Seeds
Ideas Sprouting Elsewhere

A thousand UK musicians release a silent album protesting a government proposal that lets AI companies freely pillage their work.

A thousand UK musicians release a silent album protesting a government proposal that lets AI companies freely pillage their work.

Some ideas are so inherently stupid you don’t think to take them seriously. Then you realize it’s a government idea and that the government has the power to implement it. So, while still stupid. It’s also very serious.

America, sit down. It’s the UK’s turn to shine.

The UK government is proposing new rules that would let tech firms freely use copyrighted material to train their models unless the creators proactively opt out.

The copyright exemption means that companies like OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT), Google (Gemini) and others can train their models on whatever words, sounds, images they find without asking permission or compensating the artists that created them.

Put simply, it’s an incredible, and incredibly massive, tech giveaway.

As the BBC explains:

Generative AI programmes mine, or learn, from vast amounts of data like text, images, or music online to generate new content which feels like it has been made by a human.

The proposals would give artists or creators a so-called “rights reservation” – the ability to opt out.

But critics of the plan believe it is not possible for an individual writer or artist to notify thousands of different AI service providers that they do not want their content used in that way, or to monitor what has happened to their work across the whole internet.

Over a thousand British musicians banded together to release a protest album against the proposal. The album, Is This What We Want?, features 12 tracks in the 3-5 minute range that record the sounds of empty studios and performance spaces. On one, you might hear someone shuffling about. On another, you might hear a cough or some clatter.

“You can hear my cats moving around,” says Hewitt Jones of the track he contributed to the album. “I have two cats in my studio who bother me all day when I’m working.”

Issues surrounding copyright and artist control over their creations is peaking in the UK as the government tries to lure tech firms to the country.

Last fall, 37,000 creative professionals signed a statement organized by the British composer Ed Newton-Rex saying that the unlicensed use of creative work for AI model training is a “major, unjust” threat to creators’ livelihoods.

“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” Newton-Rex told The Associated Press.

A study released last December by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers concludes that music industry workers stand to lose $3.7 billion to AI companies by 2028.

Or, as the study notes:

In an unchanged regulatory framework, creators will actually suffer losses on two fronts: the loss of revenues due to the unauthorised use of their works by Gen AI models without remuneration; and replacement of their traditional revenue streams due to the substitution effect of AI-generated outputs, competing against human-made works.

The UK government proposal seems intent on taking care of the first part in one fell swoop. In a letter to the Times of London, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Tom Stoppard and Kazuo Ishiguro among other notables write that the copyright exemption is “a wholesale giveaway of rights and income from the UK’s creative sectors to Big Tech.”

Meantime, The BBC flags a statement from a spokesman for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The current copyright regime is “holding back” creatives and the tech companies from “realizing their full potential. That’s why we have been consulting on a new approach that protects the interests of both AI developers and right holders and delivers a solution which allows both to thrive.” (Emphasis ours)

Protect the interests? Of tech companies? To pillage the works of the country’s creatives? It beggars belief.

AI “music” is already on streaming services. In 2023, Spotify removed tens of thousands of songs uploaded to it by AI music generator Boomy. The issue wasn’t the AI songs. It was that bots artificially boosted their play count.

The Spotify’s and Boomy’s of the world want legitimate AI songs trained on real world artists. If artists want to participate, so be it. It’s their work, after all. Compensate them how they want to be compensated. Grimes, for example, is fully onboard with fans making new music with an AI-generated version of her voice.

In the meantime, protect the musicians and give Is This What We Want? a listen.

Artists involved include Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Yusuf Stevens, Billy Ocean, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Tori Amos, and Hans Zimmer and Damon Albarn, along with contemporary classical composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones among many, many others.

Seed Date:
February 2025
Permalink:
The Sound of Silence – UK Musicians Protest Tech Giveaway

What happens when USAID is gone? It's only been a few days and so far it's chaos.

What happens when USAID is gone? It's only been a few days and so far it's chaos.

Last we highlighted some of the good work USAID has done over the years. Today we’re back because the current administration is effectively dismantling the agency without the congressional oversight or input required.

