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What If It's Worse Than We Think? "With Speed & Violence" By New Scientist Editor Fred Pearce

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hatrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 12:36 PM
Original message
What If It's Worse Than We Think? "With Speed & Violence" By New Scientist Editor Fred Pearce
I'm sorry, all I could find was this blurb from his publisher, but it sounds intriguing. Anyone out there read this yet?

Fred Pearce has been writing about climate change for eighteen years, and the more he learns, the worse things look. Where once scientists were concerned about gradual climate change, now more and more of them fear we will soon be dealing with abrupt change resulting from triggering hidden tipping points. Even President Bush's top climate modeler, Jim Hansen, warned in 2005 that "we are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption."

As Pearce began working on this book, normally cautious scientists beat a path to his door to tell him about their fears and their latest findings. With Speed and Violence tells the stories of these scientists and their work—from the implications of melting permafrost in Siberia and the huge river systems of meltwater beneath the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica to the effects of the "ocean conveyor" and a rare molecule that runs virtually the entire cleanup system for the planet.

Above all, the scientists told him what they're now learning about the speed and violence of past natural climate change-and what it portends for our future. With Speed and Violence is the most up-to-date and readable book yet about the growing evidence for global warming and the large climatic effects it may unleash.

"If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change. If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it." -Lester Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute

EDIT

http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1848
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GliderGuider Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 12:43 PM
Response to Original message
1. That will go on the shelf next to Peter Ward.
Thanks, I just ordered it.
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Systematic Chaos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 12:44 PM
Response to Original message
2. Yet another family funtastic book I gotta try and beg from the library.
Thank goodness that if nothing else, Vegas has good libraries. :)
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #2
8. Hey, Vegas person: off topic here (though environmental) -
Can you call off your dogs with that Spring Valley and Snake Valley water project? You're gonna make the most beautiful place on earth another Owens Valley disaster.........

http://www.familyfarmalliance.org/news/Western%20Water%20Wars.pdf
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10953190
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6963917
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nashville_brook Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 12:48 PM
Response to Original message
3. here's the amazon info
http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Violence-Scientists-Tipping-Climate/dp/0807085766/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9582839-4431626?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188323178&sr=8-1


From Publishers Weekly
Pearce (When the Rivers Run Dry) presents some climate modelers' frightening predictions about the consequences of increased global warming. After studying the history of the earth's climate changes, these scientists have learned that, under pressure from natural forces, major shifts can happen abruptly. Today, with the added stress of human interference, irreversible changes could threaten the habitability of our planet. For example, drought and fire could cause the Amazon rainforest to disappear; huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that can be 100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, could be released by the meltdown of Siberian peat; and aerosol emissions in India and China could end the indispensable Asian monsoon. Hard-line skeptics disagree, of course, but Pearce cites highly respected scientists who assert that the threats have been underestimated, especially by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even President Bush's chief climate modeler notes that the glaciers and ice sheets at the poles are disintegrating at alarming rates and warns that we may be only a decade and one degree of warming away from global catastrophe. The science behind climate studies is complex, but Pearce makes it accessible enough to terrify even the most uninitiated layperson. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Pearce, author of When the River Runs Dry (2006), prides himself on being a skeptical environmental journalist, and now, after covering climate change for 18 years, he has no doubt that we are "interfering with the fundamental processes that make Earth habitable." Believing that everyone needs to understand exactly what is happening on the planet, Pearce consults with experts on ocean currents, polar ice, the carbon cycle, methane, and soot; reports on the rapid melting of polar ice and the Siberian permafrost, the "brown haze" of Asia, and record-breaking heat waves, droughts, and wildfires; and explains that because the earth's systems are intricately interconnected and finely calibrated, small alterations can have abrupt and enormous consequences. Pearce presents a cogent rundown of the findings that establish greenhouse gases as a global warming catalyst and, most disturbingly, provides careful analysis of evidence indicating that climatic change has never been gradual. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 12:58 PM
Response to Original message
4. Thanks...just what I need
I immediately went and ordered this happy sounding tome. It looks like a perfect companion to hatrack's daily briefing that we all look forward to here on E&E.

Just today at lunch I was sitting at a park bench, watching the clouds, and thinking about how the Arctic ice cap was melting right before our eyes. Hard to believe the speed in which it seems to be happening.

Earth is no stranger to change. My home was under a huge piece of ice not all that long ago but it sure took longer than one lifetime to disappear.
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BootinUp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:01 PM
Response to Original message
5. Reminds me of that movie "The Day After Tomorrow"
Certainly an exaggeration, but illustrates tipping points.
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BridgeTheGap Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:14 PM
Response to Original message
6. Are we willing to make changes? or will we be forced into it ?-OR-
Are we already on the verge of extinction?
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #6
11. Not the verge of extinction - there's too many of us and we are,
in general, too smart and creative.

