Features

NEW YORK/MEDICILINDIA, Brazil — For years, Valdomiro Facchi has made a living ranching on land carved from the Amazon rainforest. He is a small player in one of the world’s biggest environmental disasters.

But now that his cattle have trampled the pastures to dust — and new laws prevent him from clearing fresh land — he has to find new income.

“I want to diversify,” said the 68-year old rancher, outlining plans to plant cocoa trees on his 300 hectare plot in Brazil’s Para State. “I want to have the cocoa income when profit from cattle ranching fails.”

Facchi illustrates a trend that is turning damaged parts of the Amazon basin green again and creating an usual alliance between the agriculture industry and conservationists. Brazil’s cattle ranchers are planting cocoa on their used-up pasture, with financial support from international environmental groups.

That is a big change. For decades, ranchers have been the engine of clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest that has rendered an area nearly the size of Spain treeless. Environmentalists have argued the practice destroys wildlife habitat and undermines the planet’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide that causes global warming.

“Besides being a means of avoiding deforestation, cocoa plantations favour the local, regional and national economy,” the international environmental group The Nature Conservancy said on its website.

The young trees will also bring change to global cocoa markets. Brazil’s National Association of the Cocoa Processing Industry (AIPC) expects the surge in planting to help double the country’s output of the raw material in chocolate by 2028 to 400,000 tonnes a year. That increase would raise global output by about 5 per cent.

The renewed planting could make Brazil one of the world’s top three cocoa growers again after the sector was decimated in the 1990s by a crop fungus called witches’ broom.

Conservationists and cocoa industry representatives expect the trend to help mitigate the effects of clear-cutting that has ripped some 430,000 sq.km from the Amazon rain forest since the 1980s.

Fifty per cent of cocoa production growth will come from the Amazon, said Eduardo Bastos, executive director of the AIPC, calling the cocoa farms there “chocolate forests”.

Green groups like The Nature Conservancy and the Amazon Fund have helped finance new cocoa plantations. The Amazon Fund — which was set up by Brazil’s government and takes international donations to combat deforestation — has poured 17 million reais ($5.09 million) in grants into the crop.

Nearly 1,700 sq.km of degraded cattle pasture in Brazil has been transformed into cocoa plantations already, according to the AIPC’s Bastos.

Economic incentives

Cocoa planting is driven mainly by new limits on the cattle industry that have changed the financial incentives for ranchers. In the Amazon, pasture can become degraded in as little as three years if not managed properly, making it hard to raise a thriving herd without new acreage.

Brazil in 2014 passed a law that allows landowners to clear only 20 per cent of their property in the Amazon and requires some landowners to replant depleted areas.

That law aims to curb deforestation, which peaked in 2004 at a pace of 27,000 sq.km per year. In 2017, Brazilian Amazon lost 6,624 sq.km of rainforest.

Compared to ranching, cocoa can provide income from a relatively small plot with no need for constant expansion. The profits can be up to five times better, said Eduardo Trevisan Gonçalves, project manager at Brazil’s Imaflora, an environmental group that did a study comparing income from cattle and cocoa in the region.

The benefits extend to the environment. Cocoa plantations can imitate natural forests, helping to restore native plant and wildlife species, boosting water resources and absorbing carbon dioxide, Goncalves said.

“It is a perennial crop,” he said. “It will stay there for decades.”

Funding from environmental groups comes with guidelines intended to boost the ecological benefits of the plantations, according to José Garcia, a farmer in the central Para state who is receiving a grant from the Amazon Fund.

Under the terms, he said, he will have to plant cocoa alongside other taller native species, such as mahogany and ipê.

“It is recommended that cocoa be planted with other trees — taller ones — to benefit from the shade,” he said at his farm in Medicilândia in Para State.

‘We buy cocoa’

Evidence of the shift is everywhere in the Medicilândia region, where barren pastures have given way to shady plantations of cocoa trees bearing yellow and ruby pods, the fibrous protective coverings for the cocoa beans.

In the city of Medicilândia, a low-lying town lined with dirt roads in Para state, farmers truck bags full of dried cocoa beans to warehouses bearing signs that read “we buy cocoa”.

Shops nearby offer ice-cold cocoa juice, a thick — sweet drink prepared with the fruit’s pulp.

