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Tag: Climate change

  • EPA proposes new tailpipe rules that could push EVs to make up two-thirds of new car sales in US by 2032 | CNN Politics

    EPA proposes new tailpipe rules that could push EVs to make up two-thirds of new car sales in US by 2032 | CNN Politics

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    The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed ambitious new car pollution rules that could require electric vehicles to account for up to two-thirds of new cars sold in the US by 2032, in what would be one of the Biden administration’s most aggressive climate-change policies yet.

    The tailpipe standards would also have the effect of cutting planet-warming pollution from cars in half. Transportation accounts for nearly 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US, according to the EPA.

    EPA Administrator Michael Regan called the regulations “the strongest-ever federal pollution standards for cars and trucks.”

    Regan touted the proposed rules on “CNN News Central” on Wednesday, claiming they would bring down costs for consumers and slash planet-warming pollution.

    “This is a future for everyone, and we’re starting to see all of the auto industry move in this direction,” Regan told CNN’s Sara Sidner, saying strong auto emissions rules have been part of President Joe Biden’s “vision from day one.”

    EPA officials said that they are considering several different emissions proposals, which could result in anywhere from a 64% to 69% electric vehicle adoption rate by early next decade. If approved, the emissions standards would start model year 2027 vehicles.

    The agency anticipates the new rules would mean EVs could also make up nearly half of all new medium-duty vehicles, like delivery trucks, by model year 2032. Officials are also proposing stronger standards for heavy-duty vehicles, including dump trucks, public utility trucks, and transit and school buses.

    One expert told CNN the Biden administration’s proposal is a pivotal moment for the US auto industry and consumers.

    “It’s a pretty big deal,” said Thomas Boylan, a former Environmental Protection Agency official and the regulatory director for the EV trade group Zero Emission Transportation Association. “This is really going to set the tone for the rest of the decade and into the 2030s in terms of what this administration is looking for the auto industry to do when it comes to decarbonizing and ultimately electrifying.”

    Regan and White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi hailed the proposed regulations as a major climate win that would also save American consumers money in the coming years.

    Zaidi said that in the Biden administration’s first few years, the number of EVs on US roads had already tripled, while the number of public charging stations had doubled. And Zaidi vowed more to come, with funding from Biden’s infrastructure law for a network of EV charging stations combined with consumer tax credits.

    “Whether you measure today’s announcements by the dollars saved, the gallons reduced, or the pollution that will no longer be pumped into the air, this is a win for the American people,” Zaidi said.

    Yet even as the administration is writing aggressive regulations to push the market toward EVs, a Gallup poll released Wednesday suggests that Americans are not yet sold on the idea. Gallup polled more than 1,000 adults in the US last month and found that 41% said they would not buy an electric vehicle.

    Not only are EVs still more expensive than gas-powered cars, but consumers also haven’t yet grasped the climate benefits of transitioning to zero-emissions vehicles, the poll found. Six in 10 respondents said they believe EVs help the environment “only a little” or “not at all,” Gallup reported.

    Transportation is the biggest source of planet-warming pollution in the US, and light duty vehicles – the average cars Americans drive – account for 58% of those emissions. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported last year that aggressive, pollution-slashing changes in the global transportation sector – including the transition to EVs – could reduce the sector’s emissions by more than 80%.

    Speaking on CNN, Regan also emphasized that switching to an EV would save consumers money in the long run.

    “Folks who purchase electric vehicles will see a cost savings over the lifespan of the vehicle, because they’re not having to buy gas, having to pay for maintenance,” Regan said. “So this is a huge opportunity for everyone in this country.”

    Other countries, including the EU and China, are moving faster toward adopting EVs. In the US, California has already proposed that zero-emissions vehicles make up 70% of new car sales by 2030, and 17 other states plan to follow California’s lead.

    That means much of the US car industry will already be transitioning ahead of the proposed federal rules.

    “I believe it’s pretty doable,” Margo Oge, chair of the International Council on Clean Transportation and a former Obama EPA official, said of the aggressive transition to EVs. “The industry is there. Europe is ahead of the US, China is ahead of Europe – and these companies are global companies.”

    New federal tax credits are coming next week that aim to help American consumers save up to $7,500 on an EV. But they have incredibly complex requirements for the auto industry – including that the cars’ batteries and components come from the US or countries it has a free-trade agreement with.

    Still, Boylan said the regulations are designed to gradually work over the next decade, by which time consumers should have far more electric vehicle options to choose from.

    “You’ve got the tax credits as the carrot,” Boylan said. The proposed tailpipe regulation “provides the stick to backstop these incentives and push the industry forward.”

    Regan told CNN the rules would be phased in gradually, giving auto makers and consumers years before they fully go into effect. During that time, the administration is focused on installing more EV charging stations and expanding access to $7,500 federal EV tax credits.

    “What we’re looking at is a ramp-up period,” Regan said on CNN. “We’re going to see a massive buildup over the next couple years, and we’re starting to see those electric vehicle sales numbers grow already.”

    The EPA will take public comment on the proposal before finalizing the rules in the coming months.

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  • In Zimbabwe, Golf Is Giving Cyclone Idai Survivors Hope

    In Zimbabwe, Golf Is Giving Cyclone Idai Survivors Hope

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    Trust Makanidzani survived Cyclone Idai and had his career put on hold during Covid-19 pandemic is back on the greens, but despite his talent, his future depends on the generosity of funders. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS
    • by Farai Shawn Matiashe (chimanimani, zimbabwe)
    • Inter Press Service

    CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe, Apr 11 (IPS) – Trust Makanidzani’s golf practice session with his friends is disrupted by a howling wind and a heavy pelting of water that thundered against rooftops at Chimanimani Golf Course in the eastern part of Zimbabwe.

    The downpour that started the previous night continued throughout the day, with a high probability of lasting several days.

    This incessant rain and wind remind the 20-year-old of the horror he experienced in March 2019 when Cyclone Idai made landfall.

    It got worse when the government issued a notice that Zimbabwe was in the path of Cyclone Freddy, and its massive destruction had already been felt in neighbouring Mozambique and Madagascar.

    Cyclone Freddy, the long-lasting tropical storm, went on to wreak havoc in Malawi in March, claiming the lives of more than 430 people, according to government officials.  Regionally at least 600 deaths have been reported. The severity of tropical storms has been attributed to the impacts of climate change.

    Makanidzani remembers the night Cyclone Idai visited his village.

    “Heavy rains started on Wednesday. I remember I had just returned from Mutare. The rains did not stop. Most people here just thought there was nothing unusual,” Makanidzani, who was aged 16 in 2019, tells IPS.

    Then on a Friday, the rains intensified.

    Some friends came to seek shelter in Makanidzani’s room as theirs had been filled with water.

    “We were now five in the room. As we were about to sleep, there was a bang outside,” he recalls adding that he was dragged for about a kilometre after their house had been washed away by a landslide.

    “When I gained consciousness, my whole body was covered under mud and twigs on the banks of a river, (and I was) alone.”

    He says he used the light from lightning to see his way to a nearby house where he sought shelter.

    “It was dark, and I started feeling nervous,” he says, holding back his tears.

    Makanidzani, who was not feeling any pain, collapsed after taking a hot cup of tea only to gain consciousness while admitted at Chimanimani Hospital.

    “This is when I realised I had a grave head injury, and my legs and hands were broken,” he says.

    At this time, Makanidzani also learned that his three friends had not survived the deadly storm.

    Cyclone Idai hit the eastern part of Zimbabwe, including Chipinge and Chimanimani districts in Manicaland Province, from March 15 to 17, 2019, affecting about 270 000 people.

    The floods and landslides claimed the lives of 340 people, while many went missing and are still unaccounted for.

    Cyclone Idai, which also hit Mozambique and Malawi, displaced about 51 000 people in Zimbabwe.

    The World Bank estimates the damages amount to USD 622 million in Zimbabwe.

    Makanidzani, who had been playing golf since 2012 under Matsetso Stars Sport to Conservation, was transferred to Chipinge Hospital and later admitted for six months at a hospital about 150 kilometres away in Mutare, Zimbabwe’s third largest city.

    Before Cyclone Idai came, he was a top junior golfer working to become a professional representing Zimbabwe regionally and internationally.

    Makanidzani picked up himself and returned to golf when he was discharged from the hospital, participating in tournaments in Mutare and the capital Harare.

    After having his golf career disrupted by Covid-19, which forced the cancellation of the Junior Golf Challenge and the Toyota World Junior Championship in 2021, he was supposed to participate as part of Zimbabwe’s 12-member squad, Makanidzani is now playing as an amateur golfer.

    In Zimbabwe, golf is a sport seen by many as only reserved for the elite, and it is rare for young people from remote areas like Chimanimani to play the sport and excel at it.

    Some Matsetso stars junior golfers, like 16-year-old Vincent Chidambazina, have gone to play at tournaments beyond the borders.

    “I flew to Lukasa, Zambia, to play golf last year. It was my first time being aboard an aeroplane. It was so amazing. I did not even have a passport at the time. I had to apply for one,” says Chidambazina, who was introduced to golf by his nephew when he was still in primary school.

    He played at golf tournaments in different parts of the country, including Harare and Bulawayo, the second-largest city.

    “It feels good to rub shoulders with the elite and to play better than them. I thought I could not make it considering I am from the rural area, but here I am, one of the top juniors,” says Chidambazina, whose neighbours’ houses were wiped away by Cyclone Idai, leaving his family home intact but shaken.

    Makanidzani says funding is holding them back.

    “I fail to travel to other cities for golf tournaments due to lack of funds. This is a huge setback to my golf career because if I do not play, I do not get points,” he says.

    Makanidzani’s concerns are reiterated by Chidambazina, who says they lack critical resources such as balls, golf clubs and ball markers.

    “My family is so supportive, but they are hamstring. They cannot sponsor my trips,” he says.

    Jane Lindsay High, who established Matsetso Stars Sport to Conservation in 2010 to help children in the poorest area of Chimanimani who had limited access to sports facilities and qualified coaches with resources, says they rely on donor funding.

    “Donor funding is never a sustainable way of development,” says High, who is also the owner and manager of Frog and Fern Cottages in Chimanimani.

    “But in the absence of trusted political leadership at the community level, then one way of helping is for trusted individuals to seek assistance.”

    Since 2010 some 100 children have been introduced to golf, and of those, approximately 17 have represented Manicaland at the provincial level while two at the national level, shows figures from High.

    In Zimbabwe, golf personalities like professional golfer Robson Chinhoi and Biggie Chibvuri are earning a living from playing golf.

    Trust Makanidzani and Vincent Chidambazina and other golf players after their training session was disrupted by a heavy rain in Chimanimani in March. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS
    Trust Makanidzani and Vincent Chidambazina with other golf players after their training session was disrupted by heavy rain in Chimanimani in March. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

    “Most of these kids are talented. Golf provides many opportunities. Golf players can get scholarships. Both golf and education are the keys to success in golf, says Matsetso Stars Sport to Conservation golf coach Amos Kunyerezera who has been playing golf for decades, launching his career at a popular hotel in the Vumba Mountains, sandwiched at the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

    Martin Chikwanha, president of the Zimbabwe Golf Association, says funding for golf and any sport in Zimbabwe has not been the best.

