All posts tagged: Citizen

Citizen activists take on ‘destructive’ solar power plants in France’s Provence region

Citizen activists take on ‘destructive’ solar power plants in France’s Provence region

Published by Sam

Citizen activists in southeastern France’s Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence region have been campaigning for two years against the growing number of solar power parks in a protected natural area around the Lure mountain. The local authorities, and the parks’ investors, claim the plants are “essential” projects in the fight against climate change, and in line with the ambitions of the European Green Deal. But the activists claim these projects are “destructive” for biodiversity and the landscape.  A few hundred metres above the commune of Cruis, in the Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence region, Sylvie Bitterlin, a 62-year-old actress, stands in front of the security fence of a brand-new solar farm. “Look, they’ve destroyed everything,” she says. On the 17-hectare site, the garrigue or scrubland of Provence has been replaced by several thousand solar panels. In Cruis, the photovoltaic power plant, operated by Boralex, was scheduled to begin operating this summer. © Cyrielle Cabot, FRANCE 24 The project has been under construction for several months and is nearly finished. According to the operator, Boralex, a Canadian renewable energy company, the site will generate …

The Citizen x Star Wars Death Star watch is finally back in stock and on sale for May the 4th

The Citizen x Star Wars Death Star watch is finally back in stock and on sale for May the 4th

Published by skeptic

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › Last year, I wrote about Citizen’s surprisingly classy, decidedly awesome Death Star watch. It sold out in two days, and supply has been spotty ever since. Apparently, the Force has blessed us, however, because Amazon has the Death Star model, as well as a ton of other awesome Star Wars collection watches, in stock and even cheaper than they usually are. Citizen Men’s Eco-Drive Star Wars Death Star Black IP Stainless Steel Watch, 3-Hand, Luminous,41mm $318 (was $425) Most fan merch won’t work in a formal or even a work setting, but this Citizen Eco-Drive watch is different. It has a slick black design with a murdered-out bracelet. The 41mm face is substantial without feeling chunky, and it’s emblazoned with a subtle-but-obvious nod to our favorite planet-destroying space station. It’s an Eco-Drive, so it never needs a battery or winding; it just needs a little bit of sunlight to keep the kyber crystals inside excited. More …

Far-Right Sheriffs Want a Citizen Army to Stop ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Voters

Far-Right Sheriffs Want a Citizen Army to Stop ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Voters

Published by skeptic

Boone Cutler, who has written a number of books with Flynn about “fifth-generational warfare”—military actions like social engineering, misinformation, and cyber attacks—described immigrants as “weaponized diaspora communities” who are being brought into the country to commit “terrorism.” Cutler announced, without providing any details, that he would be providing “irregular warfare training” to CSPOA officers ahead of the election. John Ferguson, who owns an aerospace company that he claims tracks activity along the border, boosted the dangerous and untrue myth that immigrants are crossing the border with military training and could pose a serious threat to the US. “The problem is that a lot of these people, there’s times where over 90 percent of the people that are being apprehended are all fighting-aged males, Chinese, Central and South Americans,” he said. “I have been south of the border doing missions in Mexico, and I have flown my unmanned aircraft over the training camps where they’re training.” The claim that “military-aged men” are being systematically brought across the border into the US is a conspiracy that has …

POLL: Was Prince Harry right to register himself as a US citizen? Vote now | Royal | News

POLL: Was Prince Harry right to register himself as a US citizen? Vote now | Royal | News

Published by skeptic

Ahead of his visit to the UK next month, Prince Harry has made the bombshell decision to cut ties with his home country permanently. The Duke of Sussex has listed his primary residence as the US, making the change official on Companies House the Daily Mail revealed. The filings show ‘Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex’, records the USA as his ‘New Country/State Usually Resident’. It comes after debate has raged recently over Harry’s visa, with his memoir Spare admitted drug use in the past. Campaigners have demanded Harry’s visa application be made public, as in order to apply for a US visa a person must disclose any previous drug use. However the Department of Homeland Security has refused the request, stating there was no “public interest in disclosure sufficient to override the subject’s privacy interests”. The Sussexes also no longer have a base in the UK after being forced to relinquish Frogmore Cottage last year. The couple were gifted the home in Windsor by Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding present. The …

Utilising the potential of citizen science to tackle marine litter

Utilising the potential of citizen science to tackle marine litter

Published by skeptic

Volunteer clean-ups have resulted in almost nine tonnes of marine litter being cleared from beaches across the Seychelles. The marine litter clean-up has been described by researchers as a powerful demonstration of the potential of citizen science. More than 1,220 volunteers were recruited to clear 52 beaches on ten islands at various points between June 2019 and the end of July 2023. In that time, they surveyed around 930,000m2 of beaches, with volunteers picking up marine litter ranging from foam and rubber to metals and plastics. In total, the clean-ups resulted in the retrieval of 6,135kg of non-plastic debris and 2,835kg of plastic, such as food packaging, plastic bottles and more weathered items that had originated offshore. In some locations, the volunteers recorded much of the marine litter as having been generated locally. However, in others, up to 75% of the items were found to have been transported from elsewhere. The findings have been detailed in a study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, led by the University of Plymouth and the environmental organisation Parley for …