Brazil is an agricultural heavyweight, among the world’s top growers of soybeans, corn, sugar, coffee and oranges. But it dropped from being No. 2 in cocoa in the early 1990s after witches’ broom slashed its production.

In Para State, however, witches’ broom rarely survives long enough to damage trees. The fungus requires moist conditions and largely dies off during the annual dry season. As a result, cocoa tree yields in Para are nearly double the global average, said Bastos of the AIPC.

There is some evidence Brazil could absorb some of this extra production: Euromonitor International pegs per capita chocolate consumption in Brazil at just 1.2 kilogrammes a year, compared with 8.8 kg in Switzerland, suggesting Brazil’s domestic chocolate market has room to grow.

Brazil’s processing companies — which transform cocoa beans into butter, powder and chocolate — welcome the prospect of increased domestic supply to feed their factories and lower their imports, but inject a note of scepticism.

Olam International’s Cocoa Vice President in Brazil Kidambi Srinivasan, for example, called the 400,000 tonne per year target “an unlikely possibility” without higher market prices and more assistance to planters in areas including financing, training and supplies.

Benchmark cocoa prices in New York are currently running at about $2,500 a tonne, having bounced off a ten-year low of $1,756 hit in 2017 on worries of global oversupply.

Other big processors in Brazil include Cargill, which has an 85,000 tonne plant in Ilhéus, and Barry Callebaut, the world’s biggest maker of industrial chocolate, which opened its first South American chocolate facility in Brazil in 2010.

For some of the ranchers-turned-planters, the chance to undo some of the damage to the Amazon caused by ranching is as important as the money they can earn from cocoa.

“There was a time when I thought: We shouldn’t have come here,” said Elido Trevisan, who arrived in Para to ranch in 1972 and cleared nearly 100 per cent of his land.

“But now,” he said, “we can do something to compensate.”

LOS ANGELES — After a weekend of fluctuating projections, Dwayne Johnson (just barely) owned the North American box office after all.

Though earlier estimates looked like the second frame of “A Quiet Place” would take the weekend, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros.’ “Rampage” snuck up to take the top slot with $34.5 million from 4,101 theaters.

Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros.’ attributed the weekend’s numbers to Johnson’s star power.

“Dwayne Johnson is a closer,” Goldstein said. “He’s got an incredible connection with his fanbase. He’s a global draw unlike anybody else today.”

Though the sci-fi actioner has an impressive A- CinemaScore and 80 per cent audience approval on Rotten Tomatoes, “Rampage”, which opened under initial predictions, will need to rely heavily on overseas to carry its costly $120 million budget. The video game adaptation earned $114.1 million internationally, with a worldwide total of $148.6 million.

Still, its opening was enough to just narrowly take the box office crown from “A Quiet Place”, which earned $32.9 million in 3,589 locations. “A Quiet Place” has been riding high with rave reviews, only dropping 34 per cent. That brings its cumulative domestic gross to an impressive $100 million.

“The speed with which ‘A Quiet Place’ has raced to the $100 million mark is a testament to the film’s ongoing appeal and a result of terrific word of mouth,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a film analyst at comScore.

Also benefiting from the Friday the 13th weekend was Universal and Blumhouse’s collaboration “Truth or Dare”. The supernatural thriller debuted in third place with $19 million from 3,029 theaters. The pic, starring Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey, made $2.6 million internationally, combining for a global total of $21.7 million off its budget under $5 million.

“This is an outstanding debut considering the competitive landscape,” Jim Orr, head of domestic distribution at Universal, said. “For original horror, Blumhouse has define the genre for many years. They built a model that is just terrific.”

The third frame of Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” made $11 million from 3,661 locations, lifting its domestic gross to $114.5 million.

Rounding out the top five is the sophomore weekend of Universal’s “Blockers”. Kay Cannon’s raunchy comedy starring John Cena, Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz dropped 50 per cent to take in $10 million from 3,418 locations. In total, the pic has made $37 million.

The wide release of Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs” made $5 million from 1,939 locations. The stop-motion animated film, which has grossed $18.5 million, opened in limited release at the end of March with the best per screen average of 2018 to date.

Another newcomer, Entertainment Studios’ canine-themed “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero”, made $1.1 million in 1,633 locations. Directed and co-written by Richard Lanni, “Sgt. Stubby” features the voices of Logan Lerman, Helena Bonham Carter and Gerard Depardieu.

