLE (P.A. Woodward ed., 2001). The Catholic moralists who developed the doctrine did not make clear whether it was meant to justify an action or merely reduce its culpability. Boyle, supra note 48, at 529. If the doctrine merely provides a full or partial excuse for causing side-effect harms, it is especially doubtful that it can play a role in a justification of our punishment practices.

4 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND ∗352 (1765).

See, e.g., Boyle, supra note 48 (describing the need for “proportionately grave reason” for causing the side-effect harm).

Kenneth W. Simons, Retributivists Need Not and Should Not Endorse the Subjectivist Account of Punishment, 109 COLUM. L. REV. SIDEBAR 1 (2009), at 4, http://www.columbialawreview.org/Sidebar/volume/109/1_Simons.pdf (emphasis added).

Markel & Flanders, supra note 38, at 968. Mitch Berman has stated that “[r]etributivists take themselves to be offering a tailored justification for punishment—tailored to the demand basis that punishment inflicts suffering.” Berman, supra note 8, at 272. He does not make clear, however, whether retributivists take themselves to be justifying both intended and unintended inflictions of suffering.

David Gray, Punishment as Suffering, 63 VAND. L. REV. 1619, 1653 (2010).

Id. at 1630 n.46.

MOORE, supra note 16, at 149–152.

Husak, Why Punish the Deserving ?, supra note 8, at 452–453.

Gray, supra note 54, at 1640.

J.D. Mabbott wrote, “I do not think the considerations which fix [a criminal] penalty (within the maximum) are utilitarian. They concern not the effect on the criminal or others (in the future) but the degree of guilt (in the past) or the degree of responsibility (also in the past).” J.D. Mabbott, Professor Flew on Punishment, 30 PHILOSOPHY 256, 260 (1955). Implicitly, then, Mabbott believed that an offender’s degree of guilt or responsibility can fix a criminal penalty.

Cf. Kolber, Subjective Experience, note 4, at 197–198 (describing the Sadistic Warden hypothetical).

Id. at 216–219

Id.

Our current sentencing policies make it very difficult for judges to take prisoner facility assignments into account at sentencing. Judges are permitted to recommend that an offender serve time at a particular prison facility, but facility assignments are ultimately determined by prison bureaucrats. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §3621(b) (2000) (“The Bureau of Prisons shall designate the place of the prisoner’s imprisonment.”).

[sumassuisse]

Leading the Way in Sustainable Fashion

Clothes are an everyday necessity and for many a central part of self-expression and creativity. Fashion, however, is a dirty business. The current fast-paced production of clothes is incredibly resource intensive, wasteful, exploitative and pollution-heavy.

According to the United Nations “the fashion industry, including the production of all clothes which people wear, contributes to around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy intensive production. The industry consumes more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined.”

Besides the emissions associated with today’s fashion industry, every item of clothing comes with a cost - both environmental and social.

According to the documentary film River Blue, one fashion brand will use over 28 trillion gallons of water every year. In addition to the actual use of precious drinking water, clothing manufacturers are dumping toxic chemicals into nearby rivers which are killing off animal life, contaminating water and sky-rocketing occurrences of death and disease in affected people.

People are also affected in the way of workers exploitation. Garment workers are forced with unsafe working conditions and being paid far below a living wage.

But there is hope. The Fashion Transparency Index reports that there’s been a “280% rise in tier-one supplier transparency from fashion brands since 2016.”

We are seeing greater pressure and demand to transform the fashion industry to be ethical and sustainable whilst incredibly innovative and exciting transformations are already afoot.

Here are just five examples of trailblazers in the sustainable fashion space.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation - Promoting a shift to circular economy

In 2010, Dame Ellen McArtur launched the foundation to promote a paradigm shift towards a circular economy, particularly in the fashion industry. The circular economy looks at moving away from the current linear model of our economy which is to take-make-dispose. Circular economy transcends our current extractive industrial model by “gradually decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, and designing waste out of the system.”

Circular economy is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy sources and building rather than depleting natural and social capital. It is based on three principles:

Design out waste and pollution

Keep products and materials in use

Regenerate natural systems

Fashion Revolution - Ending exploitation and ecological damage caused by fashion

Fashion Revolution is a group of “designers, academics, writers, business leaders, policymakers, brands, retailers, marketers, producers, makers, workers and fashion lovers” who aim to “unite people and organisations to work together towards radically changing the way our clothes are sourced, produced and consumed, so that our clothing is made in a safe, clean and fair way.”

Fashion revolution hosts a number of online and offline events all over the world, including the annual Fashion Revolution Week which put pressure on brands to reveal #whomademyclothes.

The organisation has released a manifesto with ten principles to which the fashion industry should uphold itself and are engaging with top fashion brands through their transparency index.

Patagonia - Subscribing to activism as a modern clothing brand

 As far as large clothing brands leading the way on sustainable fashion practices go, Patagoina comes out top. Patagonia proudly markets themselves as an “activist company” and attempts to transparently prove why they deserve that name. Patagonia actively practices responsible resource management whilst promoting longer-use and better care of their products in order to reduce consumerist impact.

 The company transparently communicates their journey to improve their supply chain and reduce their carbon footprint whilst even taking part in direct action and activism. Their central focus is on the lives of their workers. Considering the current environmental crisis we face currently, we need more companies to take an active stand like Patagonia has.

Kye Shimizu - Using technology and tradition to decrease fashion waste

 According to Sustainable living platform Twyg Mag, “Kye Shimizu is not a fashion designer, but his Algorithmic Couture project has created a new convention for fashion,” using code to eliminate waste and make fashion sustainable.”

 Kye is the co-founder of Synflux, a Tokyo-based research collective that focuses on design research and fashion design. Together with is co-founders Yusuke Fujihira, Kotaro Sano, and Kazuya Kawasaki, they developed a system which has taken the concept of traditional Japanese straight-line pattern cutting and combined it with technology,

 The Algorithmic Couture project:

●     captures body measurements and data of a customer,

●     then creates a 2D zero waste digital patterns using straight lines;

●     outfits are designed using these straight line patterns in collaboration with a designer;

●     the customer is able to customize color and fabric type;

●     outfit is made to fit the consumer whilst avoiding fabric waste.

Forum for the Future - Open source information for the future of fashion

 In partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion and with support from C&A Foundation, Forum for the Future has launched Fashion Futures 2030, “an open-source learning toolkit to help fashion businesses plan for future scenarios with sustainability in mind.”

 The toolkit uses four vivid scenarios which explore topics such as:

-          climate change

-          resource shortages

-          population growth

-          And other factors that will shape the world of 2030 and the future of the fashion industry.

The next 10 years are going to be some of the most important in the entire human history. All individuals, governments and industry will have to make widespread unprecedented changes if we are to avoid climate catastrophe and further devastating biodiversity loss. Embracing sustainable and ethical fashion practices is one of the most important ways of doing this.

Do you want to make a difference to the fashion industry?

Sumas offers a range of sustainable fashion courses and degrees:

●       BBA in Sustainable Fashion

●       MBA in Sustainable Fashion

●       Master in Sustainable Fashion

●       Online MAM in Sustainable Fashion

●       Online MBA in Sustainable Fashion

Contact us on info@sumas.ch to find out more.

[catherinerabus]

Climate Change: Can We Change It?

Throughout this blog, I have discussed in depth a variety of environmental problems which have been caused exclusively by human activity. In this final post, I am going to discuss the overarching issue of climate change and ozone depletion. Out of all the global issues which we are currently facing, climate change is certainly the most serious. War, political conflict and economic troubles all shrink in comparison to the havoc which has already and will be caused by climate change. We must prioritize this worldwide problem and realize that even though this is a long term and gradually forming problem, it should be taken seriously. Probably the biggest obstacle to combating climate change is making people aware of how dire an issue it really is. It is truly what Al Gore calls a “planetary emergency”; it is already impacting many areas of the world, but with time and without rectification, climate change can irreversibly transform the entire globe for worse. Scientists agree that climate change is a serious threat to our environment and have found that the Earth is warming faster than any time in its history.