But a die-off of thousands of species, including 9/10 of the human race? Not impossible.
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:21 PM
Response to Original message
7. What if it's worse than we think...
even if we try to take into account that it's worse than we think?
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. We will (at least some of us) rise to the occasion and give survival
in our brave new world our best shot.......

But a whole lot of people are gonna sink.
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XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 02:03 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. It's going to be a brave new world
I don't think most of the scientists' predictions about this are accurate at all.

I deeply suspect that the paradigms of the same weather systems with differing degrees of severity ain't how it's going to go down. For example, the weather in California is mostly a function of the jet stream. Summer: no jet; winter: jet. Most of the predictions I have heard say that the jet stream will start looping to the north of us more often during the winter, so we'll get fewer rainstorms and a lighter snowpack. It'll be like a long-term drought.

But this paradigm is crap, methinks. Directly to the south of us they get hurricanes. Out in Arizona their rainy season is our driest time of year. Nevada gets brutally, brutally cold. Not far to the north in Oregon they get enough summer rain to take them out of the "Mediterranean" climate, and even in the more temperate areas they get pretty good winter frosts.

Real summer rain would RADICALLY change the state quickly.
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 01:45 PM
Response to Original message
10. People have dismissed the catastrophist scenario for years
because it is so difficult to model. In the immortal world of Donald Rumsfeld, there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns. Before 10 years ago nobody even considered the effects of melting permafrost, and the massive release of methane from it, in the global warming scenarios. Nobody even knew about the meltwater rivers beneath the icecaps.

What don't we know about, today? The storm systems dragging down hyper-cold air from the stratosphere, as depicted in "Day After Tomorrow" are a theoretical possibility - I read a novel written back in the 80s that postulated the exact same thing - but there are so many variables to consider that modeling such a thing happening is virtually impossible, so it just isn't done. Therefore, it is not even considered in climatology models. It's only been recently that they've modeled the shutdown of the thermo-haline (sp?) cycle, based on introduction of freshwater from the Greenland icecap - but most of those models have the icecap melting in 50 years, not 10 years or 5 years.

What if the sun pulses on a 5000, or 10,000 year cycle -- so slowly that we'd be unlikely to ever notice. But something caused the end of glaciation 13,000 years ago. Something caused the repeating cycles of warm eras and ice ages over the past million years.

Unknown unknowns.
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FloridaJudy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
13. Looks interesting
Beacon Press has a history of publishing intriguing books. I'll have to check into it.
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OKIsItJustMe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 03:52 PM
Response to Original message
14. Useful links
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 05:18 PM
Response to Original message
15. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!" --FDR
This very Buddha-like pronouncement from a leader facing the Nazi war machine can give us comfort and courage now.

If we have done in our own species, by destroying our home, well then, that's what we've done. We, too, are part of nature. And everything we do IS nature. Nature creates. Nature destroys. Nature creates again. That's how it goes. We all die. We are all recycled. And it is a very, very, very, very, very, very (need I go on?), VERY big universe out there, where this destruction/creation cycle is constantly occurring on an unimaginably large scale. Amazing how our tiny little brains (teensy weensy ants crawling on a bit of dust in the vasty cosmos) try to stretch themselves around that big reality. This precious and amazing thing--human consciousness--is not likely rare at all, but we are the only instance of it that we know of (and maybe the dolphins, whales and elephants--intuition says yes). But some of our best survival skills--being able to store up grain for seven years, inventing refrigerators, our wanting to GO, our adventurousness, our desire to travel over the next hill, our fantastic organizational skills, our even more fantastic engineering skills--Christ, putting men on the moon!--may well be our demise.

And if it is, I hope we face it with dignity, heroism, courage, creativity and compassion.

I began sensing something in the rich elite of our own society--American society--in my work on environmental issues. Panic. Deep panic, leading to an orgy of greed and acquisitiveness. The disruption of planet earth's biosphere really began, in major intensity, during the 1960s. For instance, that is when the main part of the old growth redwood forest was finally destroyed in California--under a populist Democratic governor (Edumnd G. Brown, Sr.), in a mind-boggling expansion of middle class prosperity (and house building). But that was ALSO a time of growing middle-class awareness of the perils of environmental destruction, and the birth of the environmental movement. Ask the American people, do they want strong environmental protection?, and 80%, 90% of them will answer yes. Democracy, which is, in some sense, born of environmental destruction, is also the solution to environmental destruction. If the people had their druthers, we would have converted to solar energy and other alternatives a long time ago; the air would be clean; corporate pollution of air, water, food and everything else would be banned; remaining forests would be preserved, and alternative building materials would be produced, and trees would be planted everywhere; we would be living lighter (and happier) on the earth, in a "green" world, one that was fast healing from the damage of 100 years of the most devastating impacts on the planet since the great comet killed off the dinosaurs, but this time inflicted by conscious beings--us--who can't ever seem to get enough of "7 years of grain" security, and always want more, and have the intelligence and dexterity to seek it. More.