The 2018 box office is down 2.4 per cent compared to 2017, according to comScore. The same weekend last year, where “The Fate of the Furious” opened with $98.8 million, is down 15.5 per cent.

A harmonious combination of the two things that the Stuttgart tri-star brand does especially well, the Mercedes-AMG S63 4Matic+ is a brutally powerful full-size luxury saloon. Commands recognition and attention on the road, yet discretely blending in with traffic rather than being a flashy overstatement, the S63 is in fact one of two high performance S-Class flagships available from Mercedes’ skunkworks AMG division. 

Taking a leaf out of the classic Audi playbook, the 4-litre V8-powered four-wheel-drive S63 maybe slightly less powerful than the 6-litre V12 Mercedes-AMG S65, yet, is the faster of the two uber-Mercs. 

Outgunning opposition

Outgunning what little current competition it has outside the Mercedes brand, the S63 is a quicker, lighter, more sophisticated, efficient and agile alternative, with an additional pair of gears and driven wheels than the pricier S65. 

Faster and more spacious than Jaguar’s recently updated yet ageing XJR flagship, the S63’s only true alternative would have been the recently discontinued Audi S8 Plus. With virtually a clear field and unique position for the moment, the S63 faces sits almost unrivalled until an Autobahn-storming high speed incarnation of the all-new Audi A8 arrives.

Noticeably more assertive with its deeper bigger air intakes, more chiseled and lower side skirts, quad rear pipes, big alloys and small spoiler, the S63 is neither demure nor overstated. It is rather the sort of car that draws discreet attention in the little visiual differences, but, whether in Amman, Dubai or elsewhere, would for the untrained eye blend in with commonly seen garden-variety S-Classes. 

Subtle yet distinctly sporty, the AMG styling treatment brings out an edgier and more urgent side to the S-Class’ familiarly formal fascia, flowing lines and tapered rear quarter. 

Abundant ability

Nestled behind its broad grille and under its long bonnet, the S63 is powered by a highly and suitably tuned version of AMG’s twin-turbocharged direct injection 4-litre V8 engine. Developing an immense 603BHP at 5500-6000rpm and a colossal 664lb/ft torque plateau at 2750-4500rpm, the S63’s headline figures are staggering for a full-size two-tonne luxury flagship, with 0-100km/h dispatched in a supercar-like 3.5-seconds and top speed optionally de-restricted from 250km/h to 300km/h. 

Quicker than the 180kg heavier S65 by 0.8-seconds in acceleration, the S63’s combined cycle 8.9l/100km fuel efficiency is comparatively restrained, when driven with a light touch.

Smooth and silent in daily driving, the S63’s mighty V8 becomes a thunderously bellowing bass-heavy brute when driven with intent, and with its active exhaust engaged. A quick-spooling twin turbo beast with little by way of low-end lag, the S63 makes a refined welling transition to an indefatigably abundant mid-range and un urgently volcanic top-end. Engineered to behave with the stately manners and refinement e3xpected of a luxury flagship and vicious accelerative potential of a supercar, the S63’s throttle pedal and tuning, play a big part in smoothly integrating both briefs.

Settled, supple

and stable

With long pedal travel, firm resistance and little chance of one dialing in too much throttle to unintentionally upset traction or ride serenity, the S63 requires one to push deep and progressively to access it awesome potential. Moreover, the S63’s subtle four-wheel-drive seemingly works with a light, barely detectible, but effective touch. 

Driving with a distinctly rear-drive character and agility, the S63 allocates power towards the front and where necessary to maintain tenacious rear traction, stability and road-holding under hard driving. 

Meanwhile, engine, throttle and gearbox settings can be tailored for different levels of comfort and responsiveness.

Smooth and supple yet settled at speed and on vertical rebound, the S63 well absorbs bumps and lumps. Comfortably absorbent but without being vague, wallowing or floaty, the S63 rides with a planted and heavy-on-the-ground feeling of stability that is a traditional trademark of Mercedes’ larger and more luxurious offerings. 

Built for long distance and sustained high speed motorways, the S63 may not exactly be nimble in the absolute term, but is a more agile and eager handling car, with a tidier turn into corners, than its size and stature would suggest.