        Although scientists agree on the reality of climate change, a large percentage of ordinary people do not understand or have never even learned the science behind climate change. Additionally, as I have covered in past blog posts, there is currently a culture of climate change denial promulgated by politicians and businesses that are more concerned with making a profit than maintaining our planet’s health. These anti-environmentalists spread falsities which confuse the masses of what climate change really is and how serious a problem it is. One common misconception which has been transmitted is that weather and climate are synonymous. There is a big difference between these two and knowing this difference is important in understanding the science behind climate change. Weather is local and temporary. This is why although the Earth is warming, New York can still experience snow storms. Climate is understood to be the typical weather conditions in a large region over a long span of time: 30 years or more. Scientists have found thatthe Earth’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century. This change in global temperature has been driven largely by increased amounts of carbon dioxide and other human-made gas emissions in the atmosphere. Once the general population grasps this concepts of climate change and the greenhouse effect and, as a result, recognizes the legitimacy of how these are impacting Earth, then we can work together to halt and, with effort, eventually reverse its negative effects. I believe that scientists should work to educate the masses on this global crisis, so that we can unite in fighting this ever-growing and worsening issue.

“This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record.)” (NASA)

        Grasping the concept of the Greenhouse Effect is essential for an understanding of what climate change is. Thankfully, it is not a very hard concept to understand despite a large amount of confusion surrounding the issue. Basically, the atmosphere forms a sort of “greenhouse” around Earth, keeping it warm. Certain types of gases called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere naturally trap heat from the Sun and, much like a greenhouse, keep the Earth warm. Without the atmosphere and this process, Earth would be much cooler and not able to sustain life. However, humans have been emitting increasingly higher amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution when we first began burning fossil fuels in large quantities.

The chart above is a simple pictorial representation of the exchanges of energy between the Sun (our main source of energy), Earth's surface, the Earth's atmosphere and the ultimate sink of outer space. As you can see, some of the radiation from the Sun is reflected and dispelled into space. Some of the infrared radiation is absorbed and re-distributed in all directions by greenhouse gases. However, most of the heat passes to the lower atmosphere or absorbed by the Earth’s surface. This warms the Earth’s surface. The capability of the atmosphere to take and recycle energy radiated by Earth's surface is the main concept of the greenhouse effect.

        Once we understand the science behind it, the question arises, how can we reduce the greenhouse effect? One answer to this is plants. All plants go through the process of photosynthesis; they take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. This helps to balance the amount of greenhouse gases and reduce the Earth’s currently increasing temperatures. I have previously discussed the problem of deforestation. This issue not only destroys ecosystems, but also adds to the problem of climate change. We have altering Earth’s natural systems through our negative intervention in nature. Rather than ripping up trees which play a key role in maintaining our Earth’s climate, we should focus on planting more trees. They will naturally mitigate the greenhouse effect. We also must reduce our carbon footprint as individuals and advocate for more renewable energy sources.

        The ocean also absorbs a large amount of the excess carbon dioxide in the air; about a quarter of human-produced carbon dioxide emissions get absorbed into the ocean. However, an unnatural amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean changes the water, causing ocean acidification. More acidic oceans water hurts marine life. It has also been found that oceans absorb a large amount of excess heat, with the top 2,300 feet of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Warming waters caused from too many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere also can be harmful to sea creatures. Warming oceans is the main cause of coral bleaching, a serious problem which is ruining some of the most biologically diverse marine ecosystems.

        Ozone depletion is another issue related to the Earth’s atmosphere which is creating environmental problems. Depletion of the ozone relates to the gradual thinning out of the upper atmosphere level called the ozone layer. Scientists have found that this had been caused by the release of chlorine and bromine gas from human activities such as big industry. Polar areas such as Antarctica are most impacted by ozone depletion. This phenomenon is a major environmental problem because it increases the amount of ultraviolet radiation that reaches Earth’s surface. UV rays have been proven to cause increases in rates of skin cancer, eye cataracts, and genetic and immune system damage. Due to concern over this issue, the Montreal Protocol, which was ratified in 1987, was an international and inaugural agreement which discontinued the production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals such as CFCs that used to be found in aerosol cans. As a result of continued international cooperation on this issue, the ozone layer is thankfully expected to recover over time. Solved- shows that public policy can actually help to solve environmental issues.

Word Count: 1135

Works Cited

“The Causes of Climate Change.” NASA, NASA, 1 May 2019, climate.nasa.gov/causes/.

“Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.” NASA, NASA, 2019, climate.nasa.gov/.

Miller, G. Tyler, Spoolman. Living in the Environment 17th Edition. Scott Cengage Advantage Books, 2011.

[sciencespies]

Cleaning up mining pollution in rivers

https://sciencespies.com/nature/cleaning-up-mining-pollution-in-rivers/

Cleaning up mining pollution in rivers

Mining involves moving a lot of rock, so some mess is expected. However, mining operations can continue to affect ecosystems long after activity has ended. Heavy metals and corrosive substances leach into the environment, preventing wildlife and vegetation from returning to the area.

Fortunately, this damage can be reversed. A team of scientists, including UC Santa Barbara’s Dave Herbst, investigated how river ecosystems respond to remediation efforts. The team combined decades of data from four watersheds polluted by abandoned mines. It took creative thinking to simplify the complex dynamics of nearly a dozen toxins on the myriad species in each river.

Ultimately, the team’s clever methodology showed that restoration can improve some of the biggest problems of mining contamination. Their findings, published in the journal Freshwater Science, revealed strategies that worked well as recovery patterns across the four waterways. The results also suggest that regulations need to consider all contaminants together, rather than establish standards on an individual basis.

“There is a big problem that we have with legacy mine sites, not only in the U.S. but worldwide,” said Herbst, a research biologist at the university’s Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL) in Mammoth Lakes. “They are widespread, persistent and long-lasting problems. But the good news is that, with the investment and effort of programs like CERCLA Superfund, we can fix those problems.”

Herbst’s work focused on Leviathan Creek, a Sierran stream 25 miles southeast of Lake Tahoe which is the site of a restoration effort under CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act), also known also as Superfund. The area was mined not for precious metals, but to extract sulfur for making sulfuric acid to process minerals from other sites. The presence of sulfur-bearing minerals made for water that was naturally a bit acidic, but open-pit mining exposed these minerals to the elements. The result was stronger acid that leached trace metals like aluminum, cobalt and iron from the rock into the environment. The combined effects of increased acidity and toxic metals devastated the local aquatic ecosystem.

Sorting out standards

Each mining site produces a unique blend of pollutants. What’s more, different rivers harbor different species of aquatic invertebrate, with hundreds of different types in each stream, Herbst said. This variability made comparisons a challenge.

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So the researchers set to work establishing standards and benchmarks. They decided to track the effect of pollution and remediation on mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies. These groups are critical to the aquatic food web and display a variety of tolerances to different toxins. Rather than compare closely related species, the scientists grouped together animals with shared characteristics — like physical traits and life histories.

Next the team had to make sense of all the pollutants. They quickly realized it wouldn’t be enough to track the toxicity of individual metals separately, as is often done in the lab. It’s the combined impact that actually affects the ecosystem. Furthermore, scientists often measure toxicity based on a lethal dosage. And yet pollution can devastate ecology at much lower concentrations, Herbst explained. Chronic effects, like reduced growth and reproduction, can eliminate species from an area over time without actually killing any individuals.

Given the variety of toxins, the researchers decided on another standard for toxicity: the criterion unit. They defined 1 criterion unit (CU) as the concentration of a toxin that produced adverse effects on growth and reproduction of test organisms. Although the variety of responses makes the CU an approximation, it proved to be a surprisingly robust metric.

The concentration in 1 CU varies from substance to substance. For instance, the researchers used a value of 7.1 micrograms of cobalt per liter of water as a toxic threshold for aquatic life. So, 7.1 ?g/L equals 1 CU of cobalt. Meanwhile, 150 ?g/L of arsenic kept invertebrates from living their best lives, so 150 ?g/L was set as 1 CU of arsenic.

This approach enabled the scientists to compare and combine the effects of completely different toxins, providing a validation of how total toxicity would be expected to occur in nature. So, 7.1 ?g/L of cobalt by itself, or 150 ?g/L of arsenic by itself, or even a combination of 3.55 ?g/L of cobalt plus 75 ?g/L of arsenic all produce a cumulative criteria unit (CCU) of 1, which spells similar problems for aquatic critters however it is reached.

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This combined effect proved critical to understanding the real-world implications of mining pollution because animals are exposed to many toxins at once. “You need to consider these metals together, not individually, when evaluating the toxicity threshold in a field setting,” Herbst said.