Without getting conspiratorial, but it’s almost like, how can you not, we’ll start off with two bits of information that seem tangentially related.

First, Elon Musk, who somehow, extra-constitutionally, is swinging the wrecking ball through the US government, called USAID “evil” and a “criminal organization.”

Second, and relevant in cases such as these, the USAID Inspector General was investigating the agency’s partnership with Musk’s company Starlink. Something was off with the five thousand Starlink satellite terminals that were sent to the Ukrainian government, according to The Lever.

Via The Lever:

In September, the agency’s inspector general told Congress the probe was reviewing “USAID’s oversight of Starlink Satellite Terminals provided to the Ukrainian government, and USAID’s efforts to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse in Ukraine.” Other USAID webpages mentioning SpaceX and Starlink seem to have disappeared from the agency’s website, though some remain available at the Internet Archive.

So there’s that, and we mention it because it seems relevant.

Now, unfortunately, USAID.

It’s currently shuttered, and its employees were told to return to the United States. Out in the world, there’s more havoc.

Via Wired:

The impacts of the agency’s dismantling on humanitarian relief, public health, and human rights work, combined with the wider 90-day State Department pause on foreign aid payments, are already far-reaching and severe around the world. Sources tell WIRED that the situation is also impacting anti-human-trafficking work targeted at addressing forced labor compounds that fuel digital fraud like investment scams.

The funding cuts and pauses have immediately made it harder for people to safely escape scam compounds, according to half a dozen sources working to combat scams and trafficking. The cuts have also shrunk services that house and care for human trafficking victims and are limiting investigatory work into criminal groups.

Meanwhile, Grist reports on how the USAID shutdown threatens achieving climate goals and resiliency:

USAID’s climate-related funding helps low-income countries build renewable energy and adapt to worsening natural disasters, as well as conserve carbon sinks and sensitive ecosystems…

[Since 2022] USAID offices around the world began tweaking their operations to ensure the projects they were funding would hold up as temperatures continue to rise. For example, the agency would ensure water and sewer systems could handle bigger floods, or would plan to inoculate against diseases that might spread faster in warm weather. The effort was especially important in sectors like agriculture, which is both emissions-heavy and extremely vulnerable to the weather shocks that come with even small climatic shifts.

These efforts are effectively shuttered. An anecdote highlighted by Inside Climate News is unfortunately enlightening.

This week in Nairobi, Kenya, a group of international humanitarian, business and government partners met to discuss an initiative to use renewable energy to provide power and internet access to medical facilities in sub-Saharan Africa that currently struggle to keep the lights on.

The program, called the Health Electrification and Telecommunications Alliance (HETA), aims to use solar panels and battery storage to ensure reliable power and communications access to 10,000 facilities in 11 countries that provide care for about 1.9 million people.

But the staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the lead agency bringing partners together to complete the project, wasn’t there.

Instead, because of the Trump shutdown, “They missed the meeting that they basically spent the last five years aiming towards,” former USAID official Daniel Kammen told Inside Climate News.

USAID controls a $40 billion budget and like any agency of such size, there’s bound to be waste and mismanagement. In normal times, sensible people would point this out, congressional hearings would follow, changes would be made.

Such would be the way in normal times. But these aren’t normal times. Instead, a wrecking ball is demolishing the agency and the good work it does around the world. Reuters, for example, reports that “500,000 metric tons of food worth $340 million is in limbo, in transit or storage, as humanitarian organizations wait for US State Department approval to distribute it.”

Not long ago, USAID enjoyed widespread bipartisan support. Marco Rubio, whose State Department stands to take over the agency, says his “frustration” with the agency “goes back to my time in Congress. It is a completely unresponsive agency.”

As the Bulwark reports, Rubio’s disdain is actually new:

Rubio’s old Senate Twitter account included many instances of him praising USAID work and even chastising then-President Joe Biden for not doing enough to support the establishment.

“If President Biden actually cares about the standard of living in developing countries, he’d let @USAID and @DFCgov invest in affordable fossil fuel and fertilizer infrastructure,” he wrote in November 2023.

