Since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings – very cold, dry and distant, yet real.

the Big Picture – Boston.com

…non serve a nulla! ma allora parliamone! dov’è finita? dove è andata a finire? dove l’abbiamo messa l’utopia? viviamo nel presente parlando continuamente del futuro, ci svegliamo al lunedì pensando al sabato. Passa così in fretta il tempo che finiamo per essere delle proiezioni continue, pianifichiamo, appuntiamo, annotiamo spostando il nostro orologio sempe un po’ più avanti. Eppure, nonostante questo, viviamo sempre appiccicati alla realtà, alle cose che possiamo giustificare e controllare. Non riusciamo più ad immaginarcelo il futuro, che a forza di avercelo sempre tra i piedi è diventato il presente, e cosa ci resta per andare avanti? adesso che le utopie sono morte, che non diamo credito a nulla se non a quello che possiamo verificare subito, istantaneamente. Ogni cosa è empirica, diffidiamo dei sognatori, dei poeti, dei pensatori, degli artisti, dei creativi, sono solo dei ciarlatani, giullari superflui. Chiunque dica e non faccia immediatamente è pregato di uscire, qui ogni cosa deve essere dimostrata, qui non si aspettano i risultati, non c’è tempo per ciò che non è già stato verficato. Esistevano un tempo persone capaci di provare, di mettere nero su bianco qualcosa che probabilmente non sarebbe mai esistito, ma che faceva respirare, forse anche più dell’aria, faceva respirare la mente, faceva sperare in qualcosa che va al di là dell’uomo, qualcosa di quasi spirituale. Li sosteneva un vento di novità, e parlavano dinanzi a occhi increduli, suscitavano ilarità, quasi comici, se ne stavano seduti sul palco illustrando l’irreale e facendolo con criterio, con devozione. C’era un tempo per pensare, un tempo per riflettere, per andare oltre senza doverne chiedere conto. Ora paghiamo in anticipo, viviamo di acconti, immaginiamo statistiche e ci trastulliamo nel dare tutto e tutti per scontati. Per rifugiarsi nell’utopia bisogna fuggire, bisogna staccarsi, bisogna evadere. Prima un utopico veniva invitato a parlare in manifestazioni pubbliche, adesso deve vivere da evaso, guardandosi le spalle, per andarsi a cercare un posto nel mondo. E quel posto, immancabilmente, non esiste più. Un utopico ha senso in una società dove coesistono il passato, il presente ed il futuro, ma adesso, oltre alle stagioni, ci siamo giocati anche il passato ed il presente, sono compressi nel futuro che è un luogo inesistente, fittizio. Quand’è che abbiamo perso il contatto con la realtà? Quand’è che abbiamo smesso di credere alle favole?

Banksy is a well-known English graffiti artist, possibly named Robert Banks. His artworks are often satirical pieces of art which encompass topics from politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti with a distinctive stenciling technique, has appeared in London and in cities around the world. Possibly born in Bristol in 1974, Banksy began as a freehand artist before switching to stenciling around the year 2000; his anti-war, anti-establishment and pro-freedom graffiti images began springing up on city walls in the late 1990’s. Although he has given numerous interviews and even published several books, Banksy’s true identity remains unknown.

It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant Earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for instance, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.” But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out only 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three percent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions.

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that about one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees (£40) a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning 30,000 rupees or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to the developed nations. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for instance, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together. Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm.

The paper’s author, David Satterthwaite, points out that the old formula taught to students of development – that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I = PAT) – is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I = CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world’s people use so little that they wouldn’t figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.

While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few super-yachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they are accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 litres per hour. But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3,400 litres per hour when travelling at 60 knots. That’s nearly a litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre.

Of course, to make a real splash I’ll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jetskis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar, and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in 10 minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby.

Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3,000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation”. It revealed that “some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly” to decide which good cause they should support. “A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.” The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it’s the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it’s impossible to satirise.

James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust. It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven’t been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons – except among wealthier populations.

The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century, probably at about 10 billion. Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.

But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less – they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock’s words, “hiding from the truth”. It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against super-yachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?

It’s time we had the guts to name the problem. It’s not sex; it’s money. It’s not the poor; it’s the rich.

George Monblot – guardian.co.uk

China formally kicked off its mass celebrations of 60 years of communist rule with a 60-gun salute that rung out across Beijing’s historic Tiananmen Square earlier today. Hundreds of thousands of participants marched past Tiananmen Square in costume or uniform, with floats and dancers mingling with soldiers and military hardware. Collected here are photographs of the once-in-a-decade National Day parade in Beijing, and of others commemorating the anniversary elsewhere.

the Big Picture – Boston.com

…un sentimento autentico, non filtrato dal sudiciume della strada, qualcosa che sopravvive nell’aria, qualcosa a cui rivolgere lo sguardo nonostante il caos nel quale siamo nati, qualcosa a cui aggrapparsi, a cui dare un nome e dal quale si vorrebbe restare sempre abbagliati. Sempre nella colica dello stordimento, sempre annegati nella sua benevolenza, respirarne il più possibile e restarci attaccati con ogni cellula, finchè un nuovo vento o una nuvola di pazzia non torni a rimettere le cose com’erano. Finchè non ci ritroviamo ricacciati lontani e con lo sguardo perso tra pezzi di scarpe e multe da pagare. Un’autentico sentire, che nasce e muore e non sai dov’è andato a finire, rovisti tra le lenzuola, apri la finestra, scruti il cielo, ma non appare che foschia e marcio di un sogno che avevi quasi potuto toccare ma che ha perso la sua ombra. provi un sentimento autentico e quasi ti pare d’esser normale. ci si sveglia sempre troppo presto per restarci impigliati nei sogni.

