Like It Hot ?? > NASA Data Re/Our Planet Earth . Short-Lived Phenomena

From Gizmodo today at 10:31 a.m.
No, Now This Is Officially the Hottest Earth Has Ever Been [CORRECTION]
It’s getting pretty hard to keep track of all the heat records we’ve been breaking recently, isn’t it? Don’t worry, we’re here to help.NOAA’s latest data reveal we just wrapped up the hottest winter the U.S. has ever seen—just like last summer (which also broke its season record), last year (another record-smasher), the year before that, and a whole chain of recent individual hottest months, knocking each out one after the other like dominoes.
It’s almost like there’s a pattern in all this, isn’t it? Almost as though our planet was locked into some sort of terrible, human-induced cycle of gradual warming that is slowly boiling away our ozone shield, drying out our fields, and endangering the very fabric of life as we know it, as we slide headlong into some terrifying post-apocalypse of our own making...
Anyway, we’ll be back to update you here next month (or shortly thereafter), when we’ve got another new broken heat record to look back on.
UPDATE April 19, 2:12 pm: Sorry, February, you thought you were pretty hot, but March laughs at your attempts at hot temperatures. According to NOAA’s latest data, the new hottest month ever was this March, marking the 11th consecutive month in a row that record has been broken.

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Not only was it a new record, it’s actually a record within a record. This 11-month streak gives us the longest unbroken climb of record-setting temperatures ever—at least until next month rolls along.

UPDATE May 18, 1:15 pm: Congratulations, humanity—we did it! (It, in this case, being cooking our planet into a slow rolling boil.) NOAA’s latest climate update reveals that we just wrapped up the hottest April ever recorded. That gives us twelve consecutive months—a full year—in which every single month set a new temperature record.

Will next month make thirteen? Probably! See you then, my warm friends.

UPDATE June 20, 8:45 am: And here we are at lucky number 13 of the hottest consecutive months ever recorded—if by “luck” you mean an unstoppably rising heat wave, accompanied by an unsavory mix of both droughts and floods. (Note: This is no one’s definition of luck.)

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Besides hitting the warmest May ever recorded, NOAA’s new climate update also has us continuing well on our way to making 2016, and not 2015, the hottest year ever. It’s going to be a great year, folks. (Note: It will not be a great year.)

UPDATE July 8, 9:55 am: If you were taking a little time to process the news of our unbroken 13-month streak of broken heat records, don’t bother. NOAA just declared this past June to be the hottest one ever for the planet, so as of today, it’s 14 months (and climbing).
But it wasn’t just the heat that had NOAA nervous, the agency also took a moment to point out that the weather had just been plain weird this year. So far, we’ve had at least 8 huge weather disasters—including floods, fires, and raging storms—each of which caused damages of at least $1 billion. Normally, by this time of year, we’d have seen fewer than three.
See you in month 15—assuming the fire-floods haven’t taken us all by then.
CORRECTION 7/8/16: The June dataset referenced in the latest update was for the United States, not the globe. It was the hottest June on record for the contiguous US, with none of the lower 48 seeing below average temperatures. We apologize for the error and will update with global data later in the month

"Everyone Who F*cked Up Has F*cked Off!" - Jonathan Pie

Who Knows? ...maybe they're smart enof to get out the game they got caught up in and just don't know what to do when they never imagined that people/voters got really tired of politics-as-usual >>and now there's only two women doin' a Maggy Thatcher Make-Over.
    

Published on Jul 8, 2016

Views:1,724

 

"The only party that's doing well is the Scottish, and they don't even want to be there!" says Jonathan Pie in his latest episode where he picks on Westminster's disarray. "Tories want a new Thatcher and Labour need a Blair."

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Economic Report: U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services May 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AT 8:30 A.M. EDT, Wednesday, July 6, 2016

CB 16-121
BEA 16—35
FT-900 (16-05)
U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
U.S. INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN GOODS AND SERVICES May 2016
Read full release here
The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that the goods and services deficit was $41.1 billion in May, up $3.8 billion from $37.4 billion in April, revised.
May exports were $182.4 billion, $0.3 billion less than April exports.
May imports were $223.5 billion, $3.4 billion more than April imports.
The May increase in the goods and services deficit reflected an increase in the goods deficit
of $3.7 billion to $62.2 billion and a decrease in the services surplus of $0.1 billion to
$21.1 billion.
Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit decreased $7.2 billion, or 3.5 percent, from the
same period in 2015. Exports decreased $47.2 billion or 4.9 percent. Imports decreased $54.3 billion or 4.7 percent.