    “This is because of the economic challenges that the country is going through. Most of the golf activities are funded by the Zimbabwe Golf Association or Zimbabwe Junior Golf Association. Members pay subscription fees. We also have funding from our international partners,” he says, adding that they do not receive any funding from the government.

    Chikwanha tells IPS they are running a programme where they provide funding to junior golf players in areas like Chimanimani to facilitate their participation in golf national, regional and international golf tournaments.

    He says they have come up with a programme called “train the trainer”  to ensure that golf is taken to the rural areas.

    “This is to ensure that we spread the word and we try to find those little diamonds from everywhere throughout the country,” he says.

    “But it is difficult because of the nature of the sport once the diamond has been discovered; the diamond can only play at a golf course. So some kids in areas like Buhera can only play at their nearest golf course, which is Mutare,” Chikwanha said, noting that it takes a huge amount of funding for the children to participate.

    Chikwanha says golf courses are not a common feature in comparison to football, where you can find a football ground everywhere in Zimbabwe.

    “Golf courses are always specific to places. Once you reach the golf course, you also need equipment which is something that you need money to pay for. But that is doable. We try to support those with interest. Golf is not an elite sport. It is open to everyone,” he says.

    Makanidzani, clad in black trousers and a white sweater, hopes to travel around Africa and beyond representing Zimbabwe.

    “It is my wish that I secure a sponsorship. So that I can play as an amateur golfer and later become a professional playing at an international level,” he says.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • China must act against rising global hunger, new WFP boss McCain says

    China must act against rising global hunger, new WFP boss McCain says

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    BRUSSELS — China and other powerful countries need to step up to help steer the world away from a potentially “catastrophic” hunger crisis this year, the new head of the United Nations’ World Food Programme said.

    Cindy McCain, an American diplomat and the widow of the late U.S. Senator John McCain, also told POLITICO that the EU and U.S. should see world hunger as a national security issue due to its impact on migration. She furthermore accused Russia of using hunger as a “weapon of war” by hindering exports of Ukrainian grain.

    McCain, formerly the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies, took the helm of the WFP on April 5 and begins her five-year term at a time of increasing world hunger. The number of people facing food insecurity around the world rose to a record 345 million at the end of last year, up from 282 million in 2021, according to the WFP’s figures, as Russia’s war in Ukraine deepened a food crisis driven by climate change, COVID-19 and other conflicts.

    This year could be worse still, McCain warned, with the Horn of Africa experiencing its worst drought in 40 years and Haiti facing a sharp rise in food insecurity, among other factors. “2023 is going to be catastrophic if we don’t get to work and raise the money that we need,” she said. “We need a hell of a lot more than we used to.”

    Non-Western countries, which have traditionally contributed much less to the WFP, need to step up to meet the shortfall, McCain said, pointing specifically to China and oil-rich Gulf Arab countries. China contributed just $11 million to WFP funds last year, compared to $7.2 billion donated by the U.S. 

    “There are some countries that have just basically not participated or participated in a very low fashion. I’d like to encourage our Middle Eastern friends to step up to the plate a little more; I’d like to encourage China to step up to the plate a little more,” said McCain. “Every region, every country needs to step up funding.”

    Her entreaty may fall on deaf ears, however, given rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. The WFP’s last six executive directors have been American, dating back to 1992, and Beijing may prefer to distribute aid through its own channels. Last summer, for example, China shipped food aid directly to the Horn of Africa following a drought there.

    National security

    Countries hesitant to throw more money into food aid should think about the alternative, McCain said, particularly those in Europe that are likely to bear the brunt of any new wave of migration from Africa and the Middle East.

    “Food security is a national security issue,” she said. “No refugee wants to leave their home country, but they’re forced to because they don’t have enough food, and they can’t feed their families. So it comes down to if you want a stable world, food is a major player in this.”

    The WFP is already having to make brutal decisions despite raking in a record $14.2 billion last year — more than double what it raised in 2017. In February, for instance, it said a funding shortfall was forcing it to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh.

    The problem is compounded by surging costs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, which sent already-high food prices soaring further, as grain and oilseed exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports plunged from more than 5 million metric tons a month to zero.

    A U.N.-brokered deal allowing Ukrainian grain exports to pass through Russia’s blockades in the Black Sea has brought some reprieve, but Moscow’s repeated threats to withdraw from the agreement have kept prices volatile.   

    Moscow claims that “hidden” Western sanctions are hindering its fertilizer and foods exports and causing hunger in the Global South | Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images

    The deal, initially brokered in July last year, was extended for 120 days last month; Russia, however, agreed to extend its side of the Black Sea grain initiative only for 60 days. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened, once again, to halt Moscow’s participation in the initiative unless obstacles to its own fertilizer and food exports are addressed.

    Moscow claims that “hidden” Western sanctions — those targeting Russia’s fertilizer oligarchs and its main agricultural bank, as well as others excluding Russian banks from the international SWIFT payments system — are hindering its fertilizer and foods exports and causing hunger in the Global South. 

    Ukraine and its Western allies have countered that Russia is deliberately holding up inspections for ships heading to and from its Black Sea ports, creating a backlog of Ukraine-bound vessels off the Turkish coast and inflating prices. 

    These delayed food cargoes are hindering the WFP’s ability to respond to humanitarian crises, said McCain, who did not hold back on the issue.

    “Let’s be very clear, there are no sanctions on [Russian] fertilizer,” she said. “It is not sanctioned and never has been sanctioned.” 

    Russia is “using hunger as a weapon of war,” said McCain. “it’s unconscionable that a country would do that — any country, not just Russia.”

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  • Study: Climate Change Is Causing More Baseball Homeruns | Entrepreneur

    Study: Climate Change Is Causing More Baseball Homeruns | Entrepreneur

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    Even America’s favorite pastime is not immune from climate change. A new study from researchers at Dartmouth College says that a warming atmosphere could be causing more home runs in professional baseball.

    The research, published last week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, looked at 100,000 Major League Baseball games and found that at least 500 home runs since 2010 can be attributed to climate change.

    As the planet warms, the authors predict that climate change could be responsible for nearly 10 percent of all home runs by 2100, with each degree of warming associated with 95 more home runs per season. Eventually, the report concludes, several hundred additional home runs per season could be due to climate change.

    The paper was born out of Callahan’s interest in baseball as a Chicago Cubs fan as well as his background in climate science.

    “I was very much raised on baseball, and it’s something I still follow pretty closely and care about,” said Callahan. “I also think about climate change from my day job. And so I inevitably started thinking about those two things together.”

    Baseball isn’t the only sport that will be impacted by climate change. Tennis also might be a casualty of a warming world, as well as soccer, both mostly outdoor sports played in heat centers such as the Australian Open in Melbourne or last year’s World Cup in Qatar.

    But those sports, so far, lack the data. The Dartmouth study relied on baseball’s tradition of obsessively recording every statistic.

    “Baseball has this kind of abundance of data, so you can make these really great analyses,” said Callahan. “And other sports might not have that.”

    The fundamental science at the heart of the study is the relationship between temperature and air density, which affects how fast a ball can travel through the air. When the air is cooler, the air particles are much closer together, which can slow down a fast-moving ball. When the air gets warmer, the air particles are much farther apart, enabling a ball to travel through the air much faster. These basic principles extend far beyond baseball, but the study clarified the relationship between climate and home runs.

    Baseball professionals have speculated in the past that climate change could increase home runs, most notably when professional commentator and former player Tim McCarver made the connection in 2012. At the time, he was ridiculed by sports journalists for making that observation, but the study adds more weight to his theory.

    The authors controlled for other factors that might have contributed to the overall rise in home runs, including performance-enhancing drugs, player training, and the actual construction of the baseball itself.

    “I was pretty surprised, just in the sense that the relationship was so robust,” said Callahan. “Any way you selected any version of the data to use, any time period you look at, you get the same result.”

    But an important caveat of the study is that it is difficult to attribute any single home run to climate change, much like climate scientists are wary of saying that a single event is related to climate change.

    “I think that the science at the moment does not allow us to tie any particular home run to climate change,” said Callahan.

    Nathaniel Dominy, professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College and a co-author, said that more than anything, this study showed climate change’s far-reaching consequences.

    Studies about climate change usually focus on the larger groups that will be affected, like people living near the coastline, or the economy. But studies like these ones are important, according to Dominy, because they help demonstrate how climate change will affect every aspect of daily life.

    “There are aspects of our daily lives, things that we hold dear, that will be affected by climate change that are beyond the typical talking points,” said Dominy.

    This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/culture/more-home-runs-baseball-because-climate-change/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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    Siri Chilukuri

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  • Climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB, study says

    Climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB, study says

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    Climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, a new study found.

    Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.

    “Global warming is juicing home runs in Major League Baseball,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist.

    It’s basic physics.

    When air heats up, molecules move faster and away from each other, making the air less dense. Baseballs launched off a bat go farther through thinner air because there’s less resistance to slow the ball. Just a little bit farther can mean the difference between a homer and a flyout, said Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physicist who wasn’t part of the Dartmouth study.

    Nathan, one of a group of scientists who has consulted with Major League Baseball on the increase in homers, did his own simple calculation, based purely on known physics of ballistics and air density as it changes with temperature, and said he got the same result as the Dartmouth researchers.

    Both Nathan and the Dartmouth team found a 1% increase in home run likelihood with every degree the air warms (1.8% with each degree Celsius). Total yearly average of warming-aided homers is only 1% of all home runs hit, the Dartmouth researchers calculated.

    Non-climate factors contribute even more to the barrage of balls flying out of the park, scientists and baseball veterans said. The biggest is the ball and the size of the stitches, Nathan said, and MLB made slight adjustments to deaden the ball prior to the 2021 season. Others include batters’ recent attention to launch angle; stronger hitters; and faster pitches. The study started after the end of baseball’s infamous steroids era saw a spike in home runs.

    Veteran baseball players and executives said the research fits with what they’ve seen on the field.

    “We always felt that way for years,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “When it’s warmer, the ball travels more and they have scientific evidence to back that up.”

    Homers have always varied by ballpark due to simple factors like dimensions that are friendlier to pitchers than hitters, or vice versa, as well as wind conditions.

    The Dartmouth team found the climate homer effect varied by field, too. Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which still hosts a lot of day games, has the most warming-homer friendly confines. The statistical analysis found no significant heat-aided homers at Tampa’s Tropicana Field, the only full-time domed stadium in Major League Baseball.

    “It’s interesting to think about,” said five-time All-Star pitcher David Cone, who once threw a perfect game and is now a television baseball analyst. “I’d probably more likely look at the makeup of the baseball itself, the variances and the specs. Of course, weather matters, definitely I wouldn’t shoo it away.”

    After a 1-0 victory in Coors Field, Colorado Rockies reliever Brent Suter said the study, which mentions more than 500 home runs since 2010, rings true to him.

    “Obviously I’m not a fan in any way as a pitcher,” Suter said with a laugh. “500 seems a lot, but I could believe it.”

    The heat is also hard on players and fans, Suter said: “I remember pitching some games I was just, like ‘This does not feel like normal heat. It’s crazy hot.’”