…a genuine sentiment, not filtered by a dirt road, something that survives in the air, something to turn our eyes in spite of the chaos into which we were born, something to cling on, something to name and from which it would always remain dazzled. always in the colic of the stunning, ever drowned in his benevolence, breathe as much as possible and stay stuck with any force until a new wind or a cloud of insanity does not come back to put things back as they were. Until we find driven away with eyes lost between pieces of shoes and fines to be paid. An authentic feel, which is born and dies and you do not know where he ended up, rummage through the sheets and open the window, scanning the sky, but it appears that haze and running of a dream that you were almost able to touch but has lost its shadow. You have an authentic feeling and you think of being almost normal. We wake up still too early to be caught up in dreams.

..osserva attentamente la strada quando metti piede in una città e poi guarda il cielo, guardalo bene perché non sarà mai lo stesso. Osserva il muoversi degli alberi e dei capelli delle donne che passeggiano distratte, cerca di riconoscere il vento, ascoltalo in silenzio e quando sarai pronto: cammina. La città va camminata, consumata dentro di noi prima di essere amata, va gustata piano, perché alcune possono uccidere, ed ognuna ha angoli bui dove potersi rifugiare. Una città è quasi una persona, una donna quindi, ed ha il suo carattere, i suoi luoghi impervi, mistici ed irraggiungibili. Una persona fatta da altre persone, la maggior parte delle quali non incontreremo mai, la quasi totalità ci resteranno eterne sconosciute, ma tutte queste persone, ricordatelo bene, influiscono in un modo o nell’altro sull’andamento della tua vita in quel posto ed in quel preciso momento. Spesso commettiamo l’errore di pensare che ci siamo solo noi nelle città, eppure gli altri ci aprono le porte, guidano i taxi su cui saliamo, fanno la fila davanti a noi, raccolgono le cartacce lungo i marciapiedi che percorriamo, vendono la verdura che mangiamo, sorseggiano il caffè al nostro passaggio, urlano al mattino mentre vorremmo solo dormire, bussano alle nostre porte quando non abbiamo nessuna intenzione di aprire, cantano nei bar che frequentiamo, servono ai tavoli dei ristoranti in cui mangiamo, camminano fianco a fianco dei nostri amici, si scambiano commenti sul nostro modo di parlare e ridere, ci fanno fumare ed abusare del nostro corpo, ci costringono alle attese, ci seguono dappertutto e lo fanno in una totale e paradossale inconsapevolezza. Il rapporto con gli altri è il grande paradosso delle città. Ognuno di noi non fa altro che mescolare la propria vita a quella degli altri per frazioni di secondo, nella più totale ignoranza, ed ognuno di questi micro-incontri è una leggera deviazione allo scorrere della vita, il senso ultimo delle città è nascosto nella forza dell’impatto, nel modo in cui questa macchinosa moltitudine di esistenze si abbracciano e si spostano a vicenda.

…look closely at the street when you set feet in a city and then look at the sky, look good because it will never be the same. Observe the movement of the trees and the hair of women who walking absently, try to recognize the wind, listen in silence and when you’re ready, just walk. Cities must be walked, consumed within ourselves for first to be loved, to be tasted slowly, because some can kill, and each has its dark corners to escape to. A city is like a person, a woman then, and has its own character, its inaccessible places, mystical and unattainable. A person made by others, most of whom you’ll never meet, nearly all remain eternally unknown to us, but all these people, remember well, in one way or another affect the progress of your life in that place and at that precise moment. Often we make the mistake of thinking that we are the only ones in the cities, but others open our doors, drive taxis on which we climb, stand in line in front of us, collect the litter along the sidewalks we walk on, sells vegetables that we eat, sips coffee at us, yelling in the morning while we’re still sleeping, they knock on our doors when we have no intention of opening, they sing in the bar, wait on the tables of the restaurants where we eat, they walk side by side with our friends, exchange comments about the way we talk and laugh, make us smoke and abuse of our bodies, we are forced to expectations, following us everywhere and they do all of this in a total unawareness and paradoxical. The relationship with others is the great paradox of cities. Each of us does nothing but stir one’s life to that of others for fractions of seconds, in complete ignorance, and each of these micro-encounters is a slight deviation to the flow of life, the ultimate meaning is hidden in the power of cities impact in the way this complex multitude of lives move and embrace each other.