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Tigers are making a massive comeback in India — up 33% in four years
Tiger reserves and a concentrated public effort has brought this animal roaring back to India.
Photo credit: Frida Bredesen on Unsplash
- India's tiger population has grown to nearly 3,000, making it, by far, the country with the largest wild population.
- Their wild population increased over 33 percent in just four years.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it his goal to increase tiger conservationist efforts.
India now has nearly 3,000 tigers living in the wild. Due to concentrated conservation efforts and stricter wildlife policies, India's tiger population soared 33 percent between 2014 and 2018. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who recently presented the latest tiger census, said that the population has risen from 2,226 in 2014 to 2,967 in 2018.
The worldwide tiger population has been in a steep decline. With an estimated global population of 4,000 — India is home to around 70 percent of the world's tigers.
Mr. Modi remarked that India is "now one of the biggest and most secure habitats of the tiger."
Nearly a decade ago, India had embarked on a nationwide goal to double its Bengal tiger population by 2022. They've now reached that goal four years ahead of schedule. In order to protect their gains and expand their tiger population, they'll have to keep enforcing their wildlife policies while also ensuring the safety of their new sanctuaries.
India’s tiger reserves
Wildlife Institute of India National Tiger Conservation Authority
In the past 10 years, India has created nearly two dozen new reserves. Aside from creating space for tigers to live and prosper, these protective areas also create new spaces for wildlife and forests to flourish.
Tens of thousands of Indian officials and scientists track and count these tigers once every four years. They utilize a mixture of camera traps and video recognition software that creates a three-dimensional representation of each individual tiger. They usually have to cover a landmass of about 193,000 square miles.
The conservation efforts come in the wake of a devastating loss that occurred over the span of the past century. It's estimated that between 1875 and 1925, 80,000 tigers were killed in just India alone. Sports hunting and official governmental sponsored killing sprees by kings and officials of the era sanctioned and encouraged this mass slaughter.
Eventually, the Indian government came to its senses and in 1972 enacted a law that essentially made it illegal to kill or capture any kind of protected wild animal. With continued awareness and strict enforcement, the hunting died down. With the help of global conservationists, India invested more money into the protection and growth of their reserves.
In certain parts of India, there is still strife between local villages and tigers. More will have to be done to educate the populace in these areas and strengthen the reserves.
Tiger conservation threats
Some estimates suggest that the tigers are only breeding and living in 10 percent of the total habitat set aside for them. The tigers are underutilizing their space, which often makes them wander outside of these areas and come into conflict with villagers nearby.
Another report, titled "Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of Tiger Reserves 2018," showed that at least half of India's reserves are facing encroachment threats from infrastructure like roads and rail lines.
Conservationists fear that the isolated conflicts that usually occurs on the edge of the reserves, will increase as protected areas grow. Tiger reserves are still threatened by illegal poachers, pollution, unchecked industrialism and climate change.
Modi believes that India's tiger habitats should be expanded:
"There is a very old debate — development or environment. . . and, both sides present views as if each is mutually exclusive."
He understands that there needs to be a balance struck between proper economic development and the protection of the environment.
"In our policies, in our economics, we have to change the conversation about conservation. India will build more roads and India will have cleaner rivers. India will have better train connectivity and also greater tree coverage. India will build more homes for our citizens and at the same time create quality habitats for animals. India will have a vibrant marine economy and healthier marine ecology. This balance is what will contribute to a strong and inclusive India."
This may just be the beginning of a tiger resurgence, if this type of thought prevails over India's tiger conservationist efforts.
From Your Site Articles
- Ross Kauffman - Tigers and the humans who love them - Big Think ›
- You're probably seeing the same backyard animals every day - Big Think ›
- Isolated island creates massive marine sanctuary - Big Think ›
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COVID-19 amplified America’s devastating health gap. Can we bridge it?
The COVID-19 pandemic is making health disparities in the United States crystal clear. It is a clarion call for health care systems to double their efforts in vulnerable communities.
19 November, 2020
Willie Mae Daniels makes melted cheese sandwiches with her granddaughter, Karyah Davis, 6, after being laid off from her job as a food service cashier at the University of Miami on March 17, 2020.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Sponsored by Northwell Health
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated America's health disparities, widening the divide between the haves and have nots.
- Studies show disparities in wealth, race, and online access have disproportionately harmed underserved U.S. communities during the pandemic.
- To begin curing this social aliment, health systems like Northwell Health are establishing relationships of trust in these communities so that the post-COVID world looks different than the pre-COVID one.