Goods by Selected Countries and Areas: Monthly – Census Basis (Exhibit 19)

• The May figures show surpluses, in billions of dollars, with South and Central America ($2.9),
• Hong Kong ($1.9), Singapore ($0.5), and Brazil ($0.5).
• Deficits were recorded, in billions of dollars,with China ($28.3), European Union ($11.9), Germany ($5.5), Mexico ($5.5), Japan ($5.0),
• Italy ($2.6), India ($2.1), South Korea ($2.0), Taiwan ($1.2), France ($1.1), Canada ($0.9),
• OPEC ($0.4), United Kingdom ($0.3), and Saudi Arabia ($0.2).

 

   * The deficit with China increased $1.7 billion to $28.3 billion in May. Exports decreased

     $0.1 billion to $9.3 billion and imports increased $1.6 billion to $37.6 billion.

   * The balance with the United Kingdom shifted from a surplus of $0.7 billion to a deficit

     of $0.3 billion in May. Exports decreased $1.2 billion to $4.0 billion and imports

     decreased $0.2 billion to $4.3 billion.

   * The deficit with Japan decreased $0.9 billion to $5.0 billion in May. Exports increased

     $0.6 billion to $5.4 billion and imports decreased $0.3 billion to $10.4 billion.

 

NOTES:

   * All statistics referenced are seasonally adjusted; statistics are on a balance of

     payments basis unless otherwise specified. Additional statistics, including not seasonally

     adjusted statistics and details for goods on a Census basis, are available in Exhibits

     1-20b of this release. For information on data sources, definitions, revision procedures,

     and scheduled release dates through December 2016, see the information section on page A-1

     of this release. The next release is August 5, 2016.

   * For definitions of goods on a balance of payments basis, goods on a Census basis, and net

     balance of payments adjustments, see the information section on page A-1 of this release.

What is a “Nudge ?”

June 30, 2016 • in Innovation, Podcast
Data Points Podcast Episode 8 – Nudges for Government

By Eric Reese and Sharon Pauley
Listen to the 23:21 Podcast on this Link >> http://govex.jhu.edu/nudges-for-government/
What is a “nudge?” How can human behavior, and errors, affect the everyday work of government? How can data help government start to correct those errors? We discuss these questions and more with Elspeth Kirkman of the Behavioral Insights Team (or BIT) in this week’s episode of Data Points. What Works Cities Initiative (which also launched GovEx).

Elspeth is the Head of BIT North America, which launched last year as a part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies
BIT grew out of 10 Downing St, where it was the United Kingdom’s “nudge unit” and the world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioral sciences. BIT’s work focuses on redesigning services based on empirical evidence from the behavioral science literature. Their work also involves rigorous testing of behavioral science concepts to ensure that governments know what works before they scale up new practices.
Through What Works Cities, BIT has expanded its work to the US and is working with several cities across the country on low-cost evaluations. These evaluations help cities test different a variety of techniques in service delivery to determine which ways are more effective, and which ways aren’t, to improve service delivery.

Like Data? Listen and Get in Touch

You can find updates to the podcast in several ways.

• Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points
• Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast

Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact.

Vendor Payment Data Set Now On City of Mesa Open Data Portal

Vendor Payment Data Now Available 

The newest data set on Mesa's open data portal has been released 3 daysagoand includes information on payments made to vendors that do business with the City of Mesa.
http://open.mesaaz.gov/dashboards/9611/financials/

Checkbook register including Paid Date, Payee, Amount, Department, Object, Fund and Commodity Code.

For full page view hit this link >>

http://open.mesaaz.gov/dataviews/227934/vendor-payments-2016/

 

<iframe width="400" height="175" src="http://open.mesaaz.gov/dataviews/embed/VENDO-PAYME-2016/?" frameborder="0" style="border:1px solid #E2E0E0;padding:0;margin:0;"></iframe><p style="padding:3px 0 15px 0;margin:0;font:11px arial, helvetica, sans-serif;color:#999;">Desarrollado por<a href="http://www.junar.com" title="Junar" style="color:#0862A2;">Junar</a></p>

The data set can be found to the infographic above by going to this link for detailed viewing >>  http://open.mesaaz.gov/visualizations/26681/vendor-payments-2016-summary/


The vendor payment data set includes payments made by the City to vendors that provide goods and services to the City of Mesa.  
More detailed information is also included in the data set that shares which department the purchase was made for, the type of good or service provided, and which fund the purchase was made from.
The vendor payment data set allows residents to see how the City of Mesa spends funds and which goods and services are provided broken down by vendor.  
The data set increases financial transparency and gives easy access to payment information through Mesa’s open data portal.  

