Tuesday, November 12, 2013
CONTACT ME AT: manessmorrison2@yahoo.com


News Clips Of The Day


Ross’s comments sound like bad news for Incognito, Ireland – NBC

Posted by Michael David Smith on November 11, 2013

Two people should not feel safe in their positions with the Miami Dolphins after hearing what owner Stephen Ross said today: Richie Incognito and the man who signed him, Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland.
When Ross spoke to reporters today, he made very clear that he was deeply disturbed by the fact that Incognito used the N-word in a voicemail to teammate Jonathan Martin, who has left the team. In fact, Ross said that his initial reaction to Incognito using a racial slur was that it’s “so appalling to me” that “I know I am capable of overreacting,” suggesting that he thought of cutting Incognito right then and there.
In his interview with Mike Tirico on ESPN, Ross made similar comments, saying there’s no excuse for the way Incognito addressed Martin.
“I want to make sure the type of racial slurs, harassment, bullying doesn’t occur on our team, in our locker room,” Ross said. “There’s no room for that in our workplace.”
Ross also said he is forming an advisory group to help him deal with the situation, and that two of the people on that group will be Tony Dungy and Don Shula. Dungy has said that when he coached the Colts he didn’t want to draft Incognito because of character concerns, and Shula has said that when the Dolphins signed Incognito they took a chance on a guy with a bad reputation and it backfired.
As for Ireland, Ross spoke volumes with his silence. In both the statement Ross released and his press conference, Ross said absolutely nothing supportive about Ireland. On the other hand, Ross was effusive in his praise of head coach Joe Philbin.
“I don’t think there is a better person, a more respected person, a more caring person in the National Football League than Joe Philbin,” Ross said. “I have the utmost confidence in Joe Philbin as our coach.”
But Ross didn’t say he has any confidence in Ireland. Perhaps because he has no confidence in Ireland.


I am glad to see the owner of the Dolphins taking a firm stand on this matter. One player said on the news recently that hazing, which he defined as senior players having the new ones to carry things for them and other light harassment, is standard “in the locker room.” I take this to mean in football in general, not just Ireland's players.

I believe these things are a product of highly status-ranked organizations, and I remember some light hazing in my high school band. There was some rough hazing of one of the first women to enter West Point which made the news. I think it's a part of our animal instincts, but in an overcrowded society like ours there is a need for people to step beyond their animal impulses whenever possible and adopt stricter politeness rules. I see no reason why that can't include football teams, unless football players aren't intelligent enough to do it, and I don't believe that to be the case.

Managers and other officials could ban hazing, which is what is beginning to happen in many high school organizations, since it has become too aggressive. I personally think that human beings would all be much better off if they uniformly treated their companions with respect – whether they like them or not, rather than just “playing nice” with their authority figures, who will punish them if they don't behave themselves. I don't want to have anything to do with an aggressive person, whether it's an intrusive gossip, a sexually aggressive flirt, a highly competitive talker (especially a sales person who won't take no for an answer), or the worst form – the bully. There is no peace with people like that.





First Thoughts: A reality check on 2016 – NBC

By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Jessica Taylor

A reality check on 2016: Yes, it’s early. And yes, 2008 taught us that the early front-runners (Clinton and Giuliani) don’t always end up as the presidential nominees. But our new NBC News poll looking ahead to the 2016 presidential election reconfirms three current political realities. One, the Republican Party is divided. According to the poll, 32% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents say they would vote for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in a GOP presidential primary, while 31% prefer another Republican candidate (never mind the other third who are undecided, so together 68% of GOPers are not on board with Christie). Two, the Democratic Party is pretty unified. By comparison in the poll, 66% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning respondents say they’d back Hillary Clinton in a presidential primary, versus just 14% who say they’d vote for another Democratic candidate (and 34% total who claim not to be for Hillary yet). And three, Democrats continue to benefit from demographic trends that will be difficult for the GOP to overcome in 2016 -- and beyond. In a hypothetical matchup between Clinton and Christie, the poll finds the former Democratic secretary of state getting the support of 44% of all adults, while the Republican governor gets 34%. You might not think you need a poll to tell you these things, but a poll certainly helps to reinforce them.
*** Christie vs. a generic Republican: As mentioned above, our poll shows Republicans split over Christie: 32% would back him in a GOP primary, versus 31% who would support another Republican candidate. And it’s instructive to study the crosstabs to see where Christie over-performs and under-performs here. He over-performs among women (35%), minorities (46%), seniors (48%), and people in the Northeast (57%) -- you know, the folks who don’t dominate Republican primaries! But he under-performs among men (28%); Republicans ages 18-29, a la the Rand Paul crowd (15%); upper-income Republicans (26%); and residents in the Midwest (30%), South (27%), and West (22%) – or the Republicans who DO DOMINATE Republican primaries. This geographical divide is especially striking -- 57% support in the Northeast, but just 27% in the South and 22% in the West.