    The average U.S. temperature in June, July and August has increased by more than 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) in the last 40 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Mankin called what’s happening “a fingerprint of climate change on our recreation.” Callahan said what’s been seen so far is nothing compared to projections of hundreds of extra homers in the future.

    How many extra homers depends on how hot it gets, which depends on how much greenhouse gas the world spews from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Callahan ran different scenarios of carbon pollution through computer simulations.

    In the worst-case warming trajectory – which some scientists say the world is no longer on based on recent emissions – there would be about 192 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 467 hot home runs by the year 2100. In more moderate carbon pollution scenarios, closer to where Earth is now tracking, there would be about 155 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 255 extra dingers at the end of the century, Callahan said.

    Because baseball has so many statistics and analytics, such as the tracking system Statcast, trends can be seen more easily than other effects of climate change, Mankin said. Still, the scientists can’t point to a single homer and say that’s a warming-aided home run. It’s a detail that can be only seen in the more than 63,000 homers hit since 2010.

    Several climate scientists told The Associated Press that the study makes perfect sense and the statistics are analyzed properly, though they also point out factors other than climate change are in play and likely have bigger effects.

    Both Texas A&M’s Andrew Dessler and University of Illinois’ Don Wuebbles said while the rise in home runs is interesting, it pales next to the issues of extreme weather and rising seas.

    But Callahan said it actually brings home the threat of climate change in a unique way. Besides resulting in more home runs, a warming climate will likely require more domed stadiums because it will simply be too hot outside for humans in some places.

    “Global warming is going to reshape so many of the things that we care about in so many pernicious and subtle ways,” Callahan said. “And the fact that we’ll get to go to fewer baseball games played in open air is not a civilization-ending crisis, but it is another sign of the way that we have reshaped our lives due to our greenhouse gas emissions.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Pat Graham contributed from Denver and Ron Blum contributed from New York.

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Is climate change changing baseball? Hotter air means hotter MLB home-run hitters, study says.

    Is climate change changing baseball? Hotter air means hotter MLB home-run hitters, study says.

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    Should we save a spot in the baseball annals for the “climate-ball” era? Climate change and its impact on home-run-favorable thinner air may earn a place in recorded history alongside Major League Baseball’s dead-ball era and the notorious black eye on America’s pastime when steroids juiced the power game.

    The way that climate change heats up the air is sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, and fans can expect several hundred more home runs per season with future warming, according to a new study out…

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  • Going, going, gone: Study says climate change juicing homers

    Going, going, gone: Study says climate change juicing homers

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    Climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, a new study found.

    Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.

    “Global warming is juicing home runs in Major League Baseball,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist.

    It’s basic physics.

    When air heats up, molecules move faster and away from each other, making the air less dense. Baseballs launched off a bat go farther through thinner air because there’s less resistance to slow the ball. Just a little bit farther can mean the difference between a homer and a flyout, said Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physicist who wasn’t part of the Dartmouth study.

    Nathan, one of a group of scientists who has consulted with Major League Baseball on the increase in homers, did his own simple calculation, based purely on known physics of ballistics and air density as it changes with temperature, and said he got the same result as the Dartmouth researchers.

    Both Nathan and the Dartmouth team found a 1% increase in home run likelihood with every degree the air warms (1.8% with each degree Celsius). Total yearly average of warming-aided homers is only 1% of all home runs hit, the Dartmouth researchers calculated.

    Non-climate factors contribute even more to the barrage of balls flying out of the park, scientists and baseball veterans said. The biggest is the ball and the size of the stitches, Nathan said, and MLB made slight adjustments to deaden the ball prior to the 2021 season. Others include batters’ recent attention to launch angle; stronger hitters; and faster pitches. The study started after the end of baseball’s infamous steroids era saw a spike in home runs.

    Veteran baseball players and executives said the research fits with what they’ve seen on the field.

    “We always felt that way for years,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “When it’s warmer, the ball travels more and they have scientific evidence to back that up.”

    Homers have always varied by ballpark due to simple factors like dimensions that are friendlier to pitchers than hitters, or vice versa, as well as wind conditions.

    The Dartmouth team found the climate homer effect varied by field, too. Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which still hosts a lot of day games, has the most warming-homer friendly confines. The statistical analysis found no significant heat-aided homers at Tampa’s Tropicana Field, the only full-time domed stadium in Major League Baseball.

    “It’s interesting to think about,” said five-time All-Star pitcher David Cone, who once threw a perfect game and is now a television baseball analyst. “I’d probably more likely look at the makeup of the baseball itself, the variances and the specs. Of course, weather matters, definitely I wouldn’t shoo it away.”

    After a 1-0 victory in Coors Field, Colorado Rockies reliever Brent Suter said the study, which mentions more than 500 home runs since 2010, rings true to him.

    “Obviously I’m not a fan in any way as a pitcher,” Suter said with a laugh. “500 seems a lot, but I could believe it.”

    The heat is also hard on players and fans, Suter said: “I remember pitching some games I was just, like ‘This does not feel like normal heat. It’s crazy hot.’”

    The average U.S. temperature in June, July and August has increased by more than 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) in the last 40 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Mankin called what’s happening “a fingerprint of climate change on our recreation.” Callahan said what’s been seen so far is nothing compared to projections of hundreds of extra homers in the future.

    How many extra homers depends on how hot it gets, which depends on how much greenhouse gas the world spews from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Callahan ran different scenarios of carbon pollution through computer simulations.

    In the worst-case warming trajectory – which some scientists say the world is no longer on based on recent emissions – there would be about 192 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 467 hot home runs by the year 2100. In more moderate carbon pollution scenarios, closer to where Earth is now tracking, there would be about 155 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 255 extra dingers at the end of the century, Callahan said.

    Because baseball has so many statistics and analytics, such as the tracking system Statcast, trends can be seen more easily than other effects of climate change, Mankin said. Still, the scientists can’t point to a single homer and say that’s a warming-aided home run. It’s a detail that can be only seen in the more than 63,000 homers hit since 2010.

    Several climate scientists told The Associated Press that the study makes perfect sense and the statistics are analyzed properly, though they also point out factors other than climate change are in play and likely have bigger effects.

    Both Texas A&M’s Andrew Dessler and University of Illinois’ Don Wuebbles said while the rise in home runs is interesting, it pales next to the issues of extreme weather and rising seas.

    But Callahan said it actually brings home the threat of climate change in a unique way. Besides resulting in more home runs, a warming climate will likely require more domed stadiums because it will simply be too hot outside for humans in some places.

    “Global warming is going to reshape so many of the things that we care about in so many pernicious and subtle ways,” Callahan said. “And the fact that we’ll get to go to fewer baseball games played in open air is not a civilization-ending crisis, but it is another sign of the way that we have reshaped our lives due to our greenhouse gas emissions.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Pat Graham contributed from Denver and Ron Blum contributed from New York.

    ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Going, going, gone: Study says climate change juicing homers

    Going, going, gone: Study says climate change juicing homers

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    Climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, a new study found.

    Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.

    “Global warming is juicing home runs in Major League Baseball,” said study co-author Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist.

    It’s basic physics.

    When air heats up, molecules move faster and away from each other, making the air less dense. Baseballs launched off a bat go farther through thinner air because there’s less resistance to slow the ball. Just a little bit farther can mean the difference between a homer and a flyout, said Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physicist who wasn’t part of the Dartmouth study.

    Nathan, one of a group of scientists who has consulted with Major League Baseball on the increase in homers, did his own simple calculation, based purely on known physics of ballistics and air density as it changes with temperature, and said he got the same result as the Dartmouth researchers.

    Both Nathan and the Dartmouth team found a 1% increase in home run likelihood with every degree the air warms (1.8% with each degree Celsius). Total yearly average of warming-aided homers is only 1% of all home runs hit, the Dartmouth researchers calculated.

    Non-climate factors contribute even more to the barrage of balls flying out of the park, scientists and baseball veterans said. The biggest is the ball and the size of the stitches, Nathan said, and MLB made slight adjustments to deaden the ball prior to the 2021 season. Others include batters’ recent attention to launch angle; stronger hitters; and faster pitches. The study started after the end of baseball’s infamous steroids era saw a spike in home runs.

    Veteran baseball players and executives said the research fits with what they’ve seen on the field.

    “We always felt that way for years,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “When it’s warmer, the ball travels more and they have scientific evidence to back that up.”

    Homers have always varied by ballpark due to simple factors like dimensions that are friendlier to pitchers than hitters, or vice versa, as well as wind conditions.

    The Dartmouth team found the climate homer effect varied by field, too. Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which still hosts a lot of day games, has the most warming-homer friendly confines. The statistical analysis found no significant heat-aided homers at Tampa’s Tropicana Field, the only full-time domed stadium in Major League Baseball.

    “It’s interesting to think about,” said five-time All-Star pitcher David Cone, who once threw a perfect game and is now a television baseball analyst. “I’d probably more likely look at the makeup of the baseball itself, the variances and the specs. Of course, weather matters, definitely I wouldn’t shoo it away.”

    After a 1-0 victory in Coors Field, Colorado Rockies reliever Brent Suter said the study, which mentions more than 500 home runs since 2010, rings true to him.

    “Obviously I’m not a fan in any way as a pitcher,” Suter said with a laugh. “500 seems a lot, but I could believe it.”

    The heat is also hard on players and fans, Suter said: “I remember pitching some games I was just, like ‘This does not feel like normal heat. It’s crazy hot.’”

    Mankin called what’s happening “a fingerprint of climate change on our recreation.” Callahan said what’s been seen so far is nothing compared to projections of hundreds of extra homers in the future.

    How many extra homers depends on how hot it gets, which depends on how much greenhouse gas the world spews from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Callahan ran different scenarios of carbon pollution through computer simulations.

    In the worst-case warming trajectory – which some scientists say the world is no longer on based on recent emissions – there would be about 192 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 467 hot home runs by the year 2100. In more moderate carbon pollution scenarios, closer to where Earth is now tracking, there would be about 155 warming-aided homers a year by 2050 and around 255 extra dingers at the end of the century, Callahan said.

    Because baseball has so many statistics and analytics, such as the tracking system Statcast, trends can be seen more easily than other effects of climate change, Mankin said. Still, the scientists can’t point to a single homer and say that’s a warming-aided home run. It’s a detail that can be only seen in the more than 63,000 homers hit since 2010.

    Several climate scientists told The Associated Press that the study makes perfect sense and the statistics are analyzed properly, though they also point out factors other than climate change are in play and likely have bigger effects.

    Both Texas A&M’s Andrew Dessler and University of Illinois’ Don Wuebbles said while the rise in home runs is interesting, it pales next to the issues of extreme weather and rising seas.

    But Callahan said it actually brings home the threat of climate change in a unique way. Besides resulting in more home runs, a warming climate will likely require more domed stadiums because it will simply be too hot outside for humans in some places.

