Category: Travel

Every year, UNESCO meets to determine the next round of places that will be added to the organization’s coveted list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. To qualify, a place or structure must have great cultural, historical, and/or natural significance—say, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, or Machu Picchu in Peru. The most recent list includes nominations from 2020 and 2021 (the committee didn’t meet last year due to COVID-19), narrowed down to a whopping 34 new spots, including islands in Japan, frescoes in Italy, and ancient cities from Jordan to China. Below, you’ll find 14 of the places we were most excited about from the list. Each is as beautiful and diverse as the next, so get your passports ready.

Source: The Newest UNESCO World Heritage Sites, In Photos | Condé Nast Traveler

This story includes details about the impacts of climate change that may be difficult for some readers. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this crisis situation here is a list of resources on how to cope with fears and feelings about the scope and pace of the climate crisis.Human activity is “unequivocally” producing a world of heat waves, wildfires, floods, sea level rise, and needless death and suffering, “it is more likely than not” that average global warming will exceed 1.5°C by 2040, and faster, deeper emission reductions will be needed to bring temperatures back below 1.5° by the end of the century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in a landmark science assessment released this morning.“It is still possible to forestall many of the most dire impacts, but it really requires unprecedented transformational change—the rapid and immediate reduction of greenhouse gases,” IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barrett told media.But “today’s IPCC Working Group 1 Report is a code red for humanity,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as today’s report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses. I count on government leaders and all stakeholders to ensure COP 26 is a success.”

Source: NO MORE EXCUSES: ‘Unimaginable, Unforgiving World’ without Drastic Emission Cuts, IPCC Warns – The Energy Mix

You can’t help but wonder what archaeologists will make of Jason deCaires Taylor’s work generations from now. If his creation of strange sunken heads in France has given them something to think about, then the British artist’s latest project, which involves the installation of an underwater forest sculpture that he refers to as “the first of its kind in the world,” is no less mysterious and thought-provoking.The Museum of Underwater Sculpture Ayia Napa (MUSAN) was commissioned by the Municipality of Ayia Napa in Cyprus and the Department of Fisheries and Marine Research for a budget of €1 million (roughly US$1.18 million).

Source: Sunken forest invites divers to explore mysterious underwater playground

To no great surprise, Ookla found Starlink beats HughesNet and Viasat handly. The company found that “Starlink was the only satellite internet provider in the United States with fixed-broadband-like latency figures, and median download speeds fast enough to handle most of the needs of modern online life at 97.23 Megabits per second (Mbps) during Q2 2021. HughesNet was a distant second at 19.73 Mbps and Viasat third at 18.13 Mbps.”As for latency, the time between when you start an activity over the internet and when you get a response back, it’s not even a competition. Starlink’s median latency, 45 milliseconds (ms) is close to fixed broadband’s 14 ms. Low latency is vital for voice and video calling, gaming, and live content streaming. By comparison, Viasat, 630 ms, and HughesNet, 724 ms, are almost unusable for these purposes.

Source: Starlink is better than its satellite competition but not as fast as landline internet | ZDNet

A non-profit environmental organization has purchased some of British Columbia’s most threatened ecosystems, promptly ensuring that no logging or development will take place in their old-growth forests.Only fragments of those forests remain along the province’s southeastern coastline on the Salish Sea, home to threatened species and rare plants. When two small islands and a portion of a third were offered up for sale recently, the BC Parks Foundation pounced with an offer.The acquisitions, funded with a $4-million donation from the family of Lululemon’s billionaire founder, Chip Wilson, will protect almost 150 hectares of these rare and exceptionally biodiverse forests and coastal bluffs. The islands – West Ballenas, Saturnina and part of Lasqueti – will never be developed, although local governments and Indigenous communities will determine just what type of protections will be put in place.While the B.C. government wades through a years-long process to meet its election commitment to protect old-growth forests, the BC Parks Foundation has been crowdfunding to protect these endangered ecosystems. In 2019, it raised $3-million to purchase more than 800 hectares in Princess Louisa Inlet on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, saving those pristine forests from logging. Earlier this year, it helped establish a 3,500-hectare conservancy within the Tahltan Nation’s territory in northwestern B.C.“We have seen tremendous success, with thousands of people around the world recognizing [that] these places are cathedrals, that they are our life-support system,” said Andrew Day, the foundation’s chief executive officer, in an interview. “There is this recognition that we can protect these fragile areas, and it has inspired this upwelling of goodwill with pensioners and students and major donors like the Wilsons.”The provincial government has come under fire because, apart from small and temporary deferrals, it has continued to allow logging in ancient forests.It also abandoned another 2017 promise. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy was tasked with drafting endangered species legislation, but George Heyman said that work has been dropped from his assignments.“Legislation is not off the table from my perspective, but we have a number of steps to go through to determine what the best and most effective tool or tools to do that would be,” he said in an interview. “I have come to the view that lurching from species to species protection is not as effective as taking an ecosystem, biodiversity habitat approach.”Mr. Heyman said he does feel an urgency to act. “Every day that goes by without taking action to protect irreplaceable biodiversity means a loss,” he said. But despite the twin concerns of climate change and the loss of biodiversity, change is slow to come.Meanwhile, the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) remains in place – but rarely allows for the prompt development of recovery plans.

Source: Private donors step in to save B.C.’s rarest forests – The Globe and Mail