Yes, in normal times, the US government would function as the US government is supposed to function. Congress would mandate changes to the agency. You and I might not like them, but that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Instead, the Trump administration is in some performative delirium where they smash things now and who cares what the courts may say later.

Seed Date:
February 2025
Permalink:
You Don’t Know What You Had Until it’s Lost

The universe is a strange place. Scientists just discovered a planet with 20,000 mile per hour winds.

The universe is a strange place. Scientists just discovered a planet with 20,000 mile per hour winds.

Scientists at the European Southern Observatory have discovered winds traveling twenty thousand miles per hour (33,000 km/h) on a large exoplanet called WASP-127b.

These are the fastest winds ever discovered. By comparison, Neptune holds the record in our solar system with winds once measured at 1,118 mph (1,800 km/h).

“This is something we haven’t seen before,” lead author Lisa Nortmann, an astrophysicist at the University of Göttingen in Germany, said in a statement. We don’t doubt it!

The giant gas planet is a bit bigger than Jupiter, was discovered in 2016 and is located some 500 light-years from Earth.

According to Discover Magazine, “The astronomers first measured how the light of WASP-127b’s host star travels through the planet’s upper atmosphere. Then they probed its composition, finding both water vapor and carbon monoxide molecules there. Finally, they clocked the speed at which these molecules moved.”

To put the speed in perspective, the the winds on WASP-127b travel at 5.5 miles per second. The speed of sound on earth is approximately 0.21 miles per second.

For more, visit Gizmodo. They have one of the better explainers we could find.

Seed Date:
February 2025
Permalink:
Twenty Thousand Mile-Per-Hour Winds: Just Another Day in the Universe

We’re not rocket scientists but with weather in the contiguous United States getting hotter, wetter and pricier, now might not be the best time to scrub data from governmental web sites.

We’re not rocket scientists but with weather in the contiguous United States getting hotter, wetter and pricier, now might not be the best time to scrub data from governmental web sites.

As is tradition, annual climate reports from agencies around the world suggest the world is barreling towards (Editors: past?) global goals established in the Paris Climate Accord of 2015.

So goes the National Centers for Environment Information in their 2024 climate assessment of the contiguous United States. We post this and link back to the source hoping, fingers crossed but skeptical with the current administration’s hostility towards climate information, that it stays online. If not, here’s the summary (PDF).

Here are some highlights… or lowlights, as it were:

  • The average annual temperature of the contiguous U.S. was 55.5°F, 3.5°F above average and the warmest in the 130-year record. 
  • Annual precipitation for the contiguous U.S. was 31.58 inches, 1.66 inches above average, ranking in the wettest third of the historical record (1895–2024). 
  • The Atlantic basin saw 18 named tropical cyclones and five landfalling hurricanes during 2024—an above-average season. Hurricane Helene was the seventh-most-costly Atlantic hurricane on record.
  • The tornado count for 2024 was second highest on record behind 2004 (1,817 tornadoes) with at least 1,735 confirmed tornadoes. When looking at EF-2+ tornadoes, 2024 was the most active year since the historic 2011 season.
  • Hurricane Helene’s extensive damage topped the list of 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events identified during 2024—the second-highest annual disaster count in the 45-year record. 
  • Drought coverage across the contiguous U.S. ranged from a minimum extent of 12 percent on June 11—the smallest contiguous U.S. footprint since early 2020—to a maximum coverage of 54 percent on October 29.

Our climate continues to get pricey. Here are initial costs associated with 2024 climate disasters:

The Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters update is a quantification of the weather and climate disasters that in 2024 led to more than $1 billion in collective damages for each event. During 2024, the U.S. experienced 27 weather and climate disasters each incurring losses that exceeded $1 billion. 2024 ranked second highest for the number of billion-dollar disasters in a calendar year. These disasters included: 17 severe storms, five tropical cyclones, two winter storms, one flooding event, one drought/heat wave and one wildfire event.

The U.S. cost for these disasters in 2024 was $182.7 billion and was fourth highest on record. The total annual cost may rise by several billion as additional costs from identified events are reported over time. There were at least 568 fatalities associated with these events—the eighth-highest number of fatalities on record.