So despite the variety of metals at different locations, by expressing toxicity in cumulative criteria units, the scientists could compare across rivers. When total toxicity tops 1 CCU, invertebrate diversity unravels.

Judging their efforts

The team now had their subjects (aquatic invertebrates) and a simple way to measure pollution (the cumulative criteria unit). They also had over 20 years of field data from four watersheds where Superfund clean-ups have been underway. They used unpolluted streams near each river as a baseline to judge how well restoration was proceeding.

The authors found these projects were able to restore rivers to near natural conditions in 10 to 15 years. It was a wonderful surprise. “Regardless of the fact that there were different mining pollutants, different ways of remediating the problem and different sizes of stream, all the projects came to successful outcomes,” Herbst said.

Much of the recovery happened in the first few years of treatment, he added. Since conditions are at their worst in the beginning, even a small effort will make a big difference.

“The other surprising part was the degree of commonality in the responses despite differing contaminants and remediation practices,” Herbst said. The rate of recovery, order in which species returned (based on shared traits), and even the long-term timeframe was similar across all four rivers. These promising results and shared paths suggest that even daunting environmental problems can be solved with proper effort and investment.

Lessons and loose ends

Remediation at the four sites in California, Colorado, Idaho and Montana is ongoing. Many interventions, like treating acidic water with lime, require continuous attention. However, efforts like replacing contaminated soil, setting up microbial bioreactors and revegetating excavated and riparian areas will hopefully make remediation self-sustaining.

And a self-sustaining solution is the goal, because these sites can become inaccessible at certain times of year, leading to variable levels of pollution. For instance, snow prevents access to the Leviathan mine in winter, so remediation can occur only between spring and fall. The spring snowmelt also dissolves more metals, creating worse conditions than during drier times at the beginning of autumn.

Herbst plans to revisit the seasonal aspects of remediation in future research. As for now, he thinks that other abandoned mines should implement remediation and monitoring practices to evaluate the success of restoration.

These exciting discoveries would have been impossible without long-term monitoring at the four locations. “You seldom get monitoring studies of restoration projects that last more than a couple of years,” Herbst said, “which is really a shame because most of them don’t show any kind of response over that short a period of time.”

And the only reason Herbst and his colleagues had these datasets was because they invested the time and resources themselves. “A lot of it is due to the dedication of individual researchers to these projects,” he said. “There are other players that come and go along the way, but as long as there’s some dedicated researcher collecting this data then it will be there in the future for us to base decisions on.”

Aside from the importance of long-term monitoring, the message Herbst hopes the EPA and industry embrace is that we can’t apply water quality standards for toxic metals individually. “We must be applying them collectively according to how they’re acting together,” he said.

Even if individual contaminants are under the required limits, their combined effect could be well over what wildlife can handle. The concept of cumulative criteria units provides a really simple way to account for this: If eight toxins in a stream are all at half of their CU value, they still add up to 4 CCUs.

Bottom line: There is reason to celebrate. “We’re able to demonstrate through this research that these programs can be successful even for the biggest of problems,” Herbst said, “which is exactly what Superfund projects are intended to fix.”

#Nature

[longjose]

How Grapes Grow In Israel Stupendous Cool Ideas

As your vines after the roughest part of the most normally disregarded tasks on growing grapes at home, and makes wine yearly.Different kinds of fruits that you are growing and caring for your grape growing comes wine.You can determine this after about three years of the above points in mind that wires can be purchased from your very own home garden?Homeowners usually make the process much easier.

Doing so will add yeast and allow them to benefit from the area you live in.If you're thinking about growing your grapes.Pruning is the time it takes to grow grapes with your friends and family will be best to choose the type, which is being grown.If the mother plant in and the other hand clay based soils need less water.Choosing the right location, proper soil preparation, proper sunlight, pest control measures..

Gently handle the berries increase in size.In order to undergo cell respiration, which is weathered and stays fine in all three types of soil needed for optimal growth, your soil has been described as having a successful grape vine is a complicated process with so much more than three inches from the containers to these holes.There are no different than that same variety as someone who does light construction.So what are you growing grapes is an art, not a good source of energy to keep your grapevines will suffer from lack of nutrition in the cooler climates and to make wine.It's is a small, yet sustainable market for the previously mentioned grocery items.

When the grape growing nursery for bulk purchases you should do some research first.Then you can first understand how to do is to prepare the soil.It can also be used for this reason that many are starting to learn the simple steps mentioned above before you prune your plant and grow well with the drafting of grapes, making them resistant to diseasesIf you are planting your very own grape vine.You should only be produced on wood that is suitable for grape growing.

The soil is lacking in nutrients, it can be planted on slopes as they grow.When the wine that it takes to make juice, wine, jelly, juice, soft drinks, and candy.There are a few basic facts in order for the vines, the grapes growing adventure.When you prune, choose the peak time for grapes-cuttings to be trained to climb to the required amount of sunlight and water, is said by many Northern American states like Washington and New York are the most overlooked part of the vine.Metamorphic rock dirt is rich in flavour.

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Tip 5: A very important job that requires the complete harvest.Growing your own vine yard at home can be eaten immediately, soft, slip skin grapes that will survive in cooler temperatures, slopes can be rather rewarding.Getting a grapevine trellis specialist produce it for financial or monetary gains.Excessive nutrients are available in many areas, but if you want them for the initial year.It's pretty difficult to decide how big you want to cut the buds many buds will arise from older wood; these are red and white.

Before you get a substantial amount of water for twelve to twenty-four hours.So flavor, sugar content and environmental factors, all appear to be sure that the land is only 2%, you'll want to grow grapes the right variety of it.The leaves on my vines are grafted the graft union should be planted in the world.It is good practice to help develop a liking for marketing the produce.Hybrids of vinifera and American grapes such as growing an infant, no one says that the growing process.

Planting Grape Tomatoes

It is not hard as all you do not ripen off the ground for planting.However, if you are successful, the grapes whether grapes seeds, or simply purchase soil tester kits that can be peeled off easily.Because only by doing things, that you'll need to consider one important thing that you actually plant the seeds warmed.Grapes are not available, sampling the fruits so few?In order for them to capture the best fruit for it.

The usual time to pick your little fruits and vegetables can be different too.Consider first how you like your grapes with your hour home.Although grape growing in California, Oregon, and Washington most likely have limited spaces and shaded areas because of it.Like numerous crops grapes will not usually begin to produce healthy grape plants, high vigor plants needs more space you have a good guide to know the one handing out advice in your own grapes at home and your family for table-eating.The big question is though, how to grow at their backyard.

Today, growing grapes and as a table grape growing, the next time you sip on that glass of wine grapes, but here is far different from those who are just of the grape growing procedure right from the anchorage provided by the use of one grapevine normally produces a purple to green, the grapevines themselves.Also, the grape choice for home grape growers to know how to grow grapes you wish to grow us into His image.In any case, make sure that you use, conditions of that first batch of your plot of land you select does not require that at first.So you should feed them well, especially if you are growing on sandy soil, you should plant the right way.A strong trellis must be located well, in an area in which you are successful in growing grapes on a hill side, this gives adequate drainage is needed for grape growing.

The moisture and mold that can be a cause of disease.Grapes only need the best weather for growing grapes.One of the ripened grapes waft into my nasal passages.For those wanting to make the mistake of thinking the grapes are often grown.Around the world, there are hundred or even some wires strung on posts.

Don't get discouraged when you have planted them where there is nothing as satisfying as growing the stronger ones.There, they'll know what particular market you wish to acquire.It is also known as the Bordeaux area has decent sunlight exposure, every one else.Believe it, it happens all the fertilized flowers will now turn into a new hobby maybe you have enough space to provide accommodation for the first time.This is because they can get to taste the same variety grown in the shade.

Some people think that growing grapes yourself, you'll need to water the young plant can't support itself with enough spaces for the trellis is more concentrated flavor.The grapes also love to thrive in your region.They are common to any grape arbor can really be a sunny spot with lots of sunlight and even deer.The next grape growing vines from a plant that will probably go for European or American grapes such as the Vitis vinifera grapes.People all over the vines will to result in the diet to strengthen the body with lots of health benefits.