    “Global warming is going to reshape so many of the things that we care about in so many pernicious and subtle ways,” Callahan said. “And the fact that we’ll get to go to fewer baseball games played in open air is not a civilization-ending crisis, but it is another sign of the way that we have reshaped our lives due to our greenhouse gas emissions.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Pat Graham contributed from Denver and Ron Blum contributed from New York. ___

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ___

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN

    ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Every year scientists in New Zealand fly over some of the country’s most iconic glaciers – ancient ice “rivers” that descend from the Southern Alps, a spine of mountains that extend along the South Island. And almost every year, they find them shrinking.

    This year was no different.

    At the end of March, the team of scientists spent eight hours flying over the peaks, taking thousands of photographs of glaciers for the annual snowline survey. Andrew Mackintosh, a professor at Monash University in Australia who was on the flight, said in a statement that he was “shocked” by what they saw.

    Some of the smaller elevation glaciers had largely disappeared, he said, while the famous Franz Josef and Fox glaciers showed marked signs of retreat.

    “The observations this year reinforce the view that we are continuing to see ice loss across the Southern Alps,” Andrew Lorrey, principal scientist at the research body National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and coordinator of the survey, told CNN.

    Glaciers are huge masses of ice that build up in and around mountains. They grow in cold, snowy winters and retreat when temperatures warm. Glaciers are fresh water sources for nearly 2 billion people globally, but their rapid melting poses a huge risk: not only is it increasing the risk for deadly flash flooding, the melting ice is driving sea level rise.

    Two years of severe, record-breaking heat have taken a toll on the glaciers – 2022 was New Zealand’s hottest year ever, beating a record that was set just a year earlier. But the trend of declining ice is long term.

    It’s difficult to witness, said Lorrey, who has been on these aerial surveys since 2009. “I’m seeing this beautiful part of our natural environment slipping through our fingers. And if you’ve experienced a glacier firsthand, they are absolutely breathtaking and mind-blowing and life-altering.”

    The snowline survey, organized by NIWA, has happened almost every year for nearly five decades and aims to capture a snapshot of a set of more than 50 glaciers – ranging in size and elevation – as close as possible to the end of snow and ice melt season.

    The scientists are looking specifically at the snow that coats them. By understanding where the snowline is “you capture something about the health of our glaciers,” Lorrey said.

    The snow, which provides a nourishing and protective layer for the glaciers, starts in the autumn and continues until spring.

    Lorrey has a financial analogy for the process: The snow is like a savings deposit for the glacier, a buffer against the warmer period ahead. When the melt season starts in the spring, it has to go through this “savings account” of new snow before it reaches the body of the glacier.

    In years when the snowline is lower on the mountain, the glacier can bulk up and is able to advance further down the slope – it has a healthy balance. But when the snowline is higher up, more of the glacier is exposed to melting – sending it into the red – and it will shrink.

    “Right now, we see rapid changes happening in the mountains, with indications that the snowline rise is accelerating along with ice loss,” Lorrey said.

    The results from this year’s flight will be fed into a report on longer term variability in the glaciers which will come out later in the year.

    Principal scientist Andrew Lorrey takes photos of Tasman Glacier during the flight.

    The climate crisis is having a huge impact. “It’s mostly temperature changes that drive what glaciers in New Zealand are doing,” Lauren Vargo, a glaciologist at the Victoria University of Wellington, who was part of the survey, told CNN.

    The extreme melting in 2018, one of the worst years on record for New Zealand’s glaciers, was made up to 10 times more likely by climate change, according to a 2020 study co-authored by Vargo and Lorrey.

    As a scientist, at first the dramatic change in the glaciers “was exciting” in some ways, said Vargo, who has been studying them since 2016. But the persistence of this trend is tough. “It also feels sad and scary when you think about what’s driving it,” she said.

    “As the current warming trend continues, we will keep losing more glaciers,” said Lorrey. And this is a global trend. Up to half the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of the century, even if ambitious climate targets are met, according to research published in January.

    Brewster Glacier has seen a marked retreat over the last two decades.

    In addition to the impacts of climate change, natural climate variations have also played a role. The unusually long run of La Niña years, which have just ended, brought warmer-than-average sea and air temperatures, helping to drive glacier melting.

    Its counterpart, El Niño, which often brings cooler conditions to this part of New Zealand, is forecast for later in the year and may provide a temporary reprieve.

    “I always look forward to an El Niño and seeing a snow line that is where it normally should be,” Lorrey said. But, he cautioned, “it’s not going to save the bacon of the glaciers.” These years “occur too few and far between to counteract the ongoing warming trend that we’ve been experiencing.”

    Carrington Glacier

    The loss of ice is is keenly felt, Vargo said. “People in New Zealand have this connection to the glaciers.”

    Where once it was possible to park in the car park of a national park and walk a short distance to touch a glacier, now that’s much less common – people often need to go further into the mountain, even fly there on small planes.

    “It’s an experience that will be out of reach for many,” Lorrey said. “A loss of our glaciers will have a significant impact on our relationship with and experiences in the environment.”

    These “water towers,” as Lorrey calls them, also have an important role in supplying high Alpine streams, especially during years of drought.

    The shifts that are happening are a reminder that our mountains – and other places around the world – are changing quickly, he said. Glaciers are a “a highly visual element of environmental change that tells us there are other things that we are not seeing.”

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  • Food Shortages Deepen in Cyclone-Devastated Vanuatu

    Food Shortages Deepen in Cyclone-Devastated Vanuatu

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    Most vendor tables are empty in the large fresh produce market in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, due to the widespread devastation of food gardens and crops by Cyclones Judy and Kevin in early March. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
    • by Catherine Wilson (port vila, vanuatu)
    • Inter Press Service

    PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Apr 04 (IPS) – One month after the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was hit by two Category 4 cyclones within three days, food scarcity and prices are rising in the country following widespread devastation of the agriculture sector.

    In the worst affected provinces of Shefa and Tafea, the “scale of damage ranges from 90 percent to 100 percent of crops, such as root crops, fruit and forest trees, vegetables, coffee, coconut and small livestock,” Antoine Ravo, Director of Vanuatu’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development told IPS.

    Vanuatu is an archipelago nation of more than 80 islands located east of Australia and southeast of Papua New Guinea. More than 80 percent of the population of more than 300,000 people were impacted by Cyclones Judy and Kevin, which unleashed gale-force winds, torrential rain and flooding across the nation on the 1 March and 3 March. Properties and homes were destroyed, power and water services cut, seawalls damaged and roads and bridges blocked.

    In the aftermath, many households turned to their existing stores of food and any fresh produce that could be salvaged from their food gardens. But these have rapidly depleted.

    In the large undercover fresh produce market in the centre of the capital, Port Vila, about 75-80 percent of market tables, which are usually heaving with abundant displays of root crops, vegetables and fruits, are now empty. Many of the regular vendors have seen their household harvests decimated by wind and flooding.

    Susan, who lives in the rural community of Rentapao not far from Port Vila on Efate Island, commutes

    Regular market vendor, Susan, lost much of her garden produce during the two cyclone disasters and is selling dry packaged food, such as banana chips, instead. Central Market, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
    Regular market vendor, Susan, lost much of her garden produce during the two cyclone disasters and is selling dry packaged food, such as banana chips, instead. Central Market, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

    daily to the market. “The cyclones destroyed our crops and our homes. We lost a lot of root crops and bananas. Today, I only have half the amount of produce I usually sell,” Susan told IPS. But, faced with the crisis, she quickly diversified and, alongside a small pile of green vegetables, the greater part of her market table is laden with packets of dried food, such as banana and manioc or cassava chips.

    Agriculture is the main source of people’s income and food in Vanuatu, with 78 percent and 86 percent of households in the country relying on their own growing of vegetables and root crops, respectively, for food security and livelihoods.

    But, as families grapple with increasing food scarcity, they have also been hit by a steep rise in prices for basic staples that are the core of their daily consumption. A cucumber, which sold for about 30 vatu (US$0.25) prior to the disasters, is now priced from 200 vatu (US$1.69), while pineapples and green coconuts, which could be bought for 50 vatu (US$0.42) each, also sell for 200 vatu (US$1.69).

    Leias Cullwick, Executive Director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, said that, in the wake of the cyclones, children were experiencing deprivation and anxiety. “Water is the number one concern and, also, food. And children, when they want water and food, and their mother has none to give, become traumatised,” she told IPS.

    Lack of clean water and contamination by the storms of water sources, such as rivers and streams, in peri-urban and rural areas is also causing illnesses in children, such as dehydration and diarrhoea. Meanwhile, the current wet season in Vanuatu is increasing the risks of mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, Cullwick added.

    It will take months for some households to regain their crop yields. “Root crops have been damaged, and these are not crops that you plant today and harvest tomorrow. It takes three months, it takes six months, it will take a while for communities to get their harvests going, so it’s a concern,” Soneel Ram, Communications Manager for the Pacific Country Cluster Delegation from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told IPS in Port Vila. Although, he added that access to food at this time is easier in Pacific cities and towns.

    “In urban areas, the main difference is access to supermarkets. People can readily access supermarkets and get food off the shelf. For rural communities, they rely on subsistence farming as a source of food. Now they have to look for extra funds to buy food,” Ram said. In response, the government is organising the distribution of dry food rations to affected communities, along with seeds, planting materials and farming tools.

    The Pacific Island nation faces a very high risk of climate and other natural disasters. Every year islanders prepare for cyclones during the wet season from November to April. And being situated on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, it is also prone to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that Vanuatu will experience increasingly extreme climate events, such as hotter temperatures and more severe tropical storms, droughts and floods, in the future. And, on current trends, global temperatures could exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming as early as 2030, reports the IPCC.

    The impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country follow damages wrought by other cyclones in recent years, including Cyclone Pam in 2015, which is estimated to have driven 4,000 more people into poverty, and Cyclone Harold in 2020. And the impacts of the pandemic on the country’s economy and local incomes, especially from agriculture and tourism, since early 2020. Agriculture and tourism are the main industries in Vanuatu, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries account for 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The most important cash crops are copra, cocoa and kava, with copra alone accounting for more than 35 percent of the Pacific nation’s exports. Now the environmental havoc and the sudden decline in international tourist arrivals following the cyclones threaten to hinder the building of recovery in the country.

    The government reports that this month’s disasters will leave the country with a recovery bill of USD 50 million. And it predicts that the rescue of the agricultural sector will take years.

    “It will take three months for immediate recovery of short-term food production, and six to nine months for mid-term crops, such as cassava, taro, yam and bananas. But it will take three to five years for coconut, coffee, pepper, vanilla and cocoa,” Ravo said.

    With climate losses predicted to continue accumulating in the coming decades, the Vanuatu Government remains determined to pursue its ‘ICJ Initiative’, now supported by 133 other nations worldwide. The initiative aims to investigate through the International Court of Justice how international law can be used to protect vulnerable countries from climate change impacts to the environment and human rights.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


    Follow IPS News UN Bureau on Instagram

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • California’s salmon fishers warn of ‘hard times coming’ as they face canceled season | CNN

    California’s salmon fishers warn of ‘hard times coming’ as they face canceled season | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Sarah Bates, the captain of a fishing boat in San Francisco, had a feeling something was wrong with the chinook salmon population back in December.

    “The fish weren’t coming up the river, and to a certain extent, we were just waiting,” Bates, 46, told CNN. “We thought the run was late. And then at some point, it just became clear that fish weren’t coming.”