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
<p>In the last 100 years, we've made incredible advances in health care, advances that would be viewed as miraculous to any previous generation. To pick one example, the<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy" target="_blank"> U.S. life expectancy</a> in 1950 was 68.2 years. We've since added 10 years to that average. Social programs have helped the young and elderly, two of the most health-vulnerable populations, receive unprecedented levels of care and attention. And telemedicine has decoupled many Americans' health support and monitoring from brick-and-mortar hospitals, expanding access to care.</p><p>Yet, despite these advances and despite handily<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-dozen-facts-about-the-economics-of-the-u-s-health-care-system/" target="_blank"> outspending other OECD nations on health care</a>, the United States preserves vast health disparities. As James Madara, CEO and executive vice president of the American Medical Association,<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/america-s-health-care-crisis-much-deeper-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a>wrote on the organization's site: "The U.S. health system that exists today is a hodgepodge of ideas, programs, and regulations that is both extraordinarily expensive and highly inefficient. And despite its size and technological advancements, our health system is beset by tremendous gaps and inequities that favor some groups while unfairly disadvantaging others."</p><p>Our current predicament has its origins in tectonic sociohistorical forces that have shifted and fractured the health care landscape. For those at the peaks, access to superior care, education, resources, and social networks serve to protect their health. For those in the canyons, the ground continues to weather away with each past and ongoing crisis—consider, for example, the disproportionate fallout from<a href="https://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/60/11/2667" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a><a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the dissolution of the Mental Health Systems Act</a>.</p><p>Then came COVID-19.</p>
COVID-19 deepens U.S. health disparities
<p>Communities on the pernicious side of America's health disparities have their unique histories, environments, and social structures. They are spread across the United States, but they all have one thing in common.</p><p>"There is one common divide in American communities, and that is poverty," said <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/about/leadership/debbie-salas-lopez" target="_blank">Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH</a>, senior vice president of community and population health at Northwell Health. "That is the undercurrent that manifests poor health, poor health outcomes, or poor health prognoses for future wellbeing."</p><p>Social determinants have far-reaching effects on health, and poor communities have unfavorable social determinants. To pick one of many examples, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/913612554/a-crisis-within-a-crisis-food-insecurity-and-covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">food insecurity</a> reduces access to quality food, leading to poor health and communal endemics of chronic medical conditions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified some of these conditions, such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes, as increasing the risk of developing a severe case of coronavirus.</p><p>The pandemic didn't create poverty or food insecurity, but it exacerbated both, and the results have been catastrophic. A study published this summer in the <em><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05971-3" target="_blank">Journal of General Internal Medicine</a></em> suggested that "social factors such as income inequality may explain why some parts of the USA are hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others."</p><p>That's not to say better-off families in the U.S. weren't harmed. A <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/poverty-inequality-and-covid-19-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research</a> noted that families in counties with a higher median income experienced adjustment costs associated with the pandemic—for example, lowering income-earning interactions to align with social distancing policies. However, the paper found that the costs of social distancing were much greater for poorer families, who cannot easily alter their living circumstances, which often include more individuals living in one home and a reliance on mass transit to reach work and grocery stores. They are also disproportionately represented in essential jobs, such as retail, transportation, and health care, where maintaining physical distance can be all but impossible.</p><p>The paper also cited a positive correlation between higher income inequality and higher rates of coronavirus infection. "Our interpretation is that poorer people are less able to protect themselves, which leads them to different choices—they face a steeper trade-off between their health and their economic welfare in the context of the threats posed by COVID-19," the authors wrote.</p><p>"There are so many pandemics that this pandemic has exacerbated," Dr. Salas-Lopez noted.</p><p>One example is the health-wealth gap. The mental stressors of maintaining a low socioeconomic status, especially in the face of extreme affluence, can have a physically degrading impact on health. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/index.cfm/_api/render/file/?method=inline&fileID=123ECD96-EF81-46F6-983D2AE9A45FA354" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Writing on this gap</a>, Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, notes that socioeconomic stressors can increase blood pressure, reduce insulin response, increase chronic inflammation, and impair the prefrontal cortex and other brain functions through anxiety, depression, and cognitive load. </p><p>"Thus, from the macro level of entire body systems to the micro level of individual chromosomes, poverty finds a way to produce wear and tear," Sapolsky writes. "It is outrageous that if children are born into the wrong family, they will be predisposed toward poor health by the time they start to learn the alphabet."</p>Research on the economic and mental health fallout of COVID-19 is showing two things: That unemployment is hitting <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19-continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-the-hardest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">low-income and young Americans</a> most during the pandemic, potentially widening the health-wealth gap further; and that the pandemic not only exacerbates mental health stressors, but is doing so at clinically relevant levels. As <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7413844/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the authors of one review</a> wrote, the pandemic's effects on mental health is itself an international public health priority.<blockquote>We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights.</blockquote>
Working to close the health gap
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDc5MDk1MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTYyMzQzMn0.KSFpXH7yHYrfVPtfgcxZqAHHYzCnC2bFxwSrJqBbH4I/img.jpg?width=980" id="b40e2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b9035370ab7b02a0dc00758e494412b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Northwell Health coronavirus testing center at Greater Springfield Community Church.