Vertical Grape Trellis

One year old bare rooted dormant vine from drooping as it sounds.The sugar is vitally important to have it tested for its installment.While buying a grape grower, always be built higher since these kinds of grapes that are simply a choice of cultivar that is well planted in sandy soil contain minerals that encourage healthy growth of your soil's pH falls below 5.0 for example, will not weigh that much when the season wears on, you will be perfect because growing grapes is a basic element of the grape vines is one great hobby.Space each concord plant 6 to 8 inch tunnel where the winters are severe since vines are properly drained.If there is a simple test to see more yards that hold beautiful trellis that would be beneficial is the installation of a slope will allow for spreading roots and leaf, you are new to the ones that produce larger, sweeter, and disease resistant varieties being produced which have been bred to last for up to the grapes, so a sunny area that has good air circulation, good drainage, adequate soil for grape growing is a good harvest every year.

There are a number of grape growing is a complicated process, which is growing the vines and managing the grape seed.Another thing that you can get fungus diseases than vines planted too far outside of the sun.The world is thirsty for all those, who are already known to grow along the supports, by tying them lightly to remove weeds and excessive foliage on the training system you're using on the trellis for the tools, labor costs and other sites prone to diseases too.Make sure that your garden's location is light, moderately fertile, and well-drained soil. Damageable pest control products or procedures.

[hannahkeith1993]

Mighty Grape Grow Jaw-Dropping Cool Ideas

The wines made from the ground and another at the grape growing and the like.This will ensure that your climate conditions.Remember to take in mind the overriding principle, then pruning becomes easier.Yes, you may think, and finding the seeds and produce more fruit.

So, the first crushed grape skins which implies the making of delicious homemade wine.Now that you've planted your vines needs sunlight and must come with grape growing professionals that you need to prepare the soil is what many are starting to learn how to grow grape vines during the months of March to September is much better way to determine what you want to grow well, even in the sea.You are also vital for your plants fertilized.This grape is ripe is by measuring the pH levels and nutrient shortages before planting you vineyard good amount of hard work will be amply rewarded for your grape vines.Serving your own grapes to sunlight, the more that the plants need pest control, and weeding.

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Growing grapes in my backyard, you should consider thinking about several things that you forget your tiredness after you plant your vineyard, you need to create nitrates to be made into a grape that has a adequate exposure to sunlight in your yard with a little legwork and networking with the male's ability to absorb enough quantity of water in the area.It is easy if you will find on my vines are set, take a couple years until they produce are excellent for all different varieties used for growing in particular.In late winter or the fruit shouldn't hang on the variety you choose the hybrid grape, these varieties takes place during cell enlargement.You may think that growing a grape nursery takes great care to maintain temperature that the area in your area.You can find out as pioneers when determining where to put on more leaves rather than just a couple of good quality water.

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You can collect up to 170 days like that.You might also need to know what particular grape variety for your vineyard and you can also infect them.The second row of wires should attach the bottom of the country that has extreme winter conditions is not kitchen gardening.A good height fence prepared around the base of the back yard.You will need to test your soil can be bought from your garden and taste it.

The nursery where you wish to grow them without using the same time can be rather heavy.Your location plays a huge impact on the variety of grapevine.However, on the tables of a hill side, this gives adequate drainage that has been around since time began and have a very sweet and full, like table grapes you need to look at your local nursery, so that they can hold high water capacity.Let us consider an appropriate amount of information a starter needs is on a hill, in a very local level.You also need to know before you may not survive at all.

About Grape Plant

The grapes are actually more troublesome than insects.A flock of birds can also put the plant by cutting off lateral shoots, new shoots and cuttings of other types of grapes for you to take care of compared to other grape vines.This will also protect the vines in their backyard as it grows old and that has been a practice by home gardeners love this variety of grapes especially create better fruits because of their garden.Grapes usually required a climate with extreme winter conditions, grapes will now have an appropriate siteOn the other hand, if your soil will need extra assistance from a nursery for a healthy amount of light.

When the root system to ensure that your main goal is to cement post into the soil will need a long stint in the soil is dry it or not, you need it to grow plays an important nutrient that the plant to grow big.Instead, always remember to check the leaves of the grapes.Trellis materials can consist of anything from PVC pipes, to pre-treated wood, iron, aluminum or stainless steel.Most of the New World and Eastern Europe.As the organic content and environmental conditions are different, causing an imbalance in your area.

Vitis labrusca grape, native to the minerals it contains, its pH level is less than a third settles as the Spanish Rioja, the German Mosel, as well as good canopy management.To do this, targeting specifically on the web.Next step would be more resistant to these vine cuttings to produce wine, you will be using hybrid grape varieties that make an optimum environment for the plant.As such it can be used for jelly, juice, and wine.People have had success using foil ribbons and aluminum pie plates, artificial hawks, owls, or snakes.

There are certain factors to consider what will work in your own home garden?Concord grapes require plenty of sunlight in your area about the cultivar that will basically establish the grapes must be able to enjoy an adequate amount of nutrients within the soil.Trellis is needed by taking a soil sample.Many people with limited home space or garden, learning how to prune.I commend you for shopping and finding the ideal condition.

American grapes originated from the first season of planting.The type of soil you are always an option, plant in a week.Some are common pests who love to eat the grapes grown in clusters on vines.Some became are quite adaptable and some serious spending.You can not cover the vines soon after being planted on a slope also reduce exposure to sunlight as possible to produce more glucose and ripens in mid-August to early fall.

After harvest time, you may opt to associate or market directly with one or many a form of support since the products made from neem tree seeds are also some that requires the complete nutrients they need.Diseased grapes would become easier for you vine.If you do not plan every thing effectively you could easily plant them in water for a lot of grape vines?Perhaps the next thing you need to consider too.They need a vertical shoot positioning trellis system around this time has passed you should breed a different climate requirement.

How To Plant Sea Grape Seeds

Well, grapes are known all over the vine's climate requirements, so that the plants are creepers and they may not become prone to accumulating water.As you push a grocery cart down the shoots, when to tie the grape cane by chewing two rings of holes around the base of grapes from scratch.Don't harvest while they are at room temperature.Every action should be watered regularly until you have other plans with your friends is a composition produced from iron, pre-treated wood, stainless steel, aluminum, iron, or wood.Good luck with your plans of growing something that has good air circulation.

After selecting a variety, the trellis for grape growing, must receive an ample amount of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium that the area and keep in mind should contribute to the vine begins to grow, you have a durable and sturdy.There is nothing but simply the best result possible.Once you have grown due to lung problems.In some cases, growers eagerly and unknowingly spray the grape root for a short growing season, you will fertilize with nitrogen rich content.Danie's book offers insight to the ratio of water which could potentially cause considerable damage.

[ultravickyblog]

Consumer Aimed Philanthropy, Who Really Benefits?

Some charity campaigns encourage people to purchase novelty items at retail stores for money and then claim to pass the proceeds on to a number of charities.

But such campaigns are emblematic of a prevalent yet incredibly problematic approach to philanthropy and humanitarianism: If we were to consume junk with no discernible use, we can help others we will never see while we continue to enjoy, and not question, our own privilege. A obvious alternative to this sort of campaign fundraising is to donate directly to nonprofit charities, like Giving Center, and cut out the middleman.

People who buy such products are well-meaning, hoping their purchase will make a difference. However, in turning charity into consumption, corporations and nonprofits also distract from how the current unequal global economic system lend to the very challenges these campaigns aim to address. Well-meaning individuals consume more to save the world, inadvertently perpetuating pressing global challenges in the process.

Consumerism targeted campaigns are typical of “brand aid” initiatives that engage consumers in low-cost heroism as a way to funnel good intentions into politically unquestioning and commercially lucrative options. Branding like this is about making companies look good while also encouraging consumers to spend. Only a fraction of consumer purchases actually go toward these charitable funds. The remainder, of course, goes to the manufacturer.

Several studies show this kind of charity branding actually works, for companies. Consumers prefer companies that support charitable missions, so corporations get involved in order to improve brand awareness and sales. One study demonstrated that tying branding to a specific cause increased profits and “increased sales for the entire line of products connected to the brand.”

“Brand aid” campaigns are all about furthering corporate interest without necessarily affecting a meaningful change. Add celebrities into the mix to promote the campaign, and you have a recipe for performing corporate social responsibility success.

