Dust Settle Last Level

[Lucrecio Houle]

Idid not, if I\u2019m honest, enjoy election night quite as much as I\u2019d anticipated. The switch from watch parties to work, and alcohol to coffee, was a bigger gearshift than I\u2019d expected; most of the livestreaming I did \u2013 for The Lead, Politics JOE and Oh God, What Now? \u2013 came too late for me to feel energised, but too early for most satisfying results to have come in. (A number of less satisfying ones, such as the survival of Iain Duncan Smith or Labour\u2019s failure to take Romford, unfortunately had.) You can get a sense of my failing energy levels from how I sound on the episode of Paper Cuts I recorded with Miranda and Jason as the sun was coming up; the new dawn of 1997 all over again, this was not.

Part of the problem, I concluded in the New Statesman column I wrote a couple of hours\u2019 fitful sleep later, was that expectations \u2013 my expectations \u2013 had grown almost ludicrously high. (It\u2019s no exaggeration to say there have been times, this past year, when the desire to be there to witness the Tories wiped out has helped me keep going.) And even though this was by some distance the worst result in the Conservative party\u2019s long history, it was quite a lot better than some of the more extreme polls had suggested.

Another issue, of course, was the broadcasters\u2019 obsession with Reform. It\u2019s not great, from a liberal left perspective, that Nigel Farage\u2019s party won five seats. But it did not get substantially more votes than its predecessor UKIP had in 2015, and it ultimately came nowhere near the 13 wins suggested by the exit poll. A BBC presenter\u2019s claim that the \u201Cstory of the night\u201D was Reform \u2013 rather than the collapse of the SNP, or the rise of the Greens, or the LibDems\u2019 winning the largest third-party seat haul in history, let alone the whole Labour landslide thing \u2013 feels like it tells us more about the media\u2019s news values than it does about the actual result.

All that said, the Tories did win slightly more, and Labour significantly fewer, votes than the polling averages had suggested. I\u2019ve begun to wonder if there\u2019s a sort of equivalent to Heisenberg\u2019s uncertainty principle that sometimes affects Labour\u2019s voteshare \u2013 whether the act of measuring its polling can in itself move votes. In elections the party looks set to win (1997, 2001, 2024), after all, it tends to underperform expectations; but in some it\u2019s on course to lose (2010, 2017), it exceeds them. That to me suggests widespread tactical or protest voting. This year, the Greens\u2019 campaigned by claiming it was safe to vote for them as we\u2019d get a Labour government anyway. Perhaps such strategies work.

That brings me to my other theory about this election. There are already signs that, having landed on 121 seats, someway clear of the psychologically important line of \u201Cbelow three figures\u201D, many Tories were relieved, even weirdly jubilant. The risk is that this leads them to underestimate the scale of the loss and, like Labour in 2010, to wrongly imagine that the government\u2019s delivery of policies the opposition opposes might in itself turn things around in a single term.

But this being an anti-Tory vote, rather than a pro-Labour one, surely makes that less likely. And if the polls in four years time suggest that things are close, then it\u2019s at least possible that some of those who refused this year may hold their nose and vote Labour.

That, though, is for the future. Once the dust had settled, and new Prime Minister Keir Starmer had begun appointing ministers on the basis of expertise rather than political expediency, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves had used her first speech to talk about the need for growth and the importance of planning reform \u2013 an important but politically contentious change which a government needs to do immediately or it simply never will \u2013 I felt the first glimmers of hope about Britain I\u2019d had in some time.

It doesn\u2019t matter, right now, that Labour only got 34% of the vote, not 40%. It doesn\u2019t matter, even, that Reform has five MPs. For the next few years, Britain has a Labour government that can do, within reason, what it wants, without constantly worrying about the prejudices of elderly homeowners or the Daily Mail. At some point \u2013 possibly not til after a leadership contest, but soon \u2013 the Tories are going to realise with a jolt quite how little influence an opposition really has.

Now the election\u2019s over, I can, and need to, go back to reminding people I\u2019ve got a book out, every time the clock ticks. And on election eve, helpfully enough, an episode of the Aspects of History podcast I recorded to promote A History of the World in 47 Borders some time ago finally popped out into the world. One of the topics that came up in the closing moments of that show was one which is not really touched upon in the book. \u201CMiddlesex,\u201D the host, Oliver Webb Carter, suggested, \u201Cdoesn\u2019t really exist, does it?\u201D

Middlesex, if you\u2019ve never had the pleasure, was the second smallest English county after Rutland, and the one from which London was carved.1 My home, in the East End, would once have been Middlesex. So would the cafe in Stoke Newington, in which I am writing right now, and the offices of most of my employers, and really the entire centre, north and west of today\u2019s Greater London.

Each night, once the Rodeo dust settles, a superstar takes the stage to entertain the crowds. The star entertainers begin performing after the last rodeo event is completed each evening and the stage is set. Actual start times for the concert can vary day to day due to the different number of rodeo competitors and other production elements.

The Champion Wine Garden presented by Frost Bank is an oasis that offers a cheerful atmosphere, top-notch entertainment from rising Texas stars and a chance to savor more than 75 award-winning wines.

Looking for a place to meet up with your Rodeo buddies? Become a Corral Club member today and enjoy several private venue areas throughout the Rodeo grounds. Corral Club memberships are available for purchase at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Membership Office. Call 832.667.1073 or email [email protected] if you need additional information or assistance with your membership.

Gold badge or proper Rodeo credentials must be displayed at the properly designated badge gate or a valid ticket and/or season ticket for the rodeo performance must be presented to gain admission to NRG Stadium. Corral Club cards alone will not admit anyone to NRG Stadium, even if the sole intent is to enter a Corral Club venue.

Since the 1970s, coral reefs in the Caribbean have been in a state of continual decline, and several other marine species suffered mass mortalities in 1983. Coincidentally (from 1970 to the present), transatlantic dust transport from North Africa increased dramatically, with peak dust years occurring in 1973, 1983, and 1987, according to a group of scientists.

"Our hypothesis is that much of the coral reef decline in the Caribbean is a result of pathogens transported in dust from North Africa," said Gene Shinn, senior geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Center for Coastal Geology in St. Petersburg, Florida. Shinn, who has spent most of his career studying marine sediments and ground water movement, has witnessed dramatic changes in coral reefs during the last four decades. "I started taking pictures of individual reef areas back in 1959, and the photo record shows that the reefs have been steadily declining," he said.

Then Shinn came across a graph of African dust flux developed by Joe Prospero, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Miami, who had been measuring dust on the island of Barbados since 1965. The graph showed dramatic increases in dust flux beginning with the onset of the drought in North Africa that started around 1970, with peak years occurring in 1973, 1983, and 1987. "I knew these were significant years, especially 1983 and 1987, for certain species mortalities that occurred in the Caribbean," said Shinn.

Barbados Mineral Dust Annual Average and Benchmark Caribbean Events

Dust deposition peaked in 1983 and 1987, years when extensive environmental change was evident in Caribbean coral reefs. (Image adapted from the USGS Center for Coastal Geology: Coral Mortality and African Dust, courtesy of Dr. Joe Prospero, University of Miami. A new browser window will open.)

Extending throughout coastal zones of warm tropical and subtropical waters, coral reefs are among the world's most diverse and productive ecosystems. The large, wave-resistant structures are formed by colonies of billions of tiny coral animals, called polyps, which secrete hard calcium carbonate skeletons for protection. Accumulations of these hard skeletal structures build up coral reefs over time. Coral reef growth rates vary, depending on the species of coral and environmental conditions, ranging from 0.3 to 10 centimeters per year.

Reef-dwelling corals have a mutually beneficial, or symbiotic, relationship with plant-like algae called zooxanthellae. These algae produce food, via photosynthesis, and also provide the coral polyps with their brilliant color. In a process known as "coral bleaching," corals under environmental stress expel these algae from their tissue, exposing the colony's white calcium carbonate skeleton. Episodes of coral bleaching proliferated in Florida and the Caribbean in the late 1980s and 1990s, with a major event occurring in the summer of 1987, Shinn's team reported in the October 1, 2000 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

A species of soft coral, called sea fans, suffered a widespread die-off in 1983, and again in the mid-1990s. Environmental scientists have long suspected that a pathogen was released into the environment and spread to the Caribbean region. But the pathogen was never identified.

3a8082e126