Credit: Northwell Health
<p>Novel coronavirus may spread and infect indiscriminately, but pre-existing conditions, environmental stressors, and a lack of access to care and resources increase the risk of infection. These social determinants make the pandemic more dangerous, and erode communities' and families' abilities to heal from health crises that pre-date the pandemic.</p><p>How do we eliminate these divides? Dr. Salas-Lopez says the first step is recognition. "We have to open our eyes to see the suffering around us," she said. "Northwell has not shied away from that."</p><p>"We are steadfast in improving health outcomes for our vulnerable and underrepresented communities that have suffered because of the prevalence of chronic disease, a problem that led to the disproportionately higher death rate among African-Americans and Latinos during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Michael Dowling, Northwell's president and CEO. "We are committed to using every tool at our disposal—as a provider of health care, employer, purchaser and investor—to combat disparities and ensure the <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/education-and-resources/community-engagement/center-for-equity-of-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equity of care</a> that everyone deserves." </p><p>With the need recognized, Dr. Salas-Lopez calls for health care systems to travel upstream and be proactive in those hard-hit communities. This requires health care systems to play a strong role, but not a unilateral one. They must build <a href="https://www.northwell.edu/news/insights/faith-based-leaders-are-the-key-to-improving-community-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">partnerships with leaders in those communities</a> and utilize those to ensure relationships last beyond the current crisis. </p><p>"We must meet with community leaders and talk to them to get their perspective on what they believe the community needs are and should be for the future. Together, we can co-create a plan to measurably improve [community] health and also to be ready for whatever comes next," she said.</p><p>Northwell has built relationships with local faith-based and community organizations in underserved communities of color. Those partnerships enabled Northwell to test more than 65,000 people across the metro New York region. The health system also offered education on coronavirus and precautions to curb its spread.</p><p>These initiatives began the process of building trust—trust that Northwell has counted on to return to these communities to administer flu vaccines to prepare for what experts fear may be a difficult flu season.</p><p>While Northwell has begun building bridges across the divides of the New York area, much will still need to be done to cure U.S. health care overall. There is hope that the COVID pandemic will awaken us to the deep disparities in the US.</p><p>"COVID has changed our world. We have to seize this opportunity, this pandemic, this crisis to do better," Dr. Salas-Lopez said. "Provide better care. Provide better health. Be better partners. Be better community citizens. And treat each other with respect and dignity.</p><p>"We need to find ways to unify this country because we're all human beings. We're all created equal, and we believe that health is one of those important rights."</p>
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Who is the highest selling artist from your state?
What’s Eminem doing in Missouri? Kanye West in Georgia? And Wiz Khalifa in, of all places, North Dakota?
20 April, 2018
Eminem may be 'from' Detroit, but he was born in Missouri
Culture & Religion
This is a mysterious map. Obviously about music, or more precisely musicians. But what’s Eminem doing in Missouri? Kanye West in Georgia? And Wiz Khalifa in, of all places, North Dakota? None of these musicians are from those states! Everyone knows that! Is this map that stupid, or just looking for a fight? Let’s pause a moment and consider our attention spans, shrinking faster than polar ice caps.
<p>This is a map of the best-selling artists <em>in</em> each state, it says. And then to clear up the ambiguity, it adds: FROM not IN each state.</p> <p>And that checks out, at least concerning the birthplaces of the aforementioned trio:</p> <ul class="ee-ul"> <li>Though associated closely with Detroit, Eminem was born Marshall Mathers on October 17, 1972, in St. Joseph, Missouri. </li> <li>Kanye Omari West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia and moved to Chicago with his mother when he was three. </li> <li>Wiz Khalifa is a military brat, born Cameron Jibril Thomaz on September 8, 1987, at Minot AFB in North Dakota. He lived in Germany, the UK, and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh.</li> </ul> <p>But hey, isn’t Dave Matthews a native of Johannesburg, South Africa? What’s he doing in Virginia? Because he’s not mentioned as a solo artist, and bands are not born but formed (an important distinction). That seems to be the criterion here: the Dave Matthews Band took shape in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Backstreet Boys – two Floridians, two Kentuckians and a New Yorker – saw the light of day in Orlando, Florida in 1993.