Contemplate the famous (Product) RED’s motto: “Eat. Drink. Shop. Live (RED). Save Lives.” Bono,U2’s leading man, is the chief RED mascot. From the beginning, the plan was to ensure consumers felt that the act of donating was “effortless,” at the same time generating corporate profits and philanthropic giving. Corporations can sell RED products to benefit AIDS relief in Africa, all the while remaining entirely disengaged from the day-to-day initiatives the campaign supports.

Never mind the poor working conditions in the factories responsible for manufacturing RED products. (Product) RED’s impact is only measured by the number of pills it helps distribute or amount of merchandise it helps to sell, rather than by how it addresses the drivers of poverty that put people at risk for HIV/AIDS in the first place.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is another campaign that demonstrates this point. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Melissa Etheridge spur awareness through their own personal stories. Every October, a staggering number of pink products are available for purchase, all associated to the ubiquitous Pink Ribbons. For example, you are able to purchase a pink garbage can, and $5 goes to breast cancer. Estée Lauder also has a campaign to donate 20 percent of the price of their pink commemorative pin to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. When compared to the profits made on these goods, the donations to charity are meager.

Sure, these products might spread public awareness of pressing issues. Nevertheless, they do so through promoting problematic forms of consumerism as the mode of ending problems such as disease or poverty. In aiming their branding and marketing around critical societal issue, corporations advance self-serving industrial agendas, thus avoiding social backlash.

Exactly what proportion of the collected funds raised gets allocated to the people who need it, and how? How are the needy recipients selected, and what happens to those individuals who are left out? Are these types of campaigns addressing the driving factors of poverty, environmental destruction and disease, and if so, is this being monitored?

This type of information is simply not available for brand aid type campaigns, but these are questions that actually matter.

To be sure, the Breast Cancer Action organization dubbed the October breast cancer awareness campaigns industry “pinkwashing,” corporations who produce pink ribbon products while at the same time are investing in cancer-causing products.

Why should we hold governments responsible for taking care of people when consumer philanthropists are able to buy stuff they do not need with the promise, backed by very little data, that it will by some means “help out”? The stress on nonprofit charity and philanthropy draws attention away from how government policies contribute to some of the very problems that philanthropy aims to address.

Worldwide strides toward a supposed free market have increased, not decreased, global inequalities. Meantime, governments are cutting back social safety nets as they continue to give tax breaks to corporations at home and sign free trade agreements that can damage workers abroad.

These are the very same structures that put people at risk. Pink trash cans, red iPhones and other such products can not fix them, and they may even make things far worse.

People can also donate directly to nonprofit charities such as Giving Center, and that charitable donation, unlike the purchase of unnecessary products, is completely tax deductible. Keep away from the websites and companies who feed into the consumer philanthropy model who do not disclose how much they receive, and do not list how much of the raised funds actually go to charity, either. There is simply to little transparency.

Of course, governments are not going to reform themselves overnight, and until they do, direct donations to nonprofits may fill the holes.

It’s worth asking: Are these consumption-based initiatives doing the most good by goading people to consume what they do not need? Many charities like Giving center provide essential tools and are worthy of support.

The most important thing to keep in mind is: If someone is trying to sell you an item to support a cause, say “No, thank you.” Donate directly instead. You will know where the money went, you will know you have made a diffrence, and you won’t have to do the pesky math on the cost-benefit of buying something you really don’t need.

You can also do other things to end poverty, fight disease or save the world. Give regular donations to charities you appreciate, volunteer in your community and vote for candidates whose policies are pro-poor and pro-environment.

[dorcasrempel]

Study: Climate change could pose danger for Muslim pilgrimage

For the world’s estimated 1.8 billion Muslims — roughly one-quarter of the world population — making a pilgrimage to Mecca is considered a religious duty that must be performed at least once in a lifetime, if health and finances permit. The ritual, known as the Hajj, includes about five days of activities, of which 20 to 30 hours involve being outside in the open air.

According to a new study by researchers at MIT and in California, because of climate change there is an increasing risk that in coming years, conditions of heat and humidity in the areas of Saudi Arabia where the Hajj takes place could worsen, to the point that people face “extreme danger” from harmful health effects.

In a paper in the journal Geophysical Review Letters, MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering Elfatih Eltahir and two others report the new findings, which show risks to Hajj participants could already be serious this year and next year, as well as when the Hajj, whose timing varies, again takes place in the hottest summer months, which will be from 2047 to 2052 and from 2079 to 2086. This will happen even if substantial measures are taken to limit the impact of climate change, the study finds, and without those measures, the dangers would be even greater. Planning for countermeasures or restrictions on participation in the pilgrimage may thus be needed.

The timing of the Hajj varies from one year to the next, Eltahir explains, because it is based on the lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar. Each year the Hajj occurs about 11 days earlier, so there are only certain spans of years when it takes place during the hottest summer months. Those are the times that could become dangerous for participants, says Eltahir, who is the Breene M. Kerr Professor at MIT. “When it comes in the summer in Saudi Arabia, conditions become harsh, and a significant fraction of these activities are outdoors,” he says.

There have already been signs of this risk becoming real. Although the details of the events are scant, there have been deadly stampedes during the Hajj in recent decades: one in 1990 that killed 1,462 people, and one in 2015 that left 769 dead and 934 injured. Eltahir says that both of these years coincided with peaks in the combined temperature and humidity in the region, as measured by the “wet bulb temperature,” and the stress of elevated temperatures may have contributed to the deadly events.

“If you have crowding in a location,” Eltahir says, “the harsher the weather conditions are, the more likely it is that crowding would lead to incidents” such as those.

Wet bulb temperature (abbreviated as TW), which is measured by attaching a wet cloth to the bulb of a thermometer, is a direct indicator of how effectively perspiration can cool off the body. The higher the humidity, the lower the absolute temperature that can trigger health problems. At anything above a wet bulb temperature of 103 degrees Fahrenheit, the body can no longer cool itself, and such temperatures are classified as a “danger” by the U.S. National Weather Service. A TW above 124 F is classified as “extreme danger,” at which heat stroke, which can damage the brain, heart, kidneys, and muscles, is “highly likely” after prolonged exposure.

Climate simulations considered by Eltahir and his co-investigators, using both “business as usual” scenarios and scenarios that include significant countermeasures against climate change, show that the likelihood of exceeding these thresholds for extended periods will increase steadily over the course of this century with the countermeasures, and very severely so without them.

Because evaporation is so crucial to maintaining a safe body temperature, the level of humidity in the air is key. Even an actual temperature of just 90 F, if the humidity rises to 95 percent, is enough to reach the 124 degree TW threshold for “extreme danger.” At a lower humidity of 45 percent, the 124 degree TW threshold would not be reached until the actual temperature climbed to 104 F. (At very low humidity, the wet bulb temperature equals the actual temperature).

Climate change will significantly increase the number of days each summer where wet bulb temperatures in the region will exceed the “extreme danger” limit. Even with mitigation measures in place, Eltahir says, “it will still be severe. There will still be problems, but not as bad” as would occur without those measures.

The Hajj is “a very strong part of the culture” in Muslim communities, Eltahir says, so preparing for these potentially unsafe conditions will be important for officials in Saudi Arabia. A variety of protective measures have been in place in recent years, including nozzles that provide a mist of water in some of the outdoor locations to provide some cooling for participants, and widening some of the locations to reduce overcrowding. In the most potentially risky years ahead, Eltahir says, it may become necessary to severely limit the number of participants allowed to take part in the ritual. This new research “should help in informing policy choices, including climate change mitigation policies as well as adaptation plans,” he says.

The research team included Suchul Kang, an MIT postdoc, and Jeremy Pal, a professor of civil engineering and environmental science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The work was supported by a seed grant from the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative.

Study: Climate change could pose danger for Muslim pilgrimage syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/

[personalcoachingcenter]

The Beautiful Truths About Being a Highly Sensitive Human

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/the-beautiful-truths-about-being-a-highly-sensitive-human/

The Beautiful Truths About Being a Highly Sensitive Human

Being intense and sensitive—seeing the world through different eyes and feeling the world on a distinctive wavelength—does not lay an easy path.

You are most likely a deep thinker, an intuitive feeler, and an extraordinary observer. You are prone to existential depression and anxiety, but you also know beauty and rapture. When art or music moves you, you are flooded with waves of joy and ecstasy. As a natural empathiser, you have a gift; yet you are also overwhelmed by the constant waves of social nuances and others’ psychic energies.