*** Clinton vs. a generic Democrat: It’s equally instructive to see where Clinton over-performs against another Democrat. She gets 70% among females, 70% among whites, 71% among seniors, 72% among the lowest-income Democrats, and 73% in the Northeast and 70% in the Midwest. Where she underperforms is among men (62%), college grads (62%), and 60% among upper-income Democrats – these are the remnants of Obama’s white coalition in the ’08 Democratic race. But a reality check here: She’s still getting SIXTY PERCENT among these folks, which suggests there isn’t really a substantial opening for another Democratic candidate (whether it’s Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or anyone else). Remember, in 2005, there was some real Clinton fatigue among Democrats that provided the opening for Obama. That’s not the evidence right now.
*** Demography continues to be destiny: As for our hypothetical general-election matchup between Clinton and Christie, Hillary is benefitting from the same demographic trends that helped President Obama win election in 2008 and re-election in 2012. She leads Christie among African Americans (83%-4%), respondents ages 18 to 29 (45%-31%), and Latinos (44%-33%). Clinton also holds the advantage with residents from the Northeast (52%-35%), West (43%-30%), the South (43%-35%) and Midwest (41%-37%). And she has a narrow edge among independents (39%-35%). Christie, meanwhile, leads among whites (41%-37%), seniors (44%-41%), and respondents with the highest incomes (46%-34%). Just what Republicans want to hear: They are the part of old rich white people? (By the way, see today’s new L.A. Times poll of Californians, which should be a wakeup call to GOP officials nationally.) Folks, these numbers are pretty similar to the splits we saw between Obama and Romney in 2012. And the downside of being the ELECTABILITY candidate for Republicans? You better be leading (or close to it) against Clinton, and you better be performing better among particular demographic groups than Romney did. Right now, Christie isn’t doing either.


This article has a lot of statistics to read through, and it's probably too early to really pick candidates for 2016, but by these figures it does look like Hillary would beat Christie if they ran right now, and there is no other Democratic candidate who would be likely to beat her for the nomination. So it seems to be Hillary's race. I would like to see her as president. In the 2008 election I voted for Obama. He looked like a stronger and more polished candidate to me, plus I thought it was high time we had a black president. Now I would be happy to have a woman in that office, and I do think she is strong and calm enough to handle the stress and make good decisions. I'll keep trying to track the news about her as time goes on.