</p> <p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODI0MjE3OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzA2OTQ2MX0.2rmioNB4Ph15vmFcj-nohT03IWvq0JtcaQifTIajJeY/img.png?width=980" id="e888e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4fdd6f09f9f0c7d0c033c74884428efe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></p> <p>This map popped up last year on r/MapPorn, Reddit’s corner for cartography nerds, where it generated almost a thousand comments. Since we couldn’t find a link to the data used for the map, we did some digging of our own and ended up at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which keeps track of music sales in the U.S.</p> <p>The <a href="https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=awards_by_artist#search_section">Gold & Platinum section of the RIAA website</a> ranks (1) artists by their all-time sales (but not by the state of birth). Cross-referencing with the map, the ranking (of both albums/EPs and singles sold) produces this Top 10:</p> <ol class="ee-ol"> <li>Garth Brooks (OK): 148 million.</li> <li>Elvis Presley (MS): 146.5 million.</li> <li>Eagles (CA): 101 million.</li> <li>Michael Jackson (IN): 81 million.</li> <li>George Strait (TX): 69 million.</li> <li>Aerosmith (NH): 66.5 million.</li> <li>Madonna (MI): 64.5 million.</li> <li>Mariah Carey (NY): 64.5 million.</li> <li>Whitney Houston (NJ): 58.5 million.</li> <li>Kenny G. (WA): 48 million.</li> </ol> <p>The RIAA ranking does not make a distinction per state (either of birth or residence) and indeed also includes non-American artists. The Beatles top the overall list (178 million units sold). Garth and Elvis come second and third. Led Zeppelin, Brits as well, occupy #4 (with 111.5 million units sold). In fifth overall place are the Eagles, #3 in the ranking that conforms to this map.</p> <p>Things quickly go wrong. Brooklyn-born Billy Joel, #6 in RIAA’s overall ranking (with 82.5 million), does not get to splash his name across his native state. That honor goes to Mariah Carey (scoring 64.5 million units). Similarly, it’s not Bruce Springsteen (65.5 million) but Whitney Houston (58.5 million) who ‘owns’ New Jersey on this map.</p> <p>What gives? Are we counting the wrong things? Instead of checking the total for Albums/EPs and Singles, let’s try just Albums/EPs. And yes, now Whitney resoundingly beats Bruce, 17.5 versus 3.5 million. And Mariah outsells Billy. </p> <p>But solving one problem just causes others. Album-wise, the Eagles’ 2.5 million total sales pale into insignificance versus Katy Perry’s 98 million – yet it’s not her name splashed across California. But wait… despite scoring 98 million in the Album/EP category alone, Katy Perry seems to disappear in the combined Album/EP and Single ranking.</p> <p>We’d love to get to the bottom of this. But now our head hurts, and we need to lie down. Can anybody point us to a valid source that makes sense of this map? Please help us out via the email below.</p> <p>Map found <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/5mt68a/best_selling_music_artists_in_each_us_state/">here</a> on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn">r/MapPorn</a>.</p> <p><strong>Strange Maps #901</strong></p> <p><em>Got a strange map? Let me know at</em> <a href="mailto:strangemaps@gmail.com">strangemaps@gmail.com</a>.</p>
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MIT breakthrough in deep learning could help reduce errors
Researchers make the case for "deep evidential regression."
25 November, 2020
Credit: sdeocoret / Adobe Stock
Technology & Innovation
- MIT researchers claim that deep learning neural networks need better uncertainty analysis to reduce errors.
- "Deep evidential regression" reduces uncertainty after only one pass on a network, greatly reducing time and memory.
- This could help mitigate problems in medical diagnoses, autonomous driving, and much more.
<p>We've all seen the movies: a mad genius creates breakthrough artificial intelligence only to have it turn on them—and humanity. Midway through the film, the robots are taking over. By the end, humans have won, though barely. Like Godzilla, AI is never really gone. The monster that is our darkest shadow always lurks, ready to lurch back into action.</p><p>Fantasy aside, AI <em>is</em> a real problem. As Richard Clarke and R.P. Eddy write in their 2017 book, "Warnings," 47 percent of all U.S. jobs could be put out of commission in 20 years—and that was predicted by Oxford researchers in 2013. A McKinsey study from the same year predicts AI will "depose 140 million full-time knowledge workers worldwide." </p><p>Large-scale unemployment is dangerous, especially in terms of governmental action. The current administration has basically ignored AI, while the incoming administration does have a <a href="https://fortune.com/2020/11/10/biden-harris-administation-artificial-intelligence/" target="_blank">research platform</a>. How that factors into job loss remains to be seen. Clarke and Eddy point to various responses to the Great Depression:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"In 1932, the U.S. responded with the New Deal. Western Europe responded with Fascism and the imminent rise of Nazism, Russia deepened into Stalinism and five-year plans." </p><p>There's also the question of efficacy. How do we really know when AI is working as planned? Statistics rely on two main confidence intervals: 95 percent and 99 percent. While the latter seems to inspire confidence from large data sets, do you want, for example, an AI medical intervention to have a 1 percent chance of failure? </p><p>Alexander Amini, a PhD student in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and first author of a <a href="http://www.mit.edu/~amini/pubs/pdf/deep-evidential-regression.pdf" target="_blank">new paper</a> on neural networks, <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2020/neural-network-uncertainty-1120" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">says</a> we shouldn't have to take that risk.