    But she and other fishermen weren’t sure how bad it could be. It later turned out that catchers along much of the West Coast likely won’t be fishing for salmon at all this year.

    “Salmon is my livelihood. It’s my main fishery,” she said. “And it’s the main fishery for a lot of folks in Fisherman’s Wharf. So, I think there are a lot of us that have some hard times coming.”

    In early March, West Coast regulators announced that they may recommend a ban on salmon fishing this year. It would be only the second time salmon fishing season has been canceled in California.

    The looming ban comes as the West sees a massive decline in fish populations following a blistering, multiyear drought that drained reservoirs and dehydrated much of the land, particularly in California.

    The potential closure, which the Pacific Fishery Management Council is discussing in a multi-day meeting that began Saturday, would affect tens of thousands of people like Bates who depend on salmon fishing for their economic livelihood. It will also upset thousands of Californians who enjoy recreational fishing during the summer.

    The council, which manages fisheries off the Pacific Coast and advises the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on potential bans like this one, had previously recommended three options for this year – but all of them would result in a cancellation of the salmon fishing season through at least next spring.

    These are necessary measures, according to California and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, to protect the dwindling Chinook salmon populations, which scientists say have fallen to their lowest levels in recent years due to rampant dam construction as well as climate change-fueled droughts.

    “The outlook is really bad,” Ben Enticknap, Pacific campaign manager and senior scientist with Oceana, told CNN.

    Chinook salmon smolts tumble into net pens for acclimation and transportation in the Sacramento River at Rio Vista, California, on March 26, 2015.

    Beginning their lives in freshwater systems, then traveling out to the salty ocean and back again to their spawning grounds, Pacific salmon face a variety of dangers.

    Manmade dams, which were built decades ago and are prolific on Oregon and California rivers, prevent many salmon species from swimming back to their spawning grounds. Large swaths of wetlands and other estuaries, where smaller fish can feed and find refuge, have also been plagued by infrastructure development.

    Then there are the consequences of the climate crisis: Warmer water temperatures and drought-fueled water shortages in rivers and streams can kill salmon eggs and juvenile fish.

    Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, also said the models that many scientists use to forecast salmon returns and fishing success “appear to be getting less accurate.”

    “They have been overestimating returning salmon numbers and underestimating the number caught,” Milstein told CNN. “That has further complicated the picture. Since the models are based on past experience, they struggle with conditions we have not seen before.”

    In late 2022, one of California’s driest years on record, estimates show that the Sacramento River chinook returned to the Central Valley at near-record-low numbers. Meanwhile, the Klamath River, which flows from Oregon to California, had the second-lowest forecast for chinook salmon since 1997, when the current assessment method started.

    Cassandra Lozano lifts a dead fall-run Chinook salmon from the Sacramento River while conducting a survey of carcasses in January.

    State and federal scientists forecast that less than 170,000 adult salmon will return to the Sacramento River this year – one of the lowest forecasts since 2008, which was the only other time the salmon season was closed. They also estimate that less than 104,000 will likely return to the Klamath River.

    “Climate change is expected to be detrimental to Pacific salmon populations at every life stage,” Enticknap said. “We know that the salmon need cold and clean freshwater for spawning and for growth, and that climate change and this megadrought have decreased water flows and increased river temperatures in a way that’s lethal for salmon.”

    The US Bureau of Reclamation, which controls some of the dams in the Klamath River, announced in February that it would cut flows on the river due to historic lows from the drought, prompting concerns it would kill salmon further downstream.

    “There’s a lot at stake with the Pacific salmon in the West; they’ve been so important to communities as a source of food, and when that’s at risk, those communities and cultures are at risk,” Enticknap added. “There’s also so many species of wildlife that depend on healthy populations. They’re the backbone of the ecosystem here.”

    The $1.4 billion salmon fishing industry provides 23,000 jobs to California’s economy, and businesses that rely on large salmon populations have been particularly devastated, according to the Golden State Salmon Association.

    “When someone catches a salmon, it’s really an emotional experience because the fish is so magnificent,” Andy Guiliano, a 59-year-old owner of a charter boat company, told CNN. “People really have a connection with the salmon.”

    In the past 52 years, the family-owned business Fish Emeryville has chartered patrons to fish for chinook salmon. Guiliano said salmon fishing is what reels in roughly 50% of the business’ revenue.

    Angelo Guiliano holds a freshly caught Chinook salmon. His father, Andy, runs charter fishing expeditions for recreational salmon fishing in Emeryville, California.

    During the ban, Guiliano said, he and other fishermen would have to make do with other fish, though he emphasized that nothing can compete with the revenue that salmon brings in.

    “It’s a poor second tier. It won’t sustain the amount of effort and it is not a replacement,” Guiliano said. “We might get 10 to 15 % [of business] back.”

    While the megadrought largely contributed to the downfall in salmon numbers, some fishing groups blame the way California distributes its water.

    “The shutdown we are seeing now is completely avoidable,” said John McManus, the senior policy director of the Golden State Salmon Association. “Decisions made during the drought deprived salmon of the water that they need to survive. By doing so, they took away our livelihood.”

    Jordan Traverso, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said water management is part of the salmon strategy. But Traverso argues that water policy in California is much more complex, underscoring concerns with regards to agriculture and pointing to the rapidly warming climate.

    “Recent decisions about agriculture aren’t the reason for low numbers because these fish are returning from the ocean voyage as part of their journey,” Traverso told CNN. “Climate disruption is causing strings of dry years and hotter temperatures, shrinking salmon habitat and eliminating the space for them to rebound.”

    The rivers in the middle of California are largely diverted to agriculture. The result is that these rivers are not cold enough for salmon to reproduce and not high enough to help baby salmon swim back to the ocean.

    “We have major issues with barriers to passage in their historic habitat, with dams preventing them from utilizing hundreds of miles of it,” Traverso said.

    The chain reaction from the announcement has already affected a huge swath of business, from bait shops to restaurants that put salmon on the table.

    Another main fishery in California is the Dungeness crab. Here, men can be seen unloading the crabs from fishing boats for Water2Table, Joe Conte's fish distribution company.

    “San Francisco is all about the two iconic California fisheries, which are Dungeness crab and our local king salmon,” Joe Conte, owner of Water2Table, a fish distribution company, told CNN. He said he has been delivering to some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area for more than a decade.

    “It’s disastrous for the fishermen and for us on the pier,” Conte added.

    To meet needs, fishermen can dip into other species, but they run the risk of depleting those populations as well, as they did in 2008.

    “We know exactly what’s going to happen,” Guiliano said. “We saw an enormous amount of effort on the California halibut inside of San Francisco Bay. And then there was four or five years following where the fishery was really poor.”

    Up north in the Klamath River basin, the impact is taking an additional emotional and cultural toll on Native Americans. The Karuk, Hoop and Yurok tribes, in particular, have long fished for the chinook for subsistence. Other fish along the basin like the two endangered native suckerfish – the C’waam and Koptu – are also under threat.

    While some tribes have set their own catch limits, others have made the tough decision to stop their hunting and fishing in hopes of the species’ recovery.

    But as planet-warming pollution rises in the atmosphere, the impacts on biodiversity are ubiquitous. Without salmon, which are a keystone species, other wildlife that depend on it will suffer.

    Last month, the West Coast fishery managers held a public hearing to allow stakeholders to comment on the proposed cancellation.

    What’s surprising, experts say, is that many fishermen support the closure to save the dwindling salmon population, noting that they need every fish to come back to the river.

    “One striking thing is that the fishing community – the commercial fleet and recreational fishing groups – have largely supported the closure of the salmon season,” Milstein said. “That has been apparent in the public comments at the council and elsewhere. They argue that they should not be fishing when the stocks have declined to this level.”

    On the Klamath River, salmon recovery efforts are underway. After a decadeslong campaign by tribal organizers, the federal government in 2022 approved the removal of four dams there. The first dam is set to come down this summer; the rest will be removed by 2024.

    In late 2022, one of California's driest years on record, estimates show that the Sacramento River chinook returned to the Central Valley at near-record-low numbers.

    And there are also “hopeful” signs of rebound, Enticknap said. The recent barrage of storms that pummeled the West has replenished drought-stricken rivers and reservoirs and alleviated arid conditions in California, providing somewhat of a relief for fisheries.

    “We’re hoping that this is going to help salmon populations get back on track and that it’s not an anomaly – in that, this happens once and then we slip back into a drought,” Enticknap added. “My concern right now is that with climate change we’re expecting hotter conditions and more drought and marine heatwaves, where it’s ultimately worse for salmon.”

    Despite the recent onslaught of rain and snow, advocates say they need federal and state officials to implement fair water allocations, since the fishing industry would have to compete with larger California markets like agriculture for the same water supply.

    Although Bates says she is still digesting the new reality they’re facing, she remains hopeful.

    “Don’t waste a crisis, right?” Bates said. “This is a forced opportunity, but it is an opportunity nonetheless, to fix some things that have been broken in California for a long time … so I am somewhat optimistic that this is not the end. It’s just a chapter in the middle.”

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  • Today in History: April 2, Pope John Paul II dies

    Today in History: April 2, Pope John Paul II dies

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    Today in History

    Today is Sunday, April 2, the 92nd day of 2023. There are 273 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On April 2, 2005, Pope John Paul II died in his Vatican apartment at age 84.

    On this date:

    In 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

    In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, because of advancing Union forces.

    In 1912, the just-completed RMS Titanic left Belfast to begin its sea trials eight days before the start of its ill-fated maiden voyage.

    In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” (Congress declared war four days later.)

    In 1982, several thousand troops from Argentina seized the disputed Falkland Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain. (Britain seized the islands back the following June.)

    In 1986, four American passengers, including an 8-month-old girl, her mother and her grandmother, were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a TWA jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, Greece.

    In 1992, mob boss John Gotti was convicted in New York of murder and racketeering; he was later sentenced to life, and died in prison.

    In 1995, after a work stoppage lasting nearly eight months, baseball owners accepted the players’ union offer to play without a contract.

    In 2002, Israel seized control of Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen forced their way into the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, where they began a 39-day standoff.

    In 2003, during the Iraq War, American forces fought their way to within sight of the Baghdad skyline.

    In 2007, in its first case on climate change, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, ruled 5-4 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

    In 2020, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide passed the 1 million mark, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

    Ten years ago: North Korea said it would restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase production of nuclear weapons material in what outsiders saw as its latest attempt to extract U.S. concessions by raising fears of war. Pope Francis prayed before the tomb of Pope John Paul II on the eighth anniversary of his death. Irish character actor Milo O’Shea, 86, died in New York.

    Five years ago: Anti-apartheid activist Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who’d been married for nearly 38 years to Nelson Mandela, died in a Johannesburg hospital at the age of 81. Thousands of Oklahoma teachers began two weeks of walkouts and descended on the state Capitol to demand more education funding. Ethan Couch, who as a 16-year-old driver drunkenly struck and killed four pedestrians but dodged prison after suggesting at his trial that his irresponsibility was a result of an entitled upbringing, went free after serving almost two years in a Texas jail on a probation violation. Villanova beat Michigan to capture its second NCAA college basketball championship in three years.