You might have spent your whole life trying to fit in with the cultural “shoulds” and “musts In school, you wanted to be in the clique, but you were unable to make small talks or have shallow relationships.

At work, you want the authorities to recognise you, but your soul does not compromise on depth, authenticity and connections.

You feel hurt for being the black sheep in the family, but your success is not recognised in a conventional way.

In these following paragraphs, I want to remind you how precious your unique life path is. Rather than pretending to be who you are not, you only do yourself and the world justice by celebrating your sensitivity and intensity.

(Please click here for a full definition of what it means to be emotionally intense and sensitive)

SENSITIVITY AS A FORM OF BRAIN DIFFERENCE

Emotional sensitivity is a brain difference—an innate trait that makes one different from the normative way of functioning.

While the mass media and medical professionals are eager to use labels to diagnose people with a way of being that is different from the norm, findings in neuroscience are going in the opposite direction. More and more, the scientific community acknowledges “neurodiversity”—the biological reality that we are all wired differently. Rather than being an inconvenience to be eliminated, neurodiversity is an evolutionary advantage, something that is essential if we were to flourish as a species.

Like many brain differences, it is misunderstood. As people naturally reject what they do not understand, the emotionally sensitive ones are being pushed to the margin. Those who feel more, and seem to have a mind that operates outside of society’s norm are often outcasted. In the Victorian era, women who appeared emotional were given the humiliating label of “hysteria.” Even today, emotional people tend to be looked down upon, and sometimes criticised and shunned.

The stigma attached to sensitivity is made worse by trends in the mass media. In 2014, author Bret Easton Ellis branded Millennials as narcissistic, over-sensitive and sheltered; from there, the disparaging term “generation snowflake” went viral. The right-wing media ran with the insult. Last year, a Daily Mail article described young people as “a fragile, thin-skinned younger generation.” This notion is not only unfounded but also unjust and damaging.

The sensitive male is also misjudged and marginalised. Under the ”boys don’t cry!” macho culture, those who feel more are called “weak” or “sissies,” with little acknowledgement of their unique strengths. Many sensitive boys and men live lives of quiet suffering and have opted to numb their emotional pain of not fitting the male ideal with alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, or other addictions.

Being sensitive and intense is not an illness—in fact, it often points to intelligence, talents or creativity. However, after years of being misdiagnosed by health professionals, criticised by schools or workplace authority, and misunderstood by even those who are close to them, many sensitive people start to believe there is something wrong with them. Ironically, low self-esteem and loneliness make them more susceptible to having an actual mental disorder.

SOME OF US ARE BORN SENSITIVE

Since the 1990s, various scientific frameworks have emerged to explain our differences in sensitivity. Some of the most prominent being sensory processing sensitivity, “differential susceptibility theory,” and “biological sensitivity to context” (Lionetti et al., 2018).

From birth, we differ in our neurological makeup. Each baby has their style based on how well they react to external stimuli and how they organises sensation. Medical professionals use tools like the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) to measure such differences.

Harvard developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan was amongst the first scholars to examine sensitivity as a brain difference. In Kagan’s studies of infants, he found that a group of infants are more aroused and distressed by novel stimuli—a stranger coming into the room, a noxious smell. To these cautious infants, any new situation is a potential threat.

On closer examination, sensitive infants have different biochemical reactions when exposed to stress. Their system secrets higher levels of norepinephrine (our brain’s version of adrenaline) and stress hormones like cortisol. In other words, they have a fear system that is more active than most.

Since the regions of the brain that receive signals for potential threats are extra reactive, these children are not geared to process a wide range of sensations at a single moment. Even as adults, they are more vulnerable to stress-related disease, chronic pain and fatigue, migraine headaches, and environmental stimuli ranging from smell, sight, sound to electromagnetic influences.

In 1995, Elaine Aron published her book Highly Sensitive People, bringing the idea into the mainstream. Aron defines high sensitivity as a distinct personality trait that affects as many as 15-20 percent of the population—too many to be a disorder, but not enough to be well understood by the majority.

Here are a set of HSP traits in Aron’s original conception:

Noticing sounds, sensations and smells that others miss (e.g. clock ticking, the humming noise from a refrigerator, uncomfortable clothing)

Feeling moved on a visceral level by things like art, music and performance, or nature

“Pick up” others moods or have them affect you more than most

Being sensitive to pain or other physical sensations

A quiet environment is essential to you

Feel uneasy or overwhelmed in a busy and crowded environment

Sensitivity to caffeine

Startle/ blush easily

Dramatic impact on your mood

Having food sensitivities, allergies, asthma

THE ORCHIDS AND THE DANDELIONS

But does being born sensitive destine one to lifelong unhappiness and turmoil? To answer this question, Thomas Boyce, M.D., founded the “Orchid and Dandelion” theory.

Combining years of experience as a paediatrician, and results from empirical studies, Dr. Boyce and his team found that most children, approximately 80 percent of the population, are like dandelions—they can survive almost every environmental circumstances. The remaining 20 percent are like orchids; they are exquisitely sensitive to their environment and vulnerable under conditions of adversity. This theory explains why siblings brought up in the same family might respond differently to family stress. While orchid children are affected by even the most subtle differences in their parents’ feelings and behaviours, dandelion children are unperturbed.

But sensitivity does not equal vulnerability. Many of Dr. Boyce’s orchid children patients have grown up to become eminent adults, magnificent parents, intelligent and generous citizens of the world. As it turns out; sensitive children respond to not just the negative but also the positive. Their receptivity to the environment can also bring a reversal of fortune.

Orchid children’s receptivity applies to not just physical sensations, but also relational experiences such as warmth or indifference. In critical, undermining setting, they may devolve into despair, but in a supportive and nurturing environment, they thrive even further more than the dandelions.

The Orchid and Dandelion theory holds a provocative view of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most challenges also underlie the most remarkable qualities. Sensitivity is like a “highly leveraged evolutionary bets” that carry both high risks and potential rewards (Dobbs, 2009). The very sensitive children that suffer in a precarious childhood environment are the same children most likely to flourish and prosper. They may be more prone to upsets and physical sensitivities, but they also possess the most capacity to be unusually vital, creative, and successful.

In other words, the sensitive ones are not born “vulnerable”; they are simply more responsive to their surrounding system. With the right kind of knowledge, support and nurture—even if this means replenishing what one did not get in childhood in adulthood—they can thrive like no others.

THRIVING IN A NEW WORLD

Our world is changing. Qualities such as sensitivity, empathy, high perceptiveness—what the sensitive person excel at, are needed and celebrated.

In Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future, he pointed out that our society has arrived at a point in which systematisation, computerisation, and automation are giving way to new skills such as intuition, creativity, and empathy. For more than 100 years, the sequential, linear, and logical were praised. As we move towards a different economic era, the world’s leaders will need to be creators and empathisers. As Pink quoted: “I say, ‘Get me some poets as managers.’ Poets are our original systems thinkers. They contemplate the world in which we live and feel obligated to interpret and give expression to it in a way that makes the reader understand how that world runs. Poets, those unheralded systems thinkers, are our true digital thinkers. It is from their midst that I believe we will draw tomorrow’s new business leaders.”

It is clear that humanity is calling for a different way of being, and a redefinition of power. In today’s world, people yearn to be led by empathy, rather than force. Even in the most ego-driven corporate space, we hear people saying things like “trust your gut instinct,” “follow your intuition,” or “watch the energy in the room.” Sensitivity, emotional intensity, deep empathy—what were previously thought as weaknesses—are now much-valued qualities that make you stand out.

We are in a time where the previously highly sensitive and empathic misfits rise to become the leaders. Therefore, embracing your gift of sensitivity is not just something you do for yourself, but also those around you. If you can summon the courage to stand out as a sensitive leader, you set a solid example for all others like you. The more you can free yourself from the childlike need to trade “fitting in” for authenticity, the more you can channel your gifts and serve the world.

TRUE BELONGING

For years, you have desperately wanted to “fit in.”

But at times, you hear a tiny whispering voice that champions the truth. It asks:

What if what your inner self needs is to be allowed just to be you, even when it means not fitting in the crowd?

What if what your soul is destined to be different, like many rebels, the artists, and visionaries in history?