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"One thing that has eluded researchers is the ability of these models to know and tell us when they might be wrong. We really care about that 1 percent of the time, and how we can detect those situations reliably and efficiently."</p><p>Deep learning neural networks are being used in autonomous driving and medical diagnoses, among many other fields. A 1 percent risk in an AI that filters social media feeds might not seem like much of a gamble, but when it comes to drug design or medical image analysis, such a risk could result in tragedy. </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDgwNzU4My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDQ5OTY2OX0.sK8rPGPkb5Q692KejassaZ_2T0cOQAEGMa5Wj1Z5a24/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C100%2C0%2C100&height=700" id="d0a33" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4e1ca228c21bbb9fe4802ec9407dcd9e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""><br></p>Credit: scharsfinn86 / Adobe Stock
<p>On the road, 1 percent could be the difference between stopping at an intersection or rushing through just as another car runs a stop sign. Amini and colleagues wanted to produce a model that could better detect patterns in giant data sets. They named their solution "deep evidential regression."</p><p>Sorting through billions of parameters is no easy task. Amini's model utilizes uncertainly analysis—learning how much error exists within a model and supplying missing data. This approach in deep learning isn't novel, though it often takes a lot of time and memory. Deep evidential regression estimates uncertainty after only one run of the neural network. According to the team, they can assess uncertainty in both input data <em>and</em> the final decision, after which they can either address the neural network or recognize noise in the input data.</p><p>In real-world terms, this is the difference between trusting an initial medical diagnosis or seeking a second opinion. By arming AI with a built-in detection system for uncertainty, a new level of honesty with data is reached—in this model, with pixels. During a test run, the neural network was given novel images; it was able to detect changes imperceptible to the human eye. Ramini believes this technology can also be used to pinpoint <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-you-spot-them" target="_blank">deepfakes</a>, a serious problem we must begin to grapple with.</p><p>Any field that uses machine learning will have to factor in uncertainty awareness, be it medicine, cars, or otherwise. As Amini says, </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Any user of the method, whether it's a doctor or a person in the passenger seat of a vehicle, needs to be aware of any risk or uncertainty associated with that decision."</p><p>We might not have to worry about alien robots turning on us (yet), but we should be concerned with that new feature we just downloaded into our electric car. There will be many other issues to face with the emergence of AI in our world—and workforce. The safer we can make the transition, the better. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a>. His new book is</em> "<em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KRVMP2M?pf_rd_r=MDJW43337675SZ0X00FH&pf_rd_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy</a>."</em></p>
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Skyborne whales: The rise (and fall) of the airship
Can passenger airships make a triumphantly 'green' comeback?
24 November, 2020
R. Humphrey/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
Technology & Innovation
Large airships were too sensitive to wind gusts and too sluggish to win against aeroplanes. But today, they have a chance to make a spectacular return.
For decades, die-hard fans of airships have had to accept the fact that their beloved airborne vessels had no chance of making their way back to air travel routes. The ever more technologically advanced aeroplanes are more comfortable and practical than these sluggish giants. Yet the situation changed over a year ago when people in Sweden started talking about 'flight shame'. Along with the heightened fear of global warming, calculations were being made that, for example, a Boeing 747 emits as much carbon dioxide into the air during 24 hours of flight as 250 passenger cars riding uninterruptedly for a year. Although aeroplanes are responsible for only 4% of the CO2 that goes into the atmosphere in the territory of the European Union, 'flight shame' became a hit. The Green parties, especially in Germany, started to bang the alarm that in Europe 45% of all flights are operated on routes shorter than 500 kilometres. The first airlines have just embraced this new trend; at the end of 2019, Dutch airline KLM announced that as of March they will replace flight connections from Amsterdam to Brussels with train routes, together with railway operator Thalys. Likewise, Air France – part of the same holding company as KLM – announced a New Year's resolution that by 2021, the French air carrier will reduce its domestic flights by 15%.