Control and comfort

Quick and controlled into a corner, the S63 features accurate yet light and well-damped steering. Leaning slightly through corners when riding in its adaptive air suspension’s “comfort” mode, the S63 body control tightens ups considerably in “sport” mode, with tauter damping keeping it flatter through corners and more buttoned-down on straights, but without altering its core character or making it unsettled or lumpy. With balanced weighting and chassis working well with its four-wheel-drive and long wheelbase, the S63’s lateral grip limit is high and is telegraphed to the driver. Meanwhile, huge optional carbon ceramic brakes provide ample and tireless stopping ability. 

Highly refined and insulated inside, the S63’s cabin is a fine-leather and Alcantara clad cocoon of extensive luxury and high tech convenience, infotainment and safety systems. Huge armchairs-like seats contort for comfort and support, and offer various massage settings, while vast rear space and adjustable seats provide first class levels of comfort. 

Finished in fine materials including quilted leather dash elements, the S63’s cabin design is elegant and ergonomic, while a chunky flat-bottom steering wheel and gearbox paddle shifters add a sporting flavour. Its 470-litre boot however loses some utility with the inclusion of a spare for regional specification.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo, in-line V8-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 83 x 92mm

Compression ratio: 8.6:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 9-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 5.35; 2nd 3.24; 3rd 2.25; 4th 1.64; 5th 1.21; 6th 1.0; 7th 0.86; 8th 0.72; 9th 0.6

Reverse / final drive: 4.8 / 2.82

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 603 (612) [450] @5500-6000rpm

Specific power: 151.5BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 303.5BHP/tonne (unladen)

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 664 (900) @2750-4500rpm

Specific torque: 226Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 451.1Nm/tonne (unladen)

Rev limit: 7000rpm

0-100km/h: 3.5-seconds

Top speed, electronically governed / de-restricted: 250km/h / 300km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 8.9-litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 203g/km

Fuel capacity: 93-litres

Length: 5296mm

Width: 1905mm

Height: 1499mm

Wheelbase: 3165mm

Track: 1643mm

Ground clearance: 130mm

Headroom, F/R: 1008/950mm

Legroom, F/R: 1052/1095mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1516/1501mm

Luggage volume (without spare tyre): 470-litres

Unladen / kerb weight: 1995/2070kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Steering ratio: 15.5:1

Suspension: Multi-link, adaptive air dampers

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated, perforated ceramic discs, 420 x 40mm / 360 x 32mm (optional)

Brake calipers, F/R: 6-/1-piston

Tyres, F/R: 255/40ZR20 / 285/35ZR20 (optional)

TAMPA — Iconic animals like elephants, tigers, lions and panda bears are everywhere in movies, books and toystores. But their wide pop culture presence skews public perception of how endangered these animals really are, researchers said on Thursday.

Online surveys, zoo websites, animated films and school questionnaires were scoured by US and French researchers for the study, published in journal PLOS Biology.

Using these sources, scientists made a list of the top ten most charismatic animals: tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, pandas, cheetahs, polar bears, grey wolves and gorillas.

Researchers also found that almost 49 per cent of all the non-teddy bear stuffed animals sold in the United States on Amazon were one of these ten charismatic animals.

In France, 800,000 “Sophie the giraffe” baby toys were sold in 2010, more than eight times the numbers of giraffes living in Africa.

Lead author Franck Courchamp of the University of Paris said that these animals are so common in pop culture and marketing materials that they create a “virtual population” in people’s minds, one that is doing far better in perception than reality.

“Unknowingly, companies using giraffes, cheetahs or polar bears for marketing purposes may be actively contributing to the false perception that these animals are not at risk of extinction, and therefore not in need of conservation,” Courchamp said.

The average French citizen “will see more virtual lions through photos, cartoons, logos and brands in one month than there are wild lions left in West Africa”, said the report.

Researchers urged companies that use these animals in their marketing to donate a portion of the proceeds to conservation groups.

“The appearance of these beloved animals in stores, in movies, on television, and on a variety of products seems to be deluding the public into believing they are doing OK,” said co-author William Ripple, a professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University.

“If we don’t act in a concerted effort to save these species, that may soon be the only way anyone will see them.”

Ripple added that “a major threat faced by nearly all of them is direct killing by humans, especially from hunting and snaring”, a reality he described as “sadly ironic, as these are some of our most beloved animals”.

VANCOUVER — Dolby Laboratories chief scientist Poppy Crum tells of a fast-coming time when technology will see right through people no matter how hard they try to hide their feelings.

