Zero History
In this way, Gibson wants to erase history, too, by making it a kind of style. Zero History is an attempt to step outside the history of postwar capitalism and the consequences of neoliberalism, to return to the values of an era in which things were manufactured because people needed them - for their use value rather than for their exchange value, to use the language of Marxist criticism. This fantasy of an economy that serves human needs rather than the flows of capital is the new future which Gibson suggests we might achieve.
Zero History
The concept of net zero has come a long way in a very short time - it has gone from science to policy to mainstream in less than a decade. But it's the three decades ahead, particularly the first, that will determine whether the new window through which decarbonisation is now viewed globally delivers what it promises to.
This graphic, by ECIU's John Lang, first featured in Net Zero Stocktake 2022, a report co-written with Oxford Net Zero, NewClimate Institute and the Data-Driven EnviroLab that scrutinised the net zero commitments across countries, sub-national governments and major listed companies.
As the report makes clear, the future of net zero depends on governments, local authorities, companies, investors and civil society working together to enhance the credibility of net zero targets. More specifically, this means turning pledges into plans, showcasing successes, highlighting empty promises and ensuring that racing to zero means a race to integrity and implementation, not just intention.
The first evidence we have of zero is from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago. There, a slanted double wedge was inserted between cuneiform symbols for numbers, written positionally, to indicate the absence of a number in a place (as we would write 102, the '0' indicating no digit in the tens column). Image: KRISTEN MCQUILLINTIMELINE shows the development of zero throughout the world. The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. The Mayans invented it independently circa 4 A.D. It was later devised in India in the mid-fifth century, spread to Cambodia near the end of the seventh century, and into China and the Islamic countries at the end of the eighth. Zero reached western Europe in the 12th century.Writing Numbers The Babylonians displayed zero with two angled wedges (middle). The Mayans used an eyelike character [top left] to denote zero. The Chinese started writing the open circle we now use for zero. The Hindus depicted zero as a dot.The symbol changed over time as positional notation (for which zero was crucial), made its way to the Babylonian empire and from there to India, via the Greeks (in whose own culture zero made a late and only occasional appearance; the Romans had no trace of it at all). Arab merchants brought the zero they found in India to the West. After many adventures and much opposition, the symbol we use was accepted and the concept flourished, as zero took on much more than a positional meaning. Since then, it has played avital role in mathematizing the world.The mathematical zero and the philosophical notion of nothingness are related but are not the same. Nothingness plays a central role very early on in Indian thought (there called sunya), and we find speculation in virtually all cosmogonical myths about what must have preceded the world's creation. So in the Bible's book of Genesis (1:2): "And the earth was without form, and void."But our inability to conceive of such a void is well captured in the book of Job, who cannot reply when God asks him (Job 38:4): "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding." Our own era's physical theories about the big bang cannot quite reach back to an ultimate beginning from nothing--although in mathematics we can generate all numbers from the empty set. Nothingness as the state out of which alone we can freely make our own natures lies at the heart of existentialism, which flourished in the mid-20th century.Answer originally posted Feb. 28, 2000. Rights & PermissionsRead This NextDark MatterVera Rubin Lives on in Lives of the Women She Helped in AstronomyTulika Bose
One of the difficulties in understanding the concept of zero trust is that everybody knows zero trust and usability are mutually exclusive. The only way to guarantee zero trust is the proverbial method of unplugging the computer, encasing it in six feet of lead lined concrete, and dropping it into a deep ocean. But this hinders usability.
Remember that zero trust is merely an adjective. Without the noun it describes it is meaningless. In this article we have looked at zero trust for application access, or ZTNA based on its application by the Gartner analyst who defined the subject in 2019. This is possibly the most important and urgent area for the zero trust concept.
For many years, one man was named patient zero and incorrectly blamed for spreading HIV across the United States. However, more recent evidence has determined that HIV was present in the U.S. before this time. This individual was simply one of the thousands who contracted the virus early on in the epidemic.