    One year ago: Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country’s capital, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off the streets in at least one town out of fear that Russian forces may have set booby traps before leaving. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned residents that departing Russian troops were creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians. Retiring Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski coached his final game, a loss to archrivals North Carolina in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament in New Orleans. Patrick Demarchelier, a French-born photographer known for his high fashion images top models and celebrities including Princess Diana, died at age 78.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Sharon Acker is 88. Actor Dame Penelope Keith is 83. Actor Linda Hunt is 78. Singer Emmylou Harris is 76. Actor Sam Anderson is 76. Social critic and author Camille Paglia is 76. Actor Pamela Reed is 74. Rock musician Dave Robinson (The Cars) is 74. Country singer Buddy Jewell is 62. Actor Christopher Meloni is 62. Singer Keren Woodward (Bananarama) is 62. Country singer Billy Dean is 61. Actor Clark Gregg is 61. Actor Jana Marie Hupp is 59. Rock musician Greg Camp is 56. Actor Roselyn Sanchez is 50. Country singer Jill King is 48. Actor Pedro Pascal is 48. Actor Adam Rodriguez is 48. Actor Michael Fassbender is 46. Actor Jaime Ray Newman is 45. Rock musician Jesse Carmichael (Maroon 5) is 44. Actor Bethany Joy Lenz is 42. Singer Lee Dewyze (TV: “American Idol”) is 37. Country singer Chris Janson is 37. Actor Drew Van Acker is 37. Actor Briga Heelan (TV: “Great News”) is 36. Actor Jesse Plemons is 35. Singer Aaron Kelly (TV: “American Idol”) is 30.

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  • Climate activists dye Spanish Steps fountain water black | CNN

    Climate activists dye Spanish Steps fountain water black | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A group called Ultima Generazione or Last Generation have poured what they described as a charcoal-based black liquid into the water of the Barcaccia fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps in central Rome.

    The group posted a video on Twitter, showing three men and a woman inside the fountain opening paper bags of a black powder.

    “It is absurd that this gesture should shock you, when we are experiencing a drought emergency that is putting agriculture, energy production in crisis,” the group said in the tweet.

    The group was stopped by Carabinieri officials and Rome Capital police on Saturday, a police spokesperson said.

    They are in custody pending charges of defacing a public monument and entering a fountain.

    The water remained black with visible stains to the marble fountain on Saturday afternoon.

    Rome’s mayor Roberto Gualtieri visited the fountain – designed by Pietro Bernini in 1629 – and posted a photo of himself staring at the inky water.

    “Rome is at the forefront in the fight against climate change and in the protection of the artistic heritage,” he said.

    “Throwing black liquid into the Barcaccia, risking ruining it, is an absolutely wrong gesture that does not help the environment,” he added, saying work was under way to ensure there was no permanent damage.

    The same group glued themselves to a plinth in the Vatican museums, to Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera” masterpiece at the Uffizi galleries in Florence and to the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space statue at the Museo del Novecento in Milan last year.

    They are also facing charges in Rome for throwing orange paint on the Italian Senate façade in January this year.

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  • California to require half of all heavy trucks sales to be electric by 2035

    California to require half of all heavy trucks sales to be electric by 2035

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    A driver operates a Daimler Freightliner eCascadia all-electric semitruck during a Meijer delivery in Bath, Michigan, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. 

    Emily Elconin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said it’s granting California the legal authority to require that half of all heavy-duty truck sales in the state be fully electric by 2035, an ambitious standard that will go beyond federal requirements.

    The Biden administration’s approval of California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) Regulation comes after the state last year banned the sale of new gasoline-powered cars starting in the same target year of 2035.

    The two decisions make California, the country’s most populous state and center of U.S. car culture, a leader in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, which generates most of the country’s greenhouse gases.

    The California Air Resources Board had sought waivers from the Clean Air Act to set stricter standards for heavy-duty vehicles such as garbage trucks, delivery vans and tractor-trailers. The approval of the new rule will likely have greater impacts beyond California and pave the way for other states to follow suit.

    California, which has committed to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2045, has considerable authority over the country’s auto industry. For instance, a federal waiver under the Clean Air Act gives the state authority to adopt stronger fuel economy standards than those of the federal government, which has set the precedent for the rest of the U.S. on how to address vehicle emissions.

    The heavy-duty truck rule has already been adopted by six other states — New York, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts and Vermont — all of which were waiting for permission from the Biden administration to enact it.

    A Tesla Semi electric truck parked outside the Frito-Lay manufacturing facility in Modesto, California, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

    Benjamin Fanjoy | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    “Under the Clean Air Act, California has longstanding authority to address pollution from cars and trucks,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “Today’s announcement allows the state to take additional steps in reducing their transportation emissions through these new regulatory actions.”

    The state’s rule requires manufacturers to produce zero-emission trucks beginning in 2024 — three years ahead of the Biden administration’s most recent regulations — and raises production targets through 2035. The rule aims to put 300,000 zero-emission trucks on the road by 2035.

    The requirement will curb climate pollution by nearly three million metric tons each year by 2040, according to estimates from the California Air Resources Board. Heavy-duty trucks represent nearly one third of the state’s nitrogen oxide and more than one quarter of its fine particle pollution from diesel fuel.

    “California has been hard at work passing landmark regulations to clean our air and protect our climate with zero emissions vehicles, so we’re heartened to see EPA stand with California today and grant this waiver,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a statement.

    However, some of the country’s major truck manufacturers and their lobbying groups have argued that the requirements to sell a certain percentage of electric heavy-duty trucks are costly and difficult to implement.

    The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, an industry group that represents truck and bus manufacturers, has said that the standards would increase the cost of trucks and result in truck buyers delaying decisions to purchase new vehicles.

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  • CIVICUS Report Exposes a Civil Society Under Attack

    CIVICUS Report Exposes a Civil Society Under Attack

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    Ines Pousadela at the launch of the CIVICUS State of Civil Society Report. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Mar 31 (IPS) – As conflict and crises escalate to create human emergencies that have displaced over 100 million people worldwide, civil society’s vital role of advocating for victims and monitoring human rights cannot be over-emphasised.

    The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize award to activists and organisations in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine for working to uphold human rights in the thick of conflict underpins this role.

    Yet this has not stopped gross violations of civic space as exposed by the State of Civil Society report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, which was officially launched on March 30, 2023.

    “This year’s report is the 12th in its annual published series, and it is a critical look back on 2022. Exploring trends in civil society action, at every level and in every arena, from struggles for democracy, inclusion, and climate justice to demands for global governance reform,” said Ines Pousadela from CIVICUS.

    The report particularly highlights the many ways civil society comes under attack, caught in the crossfire and or deliberately targeted. For instance, the Russian award winner, the human rights organisation Memorial, was ordered to close in the run-up to the war. The laureate from Belarus, Ales Bialiatski, received a 10-year jail sentence.

    Mandeep Tiwana stressed that the repression of civic voices and actions is far from unique. In Ethiopia, “activists have been detained by the state. In Mali, the ruling military junta has banned activities of CSOs that receive funding from France, hampering humanitarian support to those affected by conflict. In Italy, civil society groups face trial for rescuing migrants at sea.”

    Ines Pousadela at the launch of the CIVICUS State of Civil Society Report. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    Ines Pousadela at the launch of the CIVICUS State of Civil Society Report. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    Spanning over six chapters titled responding to conflict and crisis, mobilising for economic justice, defending democracy, advancing women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, sounding the alarm on the climate emergency and urging global governance reform, the analysis presented by the report draws from an ongoing analysis initiative, CIVICUS Lens.

    On responding to conflict and crisis, Oleksandra Matviichuk from the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine spoke about the Russian invasion and the subsequent “unprecedented levels of war crimes against civilians such as torture and rape. And, a lack of accountability despite documented evidence of crimes against civilians.”

    Bhavani Fonseka, from the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Sri Lanka, addressed the issue of mobilising for economic justice and how Sri Lanka captured the world’s attention one year ago through protests that start small in neighbourhoods and ultimately led to the President fleeing the country.

    Launched in January 2022, CIVICUS Lens is directly informed by the voices of civil society affected by and responding to the major issues and challenges of the day.

    Through this lens, a civil society perspective of the world as it stands in early 2023 has emerged: one plagued by conflict and crises, including democratic values and institutions, but in which civil society continues to strive to make a crucial difference in people’s lives.

    On defending democracy, Amine Ghali of the Al Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center in Tunisia spoke about the challenge of removing authoritarian regimes, making significant progress in levels of democracy only for the country to regress to authoritarianism.

    “It starts with the narrative that democracy is not delivering; let me have all the power so that I can deliver for you. But they do not deliver. All they do is consolidate power. A government with democratic legitimacy demolishing democracy is where we are in Tunisia,” he said.

    Erika Venadero from the National Network of Diverse Youth, Mexico, spoke about the country’s journey that started in the 1960s towards egalitarian marriages. Today, same-sex marriages are provided for in the law.

    On global governance reforms, Ben Donaldson from UNA-UK spoke about global governance institutional failure and the need to improve what is working and reform what is not, with a special focus on the UN Security Council.

    “It is useful to talk about Ukraine and the shortcomings of the UN Security Council. A member of the UN State Council is unable to hold one of its members accountable. There are, therefore, tensions at the heart of the UN. The President of Ukraine and many others ask, what is the UN for if it cannot stop the Ukraine invasion?”

    Baraka, a youthful climate activist and sustainability consultant in Uganda, spoke about ongoing efforts to stop a planned major pipeline project which will exacerbate the ongoing climate crisis, affecting lives and livelihoods.

    His concerns and actions are in line with the report findings that “civil society continues to be the force sounding the alarm on the triple threat of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Urging action using every tactic available, from street protest and direct action to litigation and advocacy in national and global arenas.”

    But in the context of pressures on civic space and huge challenges, the report further finds that “civil society is growing, diversifying and widening its repertoire of tactics.”

    Moving forward, the report highlights 10 ideas, including an urgent need for a broad-based campaign to win recognition of civil society’s vital role in conflict and crisis response as well as greater emphasis by civil society and supportive states on protecting freedom of peaceful assembly.

    Additionally, the need for civil society to work with supportive states to take forward plans for UN Security Council reform and proposals to open up the UN and other international institutions to much greater public participation and scrutiny.

    In all, strengthening and enhancing the membership and reach of transnational civil society networks to enable the rapid deployment of solidarity and support when rights come under attack was also strongly encouraged.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Malawi: Cyclone Freddy Devastates Communities, Farmers, Heightens Food Insecurity

    Malawi: Cyclone Freddy Devastates Communities, Farmers, Heightens Food Insecurity

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    Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs shows that 2.2 million people have been affected, with 676 killed and 538 missing after Cyclone Freddy hit Malawi earlier this month. Credit: Red Cross
    • by Charles Mpaka (sonjeke, malawi)
    • Inter Press Service

    SONJEKE, MALAWI, Mar 30 (IPS) – In Sonjeka village in Mulanje district, which lies on the border with Mozambique in southern Malawi, destroyed crop fields stretch almost interminably after floods ripped through them when Tropical Cyclone Freddy pounded the country.