Important to note: “This is also a record 14th consecutive year where the U.S. experienced 10 or more billion-dollar disasters and the fifth consecutive year (2020–24) where 18 or more billion-dollar disasters impacted the US.”

So there’s that.

As referenced above, the current administration is scrubbing governmental Web sites of information it doesn’t like. If what you’re looking for has been removed, try the United Nations Environment Programme along with its environmental statistics division.

If you have the time and capacity, there’s also the End of Term Archive which is a collaboration among various institutions to preserve government website data between administrations.

Seed Date:
February 2025
Permalink:
Hotter, Wetter, Crazier

Potatoes are awesome. Big Potato, not so much. In the United States, it faces lawsuits over price fixing.

Potatoes are awesome. Big Potato, not so much. In the United States, it faces lawsuits over price fixing.

The history of the potato is fascinating. First domesticated 8,000 years ago in the Andes, the world now produces about 375 million metric tons globally.

They come in all shapes and sizes, with some 5,000 varieties known to exist. If you visit Peru, the 12,000-hectare Potato Park (“Parque de la Papa” in Spanish) is located in the mountains near the southern city of Cusco. The park was established to conserve the rich potato biodiversity of the Andean highlands and preserve indigenous knowledge of that diversity. They collaborate with research institutions to share genetic knowledge and develop climate-resistant potato varieties, while prohibiting the patenting of genetic resources.

Farmers sharing potatoes in the Potato Park, Peru.
Farmers sharing potatoes in the Potato Park, Peru. IIED on Flickr

The potato’s spread into Europe in the 1600s is interesting on its own. Europeans were suspicious of this new world tuber. They weren’t mentioned in the Bible and some referred to them as the “Devil’s Apple”. They were associated with demons and other things that get spooky at night. When finally adopted into European diets, the upper classes scoffed. Since they grew in the dirt, they were considered food for the poor.

But this isn’t about all that. This is about Big Potato. Specifically, how America’s potato cartel colludes to keep prices high.

As we learn from The Lever, four companies now control 97% of the US $68 billion frozen potato market. Somehow, who knows ¯_(ツ)_/¯, prices for potatoes from these four companies rose 47 percent in lockstep between 2022 and 2024.

The firms “have never ever seen margins this high in the history of the potato industry,” said an executive from one of the companies in an investor call.

Late last fall, the four companies were hit with several antitrust lawsuits that accuse them of conspiring “to artificially fix the prices of their spuds by sharing trade information and coordinating price raises beginning in 2021,” according to The Washington Post.

The collusion isn’t happening in secret deals. Instead, like other industries, these companies leverage tech platforms to, essentially, do the colluding for them.

Via The Lever:

In the popular imagination, price-fixing agreements might be struck at a secret meeting of rival executives — the deal made in the classic “smoke-filled room.” But the case against Big Potato argues that the frozen potato companies have accomplished such a tacit agreement through other means: a third-party tech platform.

From meatpacking to real estate, antitrust enforcers have begun to take a closer look at information-sharing platforms, software used within industries to share business information between rival companies. Regulators argue that such tech platforms allow companies to tacitly fix prices by swapping detailed and often confidential information on their operating costs and pricing.

We see this happening all over the place. See, Three Algorithms in the Room where we learn about the growing number of industries using software to price fix. Or read about how the Department of Justice is siding with tenants that accuse a tech company’s real estate platform of helping landlords collude against them.

Regulators argue that such tech platforms allow companies to tacitly fix prices by swapping detailed and often confidential information on their operating costs and pricing. Here’s one on sugar. Here’s one on meat.

Again, from The Lever:

“It’s unnecessary to actually have everybody get together and agree on prices, because that’s a felony, and you can go to prison, and they know that,” said Peter Carstensen, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute. “So they’re not going to do that if they’ve got another means of accomplishing the same end.”

For the frozen potato companies, the smoke-filled room is called PotatoTrac, an analytics service sold by a third-party company called Circana. The four major frozen potato companies all agree to feed data into PotatoTrac, which the service then distributes to the market, giving executives an in-depth look at supply, labor costs, and pricing.