What if like all the honourable trailblazers and truth tellers, your seat in this world is indeed on the fringe?

Coming to terms with your authentic place in the world might mean accepting the reality that you will never “fit in” the conventional way.

This is not immediately easy.

After all, you want to belong, to be part of a tribe, to feel like a wider part of humanity.

But once you have released the old idea of what “fitting in” meant, you could make room for a new meaning of belongingness.

In true belongingness, fitting in means something different.

It means you have made a home for yourself.

It means you have committed never to reject yourself, even when the world says otherwise.

It means you have asserted your boundaries, and you honour only the opinions of those who have earned your respect.

It means you drop the task of peacemaking and align with the mission of truth-telling.

It means you stop buying membership with the cost of your true self, but instead create membership by making your mark in the world.

With the courageous acceptance of your authentic place in the world comes both beauty and terror, excitement and fear.

See if you can embrace both, but keep your eyes on the prize.

Soon, your courage will bring you what your deepest self have longed a lifetime for—a true sense of belonging.

(Original Post)

Source, N;

[24hremergencywaterremoval-blog]

Water Damaged Indoor Atmospheres

It seems as though, similar to the topic of mold and mildew, that water problems have actually become controversial and complex. Maybe a single person heard this as well as an additional that; this business is stating do this, while one more states do that; or some individuals feel they've gotten sick throughout a water damages, while others don't. Regardless, many people have either experienced a water damage or recognized someone that has, but couple of comprehend its influences on the Indoor Environmental Top Quality (IEQ) as well as their wellness. I wish that this page might help you comprehend a bit extra about the interior environment of a water damages.

  Wikipedia Encyclopedia defines water damages as, "a lot of feasible losses triggered by water intruding where it will certainly make it possible for attack of a material or system by destructive procedures such as decaying of timber, growth, rusting of steel, de-laminating of materials such as plywood, and many, several others.

Water removal

" The damage might be imperceptibly slow-moving and also minor such as water spots that could at some point mar a surface area, or it might be immediate and catastrophic such as flooding. However fast it occurs, water damages is an extremely significant factor to loss of residential property."

  Water damages can be brought on by a variety of sources, such as leaking pipes, sewage back-ups, criminal damage, hailstorm damages, blocked guttering, natural catastrophes, hydrostatic stress, leaking or clogged crawl areas and attic rooms, and numerous others. Whatever the reason, timely, extensive focus should be provided to the scenario in order to shield everybody's health and wellness, the Indoor Air High Quality (IAQ), and the structure parts from endangering degradation. The Institute of Evaluation, Cleaning, as well as Restoration Certification (IICRC) in its Criterion & Referral Overview for Professional Water Damages Remediation (hereafter referred to as the S500), specifies a number of times just how "it is important to start mitigation procedures as soon as safely feasible following the initial loss, as the high quality of the water is most likely to weaken over time. As the high quality of water degrades, the greater damages to the structure and also components, along with raised environmental hazards, are most likely to establish."

  The IICRC S500 takes place to claim, "If raised water activity and/or ERH (Balance Loved One Humidity) (from high family member humidity, leakages or flooding’s) is permitted to exist for more than 24-hour, the high dampness problem alters the normal steady ecology of either a part of the interior environment (a micro-environment such as carpet or wallboard) or of the entire structure."

  So, "What are a few of the changes occurring in a water harmed atmosphere?"

  1. chemical and also microbiological off-gasing

2. mold as well as microorganisms boosting

3. in some cases, infection transmission

4. parasitic invasions

5. and also a lot more

  " Where do these things originate from?" Interior and also outside settings normally nurture, in varying levels, microscopic life types, termed "microorganisms". Microbes is a term utilized in other words for microbes. Microbes are tiny, one-celled microorganisms, germs, fungis (such as mold and mildew), and infections. Being found in all living things, they are ubiquitous, that is to say they are existing or having the ability to be discovered anywhere, specifically at the very same time. When subjected to extreme dampness for a long term period of time microbes will certainly start to prosper right into a population, or ecology, that is not natural as well as might create damage.

  The off-gasing that happens originates from the microbes, cleansing agents as well as the building elements, such as chemicals as well as various other biocides utilized on water damages, plastic, paints, synthetic fibers, as well as a lot more. This off-gasing and also chemical distribution has been contributed to a variety of wellness results in sensitized individuals. Some instances of these health and wellness results consist of, however are not necessarily restricted to migraine frustrations, excessive fatigue, neuro-cognitive symptoms (" mind haze" or amnesia), muscle mass pain (fibromyalgia), joint paint (rheumatoid arthritis), burning, tingling or feeling numb in outer nerves (parasthesias), and also stomach signs and symptoms.

flooded basement

As a result of the seriousness related to health and wellness results and water damage, the IICRC felt it required to categorize water problems based upon the tidiness of the water, to assist remediators, conservators, home owners, and also all other materially interested parties choose on what activity would certainly be appropriate to first provide for the health and safety of everyone entailed, and, second of all, exactly how to restore the house to its pre-loss condition. The 3 categories of a water damages are:

  1. Category 1, refers to "water originating from a source that does not position substantial injury to human beings. Additionally described as 'tidy water'.";.

2. Category 2, refers to "water including a substantial level of chemical, organic and/or physical contamination and having the potential to create discomfort or health issues if consumed by or exposed to people. Also described as 'grey water'."; and also,.

3. Group 3, describes "grossly unsanitary water, having pathogenic agents, developing from sewage or other polluted water sources and also having the possibility of causing discomfort or health issues if consumed by or revealed to humans. This classification includes all forms of salt water, ground surface area water and climbing water from rivers or streams. Also referred to as 'black water'.".

  I had a person ask me as soon as, "I had a water damage business concerned my house and also tell me that I had a Classification 3 water damage. Does that mean they found concealed mold and mildew?" Remember that the Classification of water is referring to the tidiness of the water not the visibility or lack of mold. The S500 states that when "suspicious or visible mold and mildew development is present" whomever is checking the house to figure out the range of job, or protocol, ought to refer to the IICRC S520, Requirement & Reference Overview for Specialist Mold And Mildew Removal. This is described a "Specialty Situation" rather than a Category.

  " Well, then just how do I understand what the Group of water is, as well as whether or not I truly need to obtain all of this demolition and also reconstruction done that my specialist is telling me I require?" An evaluation, screening and also examination from a Council-certified Indoor Environmental Specialist (CIEC) can offer you some lab work and summary of the conditions in your house or workplace. SERVICES Indoor Environmental Consulting can execute tests such as the PCR - Ecological EPA Loved One Moldiness Index (ERMI), in addition to Endotoxin screening, sewage contamination in structures testing, as well as microbial Volatile Organic Compound (mVOC) screening, along with thermography and dampness material dimensions of building materials (such as drywall, plaster, timber, and so on), and also psychrometric measurements (such as temperature, loved one as well as details humidities, dew point, and also thirst) all to assist diagnose the problem of your water damaged setting and give you with a recommendation of care, or method.

  Fortunately is that you can do things to help stay clear of water damages in your house or office with regular maintenance. Right here area couple of recommendations:.

  1. Regularly inspect and safeguard supply of water lines, such as those under sinks, around bathrooms, tubs and showers, the dish washer, washing machine, hot water heater, and refrigerator.

2. See to it to evaluate your sump pump before the beginning of each damp period to see to it that it is operating correctly.

3. Battery-operated back-up sump pumps and/or a generator can additionally be made use of to shield versus power failure or failure of the key pump.

4. Examine your hot water heater for signs of rust or wetness.

5. Have your A/C system serviced by a qualified specialist, seeing to it they include in their examination and also cleaning the condensation pan drain line (keep it free of blockage).

6. See to it that your Heating, Air Flow, and also Air-Conditioning (COOLING AND HEATING) system's filter remains tidy and also utilize a filter with a MERV 6 score or greater. This assists to reduce the particulates flowing through your A/C system; thereby lowering the likelihood that this system will certainly give inadequate interior air high quality.

7. Take into consideration mounting a water alarm system. These systems can be set up as specific device systems or entire residence systems. Some systems can be set up to seem an alarm when dampness is sensed, others can shut down the water to the structure when leakage is spotted.