Medicaid is health overhaul's early success story – NBC
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR The Associated Press
The underdog of government health care programs is emerging as the rare early success story of President Barack Obama's technologically challenged health overhaul.
Often dismissed, Medicaid has signed up 444,000 people in 10 states in the six weeks since open enrollment began, according to Avalere Health, a market analysis firm that compiled data from those states. Twenty-five states are expanding their Medicaid programs, but data for all of them was not available.
Meanwhile, private plans offered through troublesome online markets are expected to have enrolled a much smaller number of people.
The Obama administration plans to release October enrollment statistics this week, but publicly available figures already provide a contrast between a robust start for Medicaid expansion and lukewarm early signups for new, government-subsidized private plans offered separately under the law.
"Medicaid is exceeding expectations in most places," said Dan Mendelson, Avalere's president. "It is definitely a bright picture in states that have chosen to expand."
A big reason for the disparity: In 36 states, the new private plans are being offered through a malfunctioning federal website that continues to confound potential customers. And state-run websites have not been uniformly glitch-free.
Obama's health care law melded two approaches to advance its goal of broader insurance coverage. Middle-class people with no access to job-based coverage are offered subsidized private plans, while low-income people are steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states accepting it.
Starting Jan. 1, the law expands Medicaid eligibility to those with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level — $15,856 for an individual or $32,499 for a family of four. The Supreme Court gave states the right to opt out of the expansion, which is fully financed by Washington for the first three years, gradually phasing down to a 90 percent federal share.
At present, 25 states and the District of Columbia have accepted the Medicaid expansion, which is strongly supported by state hospital associations, medical groups and advocates for the poor. Its main beneficiaries are expected to be low-income adults with no children living at home.
"This is a group of states that's very committed to aggressive expansion and enrollment," said Matt Salo, executive director of the nonpartisan National Association of Medicaid Directors.
The White House is promoting the Medicaid expansion. In a visit to Louisiana last week, Obama chided Republican leaders in the states who have turned thumbs down so far. In the audience was GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was not swayed.
If the expansion is seen as a success, that could motivate its supporters in states like Virginia, which just elected Democrat Terry McAuliffe to replace a GOP governor reluctant to widen the scope of government. Another key state is Florida, where GOP Gov. Rick Scott abandoned expansion efforts after hitting stiff opposition in the legislature. An estimated 1.3 million Floridians could potentially qualify.
Avalere's statistic of at least 444,000 new Medicaid enrollees comes from 10 of the 25 states that accepted the expansion, so it only represents a partial count. Those numbers may also include some individuals eligible for Medicaid under current rules.
In Colorado, Medicaid applications in October were six to nine times what they were the month before, said Sue Birch, who heads the state's Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
A years-long effort to reach eligible residents apparently succeeded in generating the increased demand. The state has installed self-service kiosks in community clinics, hospitals and libraries to sign people up. And a year ago, nurses statewide agreed to help by promoting Medicaid to low-income uninsured patients.
"We said to our nurses: 'OK, you're our bounty hunters. You go find our patients,'" Birch said.
Some states have used food stamp rolls to find people who might also be eligible for expanded Medicaid. Income verification forms used for food stamps require frequent recertification, so that means the program's beneficiaries are Medicaid-ready.
"Medicaid has been around for 40 years," said Judy Solomon, an expert on the program with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income people. "In most states there's a system for determining eligibility that kind of lives with the other public programs. We know already that there are people there who we can ask to raise their hands."
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 9 million people will gain coverage through expanded Medicaid next year, with another 7 million signing up for private coverage through the online markets that are getting off to a slow start.
Medicaid pays doctors less than Medicare, and much less than private insurance, fostering an impression that having a Medicaid card is no better than being uninsured, and maybe even worse. But a recent scientific study debunked that notion, finding that having Medicaid virtually eliminates the risk of catastrophic medical expenses due to a serious accident or the sudden onset of a life-threatening illness. It also found improved mental health, though not much difference in physical conditions such as high blood pressure.


Those of us who are on low fixed incomes should apply again for Medicaid help with social security premiums since the allowed income has gone up. Since I live in Florida I still am out of luck, since Governor Scott abandoned expansion efforts. Maybe if Charlie Crist runs again and wins, things will change. The private insurance policies are not yet being selected due to the technical problems with the Affordable Healthcare sign up program, of course, so President Obama still has a major headache. I hope they get it fixed soon. I would hate to see the whole thing fail.





Iraqi women lament costs of U.S. Invasion – NBC
By Suadad al-Salhy and Isabel Colesk, Reuters

BAGHDAD -- One year after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, then-President George W. Bush told a gathering at the White House: "Every woman in Iraq is better off because the rape rooms and torture chambers of Saddam Hussein are forever closed."
A decade on, that statement rings hollow for many Iraqi women.
Although few miss Saddam's iron-fisted rule or the wars and sanctions he brought upon Iraq, women have been disproportionately affected by the violence that has blighted the lives of almost all Iraqis.