<p>This trend brings with it the unique opportunity for the much more environmentally-friendly passenger airships to make a triumphant comeback. Much like they did 100 years ago, today's airships move with the help of propeller-type turbines powered by petrol or diesel engines. However, they emit considerably less CO2 than jet engines. On shorter distances, their speed, on average nine times lower than passenger jets, does not make that much of a difference. Especially since an airship can pick up passengers even in the centre of a metropolis.</p><p>Working on refining such a solution is the British company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), founded in 2007. For the past decade, its engineers have been fine-tuning the Airlander 10 project. Standing behind the name is a 92-metres-long vehicle that combines the benefits of an aeroplane and helicopter. It can land and take off from practically any location, take 14 tons of cargo or 60 passengers on board, and then fly at a speed of 140 kilometres per hour for up to five days without having to land. In September 2019 in London, HAV representatives signed a contract with the US company Vertex Aerospace LLC, thereby opening up the possibility of supplying Airlander 10 to the US Department of Defense. Soon after that, the management of HAV announced it was launching preparations for the development of a passenger model powered by electric engines. It is indeed this type of drive unit that could ultimately tip the scales and let these huge machines, the development of which was halted by aeroplanes 100 years ago, take to the skies once more.</p>
<h3>A balloon with an engine</h3><p>The balloon designed and built by Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier never became a useful flying machine due to one fundamental drawback: the direction that it flew in was defined by the blowing wind. For several decades since the summer of 1783, when the brothers held a demonstration of their invention for King Louis XVI by sending a lamb, rooster and duck flying in the air, designers were not be able to overcome this challenge. Granted, there were designs of balloons equipped with sails or even propellers, yet the secret to success lay in a proper drive unit.</p><p>French designer Henri Jules Giffard was the first to recognize this. He managed to build a steam engine weighing a little over 100 kilograms that could be installed in the balloon's gondola. He attached his structure to a cigar-shaped balloon 44 metres in length and filled it with hydrogen. Then he loaded 150 kilograms of coke into the gondola and, on 24th September 1852, set out from Paris to Trappes. The flight proceeded in the direction chosen by Giffard, as the French inventor equipped the vehicle with a triangular sail serving the function of a rudder. Yet the flying giant proved to be helpless in the face of slightly stronger gusts of wind. And once again, the problem lay in the drive unit; to be able to squeeze additional power out of a steam engine, it had to be enlarged. That, in turn, meant that the balloon needed to be bigger to be able to lift the heavier load into the sky. But then the vessel would become even less controllable and vulnerable to the wind.</p><p>Numerous designers attempted to improve Giffard's masterpiece. An airship designed by two captains of the French Army, Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs, looked very promising. The propeller that pushed the vehicle forward was powered by an 8.5 horsepower electric engine, eight times more powerful than Giffard's steam engine. Thanks to the new drive unit, on 9th August 1884, <em>La France</em> was able to fly eight kilometres in 20 minutes, turn back and return to the place it started from, in spite of the wind. However, Krebs and Renard were not able to manage the issues created by lead acid batteries, as they were too heavy, inefficient and required constant recharging.</p>
<h3>The flying count</h3><p>While French inventors were walking in circles, the Germans set off to conquer the heavens. At the end of the 19th century, Germany was producing the most sophisticated combustion engines in the world. The small yet powerful 28 horsepower engines from the Daimler factory caught the attention of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. In 1890, with his 50th birthday on his heels, General von Zeppelin decided to end his military career and engage in the construction of flying machines, thereby fulfilling the dreams of his youth. He caught the aeronautics bug in the US during the Civil War, when he flew in a balloon high above the battle fields as the envoy of the King of Württemberg. 25 years later, he started work on the construction of an innovative airship along with engineer Theodor Kobert. They drew inspiration from the ideas of Hungarian engineer David Schwartz, who had patented the design of an aerostat based on a stiff frame covered with a cotton or aluminium shell, which in turn concealed soft balloons filled with hydrogen.</p><p>The fulfilment of his dream proved to be a costly venture, and after eight years of struggling, Von Zeppelin founded the <em>Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt</em> in Stuttgart in 1898. In July 1900, on the coast of Lake Constance, he was able to present to shareholders and onlookers his enormous flying machine, the <em>Luftschiff Zeppelin (LZ 1)</em>. The cigar-shaped creation, which was 128 metres in length, majestically glided across the sky around 300 metres above the waters of the lake thanks to two Daimler engines. Following that success, and thanks to public fundraisers and lotteries, Von Zeppelin managed to collect 250,000 marks to build yet another airship, abbreviated the<em> LZ 2</em>. The count was expecting that the German army would buy it for 1.5 million marks, but the price proved to be prohibitively high. The army was initially not interested in the <em>LZ 3</em> model either, although it made 45 flights safely, covering an air distance of 4000 kilometres.