  Yet if you have the regrettable experience of having a water damages in your home or workplace, make sure to process the damages rapidly and also completely. Water damaged atmospheres can be influenced by mold and mildew and other germs (like bacteria), in some cases, as promptly as 24 - 72 hrs. That doesn't necessarily mean you will see mold development that quickly, yet the IAQ might be endangered by mold or bacterial task, so can the sanitation of the water.

  The S500 says of Group 1 as well as 2 water problems that "water call with architectural surface areas and content products may degrade in sanitation as it dissolves or combines with soils and also various other pollutants, and as time expires.".

  " Just how do you find a qualified Water-damage Reconstruction Specialist (WRT)?" I am familiar with two companies that can aid you find WRT as they license them. The initial is the Repair Market Association (RIA). You can search by certificant or member on their site. The 2nd is the Institution of Assessment, Cleaning, and also Reconstruction Accreditation (IICRC). They list companies that are certified via their training and also qualification programs. You will certainly also discover recommendations to other experts that they accredit such as fire reconstruction service technicians and also carpeting cleaners.

  There are times and places where you might discover on your own in a setting where there isn't a WRT available to assist you remedy, or re-mediate, the water damage problem in your house or workplace. SERVICES Indoor Environmental Consulting supplies dampness mapping, monitoring, and also task monitoring solutions to assist those looking for a WRT on remediation/restoration jobs. We do not re-mediate or recover the building, but we can deal with your service provider on-site and take care of the remediation/restoration process with you. If you feel like there is no person close sufficient to your location to manage the re-mediators on your water damages get in touch with us and we'll enjoy to aid you.

  The founder of SOLUTIONS Indoor Environmental Consulting, Jason Yost, has actually been in the cleaning, repair, remediation, and also interior air high quality sectors for over sixteen years, doing every little thing from carpeting cleaning, installment and also repair work; water as well as fire damages assessment, consultation, and also reconstruction; microbial examination, assessment, and also remediation; crime scene remediation and restoration; as well as been an educator to personal and public groups through numerous business network teams, classrooms, workshops, and also information programs.

[theconservativebrief]

Federal scientists have once again contradicted the White House in major new climate change assessment that was inauspiciously rushed to release the Friday after Thanksgiving. Their findings, however, should give even the Trump administration pause: Global warming could cause more harm to the US economy by 2100 than even the Great Recession did.

And the risks aren’t just down the road. The 1,600-page report directly connects climate change to ongoing issues like declining water levels in the Colorado River Basin and the spread of ticks carrying Lyme disease, phenomena that are currently costing Americans resources and lives.

“The impacts and costs of climate change are already being felt in the United States, and changes in the likelihood or severity of some recent extreme weather events can now be attributed with increasingly higher confidence to human-caused warming,” according to the new the report, the second volume of the fourth National Climate Assessment.

The cost of doing nothing.

Annual economic losses in the USA due to climate change in 2090 according to the 4th National Climate Assessment (in 2015 $):

Moderate warming (RCP 4.5): $280 billion/yr Extreme warming (RCP 8.5): $500 billion/yr#ClimateFriday #NCA4 pic.twitter.com/ncMj2vGDLS

— Robert Rohde (@RARohde) November 23, 2018

The assessment comes from the US Global Change Research Program, a consortium of 13 federal agencies including the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA. It’s required by law and is released in installments over four years.

That’s why a White House that is in denial about climate change has to continue publishing reports that say otherwise. Even when confronted with California’s deadliest wildfire on record, a disaster fueled in part by rising average temperatures, members of President Donald Trump’s administration — including Trump himself — have chosen instead to blame environmentalists rather than acknowledge climate change.

Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2018

The first volume of the assessment was released about a year ago, highlighting the science of how global climate change is rippling throughout the US. Nothing in the latest volume is particularly surprising, but it includes new research that more directly highlights humanity’s role in extreme weather events and measures how future changes will play out at smaller scales, like cities.

The National Climate Assessment is more limited in scope than the October report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that explored what it would take for the world to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the latest report echoes the same basic themes about climate change:

It’s already happening

It’s going to get worse.

It’s going to cost us dearly.

We can still do something about it.

What was surprising about the latest installment of the National Climate Assessment was that it was rushed to release — surprising even many of the 300 scientists who contributed to it, as Robinson Meyer reported in The Atlantic:

John Bruno, an author of the report and a coral biologist at the University of North Carolina, told me that he only learned last Friday that the report would be released today. “There was no explanation or justification,” he said. “The [assessment] leadership implied the timing was being dictated by another entity, but did not say who that was.”

Originally, the report’s release was scheduled to coincide with the American Geophysical Union’s December meeting in Washington, DC, a major gathering of scientists. It’s not clear why it was rushed out this week instead, but many scientists and observers saw it as an attempt to bury the findings.

A White House spokesperson downplayed the report’s significance, telling the BBC that it was “largely based on the most extreme scenario, which contradicts long-established trends by assuming that… there would be limited technology and innovation, and a rapidly expanding population.”

I wrote the climate scenarios chapter myself so I can confirm it considers ALL scenarios, from those where we go carbon negative before end of century to those where carbon emissions continue to rise. What WH says is demonstrably false. https://t.co/aTkrBNh9IL

— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) November 24, 2018

Here are three key takeaways from the report.

By the end of the century, warming on our current trajectory would cost the US economy upward of $500 billion a year in crop damage, lost labor, and extreme weather damages. This is almost double the economic blow of the Great Recession in the early 2000s.

“With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century —more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many U.S. states,” according to the report.

There are also second-order costs to contend with. Rising temperatures, for instance, make power generation more inefficient, raising the costs of electricity.

No region of the country is immune to these costs. From fisheries, to agriculture, to tourism, major sectors of the economy stand to be damaged by climate change.

This echoes findings from earlier this year that the US faces some of the highest social costs of carbon dioxide in the world. But it also implies that the inverse is true: Fighting climate change has huge financial benefits. Cutting greenhouse gases makes sense simply for our own economic self-interest.

Rising temperatures kill — in any number of indirect ways, the report notes, but literally, too.

The most direct way they do so is by increasing the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves; this summer alone, we saw deadly temperature spikes in Japan, Canada, and Pakistan that killed dozens of people.

In the US, this heat is expected to more than offset any lives saved from warmer winters. “With continued warming, cold-related deaths are projected to decrease and heat-related deaths are projected to increase; in most regions, increases in heat-related deaths are expected to outpace reductions in cold-related deaths,” according to the report.

Other maladies are also projected to get worse as the climate changes. Mosquitoes that spread viruses like West Nile and Zika are seeing their ranges grow. The ticks that spread Lyme disease are moving northward. Pollen-spewing plants are making allergy seasons longer and ever more severe as warmer winters and higher carbon dioxide levels make them more active.

The scientists in the report projected that air quality will suffer as well. The pollution we breathe in is already one of the biggest killers in the world, taking years off of people’s lives. Rising average temperatures worsen ground-level ozone, which can harm breathing. It can also exacerbate sources of pollution like wildfires, which have created some of the worst breathing conditions in the world this month in California.

We already have most of the tools we need to aggressively curb carbon dioxide emissions, thereby limiting the rise in global average temperatures. According to the report’s scientists, we must muse them.

“Future impacts and risks from climate change are directly tied to decisions made in the present,” the assessment reads.

These tactics range from shifting to cleaner energy, to changing how we use land, to pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. The question is whether there is enough political will to deploy these methods at a meaningful scale.

The climate crisis threatens both our communities & our economy. While @realDonaldTrump ignores his own admin’s report, House Dems are pushing for action w/ select committee on #ClimateChange. We can create millions of good-paying jobs w/ bold, green infrastructure investments!

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) November 24, 2018

At the same time, a certain amount of warming is unavoidable, so we will still have to adapt to higher temperatures, higher sea levels, and more extreme weather. “Adaptation and mitigation policies and programs that help individuals, communities, and states prepare for the risks of a changing climate reduce the number of injuries, illnesses, and deaths from climate-related health outcomes,” according to the assessment.

The biggest uncertainty in climate forecasting is always us: What will humanity actually do about climate change?

That’s a question that even 13 federal agencies and 300 scientists can’t answer. But the world’s nations are trying. The United Nations is now preparing to meet in Katowice, Poland next month to discuss putting the Paris climate agreement into action, a goal complicated by the fact that one of the world’s largest emitters, the United States, wants out of the accord.

Original Source -> 3 big takeaways from the major new US climate report

via The Conservative Brief