“Using this aggregated pricing data, the Defendants have been able to coordinate prices… to artificially inflate the price of [frozen potatoes] by ensuring that no price competition takes place,” one lawsuit argues.

Like elsewhere, technology is used to create “efficiencies”. In this case, market negotiations that end up with collusion.

But, the defendants hope, it absolves people of responsibility. They’re just following the algorithm’s recommendations as you, and we, are left with the consequences.

Seed Date:
January 2025
Permalink:
Consider the Potato

A delivery truck carrying 44,000 pounds of chickpeas combusted as it drove through California’s Death Valley. We did the math. That’s a lot of hummus.

A delivery truck carrying 44,000 pounds of chickpeas combusted as it drove through California’s Death Valley. We did the math. That’s a lot of hummus.

First, the news: A truck carrying 44,000 pounds of dried chickpeas “burned up” in early December while driving through Death Valley National Park. According to SFGate, it’s the seventh vehicle fire in Death Valley this year.

The fires usually happen the same way. A driver rides his or her breaks when going down steep passes. The brakes then overheat and catch fire. So it goes in one of the hottest places on earth.

This got us thinking though. How much (potential) hummus was lost out there?

First, we start off with our scientific Chickpea to Hummus Conversion Ratio TM.

We’re going to say it takes about 1 pound of dried chickpeas to produce approximately 3 cups of hummus. Our starter pack is 44,000 pounds. Do some math and we have 132,000 cups of hummus.

Put the cups into our Gallon Conversion Kit and we now have 8,250 gallons of hummus.

And if we then decide to sell Death Valley Road Hummus in 10 ounce containers like they have at our local market, we fire up our Gallon to Fluid Ounces Conversion Kit and see that we end up with 105,600 packages to sell at our roadside stand.

As said, that’s a lot of hummus.

And for the concerned, some reassurance from Mike Reynolds, Superintendent of the park, “There’s very little chance that stray chickpeas not cleaned up will become invasive species in the driest place in North America.”

Seed Date:
December 2024
Permalink:
Fire & Hummus

Three oarfish washed up on California's shore in the last few months. Scientists only know of 19 in the previous 123 years. What gives?

Three oarfish washed up on California's shore in the last few months. Scientists only know of 19 in the previous 123 years. What gives?

Oarfish are a remarkable species. They live anywhere between 300 and 3,000 feet deep in the ocean. They grow up to thirty feet. Despite their large size, they feed on the smaller things they find, mostly plankton, shrimp and smaller fishes.

Because of the depth at which they live, they’re only really seen when they’re dead or dying, in which case they start to float toward the surface, or, in some cases, wash up on beaches.

Some consider their washed up bodies harbingers of doom.

Here’s what LiveScience has to say:

In traditional Japanese legend, oarfish were known as “ryugu no tsukai” meaning “the messenger from the sea dragon god’s palace.” People believed oarfish would come up from the deep to warn people when an earthquake was imminent. This myth caused a stir in 2011 when 20 oarfish washed ashore in the months before Japan was struck by the country’s most powerful earthquake.

While scientists say there’s no there there and disregard the folklore, the myths persist and, of course, it’s not just oarfish. Here’s a fun one from Atlas Obscura:

There are plenty of anecdotes about animals of all shapes and sizes acting oddly before earthquakes…

…In 2009, Grant was studying frogs at a site in Italy when they suddenly disappeared. Five days later, an earthquake hit. Afterward, the frogs returned. This phenomenon set Grant on a mission to discover whether certain animal behaviors actually signaled impending earthquakes. She focused on frog swarms, a natural synchronized mass migration of juvenile frogs that is sometimes seen as an omen of earthquakes in China. But when she and coauthor Hilary Conlan looked at reports from as far back as 1850 and crunched the numbers, the superstition didn’t hold up.

So what do we have to say about the three that recently washed ashore in California. As noted above, scientists only know of 19 that washed ashore in the previous 123 years. What gives?