</p><p>A breakthrough did not come until the matter of the high-profile catastrophe of the <em>LZ 4</em> airship appeared. The count had turned the <em>LZ 4</em> into a near masterpiece. The 136-metre-long cigar-shaped vehicle was divided into 17 chambers filled with hydrogen, and attached beneath it was a gondola for the pilots and mechanics, as well as a second luxury passenger gondola. Even King Wilhelm II of Württemberg, who had been persuaded to try the airship out in July of 1908, had no complaints about its level of comfort. After the marketing success, Count Zeppelin announced that his vehicle would make a 24-hour flight without landing, hoping to convince the head of the German army that airships were the perfect solution for attacking the deep hinterland of the enemy. However, on 5th August 1908, a storm forced the <em>LZ 4</em> pilot Hugon Eckener to land near the city of Echterdingen. There, a gust of the storm wind snapped the airship's tether and threw it to the ground; the hydrogen exploded and the machine burned to ashes.</p><p>That loss pushed Count Zeppelin's company to the brink of bankruptcy. When the news became widespread, the Germans spontaneously organized a fundraiser for the engineer, whom they were proud of. Soon, he received a sum of over six million marks. This capital allowed Zeppelin to found Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, a company that, in line with its name (<em>Luftschiffbau</em> means 'airship engineering'), specialized in the construction of airships. Financial aid was also promised by the Minister of War Karl von Einem, who was increasingly more interested in the combat potential of the flying machines.</p>
<h3>Civil and bomber</h3><p>The mass participation of regular Germans in the fundraiser gave Von Zeppelin the idea that his airships could compete with train travel. In November 1909, he surprised the world by founding the <em>Deutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktiengesellschaft</em> (DELAG) passenger airline. DELAG transported the first 20,000 passengers for free, thereby promoting the trend for air travel, and after that he offered tickets for 200 marks. The amount was equivalent to average monthly wages in Germany at the time; nonethless, its flights were becoming more and more popular. On board the 12 DELAG airships, servicing routes connecting the 10 largest cities of the German Empire, you could travel in the company of aristocrats, politicians, millionaires, generals, or even members of the Imperial Family. In 1914, the airline proudly announced that it had transported 34,000 passengers, and that not one of them died during the flights. Users of highly unreliable aeroplanes could only dream of such statistics at the time.</p><p>So when World War I broke out, as the late Walter J. Boyne wrote in his book <em>The Influence of Air Power</em> <em>Upon History</em>, "Germany was so convinced of the potential of dirigibles [...] that it allowed the Army and the Navy to develop their own airship fleets [...]." Ferdinand von Zeppelin, now nearing 80 years of age, was at the height of his fame, while his factories were working at full capacity. Right after the airships, commonly referred to as Zeppelins, appeared over the front lines in France and Great Britain, they raised alarm. In September 1914, in an attempt to anticipate any actions of the enemy, the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill planned a series of attacks of British bombers on airship bases in Cologne and Düsseldorf, and on an airship manufacturing plant in Friedrichshafen. Despite the great dedication of the airmen, the action brought little effect, as only one Zeppelin burned down on the ground when it was hit by a bomb. Yet the expected retaliation attacks did not take place right away. "At a joint meeting September 1914, representatives of the Army and Navy decided that there were as yet too few airships to bomb England, and further, that they were inhibited by Kaiser Wilhelm's reluctance to bomb the homes of many of his royal relatives," Boyne explains. It wasn't until Germany realized enormous losses on the front that the monarch changed his mind.</p><p>"The first attack took place on January 19-20, 1915, with two out of three Zeppelins – L 3 and L 4 – successfully reaching England," Boyne describes. <em>L 3</em> dropped over a dozen 50-kilogram bombs on Great Yarmouth, while <em>L 4</em>, led by Captain Magnus von Platen-Hallermund, nearly gave the German Emperor a heart attack. Its bombs fell onto Sandringham House, where the cousin of Wilhelm II, the British King George V, happened to be staying at the time. Luckily nothing happened to him, but the public were shocked by the fact that for the first time in 800 years, since the times of William the Conqueror, an enemy from the continent had launched a direct attack on the monarchs of England.</p><p>At first, the airships operated over the island with complete impunity. Rifle bullets shot from the ground were not able to pierce the duralumin sheeting of the vessels' hulls. In addition, Zeppelins flew at higher altitudes than fighter planes and were able to climb up more quickly, in spite of their large dimensions. For the first time ever in history, Lieutenant Reginald Warneford managed to shoot down the <em>L 37</em> airship, but this was only after he flew above it in a plane and dropped six bombs from the top. Therefore, the Germans used them even more boldly. "All the fears seemed to be realised on the night of October 13-14 [1915], when five Zeppelins slashed across England, dropping almost two hundred bombs and killing seventy-one people and injuring another 128," Boyne reports.</p>