Domestic abuse and prostitution have increased, illiteracy has soared and thousands of women have been left widowed and vulnerable. Many women also rue the political leaders that came to power after Saddam was overthrown and the growing social conservatism that has diminished their role in public life
Once at the vanguard of women's rights in the region, Iraq recently ranked 21st out of 22 Arab states [ranked from worst to best] in a poll of 336 gender experts released on Tuesday by Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The survey, conducted in August and September, asked questions about violence against women, reproductive rights, treatment of women within the family, their integration into society and attitudes towards a woman's role in politics and the economy.
Ibtisam, 40, was injured by an iron bar as she fled shelling in the U.S.-led invasion and was forced to have her uterus surgically removed. During the sectarian carnage that followed, a Shi'ite militia kidnapped her husband and killed him.
"If the 2003 war had not taken place... at least my husband would be still alive and I would not live in such humiliating circumstances," said Ibtisam, who now works on date farms near her home in eastern Baghdad to provide for her two young daughters.
Seated in the living room of her home in Baghdad, Sana Majeed, mother of two, reminisced about the "golden times" during the 1970s, when she went to parties, galleries and restaurants, and was free to dress as she pleased.
A U.S. Army soldier stands guard while women cry after soldiers kicked through their front gate in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 6, 2006.
The reality of the new Iraq struck her in 2005, when she got out of a taxi and was accosted by a group of men in black who chastised her for wearing inappropriate clothing and told her to go home and cover her hair.
"Islamist parties started to control Iraq and that was the worst nightmare Iraqi women have ever faced," said Majeed, who now wears a black abaya and head scarf. "Religious parties and militia have stolen free life from Iraqi women."
The first piece of legislation Iraq's new leaders sought to change was the personal status law, which enshrines women's rights regarding marriage, inheritance, polygamy and child custody, and has often been held up as the most "progressive" in the Middle East.
Although that first attempt failed, efforts to bring the law in line with Islamic dictates and put family affairs in the hands of religious authorities still continue.
Nadje Al-Ali, a professor of gender studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said women were often used symbolically to reject the previous political order.
"There has been this increase towards greater social conservatism where women are concerned," said Al-Ali, who co-authored the book "What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq".
"I think one has to understand that in a context of reacting against the previous regime and also reacting against Western imperialism. Overall, it has been devastating."

The erosion of women's status in fact began before 2003, when the international community imposed punitive sanctions on Iraq in response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
With the economy crippled, the government was no longer able to afford services such as child care and maternity leave that had enabled women to enter the workforce as part of Saddam's drive to industrialize Iraq.
"After Saddam was toppled, I had a feeling the good old days would return," said Majeed. "Saddam was gone, the blockade will be lifted, and that gave me a big hope to be a free woman again."
It was a hope shared by many women after the invasion. Sidelined from politics under Saddam, women successfully lobbied for a quarter of seats in parliament to be set aside for them.

But the quota has not translated into meaningful participation, according to several women lawmakers, who said most female MPs did little more than rubber stamp the decisions of their party leaders, all of whom are men.
"Women are not effective in political or government decision-making processes despite the wide participation of women in the political life after 2003," said lawmaker Alia Nussaif Jassim.
In the first government formed after the invasion, women held six cabinet posts, but the number has now fallen to one: the minister for women's affairs, a largely ceremonial department with a meager budget and few employees.

One year after the U.S. military pullout, Iraq teeters between statehood and failure. NBC News' Jim Maceda reports.
"Believe me, if Iraqi culture, tradition and mentality would accept a man to have this post, the men would not even give that to a woman," said lawmaker Safia al-Souhail, one of 21 women who won enough votes to enter parliament without the quota.
Souhail lamented that women were also denied a single seat on key parliamentary committees such as security and defense, and reconciliation.
Within the parliament, women's efforts to cooperate across the political spectrum have been stymied by disputes between Shiite Muslim, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish factions that have all but paralyzed the Iraqi political process.

"This term, women were not able really to work together," Souhail said. "This fight between political parties and blocs and the division reflects on the women MPs as well."
The invasion has been kinder to women living in Iraq's Kurdish north, which bore the brunt of Saddam's authoritarian rule, but is now prospering.
The autonomous region has largely managed to insulate itself from the violent instability that afflicts the rest of the country and has even become a refuge for many Arab Iraqi men and women alike.
The region's government won praise in 2011 for passing a law that criminalized domestic violence, honor killings and female genital mutilation, but activists and women's rights groups say there is still work to be done.
Back in Baghdad, Majeed said women must not give up.
"Women in Iraq must not quit trying to reclaim their freedom," said Majeed. "I think we should keep our voice loud, if not for ourselves, for the sake of our daughters."