    One of those fields lying in waste with its drying maize stalks flattened to the ground, if not ripped off altogether, belongs to Eliza Mponya.

    A field close to a hectare in size, this has been the lifeline for the single mother and her four children.

    Not that it gives her all the maize which the family needs for the whole year, but it still gets Mponya and her children enough to carry them close to the next harvesting season.

    By her estimation, this year, she would have harvested maize that would have lasted the family until the end of November.

    Crops destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, which left at least 676 dead and 650 000 displaced. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS
    Crops destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, which left at least 676 dead and 650 000 displaced. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

    “We had good rains here, and we were lucky because my son found piece work in Mozambique, and we managed some fertiliser through what he earned.

    “But now, after all the hard work and just when we were close to reaping the rewards, we have this damage. It’s heartbreaking,” she says.

    Malawi is in a mourning period, courtesy of the worst natural disaster to have struck the country in recent memory.

    Exactly a year after the battering by tropical storms Ana and Gombe, whose devastation the country is yet to recover from, Tropical Freddy hit rather more brutally.

    After barreling through Madagascar and Mozambique, the cyclone stormed into Malawi on March 11, 2023. From the afternoon of March 12, rain poured over 10 of the 13 districts in the southern region of the country for the next 72 hours.

    Rivers broke their banks; furious waters gorged through unlikely landscapes, and, beyond anyone’s expectation, several mud avalanches pushed down giant boulders from mountainous areas that, in some cases, swept away entire villages and crushed homes and people below at night.

    President Lazarus Chakwera declared it a state of disaster, calling for help, a plea to which both local and the international community have responded generously.

    The scale of the destruction is unprecedented in any natural disaster Malawi has experienced. A draft situation report which the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), a government agency, released on Wednesday, March 29, shows that up to 2.2 million people have been affected thus far; 676 have been killed, and 538 are missing – many of them feared to have been buried in the mudslides and rubble of collapsed buildings or washed away to unknown lands.

    At the appropriate time, the police will declare the missing people dead, DoDMA says.

    According to the report, up to 2,000 people are nursing various degrees of injuries, some while still in the over 760 evacuation camps that are hosting over 650,000 that have been displaced in the affected districts.

    Up to 405 kilometres of road infrastructure have been damaged, and 63 health facilities and close to a million water and sanitation facilities have been affected.

    The worst hit of all sectors, according to the report, is agriculture, the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Over 2 million farmers have lost their crops and livestock, and over 179,000 hectares of crop fields have been destroyed.

    Mponya’s field is among those counted.

    Her maize crop would have been ready for harvest sometime towards the end of April. Now floods have harvested it, and Mponya is broken.

    “I have never experienced anything like this in my life,” she tells IPS.

    On March 23, 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture launched its own assessment of the damage the cyclone has caused to the agriculture sector in the region. It is yet to release its report on the assessment and the interventions that it will undertake to bail out the affected farmers.

    However, in effect, the cyclone has worsened the food security situation for millions of people for the year. This comes against the backdrop of the government distributing food to 3.8 million food-insecure households, an exercise meant to see them through to the next harvest, which is now struck by the storm.

    In an earlier forecast, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), a USAID-supported global food security monitoring activity, said the southern region could register a decrease ranging between 30 and 50 percent in the harvest of maize, Malawi’s staple crop and a key factor in the economy.

    This, it said, would leave poor households running out of food stocks by end of August instead of October, as it usually happens with most such households in a good harvest year.

    FEWSNET cited limited and delayed access to fertiliser for most subsistence farmers who rely on the government’s fertiliser subsidy programme that was rocked by logistical and procurement challenges in this growing season and due to high prices of the commodity on the normal market, which drove the farm input out of reach for most of them.

    FEWSNET compiled the report before Cyclone Freddy lashed the country.

    Christone Nyondo, a research fellow at MwAPATA Institute, a local independent agricultural policy think-tank, says the cyclone has effectively struck a blow on household food security in the region and the country.

    According to Nyondo, families that have lost their food crops will struggle to cope without external help. He, therefore, suggests assistance for the affected farmers to replant short-duration maize varieties.

    He further says crops that can still do well when planted under residual moisture should be promoted to provide a short-term coping mechanism for the households as they recover.

    However, Nyondo argues that Malawi needs to invest in long-term and enduring disaster-proactive measures considering that these natural shocks will keep occurring in the face of climate change.

    According to Nyondo, an agricultural economist, for a long time, Malawi has focused much of its efforts on post-disaster recovery. It is high time the country did a deep rethink of its policies and invest significantly in early warning systems and forward planning based on intelligence gathered from these early warning systems, he says.

    “The specific interventions to safeguard food security will vary by season by the nature of the predicted disaster. If the predicted disaster is a widespread drought, then forward planning in terms of strategic investments in irrigation infrastructure will be key,” Nyondo tells IPS via email.

    He adds: “But, in any case, we need to invest more in irrigation, storage and other critical infrastructure without waiting for disasters. That’s the surest way of safeguarding our food security. Yes, it will be expensive but it will also be necessary.”

    Back in Mulanje district, Mponya has no idea how she will recover.

    Unlike some people in her village, she has not suffered any damage to her house or the loss of any member of her family. But she says it is a tragedy of her life that for the first time as a farmer, the 51-year-old will harvest almost nothing from her field after months of toil, leaving her to face a year-long struggle for food.

    Asked whether she has a way out, Mponya stares blankly and then says, “I don’t know what to do.”

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • New York identifies over 1,700

    New York identifies over 1,700

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    As part of New York’s plan to limit its impact on climate change and the health and environmental issues that go with it, the state set out to identify “disadvantaged communities” that could use an extra financial boost to make that happen. This week officials announced that more than a third of the state’s communities will qualify. 

    The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), passed in July 2019, was touted as “the most aggressive climate and clean energy initiative in the nation.” It mandates the state will reduce greenhouse gas emissions – a key driver for global warming – by 40% by 2030 and at least 85% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. 

    A major component of those plans is emphasizing and achieving climate justice – by identifying a set of “disadvantaged communities” that would get at least 35% of the benefits of clean energy and energy efficiency project spending. The plan also requires that the state prioritizes these areas for pollution and greenhouse gas emission reduction. 

    Since the Climate Act’s passage, representations from environmental justice communities in the state have been working to determine how these communities would be identified. They ultimately decided on 45 indicators that include sociodemographic factors, climate change risks and health vulnerabilities. 

    After nearly a dozen public hearings and thousands of public comments, CJWG approved those criteria on Monday – and ended up finding that more than a third of New York’s 4,919 census tracts fit the description.

    The CJWG determined that 1,736 census tracts in the state – 35% of the total number – deserve “disadvantaged community” status. Those areas are dispersed throughout New York’s entirety, from Long Island to New York City to Buffalo. 

    New York City has the densest concentration of designated communities, with roughly 1,000 areas across its five boroughs being marked with the status. Kings County, home to Brooklyn, has the most designated areas of the boroughs, followed by the Bronx. 

    screen-shot-2023-03-30-at-9-02-24-am.png
    This map shows the census tracts in New York City that have been deemed “disadvantaged communities” and will receive a boost in funding and attention to combat climate change and its impacts.

    New York State


    The criteria for designation will be reviewed every year, the state said, to ensure the state continues “accurately targeting emissions reductions and investments.” 

    Elizabeth Yeampierre, CJWG member and executive director of UPROSE, said in a press release that the climate group worked “diligently and relentlessly to ensure that our aunties, our children, and those most vulnerable to recurrent extreme weather events were prioritized.” 

    “The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stunned us when they stated we have seven years to do right by people and the planet,” Yeampierre said. “Fortunately, in New York, the historic CLCPA has provided us with the opportunity to do so.”

    California has a similar program that’s been in the works since 2012. That year, Senate Bill 535 required that designated disadvantaged communities would get minimum funding levels from the state to help improve public health and reduce pollution, climate change and their impacts. Those designated communities were last updated in May 2022.

    The Biden Administration has also adopted a similar policy, launching the Justice40 Initiative just days after Mr. Biden was elected. Under this program, the government established a goal that 40% of benefits from certain federal investments, including clean energy, clean transit, housing and workforce development, would go to communities “marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution.” 

    Similar to New York and California, the administration uses a Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool that looks at census tracts for determining who will be considered disadvantaged communities across all 50 states and U.S. territories. 

    Li Cohen


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    Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.

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  • Civil Society a Vital Force for Change Against the Odds

    Civil Society a Vital Force for Change Against the Odds

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    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela, Andrew Firmin (london / montevideo)
    • Inter Press Service

    LONDON / MONTEVIDEO, Mar 29 (IPS) – Brave protests against women’s second-class status in Iran; the mass defence of economic rights in the face of a unilateral presidential decision in France; huge mobilisations to resist government plans to weaken the courts in Israel: all these have shown the willingness of people to take public action to stand up for human rights.

    The world has seen a great wave of protests in 2022 and 2023, many of them sparked by soaring costs of living. But these and other actions are being met with a ferocious backlash. Meanwhile multiple conflicts and crises are intensifying threats to human rights.

    Vast-scale human rights abuses are being committed in Ukraine, women’s rights are being trampled on in Afghanistan and LGBTQI+ people’s rights are under assault in Uganda, along with several other countries. Military rule is again being normalised in multiple countries, including Mali, Myanmar and Sudan, and democracy undermined by autocratic leaders in El Salvador, India and Tunisia, among others. Even supposedly democratic states such as Australia and the UK are undermining the vital right to protest.

    But in the face of this onslaught civil society continues to strive to make a crucial difference to people’s lives. It’s the force behind a wave of breakthroughs on g abortion rights in Latin America, most recently in Colombia, and on LGBTQI+ rights in countries as diverse as Barbados, Mexico and Switzerland. Union organising has gained further momentum in big-brand companies such as Amazon and Starbucks. Progress on financing for the loss and damage caused by climate change came as a result of extensive civil society advocacy.

    The latest State of Civil Society Report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, presents a global picture of these trends. We’ve engaged with civil society activists and experts from around the world to understand how civil society is responding to conflict and crisis, mobilising for economic justice, defending democracy, advancing women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, calling for climate action and urging global governance reform. These are our key findings.

    Civil society is playing a key role in responding to conflicts and humanitarian crises – and facing retaliation

    Civil society is vital in conflict and crisis settings, where it provides essential services, helps and advocates for victims, monitors human rights and collects evidence of violations to hold those responsible to account. But for doing this, civil society is coming under attack.

    Catastrophic global governance failures highlight the urgency of reform

    Too often in the face of the conflicts and crises that have marked the world over the past year, platitudes are all international institutions have had to offer. Multilateral institutions have been left exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s time to take civil society’s proposals to make the United Nations more democratic seriously.

    People are mobilising in great numbers in response to economic shock – and exposing deeper problems in the process

    As it drove a surge in fuel and food prices, Russia’s war on Ukraine became a key driver of a global cost of living crisis. This triggered protests in at least 133 countries where people demanded economic justice. Civil society is putting forward progressive economic ideas, including on taxation, connecting with other struggles for rights, including for climate, gender, racial and social justice.