How ordinary travelers can become citizen scientists

How ordinary travelers can become citizen scientists

Published by skeptic

In Mondim de Basto, Portugal, travelers on a small group tour with Exodus Adventure Travels lean over a clear-as-glass river from a grassy bank, collecting water and squeezing it through a filter. When they’re done, that filter will be shipped off to a lab for analysis. The lab will catalog the DNA collected that indicates which species are found in local waterways–all in the name of filling gaps in global biodiversity data. On an expedition off the coast of Greenland, cruisers on the small HX (formerly Hurtigruten Expeditions) ship peer over the edge of a zodiac, watching for the moment as a white disk disappears beneath the waves so they can take a depth measurement and submit it using an app to scientists who can then study phytoplankton. [ Related: How to become a citizen scientist—and when to leave it to the professionals ] None of the individuals collecting this data are professional scientists; just ordinary travelers with a fierce curiosity and desire to leave the far-flung places they visit better than they found them …

Brace Yourself For the Comeback of Citizen Scientists

Brace Yourself For the Comeback of Citizen Scientists

Published by skeptic

Richard Battarbee spent his entire life studying freshwater ecology as an academic at University College London—but it was only when he retired to Yorkshire that he found himself on the frontline of a battle to save a river. Fishermen in the town of Ilkley near where he lived started catching condoms, wet wipes and sanitary towels on their lines. Residents were noticing that fish and other animals were dying en masse. The water was discolored every time it rained heavily. Something was wrong in the river Wharfe. Battarbee, along with other local members of the Wharfedale Naturalists Society, suspected that the real cause of the pollution was a sewage outflow further down the river run by Yorkshire Water, the region’s privatized water company. But when the government and Yorkshire Water all refused to help, the residents of Ilkley turned to citizen science, research conducted by the general public that is not only helping to change the way citizens protect their environment, but making many question the entirety of our scientific institutions. That can range from …

Citizen Zoo Is Rewilding the UK, One Grasshopper at a Time

Citizen Zoo Is Rewilding the UK, One Grasshopper at a Time

Published by skeptic

The large marsh grasshopper was once ever-present across Eastern England’s wetlands. But after decades of habitat destruction, these handsome insects are now fragmented and locally extinct, holding out in the wettest fens, valleys, and peat bogs of the New Forest and Dorset. Now, London-based Citizen Zoo is trying to bring them back—and it’s planning to do it by turning regular people into zookeepers. Reintroducing the grasshoppers to restored wetland sites across their historic range can bring huge benefits to ecosystems and food chains, says Citizen Zoo’s 30-year-old CEO Lucas Ruzo. “We came up with this citizen keeper concept, which is basically normal people being zookeepers in their own homes, breeding and rearing grasshoppers,” he says. After a crash course in grasshopper husbandry, an initial group of about a dozen zookeepers were given a kit that included between 30 and 50 eggs, a heat-emitting incandescent bulb, and a glass enclosure. For the volunteer keepers—so far including retired wildlife professionals, a mother of two eager kids, and corporate teams raising a brood together in an office block—each …

How citizen scientists are protecting ‘glass eels’

How citizen scientists are protecting ‘glass eels’

Published by skeptic

The Hudson River used to be among some of the most contaminated rivers in the United States. Following decades of environmental legislation and activism, wildlife including bald eagles, bears, and whales are being spotted in New York in larger numbers. The Hudson is also an important habitat for migratory American eels, who are now getting some help from citizen scientists.  For the first time, this citizen science data will be treated as official data entered in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) peer-reviewed eel stock assessment report. Since 2008, the Hudson River Eel Project has relied on close to 1,000 citizen scientists donating their time every spring to net, count, and release about two million juvenile American eels.  “What I love about the eel project is it takes another step deeper toward volunteers actually becoming scientists and thinking about research methods and the research questions we’re trying to answer,” Chris Bowser, project leader and Cornell University environmental scientist and educator, said in a statement. [Related: How eels might hitch a ride to Europe.] The …

Wife of Russian-British citizen locked up in Siberia says UK government could have been ‘more vocal’ about his detention | World News

Wife of Russian-British citizen locked up in Siberia says UK government could have been ‘more vocal’ about his detention | World News

Published by Sam

The wife of a dual Russian-British citizen locked up in Siberia has told Sky News the UK government could have spoken out more about his detention. Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was arrested near his Moscow home in April 2022, was convicted of treason by a court in the Russian capital in April 2023. The political activist and prominent opposition figure, who claims he has twice survived poisonings which he blamed on the country’s authorities, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The charges stemmed from a speech he gave in March 2022 to the House of Representatives in Arizona, where he denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking to Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme, Evgenia Kara-Murza said: “The British government could have been more vocal about his unlawful illegal arrest and detention for two years now.” She also said the “UK’s policy with regard to hostages and political prisoners” was “not acceptable anymore”. “By saying that we do not engage, the UK government sends a very bad signal to its citizens all over …