Sensors combined with artificial intelligence can reveal whether someone is lying, infatuated, or poised for violence, Crum detailed at a big ideas TED Conference.

“It is the end of the poker face,” Crum said.

“We broadcast our emotions. We will know more about each other than we ever have.”

Eye dilation reveals how hard a brain is working, and heat radiating from the skin signals whether we are stressed or even romantically piqued.

The amount of carbon dioxide exhaled can signal how riled up someone, or a crowd, is getting. Micro-expressions and chemicals in breath reveal feelings.

The timing of someone’s speech can expose whether they are at risk of dementia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or bipolar disorder, according to the neuroscientist.

Brain waves can indicate whether someone’s attention is elsewhere in a room, regardless of the fact their gaze is locked on the person in front of them.

Technology exists to read such cues and, combined with artificial intelligence that can analyse patterns and factor in context, can magnify empathy if used for good or lead to abuses if used to oppress or manipulate, said Crum.

“It is really scary on one level, but on another level it is really powerful,” Crum said.

“We can bridge the emotional divide.”

She gave examples of a high school counselor being able to tell whether a seemingly cheery student is having a hard time, or police quickly knowing if someone acting bizarrely has a health condition or is criminally violent.

One could skip scanning profiles on dating apps and, instead, scan people for genuine interest.

Artists would be able to see the emotional reactions people have to their creations.

“I realise a lot of people are having a hard time with people sharing our data, or knowing something we didn’t want to share,” Crum said.

“I am not looking to create a world where our inner lives are ripped open, but I am looking to create a world where we can care about each other more effectively.”

With emotion-reading rooms, smart speakers, or accessories on their way, Crum is keen to see rules in place to make sure benefits are equally available to all while malicious uses are prevented.

“It is something people need to realise is here and is going to happen; so let’s make it happen in a way we have control over,” Crum told AFP.

“We will be able to know more about each other than we ever have. Let’s use that for the right reasons rather than the wrong ones.”

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Arundhati Roy

UK: Hamish Hamilton, 2017

Pp 445

“The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is astonishing and, at times, overwhelming in its imagery, which ranges from details of delicate beauty to the ugly, horrific and macabre. Stories within stories accumulate, conveying themes of love and its opposite — human cruelty. The novel is both a warning of impending doom — what happens to people and societies distorted by hate and war, and a reassurance that love can heal the shattered victims if allowed to blossom freely on its own terms. 

This is Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy’s first novel after her much acclaimed “The God of Small Things”, which won the Booker Prize in 1997.  In between, she has written a number of non-fiction books about human rights, environmental issues and social justice, as well as elegantly scathing critiques of war and empire. These same themes are woven into the narrative of “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” and explored via the interaction among a set of larger-than-life characters.

The plot is so complex and rambling as to defy summary, but it is anchored in the lives of two unique women. Anjum is a hermaphrodite who chooses to be a woman and leaves her parental home to live with others like herself, called hijras, in the Old City of Delhi. Here, another resident tells her that hijras cannot be happy because all the outside world’s conflicts are raging inside them, whether “price-rise, children’s school-admissions, husbands’ beatings, wives’ cheating, Hindu-Muslim riots, Indo-Pak war…” (p. 23). It is apparent that Anjum’s precarious status is symbolic of all outsiders or misfits, and her search for belonging and happiness is the search of them all.

Challenging this dire outlook, Anjum adopts an abandoned child upon whom she showers all her love: “In order to please Zainab, Anjum began to write a simpler, happier life for herself. The rewriting in turn began to make Anjum a simpler, happier person,” (p. 34). But after she witnesses a particularly gruesome outbreak of communal violence, her happiness fades and she goes to live in a graveyard. 

Tilo, the other main female character, does not seem to be a misfit, but her self-sufficiency, creativity and critical outlook distance her from conventional life. The three men who love her involve her in the Kashmir war in all its shocking brutality of counterinsurgency, massacres, incarceration and torture. 