    The right to protest is under attack – even in longstanding democracies

    Many states, unwilling or unable to concede the deeper demands of protests, have responded with violence. The right to protest is under attack all over the world, particularly when people mobilise for economic justice, democracy, human rights and environmental rights. Civil society groups are striving to defend the right to protest.

    Democracy is being eroded in multiple ways – including from within by democratically elected leaders

    Economic strife and insecurity are providing fertile ground for the emergence of authoritarian leaders and the rise of far-right extremism, as well for the rejection of incumbency. In volatile conditions, civil society is working to resist regression and make the case for inclusive, pluralist and participatory democracy.

    Disinformation is skewing public discourse, undermining democracy and fuelling hate

    Disinformation is being mobilised, particularly in the context of conflicts, crises and elections, to sow polarisation, normalise extremism and attack rights. Powerful authoritarian states and far-right groups provide major sources, and social media companies are doing nothing to challenge a problem that’s ultimately good for their business model. Civil society needs to forge a joined-up, multifaceted global effort to counter disinformation.

    Movements for women’s and LGBTQI+ rights are making gains against the odds

    In the face of difficult odds, civil society continues to drive progress on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights. But its breakthroughs are making civil society the target of a ferocious backlash. Civil society is working to resist attempts to reverse gains and build public support to ensure that legal changes are consolidated by shifts in attitudes.

    Civil society is the major force behind the push for climate action

    Civil society continues to be the force sounding the alarm on the triple threat of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Civil society is urging action using every tactic available, from street protest and direct action to litigation and advocacy in national and global arenas. But the power of the fossil fuel lobby remains undimmed and restrictions on climate protests are burgeoning. Civil society is striving to find new ways to communicate the urgent need for action.

    Civil society is reinventing itself to adapt to a changing world

    In the context of pressures on civic space and huge global challenges, civil society is growing, diversifying and widening its repertoire of tactics. Much of civil society’s radical energy is coming from small, informal groups, often formed and led by women, young people and Indigenous people. There is a need to support and nurture these.

    We believe the events of the past year show that civil society – and the space for civil society to act – are needed more than ever. If they really want to tackle the many great problems of the world today, states and the international community need to take some important first steps: they need to protect the space for civil society and commit to working with us rather than against us.

    Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief. Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist. Both are co-directors and writers of CIVICUS Lens and co-authors of the State of Civil Society Report.


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Crucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn | CNN

    Crucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn | CNN

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    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    Melting ice in the Antarctic is not just raising sea levels but slowing down the circulation of deep ocean water with vast implications for the global climate and for marine life, a new study warns.

    Led by scientists from the University of New South Wales and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the peer-reviewed study modeled the impact of melting Antarctic ice on deep ocean currents that work to flush nutrients from the sea floor to fish near the surface.

    Three years of computer modeling found the Antarctic overturning circulation – also known as abyssal ocean overturning – is on track to slow 42% by 2050 if the world continues to burn fossil fuels and produce high levels of planet-heating pollution.

    A slow down is expected to speed up ice melt and potentially end an ocean system that has helped sustain life for thousands of years.

    “The projections we have make it look like the Antarctic overturning would collapse this century,” said Matthew England, deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, who coordinated the study.

    “In the past, these overturning circulations changed over the course of 1,000 years or so, and we’re talking about changes within a few decades. So it is pretty dramatic,” he said.

    Most previous studies have focused on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of currents that carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic. The cold, saltier water then sinks and flows south.

    Its Southern Ocean equivalent is less studied but does an important job moving nutrient-dense water north from Antarctica, past New Zealand and into the North Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean, the report’s authors said in a briefing.

    The circulation of deep ocean water is considered vital for the health of the sea – and plays an important role in sequestering carbon absorbed from the atmosphere.

    According to the report, while a slowdown of the AMOC would mean the deep Atlantic Ocean would get colder, the slower circulation of dense water in the Antarctic means the deepest waters of the Southern Ocean will warm up.

    “One of the concerning things of this slowdown is that there can be feedback to further ocean warming at the base of the ice shelves around Antarctica. And that would lead to more ice melt, reinforcing or amplifying the original change,” England said.

    As global temperatures rise, Antarctic ice is expected to melt faster, but that doesn’t mean the circulation of deep water will increase – in fact the opposite, scientists said.

    In a healthy system, the cold and salty – or dense – consistency of melted Antarctic ice allows it to sink to the deepest layer of the ocean. From there it sweeps north, carrying carbon and higher levels of oxygen than might otherwise be present in water around 4,000 meters deep.

    As the current moves northward, it agitates deep layers of debris on the ocean floor – remains of decomposing sea life thick with nutrients – that feed the bottom of the food chain, scientists said.

    In certain areas, mostly south of Australia in the Southern Ocean and in the tropics, this nutrient-rich cold water moves toward the surface in a process called upwelling, distributing the nutrients to higher layers of the ocean, England said.

    However, Wednesday’s study found that as global temperatures warm, melting sea ice “freshens” the water around Antarctica, diluting its saltiness and raising its temperature, meaning it’s less dense and doesn’t sink to the bottom as efficiently as it once did.

    The report’s co-author, Steve Rintoul from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, said sea life in waters worldwide rely on nutrients brought back up to the surface, and that the Antarctic overturning is a key component of that upwelling of nutrients.

    “We know that nutrients exported from the Southern Ocean in other current systems support about three quarters of global phytoplankton production – the base of the food chain,” he said.

    “We’ve shown that the sinking of dense water near Antarctica will decline by 40% by 2050. And it’ll be sometime between 2050 and 2100 that we start to see the impacts of that on surface productivity.”

    England added: “People born today are going to be around then. So, it’s certainly stuff that will challenge societies in the future.”

    Fishing boats at a floating fish farm off Rongcheng, China.

    The report’s authors say the slowing of the Antarctic ocean overturning has other knock-on effects for the planet – for example, it could shift rain bands in the tropics by as much as 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

    “Shut it down completely and you get this reduction of rainfall in one band south of the equator and an increase in the band to the north. So we could see impacts on rainfall in the tropics,” said England.

    Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in its latest report that the impacts of rising global temperatures were more severe than expected. Without immediate and deep changes, the world is hurtling toward increasingly dangerous and irreversible consequences of climate change, it added.

    The IPCC report found that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels was still possible, but it’s becoming harder to achieve the longer the world fails to cut carbon pollution.

    England points out that the IPCC predictions don’t include ice melt from Antarctic ice sheets and shelves.

    “That’s a very significant component of change that’s already underway around Antarctica with more to come in the next few decades,” England said.

    Rintoul said the study was another urgent warning on top of all the ones that have come before it.

    “Even though the direct effect on fisheries through reduced nutrient supply might take decades to play out, we will commit ourselves to that future with the choices we make over the next decade.”

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  • How Tech Bolsters the Fight Against Food Insecurity | Entrepreneur

    How Tech Bolsters the Fight Against Food Insecurity | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The human race numbered 1 billion people in 1804, the U.N. estimates. It took only 218 years since then for our population to multiply eightfold. That exponential growth creates challenges in securing the necessary resources to feed this growing population.

    In 2023, in much of the developed world, it may not feel like there is a lack of food or even shortages of certain products or items. Yes, food prices have been steadily rising, but when perusing the shelves of your local supermarket, it’s common to come across sea bass from Chile, avocados from Portugal, shrimp from Indonesia, olives from Greece and mangos from Thailand. This might create a false sense that food products from across the world are plentiful, but in reality, our current consumption rates will reach a tipping point.

    With wars and famines triggered by climate-induced natural disasters compounding our exploding population, innovative approaches to mitigating ongoing food shortages and future possible food crisis scenarios are imperative. And entrepreneurs are leveraging tech to tackle that challenge.

    Related: Market Forces Alone Likely Won’t Solve the Food-Security Problem

    Fermenting a food revolution

    Extreme-weather conditions disrupted recent harvests across Spain and North Africa, causing severe shortages of many common vegetables in the UK, including tomatoes and peppers. Developing countries like Somalia and North Korea, all too familiar with the horrors of starvation, find themselves amid devastating food shortages. In both countries, it is believed that around half the population suffers from a lack of nourishment.

    Food shortages caused by severe weather or other climatic conditions constantly plague poorer countries far worse than richer ones. These nations must look to solutions that are affordable and maximize the preservation of food products. Fermentation, a common practice across nearly every society used for pickling vegetables, producing yogurt and brewing alcoholic beverages, can be used by innovative founders to offer practical and affordable solutions.

    Industrial fermentation can expand the millennia-old practice by scaling up and adding new, healthier and tasty food options in an eco-friendly and affordable manner. As a metabolic process producing chemical changes in organic substrates, fermentation in food production refers to the use of microorganisms, including bacteria, yeasts and molds, to bring a desirable change to food or drink.

    And with modern tech, fermentation can be used on a near-unlimited number of organic foods and beverages, enabling them to enjoy drastically longer shelf lives. Advanced technology is helping make fermentation even more relevant.

    Related: Plant-Powered Future: 8 Trends in Vegan Meat, Egg and Dairy to Watch for in 2022

    Precision fermentation technology has been leveraged to produce drugs and food additives, but now scientists are developing new alternatives to classic food products. Alternative types of proteins, milk, cheeses, fungi, wheat and dairy products can provide populations with healthier and cheaper versions of familiar foods. Precision fermentation requires 1,700 times less land than the most efficient agricultural means of producing protein, and local communities and entrepreneurs can quickly adopt this technology around the globe to stabilize food supplies.

    Organic alternatives

    While fermentation tech will take time to maximize and scale up, agriculture remains the primary outlet to feed humans. The brutal war in Ukraine has disrupted wheat supplies by reducing the country’s output and complicating export efforts. A lesser-known consequence of the war is the disruption of the chemical-based fertilizer market, particularly those that use nitrogen such as Urea, which also harms soil, air and waterways.

    To mitigate the lack of nitrogen-based fertilizers caused by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, biological alternatives can help farmers meet the growing demand. Grace Breeding, an agro-tech startup, has developed organic bio-based fertilizers that have demonstrated the ability to reduce environmental damage while boosting yields on key crops, such as wheat and tomatoes.

    Related: One Year Later, The War in Ukraine Is Having a ‘Massive Environmental Impact’

    AI can play a part, too

    From biofertilizers to fermentation and plant-based meats, science and technology are increasingly colliding with food to help develop sustainable practices and products to counter food insecurity without harming the planet.

    But finding innovative ways to combat hunger today doesn’t stop there. Mainstream tech, like AI, can also play a role. A new study published in Science Advances demonstrates how machine learning techniques can successfully predict where and when the next food crisis will likely occur. By using deep learning to extract relevant text from a database of over 11 million articles focused on food-insecure nations published between 1980 and 2020, the algorithm was able to improve the accuracy of predictions on food insecurity up to a year in advance.

    By better anticipating where and when a food crisis outbreak will happen, humanitarian and relief organizations can efficiently plan, raise funds, delegate resources, and have boots—and food—on the ground earlier, thus drastically reducing the impact of famines.

    Innovation alone isn’t enough. It must be supported by private and public sector initiatives along with popular support. But without entrepreneurs capable of leveraging innovative solutions, the challenge at hand would be impossible.

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    Ariel Shapira

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