The damage to planet earth is felt in our guts. It is visceral. It is profound. It is related to our fear of our own deaths (particularly acute in American "youth" culture), but it is even worse, much worse, than this. It is like seeing your children die. It is a deep, DNA-driven fear of being cut off from the future. We have so many stories in our literature--and so many examples in reality--of old men being misers. Often old men with no children. No emotional ties to anyone; no one to deed their wealth to. It is an archetypal myth. As they age and death approaches, they become extremely greedy--to no purpose. They count and recount their gold, as if that could give them happiness or security. As if it could give them eternal life.

This is a description of our wealthy class--the super-rich, the corporate CEOs, the global corporate predators, the war profiteers, the ruiners of planets. They no longer CARE what it is FOR. They are not building anything (a good society); they are not promoting "freedom and democracy" (a cruel joke); they are not even happy in their wealth--they are frenzied and scared. They behave exactly like the greedy old misers of story and myth, counting and recounting their coins, in miserable isolation from the rest of humanity. Don't let their yachts and their multiple mansions and their private jets fool you. These people are suffering from a DISEASE. The disease of fear-driven, manic greed, which, in trying to preserve itself, destroys itself--and, with the power that their ungodly wealth gives them, is now destroying us all.

We need to cure them. That's one thing. To save ourselves and our planet, we need to save THEM from THEMSELVES. We need to tax them, regulate them, and altogether curtail them. Where they are organized into powerful, out-of-control global corporations, we need to pull their corporate charters, dismantle them, and seize their assets for the public good. Democracy is the key to solving global warming, and it is also the key to going out with dignity, heroism, courage, creativity and compassion, if our time in the universe is over.

If there are superior civilizations out there in the galaxy who are watching us, this is the only thing that will attract their help--our heroism, our dignity, in the face of calamity. And if there is no one who cares about us--no God, no superior beings--then we have our own nobility to consider, if the time of the human race is over. Do we go out in an orgy of greed--with the rich killing the poor for their oil, and the poor killing each other for bread crumbs, and chaos and savagery as our legacy--or do we stop being seized by fear and start acting like the noble beings that we know we have within us. The overwhelming majority of the human race has evolved into peace-loving, justice-loving, compassionate individuals, and caring communities, who RARELY become violent and greedy, and generally only when sorely provoked or in fear. It is only the few--the least evolved, the dumbest, those who think their riches will give them eternal life, and thus cut themselves off from true happiness--who are causing all the trouble--the greedy old misers of whatever age.

It is only by becoming the best human beings that we can be, that we will be able to live with ourselves, as we see our end approaching. And it is only through a calm sense of dignity and right action that our planet can be saved, if that is possible.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The fear that our rich elite is exhibiting. Panic-driven greed. Their fear of us. You can smell it--in those corporate-run, "trade secret" electronic voting machines (fast-tracked across the country at the same time as the Iraq War Resolution), in their pervasive sneakiness (massive corporate/fascist spying, and off-the-books war budgets), in their corporate "news" lies and disinformation, and in many other foul-smelling methods of control and looting. You can smell it in their massive lying about South America, where real democracy is blossoming--the kind of democracy that enhances human life and can save the planet. You can smell it all over America--the terror that this emotionally vulnerable class, the rich, is feeling. They are afraid. They spread their fear to everyone. And THAT is what we need to resist--their fear, their terror, their projection of fear and terror onto us, and their consequent madness of greed--if we are to have any hope at all of saving ourselves and our only home, planet earth.
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smirkymonkey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 08:25 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. Could it be that they (the greedy old men running the world) really
know what's going on - and what's in store for all of us - which is what is driving their destructive behavior in the first place? I just can't imagine that they can't see how ultimately the destruction they are causing is going to come back to haunt them and their families. However, if they really thought that time was running out, they wouldn't care, would they?

Remember W's response when someone asked him how he will be viewed through the eyes of history?

"It doesn't matter, we'll all be dead."

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diane in sf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 09:40 PM
Response to Reply #15
17. I think the greedheads are looking at their own extinction, a lot of the super
wealthy have fortunes based on resource extraction and other 19th century technologies. They embrace a societal/economic structure that is top down. The rise of democracy and normal people terrifies them. This is one reason for the attempted beggaring of the American middle class over the last 30 years. It is also why they fight distributed energy sources like solar and wind, distributed news and information (the web without speed tolls) why they are trying to privatize resources like water, seedstocks, etc.