The government in Iraq is too weak to keep out Islamic parties, it seems, though the Kurdish autonomous region is doing better and hasn't been destabilized. This is a depressing story because the human effect is so great, but it does seem that some women feel courageous enough in Iraq to keep fighting to regain their rights. I haven't followed Iraq since the US pulled out. I'll try to do better.




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The Case Against Brain Scans As Evidence In Court – NPR
By Jon Hamilton
­ It's not just people who go on trial these days. It's their brains.
More and more lawyers are arguing that some defendants deserve special consideration because they have brains that are immature or impaired, says Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke University who has been studying the use of brain science in court.
About 5 percent of murder trials now involve some neuroscience, Farahany says. "There's a steady increase of defendants seeking to introduce neuroscience to try to reduce the extent to which they're responsible or the extent to which they're punished for a crime," she says.
Farahany was a featured speaker at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego this week. Also featured were several brain scientists who are uncomfortable with the way courts are using brain research.
­ When lawyers turn to neuroscience, often what's at issue is a defendant's competency, Farahany says. So a defense lawyer might argue that "you weren't competent to have pled guilty because of some sort of brain injury," she says, or that you weren't competent to have confessed to a police officer after being arrested.
The approach has been most successful with cases involving teenagers, Farahany says.
"It seems like judges are particularly enamored with the adolescent brain science," she says. "Large pieces of their opinions are dedicated to citing the neuroscientific studies, talking about brain development, and using that as a justification for treating juveniles differently."
In one recent drug possession case, Farahany says, lawyers argued that a young man's statement to police couldn't be used even though he'd agreed to talk. His lawyers pointed to studies showing that adolescent brains are especially vulnerable to coercion.
­ "And it worked," Farahany says. "The prosecution had to basically start over in developing evidence against the juvenile because they couldn't use his own statements against him."
So judges and juries are being swayed by studies showing that adolescent brains don't function the same way adult brains do. One study like that was presented at the neuroscience meeting by Kristina Caudle, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, used a technology called functional MRI to look at how the brains of people from 6 to 29 reacted to a threat.
"The typical response — and what you might think is a logical response — is to become less impulsive, to sort of withdraw, to not act when there is threat in the environment," Caudle says. "But what we saw was that adolescents uniquely seemed to be more likely to act. So their performance on this task became more impulsive."
And Caudle found that in adolescents, an area of the brain involved in regulating emotional responses had to work much harder to prevent an impulsive response. This sort of study is great for understanding adolescent brain development in a general way, Caudle says.
"What it doesn't do is allow us to predict, for example, whether one particular teenager might be likely to be impulsive or to commit criminal behavior," she says.
And Caudle worries that a study like hers could be used inappropriately in court. "Jurors tend to really take things like MRI scans as fact, and that gives me great pause," she says.
A lot of the neuroscience presented in court is simply unnecessary, says Joshua Buckholtz, a psychologist at Harvard. "Anyone who's every had a teenager would be able to tell you that their decision-making capacities are not comparable to adults," he says.
And relying on brain science to defend juveniles could have unexpected consequences, Buckholtz says. For example, he says, if a prosecutor used an MRI scan to show that a 16-year-old who committed a capital crime had a very mature brain, "Would we then insist that we execute that juvenile?"
The task of integrating brain science into the judicial system will in large part be the responsibility of judges, Buckholtz says. And how it works will depend on how well judges understand "what a scientific study is and what it says and what it doesn't say and can't say," he says.


Science is used in courts much more now than when I was in my younger years. Generally I think it's a good thing, despite these warnings of misuse, because the old system of having an eye witness who was standing too far away to really see clearly, but still feels “sure” that he is identifying the right person, is more likely to produce errors. In some cases there have been a number of eye witnesses, but their memories of what the attacker looked like just don't agree, so they destroy each other's evidence. Or, in the case of a rape, the woman may have been too terrorized to be able to describe the rapist.