The evils of war are dissected from many angles: The ambiguity of heroism, its dehumanising effect on both sides, the dilemmas facing the freedom fighters. As one Kashmiri freedom fighter says in a statement that might resonate with many Palestinians, “This is the worst part of the occupation… what it makes us do to ourselves. This reduction, this standardisation, this stupidification…” (p. 371)

As the war drags on, its effects boomerang back to Indian society and lead to a hardening of attitudes on the Kashmiri side. A new type of militant emerges under Afghani and Pakistani influence, whereby attaining freedom is equated with a strict interpretation of Islam. “There would be no debate… all arguments would be settled by bullets. Shiites were not Muslim. And women would have to learn to dress appropriately… The Strict Line plunged the Valley into a dilemma. People knew that the freedom they longed for would not come without a war, and they knew the Strict Ones were by far the better warriors” — a trajectory reminiscent of what happened in Syria. (p. 321) 

Last but not least is the profit motive: “Everyone on all sides is making money on the bodies of young Kashmiris.” (p. 228)

While the war rages in Kashmir, “in Delhi there was no war other than the usual one — the war of the rich against the poor” (p. 392). With her startling imagery and passionate storytelling, Roy paints vivid scenes of urban poverty and decay, pollution, rampant consumerism and communal violence, most often perpetrated by Hindu ultra-nationalists against Muslims and untouchables. The dark underside of modernity is revealed as neo-liberalism reshapes the country: “Away from the lights and advertisements, villages were being emptied. Cities too. Millions of people were being moved, but nobody knew where to… surplus people were banned” and their slum dwellings bulldozed. (p. 98)

Roy’s pen is extremely versatile as she records these travesties. She relentlessly lampoons the pretensions, indifference and prejudices of the rich and powerful with sly irony and satirical humour; her outrage at the torturers of the intelligence service is undisguised. The tone of the novel changes rapidly according to events, switching from starkly realistic, to mythical, dream-like or nightmarish, and her style shifts according to point-of-view.

On the other hand, she writes with deep compassion about how human beings are shattered by war, death and poverty. The novel is also about people’s capacity to bear pain and death, to live with horrors they wish they did not know about, to survive and even start life anew, often by creating new families based on love, but not necessarily on blood ties. It is both an indictment of violence and a plea to accept “the other”, whether another nationality, religion, class/caste or life style.

In conclusion, there really is a Ministry of Utmost Happiness but it has nothing in common with a governmental institution. “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is available at Readers.

By Sirsa Qursha

Our words carry immense power over our children — and often in negative ways. Shame loosely equals to “I am bad” or “I am not lovable”.

These are messages we get from a young age that have detrimental effects on healthy emotional development. Shame inducing is usually a result of rectifying “bad behaviour” or parents attempting to control their children’s actions. How liberating and positive it would be if children were allowed to make mistakes, learn from them and try again, rather than being shamed for not doing it right or not making the correct choice. Eventually, there is a price that is paid when parents focus on “controlling behaviour” instead of a child’s sense of worth.

‘Good’ vs ‘bad’ shame

Everyone knows that children need to respect social limits. Children also need to develop ways to self-regulate, accept boundaries and hear the word “no”. Once faced with those limits, children start to understand that they live in a world with social rules, and that they have to behave in specific ways; in other words, they start to realise there are forbidden behaviours and those that are acceptable.

A typical example of this would be a child shouting in a restaurant. Parents would automatically ask the child to stop shouting and act in a socially acceptable way. Neighbouring diners might shoot the child a harsh look. Automatically, the child will develop one of the “big emotions” bigger than self-consciousness or embarrassment causing a physical reaction: shame.

If and when they are faced with the word “no” to a specific behaviour, children start to develop “mild shame”, which researcher Dan Siegel states is normal and even healthy for children, as they need to learn how to live in a social world and regulate accordingly. One significant factor, however, also includes his parents’ reaction to the child’s shouting in the restaurant.

Bad shame, or what psychologists call “toxic shame”, develops in the instance that a parent makes the child feel like the child is a bad person. In this instance, the child no longer feels shame on its own, but also feels misunderstood, and not good enough in the eyes of the parent. Over time, if this reaction happens repeatedly, children start to develop toxic shame.

Shame vs self-worth

Children develop self-worth, or a view of themselves and their abilities, through interactions with primary caregivers from a very young age. Yet, oftentimes, even caregivers and teachers with the best of intentions frame statements that result in the child feeling a great amount of shame. Shame can take on many forms and may sound like this:

• When are you going to grow up?

• What is wrong with you?

• Anger and aggression when speaking to children 

• Laughing and mocking children

• Name calling and using offensive language

Shaming children goes hand in hand with punishment and guilt inducing, and that should not be how children learn or grow — as we now know from decades’ worth of research.