In a statement, Ben Frable, manager of the Scripps Oceanography Marine Vertebrate Collection at UC San Diego, offered up a disappointing banality: changes in ocean conditions associated with El Niño and La Niña climate patterns that affect the tropical Pacific Ocean are also disorienting the oarfish.

Which, while probably true, we like to think it something stranger. Dare we say, fishier, even.

Seed Date:
December 2024
Permalink:
Canary in the Coal Mine. Oarfish on the Shoreline.

"Having spent a lifetime trying to speak what I believe to be the truth, I am profoundly disturbed to find that these days, my identity is being stolen by others and greatly object to them using it to say whatever they wish." – David Attenborough

"Having spent a lifetime trying to speak what I believe to be the truth, I am profoundly disturbed to find that these days, my identity is being stolen by others and greatly object to them using it to say whatever they wish." – David Attenborough

David Attenborough is not happy that AI is able to clone his voice, or that someone is actually doing it. Via Variety:

In a BBC News segment on Sunday, an AI recreation of the famous British broadcaster’s voice speaking about his new series “Asia” was played next to a real recording, with little to no difference between the two. BBC researchers had found the AI-generated Attenborough on a website, and said there were several that claimed to clone his voice.

Here’s the video.

Our very first post was an Attenborough clone narrating the desktop life of a programmer. We called it “Fascinating. Creepy. Fun. Scary.”

It still is.

Seed Date:
November 2024
Permalink:
David Attenborough is Not Happy

As mountaineers trek to remote areas that most scientists can't get to, a research partnership is born.

As mountaineers trek to remote areas that most scientists can't get to, a research partnership is born.

As climate change reshapes landscapes, mountaineers are helping scientists understand environmental changes in the world’s most extreme locations. These adventurers are becoming crucial partners in collecting valuable scientific data from places that researchers often struggle to reach.

The challenge of high-altitude environments — think harsh weather conditions, difficult terrain, and limited accessibility — makes consistent scientific monitoring daunting. However, mountaineers, who regularly venture into these remote areas, are helping bridge this gap as citizen scientists.

In the Swiss Alps, for instance, the PermaSense project exemplifies this powerful collaboration between adventure and science. Climbers assist researchers by helping monitor critical environmental indicators such as permafrost levels, rock stability, and glacier movements. This data is vital for understanding how climate change affects high-altitude ecosystems and for predicting natural hazards like rockfalls and landslides, which are becoming more frequent as global temperatures rise.

Scientists like to have samples taken in locations where it’s difficult – sometimes damn near impossible – to get funding to go to.

Tim McDermott, environmental microbiologist, Montana State University. Via The BBC

The mountaineers’ scientific value lies in their ability to provide continuous, on-the-ground observations that would be difficult or impossible for traditional research teams to gather. As experienced mountaineers traverse various routes throughout the year, they document changes in glacier conditions, track wildlife movements, and record temperature variations at different altitudes. This regular presence in the mountains allows for the collection of data points that help create a more comprehensive picture of how these sensitive ecosystems are responding to environmental changes.

Organizations like Protect Our Winters (POW) recognize this potential and are actively engaging mountaineers in environmental monitoring efforts. By combining the passion for outdoor adventure with scientific purpose, these initiatives are creating a new model for ecological research that benefits both the scientific community and public safety measures.

Climbing is selfish. There’s no real point to it. I was looking for ways to add meaning or some kind of contribution to my trips.

Hari Mix, a mountain climber who collected data for Adventure Scientists during his Himalayan expeditions. Via The BBC

In the Himalayas, the HIMCAT initiative demonstrates how this approach can be scaled to address regional challenges. Local climbers and trekkers help monitor snow cover and glacier melting patterns to provide crucial data for communities that depend on glacial meltwater. This information helps to plan climate adaptation strategies and manage water resources for vulnerable mountain communities.

The impact of these citizen scientist climbers extends beyond data collection. Their firsthand observations of environmental changes often carry significant weight in raising public awareness about climate change. When experienced mountaineers report dramatic changes in glacial landscapes or shifting weather patterns, their testimonies make abstract climate data more relatable to the general public.

The Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) has taken this collaboration to a global scale, coordinating research and data-sharing among scientists and climbing communities across different mountain ranges worldwide. From the Andes to the Rockies, climbers are contributing to a growing database of environmental observations that help track ecological changes and their social impacts.

Modern technology is enhancing these partnerships. Wireless sensors, mobile apps, and other digital tools allow climbers to record and transmit data more efficiently than ever before. These technological advances, combined with the traditional skills and experience of mountaineers, create a powerful framework for monitoring high-altitude environments.

As climate change continues to affect mountain regions at an accelerating pace, the climbers are becoming increasingly important to researchers. Their contributions not only help fill crucial data gaps but also demonstrate how recreational activities can support meaningful scientific endeavors.

This collaboration between the climbing community and researchers highlights an expanding role for citizen science, one that could prove essential in understanding and protecting Earth’s most vulnerable high-altitude ecosystems.

Seed Date:
November 2024
Permalink:
Mountain Science

A 1958 film directed by Frank Capra, funded by AT&T and aired on American TV warns us about climate change... Yes, in 1958, almost seventy years ago.

A 1958 film directed by Frank Capra, funded by AT&T and aired on American TV warns us about climate change... Yes, in 1958, almost seventy years ago.

Difficult as it might be to believe, the United States government once promoted science education on the nation’s airwaves. It was the 1950s, and the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in the first decade of the Cold War. Governmental leaders saw scientific literacy as a way to gain the upper hand in the tense political, military, and ideological rivalry.

Major corporations were onboard, including AT&T, which was trying to foster a scientifically literate workforce capable of advancing communications technology.

Television seemed a novel medium to increase American’s understanding of science and technology, and in 1954 The Bell Telephone Company – which was part of AT&T – released the first of a nine-part series called The Bell System Science Series.

A few things stand out here. First, the involvement of Frank Capra. The three-time Academy Award winner directed four of the nine installments. But why Capra? How did a luminary of feel-good cinema (“Mr. Deeds Goes to Town”, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, et al) come to direct educational science films.

Sure it was paycheck but Capra had worked on governmental films during World War II. Notably, “Why We Fight”, a collection of seven documentary films produced for the the US Army between 1942 and 1945 that were designed to educate American troops and the public about the reasons behind US involvement in the war.

While the fusion of art and science in educational media was relatively novel, it seems Capra was a geek who simply wanted to turn his lens toward the scientific frontier, and bring complex ideas into American living rooms. His work on “The Unchained Goddess,” part of the Bell System Science Series, stands as a testament to this unique intersection.

What Really Stands Out

If you haven’t yet, watch the video above. It’s a seventy second clip from “The Unchained Goddess”, one of Capra’s contributions to the series, and it not only discusses the dangers of climate change, but pinpoints how human activities contribute to it.

“Man may be unwittingly changing the world’s climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every year of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide which helps air absorb heat from the sun, our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer.”

Remember, this is on American television in 1958, almost seventy years ago.

It’s an early warning about climate change that probably wasn’t much noted at the time but is and was a prophetic message for its time.

Add to this the corresponding imagery of “the polar ice caps” melting and cities like Miami drowning under “150 feet of tropical water,” and these scenarios, once speculative, are now eerily prescient.

And here we are seventy years later. Our media is lightyears more sophisticated, our understanding more thorough, but, at least in (upcoming) United States governmental circles, it’s falling on deaf ears.

Or, maybe, the ears hear, they just don’t care.

The complete film is available on YouTube.

Seed Date:
November 2024
Permalink:
Watching Climate Change… In 1958
More Seeds
—Newsletter

Tree Dance explores the intersection of ecology, technology and culture.

Get Tree Dance in your inbox.

I'm Traveling Until April 2

Hello,

I’m traveling through the end of the month and won’t be posting.

I will be preparing for an actual Tree Dance launch so I can hit the ground running when I’m back.

Thank you for the kind words and feedback you’ve provided over the last three months as we soft-launched the site.

I’m excited to see what happens once we actually get going. I thank you for your company as we begin this journey – Michael