From DNA on down to autopsy results or fingerprints, the more solid evidence is usually the scientific evidence, if the techs who examined the data are well qualified. Of course, there is the Georgia state examiners in the gym mat murder this year who failed to see the damage to the boy's neck. Luckily the family persisted and got the body exhumed, so the private medical examiner could draw new conclusions. Science has won out, though it took a second try.




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Key West Awash With Plans For Rising Sea Level – NPR
By Greg Allen
­ Florida — especially South Florida — is very flat and very low, and in places like Miami Beach and Key West, buildings are just 3 feet above sea level. Scientists now say there may be a 3-foot rise in the world's oceans by the end of the century.
Under ordinances recently adopted in Key West, all new buildings will have to be raised at least a foot and a half higher than the old standard, use green building codes, and have large, freshwater cisterns. The water will be used in gardens, swimming pools and toilets. By collecting rainwater, cisterns help reduce flooding by keeping it out of the streets.
"We are connected to the mainland by a thin thread of U.S. 1 and a pipeline that travels 154 miles to South Florida for our water," says Donald Craig, the city's planning director. "We are, in all senses of the word, vulnerable to sea level rise."
­ Key West is in Monroe County. Three years ago, Monroe joined three other counties in South Florida to plan for the impact of climate change. Projections developed for the group say South Florida may see between a 3- and 7-inch sea level rise by 2020. By the year 2060, the counties are planning for a sea level rise of up to 2 feet.
Craig says exact numbers are hard to pin down. "We don't know whether that's going to be all at once, whether it's going to be 2 inches a year, but the reality is that sea level is going to rise. We have to plan for it, and this is one of the ways that we can do that," he says.
Key West's downtown tourist epicenter is also one of the island's lowest points. Alison Higgins, Key West's sustainability coordinator, is one of the people planning how the island will change to adapt to rising sea level.
It's not just a question for the future. Higgins says the town deals with it every month — during the full moon when the high tide pushes seawater up through the storm drains, flooding some streets. Rainwater recently lapped over the curb at a downtown CVS and flooded all the merchandise on the bottom floor.
Outside its front entrance, the drugstore now keeps a permanent stack of sandbags at the ready. To help stop the regular flooding, Key West is spending more than $4 million to install pumps and upgrade its drainage downtown.
But in other parts of town, Higgins says there's not an easy solution. In midtown, she says, there are some wood structures and a lot built from concrete block. "It was the cheaper way to build," she says.
It's one of the lowest-lying neighborhoods in Key West, just a few feet above sea level. It flooded during Hurricane Wilma in 2005, and, as the oceans rise, it will become more vulnerable to flooding from storm surge and even rainstorms. Because most houses are concrete block built on slabs, they're not easily elevated.
New federal flood insurance rates recently took effect have dramatically raised the premiums for many who live here. Chris Bergh with the Nature Conservancy says increasing the cost of living in paradise is one more impact of sea level rise.
“ We don't know whether that's going to be all at once, whether it's going to be two inches a year, but the reality is that sea level is going to rise.
- Donald Craig, Key West planning director
"Part of the reason that property values are so high here is that it's been considered a desirable place to live. But, at some point with sea level rise, the risks associated with living near the ocean start to come into play and start to counteract those benefits," Bergh says.
Others in Key West though are more optimistic. Even under worst-case scenarios of a 3-foot rise by the end of the century, they say Key West will survive and even prosper.
"People will want to continue to live near the water," Craig says.
Craig says in Key West and other coastal areas, he thinks people and the communities they live in will adapt.
"They will recognize that they have to raise their houses. We will have to make adjustments in our roads," he says. "When you think about it, if the Dutch can adapt by having a series of barriers against the North Sea that they maintain at great expense, then we can adapt."
Key West also has something else in its favor. For nearly 200 years now, the U.S. Navy has had a major presence here. And rising seas or not, that's not expected to change.


I am so glad to see that some areas are making plans for a change which some members of the political spectrum want to say is not really going to happen. In spite of the warnings of most mainstream scientists now, there are still people who will lose money if things change in our political policies, so they refuse to acknowledge the whole issue of climate change. They're like the people who say the Holocaust didn't happen. But some cities – I hope there will be others soon – are being proactive and making laws to try to save their populations and infrastructure. It cheers me up to see this beginning to happen. Maybe some of the worst effects of climate change can be avoided.