The first verified case of HIV derives from a 1959 blood sample of an individual who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, scientists cannot say whether this person was the first human with HIV, or the first documented case, known as patient zero.
A host of countries have recently announced major commitments to significantly cut their carbon emissions, promising to reach "net zero" in the coming years. The term is becoming a global rallying cry, frequently cited as a necessary step to successfully beat back climate change, and the devastation it is causing.
Net zero by 2050 is the goal. But countries also need to demonstrate how they will get there. Efforts to reach net-zero must be complemented with adaptation and resilience measures, and the mobilization of climate financing for developing countries.
Reducing emissions is extremely important. To get to net zero, we also need to find ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Here again, solutions are at hand. The most important have existed in nature for thousands of years.
Climatologically, we know it's cold when high temperatures fail to climb above zero degrees F. This meteorological feat defines us regionally, and sets us apart from other parts of the country, including those that receive far more snow than we do.
For instance, Oswego, New York has had 13 seasons that exceeded Minnesota's all-time seasonal snowfall record of 170.5 inches, but has only had nine days in 92 years with high temperatures that failed to exceed 0 degrees. By comparison, in just 70 years, International Falls has remained at or below zero 828 times! Even stations in far southern Minnesota expect at least a few of these bitterly cold days during a typical winter.
Of course, the severity of Minnesota's winters can vary from one year to the next, and our history has been marked by multi-year episodes of both relentless cold and relative mildness. During exceptionally cold winters, parts of northern Minnesota have had a month's worth of days failing to exceed zero degrees, with up to 20 such days reported as far south as the Iowa border. During much warmer winters, like those of 1877-78 and 2001-02, it is likely that no part of the state recorded a high temperature of zero F or lower. Historically, and depending on the period of record used, northern Minnesota has seen 6-14 of these days per winter, with 3-6 days expected in the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota.
In the past few decades, however, an unprecedented warming of winter has begun affecting these and other cold-weather statistics. Since 1991, Minnesota has lost 30-50% of its days per winter with maximum temperatures at or below zero, equating to losses of 1-3 days in southern Minnesota and up to six days in northern parts of the state. The last time the Twin Cities notched four consecutive days at or below zero was January 1994, and none of the locations mentioned below have recorded a top-10 streak since 1996.
Neil Seldman is senior staff to the Waste to Wealth Initiative at ILSR. He is active in the recycling and zero waste movements. He has served as advisor to grass roots organizations, cities, counties and businesses throughout the US for over 40 years. Prior to co-founding ILSR Seldman was a manufacturer and professor of political science.
Zero as a concept has been around since ancient times, popping up in Babylonian and Mayan inscriptions, when it was used it to calculate the passage of the seasons. Ancient scholars employed it as a symbol to represent the absence of a number, like the way we use a zero in 101 or 102 to signify that there are no multiples of 10 in the middle position. For the Babylonians, it was two little dart symbols on their sides.
However, after its incredible spiritual and intellectual beginnings, zero faced a real struggle. It crossed into Europe at the same time as Christian crusades against Islam. Any Arab ideas, even in mathematics, were met with widespread scepticism and mistrust.
In 1299, zero was banned in Florence, along with all Arabic numerals, because they were said to encourage fraud. Zero could easily be doctored to become nine, and why not add a few zeros on the end of a receipt to inflate the price?
Both, no doubt, helped zero to flourish as an idea in mathematics, and it formed the basis of some of the most incredible scientific and technological methods we use today. By the 17th Century, zero emerged triumphant as the basis of Cartesian co-ordinates (the x and y graphs you meet in school) invented by the French philosopher Descartes. His system is still employed in everything from engineering to computer graphics.
The Natural History Museum is the most visited natural history museum in Europe and the top science attraction in the UK; we welcome around five million visitors each year and our website receives over 850,000 unique visitors a month. People come from around the world to enjoy our galleries and events and engage both in-person and online with our science and educational activities through innovative programmes and citizen science projects. 041b061a72