 

Millennials, Politics & Causes:The 2016 Millennial Impact Report

Research from Wave 1 of the 2016 Millennial Impact Report Now Available
New research from Achieve investigates how millennials’ involvement with causes trends during a presidential election year
INDIANAPOLIS, IN (PRWEB) June 22, 2016

Today marks the release of the first wave of trends from the 2016 Millennial Impact Report.

Research from previous studies within The Millennial Impact Project (themillennialimpact.com) repeatedly indicates millennials (born 1980-2000) value cause engagement. With the changing landscape in the U.S. brought on by a presidential election year, Achieve, the research agency behind The Millennial Impact Project, wanted to understand how – or if – this generation’s philanthropic interests and involvement changes as well.

The 2016 Millennial Impact Report investigates how millennials’ cause engagement behaviors may change during an election year, and how these changes may be influenced by important demographics such as their political ideologies, geographical location, age, gender and race/ethnicity or by the emerging candidates for election. This study also examines millennials’ interest and activation in specific causes that may be differentiated by their support of a particular political party.

“It is likely that during an election year, causes and organizations that are politically aligned or part of a candidate’s agenda could see an increase in participation from this generation, and vice versa,” said Derrick Feldmann, Achieve president. “As millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. and are now tied for the largest share of the vote, understanding the evolving millennial mindset in the current political landscape is critical to informing leaders and organizations that want to unleash this generation’s ability to create change for many years to come.”

Download the 2016 Millennial Impact Wave 1 Trends Report, as well supporting infographics and profiles, at themillennialimpact.com/2016-report.

###

The Millennial Impact Project is the most comprehensive and trusted study of the millennial generation (born 1980-2000) and their involvement with causes.

Since beginning the study in 2009, Achieve continues to lead the national research team in partnership with the Case Foundation. With more than 75,000 participants in its studies, The Millennial Impact Project has helped organizations, corporations and individuals around the world understand the best approaches to cultivate interest and involvement with this generation. themillennialimpact.com

Achieve is a research and marketing agency for causes. We leverage our expertise in research, technology, creative and strategy to understand and inspire your audience – whether current or yet to be discovered – to take action.
 

Learn more about Achieve, our research, events and cloud-based technology solutions, TrustedPartner and RacePartner, at achieveagency.com

In The Public Square: Junk Food & Junk Infrastructure

Typically, the highways exported value from the downtowns to the suburbs resulting in damaged downtowns and sprawl . . . but Highways were sold as infrastructure that would speed up travel times and allow car-dependent people, living far away, a means to access the jobs, culture, and services in the downtown . . .  QUESTION: is Main Street in The Urban DTMesa out of context?

Junk Infrastructure
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/junk-infrastructure

IAN LOCKWOOD    JUL. 1, 2016

Since the last recession, providing “infrastructure” has been synonymous with providing foundational facilities upon which communities can grow and prosper. Providing “infrastructure” is seen as inherently good. Similarly, food production is considered inherently positive too. After all, we want to feed the world’s population. However, we all know that there is such a thing as “junk food,” characterized by long shelf-lives, lots of calories, lots of salt, and low nutritional value. In so-called “food deserts,” populations don’t have access to nutritious food—only junk food—leading to negative health consequences.
Is there such a thing as “junk infrastructure”?
Is there such a thing as infrastructure that damages cities, creates costs, and harms health?
Sadly, there is.
It’s known as “in-city highways.” Notice that I did not call them “urban highways.” Just because a highway is in a city, does not mean that it is urban. “Urban highway” is an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” or “clean coal.” The pattern is clear: When highways are built in cities, the place gets worse; when highways are removed from cities, the place gets better.
Highways were sold as infrastructure that would speed up travel times and allow car-dependent people, living far away, a means to access the jobs, culture, and services in the downtown. Typically, the highways exported value from the downtowns to the suburbs and resulting in damaged downtowns and sprawl. The highways divided and damaged neighborhoods. A myriad of negative health and environmental consequences ensue.
I’m not actually anti-highway; I can accept highways between cities but not in cities. I’m not anti-high volume street either.
However, the street design should suit its context.
So, let’s start recognizing in-city highways for what they are: junk infrastructure.
So, when your politicians, MPO, or city leaders want to bring home the bacon so-to-speak, ask them for contributing infrastructure and ask them to remove the junk infrastructure. You and your city will be far healthier as a result.

 

Ian Lockwood

Ian Lockwood PE is a Livable Transportation Engineer with Toole Design Group who specializes in active transportation, place-making, and helping cities through collaborative planning, design and engineering. Ian’s cartoons are intended to spur discussion, raise issues, challenge conventionality, and occasionally cause the odd smile