You just know that Bush listened to rants against Roosevelt and the New Deal all through his childhood. And imagine his chagrin at not being able to get into law school at the U. of Texas--crowded out by more talented members of the educated middle class.

What is happening in South America and in Europe is our future and the members of the upper 1/2 of 1% are fighting desperately to prevent the full-flowering of democracy and basic economic equity for the citizens of the world.
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mikita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-28-07 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. I don't post often, but been reading since DU began,
and I have to say this is one of the most touching posts I've ever read. It really resonated with me, and I thank you profoundly for taking the time to express yourself so coherently and passionately.

I especially love your take on our demise:

"And if it is, I hope we face it with dignity, heroism, courage, creativity and compassion."

Thank you, Peace Patriot.

Mikita

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GliderGuider Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-29-07 09:29 AM
Response to Reply #15
19. What an excellent piece of writing! Thanks.
You could be accused of armchair psychoanalysis, but it has the ring of truth.

It is only by becoming the best human beings that we can be, that we will be able to live with ourselves, as we see our end approaching. And it is only through a calm sense of dignity and right action that our planet can be saved, if that is possible.


Sing it loud, brother! :thumbsup:
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OneBlueSky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-29-07 01:29 PM
Response to Reply #15
22. what we need is one -- just one -- political leader who understands this . . .
and who can articulate it half as well as you did . . . thank you . . .
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Delphinus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-29-07 10:15 PM
Response to Reply #15
23. I vote for becoming
the best humans we are capable of being and living with dignity all the way to the end. I'd like to think I can face death squarely in the eye and not cave in to the basic survival emotions and/or actions. It will be my intention, at any rate.

There are times when I wonder "why bother?", especially after reading the truths that people put here for us to be educated upon, but there is a part of myself that simply will not allow me to be uncaring and self-absorbed. If I didn't believe my actions of today made a difference for tomorrow, it might be an entirely different story. But I do - and that is what keeps me going.

Thank you for what you have given us in your eloquent post, Peace Patriot. You have said so much that I am in agreement with.
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gtar100 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-24-07 01:30 AM
Response to Reply #15
26. Thank you for writing this.
Your words are thoughtful and much appreciated.
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PATRICK Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-29-07 10:04 AM
Response to Original message
20. I had a theory
that the scientific community is biased by its nature, by the education, the business backing, the government steering, at least systematically and subconsciously to put things in different priorities than raw truth. In other words the outliers are those who really do the pure unvarnished science whereas the cockeyed optimists who believe nature can be treated in nomad fashion, moving from one act of self delusion to another expecting food and water to always be there. In between the majority are institutional and organizational can do optimists whose job most resembles the mind and will of the naysayer chucklewits. Science thinks, but money talks. Hopefully, truth will out, but not when the leadership institutions actively oppress the center and give the idiot outliers full rein to lie and suppress common sense.

What this means could be the most ominous. That it could be likely that the pessimists and the dire darers are naturally closer to the truth of the matter.
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GliderGuider Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-29-07 10:24 AM
Response to Reply #20
21. I think what you're seeing is the result of compartmentalization and specialization
Most scientists I've met have a poor system-level comprehension of the forces at play in the world. They also illustrate the adage that "If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail," and that does bias their thinking towards the terms and mechanisms that they are familiar with.

Most physicists have a poor grasp of evolutionary psychology, most organic chemists know little about economics, most economists know very little about ... well, anything, actually.

Modern science has emphasized analysis over synthesis, and as a result scientists are just as guilty as any man on the street of thinking that someone else must be looking at the big picture.
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BeFree Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-21-07 11:54 AM
Response to Original message
24. Well
Big changes happen in big ways. And the worst could easily be beyond most folks conceptual faculties. Such is life.

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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-22-07 09:54 AM
Response to Original message
25. If you think this is bad
I'm reading Pearce's book When the Rivers Run Dry on the coming (current?) water crisis. Worse than peak oil. The book paints a bleak picture of how many of the complex river systems of the world have been systematically destroyed. Couple that with the draining of fossil water aquifers and you have a scary situation. Given the current situation in the Southeast and Southwest, we may soon see what happens when the water actually runs out.
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Bigmack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Oct-24-07 11:26 AM
Response to Original message
27. Thirty pages in & Great Book
Probably not THE definitive book on such a complex set of realities, but a VERY good read thus far. He quotes extensively from scientists doing the research in the field(s), tho as he frankly admits, he tends to pick from among them those whose research reinforces his own growing concerns. But unlike our right wing buddies, he's pretty upfront about his own picking and choosing. Tho I'm only into the beginnings of the book, it's looking very good. Doesn't exactly seem to tell you lots of totally new facts and ideas, but puts lots of stuff together in a most convincing fashion. And by the by, just received this book from our GREAT library system - Kitsap Country Libraries, here in Washington state. Cheers to those folks. Ms Bigmack
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