<h3>The blind path of evolution</h3><p>"Looking up the clear run of New Bridge Street and Farringdon Road I saw high in the sky a concentrated blaze of searchlights, and in its centre a ruddy glow which rapidly spread into the outline of a blazing airship. Then the search lights were turned off and the Zeppelin drifted perpendicularly in the darkened sky, a gigantic pyramid of flames, red and orange, like a ruined star falling slowly to earth," are the words reporter Michael MacDonagh noted in his journal entry dated 1st October 1916. "It was so horribly fascinating that I felt spellbound – almost suffocated with emotion, ready hysterically to laugh or cry. When at last the doomed airship vanished from sight there arose a shout the like of which I never heard in London before – a hoarse shout of mingled execration, triumph and joy; a swelling shout that appeared to be rising from all parts of the metropolis, ever increasing in force and intensity," he added. A month earlier, right after midnight on 3rd September 1916, London experienced the 'Night of the Zeppelins', when as many as 16 dark cigars hovered over the British capital, each 200-metres long and each dropping bombs to the ground. They seemed to be mighty and impregnable, yet as a result of the wartime arms race, planes and anti-aircraft artillery was being perfected at an amazing pace. A few months down the line, all you needed to take down an airship was an accurately launched machine gun series with ammunition designed to puncture the aluminium shell, or a few artillery shells. When British fighter planes shot down 17 Zeppelins in 1917, the Germans backed out of the London bombings.</p><p>The bombs dropped by the airships killed 557 British subjects and caused material damage amounting to $7.5 million. Yet the construction of 17 Zeppelins cost $8.3 million, and over 300 crew members were lost. From a military and economic perspective, the balance was disastrous. Nevertheless, in the Versailles Treaty, the triumphant superpowers prohibited the production of airships in the Weimar Republic.</p><p>Fortunately, Ferdinand von Zeppelin did not live to see that day, as he had died in 1917. His successor at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH, Hugo Eckener, initiated long-term lobbying efforts in the US that lasted until 1922, when American President Warren G. Harding stated that it would be an excellent idea for Germany to pay out part of the war reparations due in brand new airships. London and Paris did not protest to this. In the meantime, engineers had developed a new generation of machines. The first <em>LZ 120</em> series airship 'Bodensee' had the shape of a 120-metre-long 'teardrop', which was able to fly at a speed of 130 kilometres per hour thanks to four Maybach engines with 245 horsepower each. An improved version of the 'Bodensee', the <em>LZ 127</em> 'Graf Zeppelin', was extended to 236 metres. As a result, it allowed engineers to achieve a significant increase in lift, to the point where in 1929, humanity could follow the flight of the 'Graf Zeppelin' around the world with fascination. At the time, the press was all over the topic of its comfortable cabins for 40 passengers, which were even equipped with separate toilets and showers with hot water, a luxurious restaurant and a lounge, indispensable for evening receptions.</p><p>But not too long after that, the factories of William E. Boeing in Seattle started to offer to airlines its innovative passenger aeroplane model, the <em>B 247</em>; it was a beautiful twin-engine machine able to fly at speeds of over 300 kilometres per hour. It provided a sound-proof cabin for 10 passengers with the possibility of controlling the temperature. But it didn't outbid the offer of luxurious airships just yet; the decisive factor in this new race was... gas. German engineers replaced the flammable hydrogen with the much safer helium. They had to buy it from the Americans though, as only they had the technology available to produce helium on an industrial level. When Hitler came to power in Germany, fears were increasingly expressed across the Atlantic that a fleet of combat airships could launch an unexpected attack on American cities and ports. To the great joy of Boeing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced an embargo on the export of helium to the Third Reich. So Zeppelins would once again be filled with hydrogen. The explosion of hydrogen during a landing at the airport in Lakehurst (New Jersey) on 6th May 1937 destroyed the <em>LZ 129</em> 'Hindenburg'. The catastrophe, in which 35 people were burned alive, resounded to the point that potential air travel buffs lost all trust in airships. It wasn't such a great sacrifice for them though, as only a few months after the 'Hindenburg' had burned, Boeing offered them the four-engine <em>B 307</em> 'Stratoliner', the first passenger plane with a pressurized cabin that was able to fly at an altitude of nearly 8000m and had a range of 3800 kilometres. Airlines no longer needed the giant cigars. The army used them for third-rate patrol operations at sea and as barriers attached to cables to make it harder for bombers to attack cities.</p><p>That's how the age of the airship came to an end, but maybe not an indefinite end. According to the study concept by Hybrid Air Vehicles, the new generation vessels would be powered by electric engines supplied not only by energy from batteries, but also by energy from solar panels. That would allow the vehicle to embark on flights lasting several days continuously, not to mention neutrality for the natural environment. And that advantage can only gain importance in the very near future.</p><p><em>Translated from </em><a href="https://przekroj.pl/kultura/wieloryby-czystych-przestworzy-andrzej-krajewski" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>the Polish</em></a><em> by Mark Ordon</em></p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a target="_blank" href="https://przekroj.pl/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">Przekrój</a>. Read the <a href="https://przekroj.pl/en/culture/skyborne-whales-andrzej-krajewski" target="_blank">original article</a>. </p>
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