What you can 

do as a parent:

Avoiding ridicule — “you’re such a baby” is a classic line adopted by parents but is shame inducing

Not laughing at your child, especially when they are feeling insecure about something that is said about them.

Empathising statements, such as: “You really want another piece of chocolate, but you already have one, why don’t we put it in a special place for you to find tomorrow?” or “You can have a piece of fruit instead.” 

Disciplining, not punishing. This means that you essentially guide your child to an appropriate behaviour. Punishment sends the message that a child is bad. Listening to your child: if and when a child is recounting a story or incident that made the child feel shame, offer empathy instead of denouncing the emotion. This might sound like “I am sure that feeling is very hard for you”, instead of “No, you’re not stupid, ugly or dumb,” or the classic response of “It’s okay”.

Being emotionally available for your child if you decide to enforce discipline that is creating a feeling of shame.

Seeing children for the individuals that they are and valuing their input.

Treating your child how you would want to be treated — with kindness, patience and an appreciation of their worth.

At young ages when children are still developing emotional vocabulary, they communicate how they are feeling through behaviour. Oftentimes, children behave how they feel. If they behave “badly”, that must mean they are feeling “badly”. In these instances, it is worth it for parents, teachers and professionals to pause and think about how to best guide children through their “big feelings”, and through the shame, to reach a point of developing their own competencies and self-worth.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

PARIS, France — People who stay up late and have to drag themselves out of bed are likelier to die younger than those who rise and set with the sun, researchers said on Thursday.

A survey of more than 430,000 people in Britain found that night owls had a 10-per cent higher risk of dying in the 6.5-year study period than “larks”.

“This is a public health issue that can no longer be ignored,” said study co-author Malcolm van Schantz of the University of Surrey — and argued that “night types” should be allowed to start and finish work later in the day.

“Night owls trying to live in a morning-lark world may [suffer] health consequences,” said fellow author Kristen Knutson of the Northwestern University in Chicago.

The duo gathered information on nearly half-a-million people aged 38-73 from a public database.

The participants had defined themselves as either “definitely a morning person” (27 per cent), “more a morning person than evening person” (35 per cent), “more an evening than a morning person” (28 per cent), or “definitely an evening person” (9 per cent).

They also listed their weight, smoking habits, and socioeconomic status.

Deaths in the group — just over 10,500 in total — were documented for six-and-a-half years.

The night owl group, the team found, had a 10-per cent higher risk of dying than those in the extreme early-morning group.

People in the late-night group were more likely to suffer from psychological disorders, diabetes, and stomach and breathing troubles, and slept fewer hours per night.

They were also more likely to smoke, drink alcohol and coffee, and use illegal drugs.

The higher risk may be because “people who are up late have an internal biological clock that doesn’t match their external environment,” Knutson said.

“It could be psychological stress, eating at the wrong time for the body, not exercising enough, not sleeping enough, being awake at night by yourself, maybe drug or alcohol use.”

The research duo urged special treatment for night owls.

“If you can recognise these [types] are, in part, genetically determined and not just a character flaw, jobs and work hours could have more flexibility for owls,” Knutson said.

“They shouldn’t be forced to get up for an 8am shift.”

VANCOUVER — A month after news of the data fiasco at Facebook dampened enthusiasm for the idea that innovation can cure all ills, the tech dream was still alive at the big-ideas TED Conference this week.

TED attendees were keenly aware of recent tech troubles, from Facebook being called before Congress over user privacy to a self-driving Uber car’s accident that killed a woman pushing a bicycle across a street.

“The beautiful story we told ourselves that if we just connected the world together everything would get better is not working out,” TED curator Chris Anderson told the gathering which ends on Saturday.

But even if the dream has been shaken, it is not broken, according to many of those attending the week-long deep-thinker conference.

“Our situation with technology is complicated, but the big picture is rather simple,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Max Tegmark said in a TED talk.

“We can either be complacent about the future, drift in a rudderless ship to our own obsolescence or be ambitious and think of how we want to steer our technology to an age of amazement.”

Jaron Lanier, an author and technologist credited with pioneering virtual reality, contended that it was clear decades ago that “we were facing a knife-edge future” where the technology we love could be our undoing.

“We have a challenge,” Lanier said during a talk on the TED stage. “We have to create a culture around technology that is so beautiful, so meaningful, so deeply filled with infinite potential that it draws us away from committing mass suicide.”

