Changing Faces ~ Beat Prejudice, Value Equality

The DailyMail shares Adam Pearson's OpEd TV's Beauty and the Beast star hopes to beat prejudice after big-screen debut...

"My genetic condition, neurofibromatosis, causes excess body tissue and non-cancerous tumours. [...] As a teenager, I was called Elephant Man, Scarface and Quasimodo. All three of these film characters with a scar, mark or illness is either a victim or psychotic killer. I could probably act the part, but in real life I am neither of these things. It’s all about context. [...] What I hope I can do is help to create a society where grown-ups don’t hold these immature, naive prejudices."

Towards this end, Adam supports Changing Faces and the Face Equality campaign...

"...calling for balanced portrayals of people with disfigurements in films. [...] James Partridge, CEO of Changing Faces, said: “We’re so used to seeing people with disfigurements portrayed as the villain in films that it may be hard for people to imagine they could ever play someone’s friend, the Dad picking up his kids from school, the US President, or a lover. [...] “The problem is that, for those who actually do have facial scars or whose faces are asymmetrical as a result of cancer, strokes or birth conditions, the way that people react in the cinema can spill over into the way they are treated in everyday life. It can encourage people to make moral judgements based on what they see on the screen."

Here's the short film Leo to provoke thought... What did you think was going to happen?

Ecosystem Engineers ~ Wolves Change Rivers?

MissC at Neatorama spots How Wolves Change Rivers by the folks at Sustainable Man...

"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix."

Update: Whoops, stop the presses, in NYTimes OpEd piece Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?, Yale Forestry & Enviro Studies Post-Doc Arthur Middleton calls "BS" on this simplistic myth...

"This story -- that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk -- is one of ecology’s most famous. It’s the classic example of what’s called a “trophic cascade,” and has appeared in textbooks, on National Geographic centerfolds and in this newspaper. Americans may know this story better than any other from ecology, and its grip on our imagination is one of the field’s proudest contributions to wildlife conservation. But there is a problem with the story: It’s not true. [...] When we tell the wolf story, we get the Yellowstone story wrong."

As DailyKos quotes, this is damning...

"Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it."

Sustainability-by-Design ~ NYT OpEd on Overpop

Read today's bold OpEd in NYTimes by Professor Erle Ellis asserting that Overpopulation Is Not the Problem...

"The conditions that sustain humanity are not natural and never have been. Since prehistory, human populations have used technologies and engineered ecosystems to sustain populations well beyond the capabilities of unaltered “natural” ecosystems. [...] Our predecessors in the genus Homo used social hunting strategies and tools of stone and fire to extract more sustenance from landscapes than would otherwise be possible. And, of course, Homo sapiens went much further [...] Who knows what will be possible with the technologies of the future? The important message from these rough numbers should be clear. There really is no such thing as a human carrying capacity. We are nothing at all like bacteria in a petri dish. Why is it that highly trained natural scientists don’t understand this? [...] The science of human sustenance is inherently a social science. Neither physics nor chemistry nor even biology is adequate to understand how it has been possible for one species to reshape both its own future and the destiny of an entire planet. This is the science of the Anthropocene. [...] The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it."

FYI, DeLong shares Human Population estimates...