Even amid the gloom of recent weeks, some TED speakers remained upbeat over the prospects for artificial intelligence to help improve the democratic process; for satellite technology to save marine life; and medical tech that delivers new mechanical limbs and organs.

Free model in question

Lanier said there needs to be more discussion on the current model of the Internet in which free social networks and search engines rely on advertising, with targeting techniques growing increasingly precise.

“What started out as advertising became behaviour modification,” Lanier said.

“I can’t call these things social networks any more; I call them behaviour modification empires.”

Lanier and others at TED saw promise in titans such as Facebook and Google shifting to subscription models that have proven successful for Netflix and Amazon, with subsidies for those who need them.

He advocated a subscription model with financially strapped people provided subsidies and all users paid for personal data that could be valuable to technology firms.

“I am certain that the Googles and the Facebooks would do better in this world,” Lanier said.

There was strong support for the idea of a “digital bill of rights” enshrining in law how people and their data should be treated in a technology-driven world.

Keen attention was being paid to a new data protection standard, the General Data Protection Regulation, set to take effect in May in Europe, with a hope it would blaze a path for others.

The standard gives web users much greater control over how their personal information is stored and used, with big fines for companies that break the rules.

Upbeat view

Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor who has gained notoriety for an upbeat view of progress in the world, told the conference that feelings of gloom about the fate of humanity are misguided.

“You can always fool yourself comparing dramatic headlines of the present with rose-tinted views of the past,” said Pinker, whose recent book “Enlightenment Now” makes the case that prosperity and other measures of well-being are on the rise, in large part due to technological innovation.

“During the decades when the world has gotten happier and healthier, news has gotten darker,” Pinker said.

“The unsolved problems facing the world today are gargantuan, but we must see them as problems to be solved and not inevitable outcomes.”

Middle-aged adults who lose most of their net worth over a brief period of time are more likely to die prematurely than individuals who hold on to their nest eggs, a US study suggests.

Researchers studied 8,714 people over two decades, starting when they were 55 years old, on average. Overall, 749 participants, or 9 per cent, were in debt or had no net worth at the start of the study. Another 2,430, or 28 per cent, experienced so-called “negative wealth shock” and lost at least 75 per cent of their net worth over a two-year period at some point during follow-up.

During the study, 2,823 people died.

Compared with people who continuously maintained a comfortable level of wealth, participants who experienced negative wealth shock were 50 per cent more likely to die during the study, researchers report in JAMA. People who started out in poverty or in debt were 67 per cent more likely to die.

“Having wealth and losing it suddenly carries almost the same risk for premature mortality as never having wealth,” said lead study author Lindsay Pool, a researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

Poverty has long been linked to an increased risk of early death, Pool said by e-mail. Previous research also suggests that a sudden reversal of fortune may contribute to chronic stress, depression, anxiety and high blood pressure, all of which are independently associated with a greater risk of dying young.

“Unfortunately, there is not a simple take-home message for patients, like ‘stop smoking’ or ‘eat more fruits and vegetables,’” Pool added. “And even things that we think might help, like ‘keep going to the doctor’ or ‘find ways to manage stress’ are easier said than done when your financial situation has just radically changed.”

Among participants who maintained a comfortable level of wealth throughout the study, the death rate was roughly 31 fatalities per year for every 1,000 people.

In the group that suffered negative wealth shock, the death rate was about 65 fatalities per year for every 1,000 participants.

And among those who started out in poverty or in debt, the death rate was approximately 73 fatalities per year for every 1,000 people.

The study was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how shifts in net worth might directly influence health or the likelihood of premature death. Researchers also lacked data on participants’ wealth before they joined the study, including any years in poverty or any sudden losses of net worth earlier in life.

“This study does not prove that loss of wealth directly causes illness and death,” said Alan Garber, provost at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of an accompanying editorial.

“It shows that they go hand-in-hand,” Garber said by e-mail. “In middle age and later in life, people who suffer wealth shocks don’t live as long.”

Economists have long debated the causal relationship between wealth and health, noted Michael Marmot, director of the Institute of Health Equity at the University College of London in the UK.

While the study offers fresh evidence that losing money and assets may hasten death, people may still be better off living at least part of their life with these financial resources than never having them at all, Marmot, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail.