Tag: environment and natural resources

Climate activists block private jet runway at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam | CNN

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CNN
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Hundreds of climate activists breached a runway Saturday at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport to try to stop private jets from taking off, in the latest demonstration by protesters aimed at drawing attention to the climate crisis.

Greenpeace Netherlands said “more than 500” Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion activists were at the airport, one of Europe’s largest, on Saturday afternoon, in a press release. A spokesperson for the Schiphol security forces could not confirm that figure.

There were about “more than 300” activists, the spokesperson of The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, the military force guarding the airport, told CNN.

Robert Kapel, acknowledged it was a “big scale” demonstration but said air traffic was unaffected as the runway was exclusively used for private jets and no flights are scheduled until late Saturday night.

“This morning activists gathered in the forest nearby, carrying flags and banners with slogans such as ‘SOS for the climate’ and ‘Fly no more.’ At the same time another group reached the airport from the opposite direction with bicycles,” Greenpeace said.

Images from Greenpeace show groups of dozens of demonstrators sitting down on the tarmac by multiple planes on the runway. Further images show demonstrations inside the terminal.

More than 100 arrests “and counting” have been made so far, Kapel said. He added that he thinks all arrests will have been made by 10 p.m. (local time), which is when he said the first flight is scheduled to take off. Security forces have blocked off the area and made it inaccessible from other parts of the airport, he commented.

Protesters “plan to keep air traffic from the private jet terminal grounded for as long as possible,” Dewi Zloch, spokesperson of Greenpeace Netherlands, said in a statement.

She continued: “The airport should be reducing its flight movements, but instead it’s building a brand-new terminal. The wealthy elite is using more private jets than ever, which is the most polluting way to fly. This is typical of the aviation industry, which doesn’t seem to see that it is putting people at risk by aggravating the climate crisis. This has to stop. We want fewer flights, more trains, and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets.”

Greenpeace warned authorities there would be some kind of action at Schiphol weeks in advance, Zloch, who was on the scene, told CNN. They did not disclose the exact location, she added.

Schiphol Airport CEO Ruud Sondag said activists should “feel welcome, but let’s keep things civil.”

He was responding to a previous letter from Greenpeace and stated his objective was to achieve “emissions-free airports by 2030 and net climate-neutral aviation by 2050”.

“However, this is only possible if we all work together”, Sondag said in a statement published Friday.

“Coming together for our environment, the government, and for society, clear laws, regulations, and proper permits are a necessity. We need clarity on that soon,” he added.

Elsewhere in Europe, two climate activists were arrested in Madrid in Spain after they each glued one of their hands to the frames of two Goya paintings in the Prado Museum on Saturday.

There was no apparent damage to the paintings, but the suspects are being charged with public disorder and damages, the Spanish National Police press office for Madrid told CNN.

The suspects, two Spanish women, wrote “+1,5C” on the wall between the artworks, which were Goya’s masterpieces “Las Majas,” according to the police.

Futuro Vegetal, a Spanish activist group, tweeted a video on the museum protest. The group is taking responsibility for the incident.

They described themselves as a “collective of civil disobedience and direct action in the fight against the Climate Crisis through the adoption of a food growing system based on plants.”

“Last week the UN recognized the impossibility of keeping ourselves below the limit of the increase, of the Paris Accord, of 1.5 degrees (C) temperature, with respect to pre-industrial levels,” Futuro Vegetal wrote in its tweet.

Security guards at the Prado quickly alerted the National Police, which has a unit dedicated to protecting the perimeter of the famed museum, and officers made the arrests in just minutes, the Police press office said.

The Paris Agreement, which was adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations’ COP 21 in December 2015, aimed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The protest comes just a day before the COP27 climate conference is due to start in Egypt.

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November 5, 2022
Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as foreign-owned farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas | CNN

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La Paz County, Arizona
CNN
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Workers with the water district in Wenden, Arizona, saw something remarkable last year as they slowly lowered a camera into the drought-stricken town’s well: The water was moving.

But the aquifer which sits below the small desert town in the southwestern part of the state is not a river; it’s a massive, underground reservoir which stores water built up over thousands of years. And that water is almost always still.

Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest.

Al Dahra did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

“The well guys and I have never seen anything like this before,” Saiter told CNN. The farm was “pumping and it was sucking the water through the aquifer.”

Groundwater is the lifeblood of the rural Southwest, but just as the Colorado River Basin is in crisis, aquifers are rapidly depleting from decades of overuse, worsening drought and rampant agricultural growth.

Residents and farms pull water from the same underground pools, and as the water table declines, the thing determining how long a well lasts is how deeply it was drilled.

Now frustration is growing in Arizona’s La Paz County, as shallower wells run dry amid the Southwest’s worst drought in 1,200 years. Much of the frustration is pointed at the area’s huge, foreign-owned farms growing thirsty crops like alfalfa, which ultimately get shipped to feed cattle and other livestock overseas.

“You can’t take water and export it out of the state, there’s laws about that,” said Arizona geohydrologist Marvin Glotfelty, a well-drilling expert. “But you can take ‘virtual’ water and export it; alfalfa, cotton, electricity or anything created in part from the use of water.”

Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it.

But rural communities in La Paz County know the water is disappearing beneath their feet.

Shallow, residential wells in the county started drying up in 2015, local officials say, and deeper municipal well levels have steadily declined. In Salome, local water utility owner Bill Farr told CNN his well – which supplies water to more than 200 customers, including the local schools – is “nearing the end of its useful life.”

And in Wenden, water in the town well has been plummeting. Saiter told CNN the depth-to-water – how deep below the surface the top of the water table is – has dropped from about 100 feet in the late 1950s to about 540 feet in 2022, already far beyond what an average residential well can reach. Saiter is anxious the farms’ rapid water use could push the water table too low for the town well to draw safe water from.

La Paz County supervisor Holly Irwin told CNN getting the state to act on – or even acknowledge – the region’s dwindling water supply has been a “frustrating” yearslong battle which has left her community feeling “forgotten.”

Middle East agriculture companies “have depleted their [water], that’s why they are here,” Irwin said. “That’s what angers people the most. We should be taking care of our own, and we just allow them to come in, purchase property and continue to punch holes in the ground.”

In 2018, Saudi Arabia finalized a ban on growing thirsty crops like alfalfa and hay to feed livestock and cattle. The reason was simple: the arid Middle East – also struggling with climate change-fueled drought – is running out of water, and agriculture is a huge consumer.

But vast dairy operations are a point of national pride in the Middle East, according to Eckart Woertz, director of the Germany-based GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies. So, they needed to find water somewhere else.

“They have all their cows there and they need feeding. That feedstock comes from abroad,” Woertz told CNN.

Valued at $14.3 billion, the Almarai Company – which owns about 10,000 acres of farmland in Arizona under its subsidiary, Fondomonte – is one of the biggest players in the Middle East’s dairy supply. The company also owns about 3,500 acres in agriculture-heavy Southern California, according to public land records, where they use Colorado River water to irrigate crops.

Woertz said while most of the company’s cattle feed is purchased on the open market, Alamarai took the extra step of buying farmland abroad, as part of a growing trend in foreign-owned farmland in the US. Foreign-owned farmland in the West increased from around 1.25 million acres in 2010 to nearly three million acres in 2020, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture. In the Midwest, foreign-owned farmland has nearly quadrupled.

“It gives you that sense you’re closer to the source,” Woertz added. “The sense that you own land or lease land somewhere else and have direct bilateral access [to water] gives you a sense of maybe false security.”

In the high desert of Arizona, emerald-green fields stretch for miles alongside dry tumbleweeds and Saguaro cactus.

The Fondomonte-owned Vicksburg Ranch near Salome is massive. The company spent $47.5 million to buy nearly 10,000 acres of land there in 2014, and it leases additional farmland from the state.

Huge storage facilities were erected to hold the harvests. Rows of small houses were built for the farm’s workers, all surrounded by flowering desert shrubs. Tractor trailers filled with bales of alfalfa hay rumble down the highway, which local officials told CNN they had to repair because of the increased agricultural traffic.

The alfalfa on the trucks is eventually shipped to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia.

“They’ve definitely increased production,” Irwin said. “They’ve grown so much since they’ve been here.”

Almarai was transparent about why it wanted the land, according to an article on the purchase from Arab News: The transaction was part of “continuous efforts to improve and secure its supply of the highest quality alfalfa hay from outside the Kingdom to support its dairy business.”

“It is also in line with the Saudi government direction toward conserving local resources,” Arab News added.

Representatives of Fondomonte declined an interview request for this story, but Jordan Rose, the company’s Arizona attorney, provided a statement: “Fondomonte decided to invest in the southwest United States just as hundreds of other agricultural businesses have because of the high-quality soils, and climatic conditions that allow growth of some of the finest quality alfalfa in the world.”

Rose added the farm installed “the most technologically advanced conservation oriented watering systems available on the market.”

Indeed, there is nothing illegal about foreign-owned farming in the US. And many American farmers use the West’s water to grow crops which are eventually exported around the globe.

But amid the worst drought in centuries, residents and officials have questioned the merit of allowing countries, which themselves are running out of water, unlimited access to a resource as good as gold in the Southwest.

Cynthia Campbell, water resources management adviser for the city of Phoenix, has been watching the La Paz County water situation with frustration.

Phoenix currently gets most of its water from local rivers and the Central Arizona Project, which diverts Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson. But it could use rural groundwater as a safety net in the coming years if the city’s primary sources are further restricted.

That is, if there is any groundwater left by then.

“We are literally exporting our economy overseas,” Campbell said. “I’m sorry, but there’s no Saudi Arabian milk coming back to Southern California or Arizona. The value of that agricultural output is not coming through in value to the US.”

Despite the ever-looming water crisis, people are still drawn to small Southwest towns like Wenden and Salome because of the low home prices and the freedom of desert living.

While housing costs in the country rocket upward, rural Arizona has remained a stubbornly affordable place to live. Homes cost between $30,000 and $40,000, and residential taxes paid to the county are below $300 per year, Saiter, the head of Wenden’s water district and a longtime resident, told CNN.

“People are able to afford to live here, versus Phoenix,” Gary’s wife, De Vona Saiter, told CNN. Median incomes in the county are low, “but you can still have a beautiful life.”

The Saiters’ house and rental properties around town – as well as De Vona’s mother Gloria Kaisor’s home down the street – are decorated with hand-drawn art, gardens and antiques.

Kaisor is a longtime resident who first moved to Wenden with her family in the 1960s. After living in Phoenix for years, she gravitated back to the rural area.

“This is home,” Kaisor said. “You don’t hear a noise. It’s quiet. I don’t want to be around a lot of people. You can do whatever you want.”

Yet the impacts of living near a corporate farm are starting to pile up.

Kaisor’s home was inundated with silty, wet mud this summer. Rainfall runoff from a recent monsoon flood carried it from the farm right into Wenden. Gary Saiter believes Al Dahra farm staff have rerouted natural waterways, forcing the rainfall into town rather than out into the desert washes.

Kaisor and her neighbors’ fences are reinforced with sheet metal to try to stop mud and water from coming into their houses, but Kaisor was trapped in her house during a storm earlier this year.

“The whole property was full of mud,” De Vona Saiter said.

Al Dahra did not respond to CNN’s questions for this story, including questions about its water usage, the uptick in residential flooding and potential rerouting of natural waterways.

The company did provide a statement to the Arizona Republic for a story published in 2019: “Water resources in Arizona must be managed wisely in order to preserve our quality of life and to protect the state’s economic health,” Al Dahra said. “The company is fully committed to Arizona and plans to remain here for the long-term.”

Living near the Al Dahra farm also brings more frequent and alarming drought-related impacts.

When it gets windy, a “dirt wall” of soil and dust whips up from the alfalfa fields, exacerbating the Saiters’ allergies. And most noticeably, the ground is literally sinking as the water below the surface gets pumped out.

The floor in De Vona’s shop has sunk a couple inches, she said, and the ground around one well casing has sunk about a foot; so much the wellhead needed to be cut and resized.

With all of this, Gary Saiter doesn’t care if the farm is owned by a company overseas. The way he sees it, it doesn’t make much of a difference who owns the farm; he just wishes they were better neighbors.

“I am kind of ambivalent about the Saudis,” Saiter said. “You can’t control where people sell stuff, and it’s going to go somewhere.”

“I just don’t like the crops they’re growing and the water they’re pumping,” he added.

Kari Avila, superintendent and athletics director for Salome High School, believes the farms are providing local economic benefits. Rose, Fondomonte’s Arizona attorney, told CNN in an email the company is the fourth-largest employer in the county.

“They employ a lot of people,” Avila told CNN. “If they weren’t farming it, someone else would be. A lot of people are upset it’s not Americans farming.”

Avila praised the farms for their internship programs and career fairs. Last year, Al Dahra donated an irrigation pump and generator to water Salome’s high school fields, which had been drying up. Avila said the pump installation for the field was fast and took just a few weeks.

But even as the companies are trying to invest in the area, many still question whether those benefits are worth it as water disappears.

“It’s great,” Irwin, the La Paz County supervisor said, “but if you can’t turn your faucet on in five years, that sh*t’s not going to matter.”

The reason some rural residents feel powerless about the fate of their groundwater is because they say Arizona’s state lawmakers have thus far not acted to protect it.

The last time the state passed regulations around groundwater was in 1980, with a law creating certain zones in mostly urban areas, where officials had to ensure they were replenishing underground aquifers and not pumping them dry.

The laws governing the so-called active management areas, or AMAs, are strong compared to groundwater laws in other Southwest states, said Kathleen Ferris, a former top state water official and senior researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy.

But “outside of the AMAs, not so much,” Ferris told CNN.

About 80% of the state falls outside the active management areas, with no restrictions on how much groundwater can be pumped and no way to monitor it.

“It can’t get any worse” than Arizona’s lack of regulation on rural groundwater, Ferris said. “Let’s put it that way.”

Water officials can measure whether water levels in the aquifers are going up or down, but because groundwater is so lightly regulated in rural areas, they don’t have enough data to answer a crucial question: Exactly how much water is left?

“That is one of the challenges of our state; you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said top Arizona water official Tom Buschatzke, the director of the state’s Department of Water Resources. “We do the best we can with the data and estimated data that we have, but it really begs questions about how much benefit we can really provide.”

As the West’s water crisis grows more intense, groundwater reform has become a flashpoint in this year’s election campaigns.

Arizona attorney general candidate Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has seized on the state’s practice of leasing public land to corporate farms, including more than 6,000 acres leased to Fondomonte, according to the state land department.

A recent investigation by the Arizona Republic found Fondomonte – the second-largest agricultural lessor of Arizona land – is paying the state a heavily discounted rate which does not take their water usage into account.

Mayes said she thinks the leases violate the state constitution and has vowed to cancel them if she’s elected.

“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Mayes told Irwin in September, standing outside Fondomonte’s farm. “We can get these leases canceled, and we should. We are essentially giving our water away for free to a Saudi corporation, and that has to come to an end.”

The Arizona State Land Department is studying the state’s water resources in western Arizona, department spokesman Bill Fathauer told CNN. But he added it does not have the authority to implement additional groundwater restrictions.

“The comprehensive data determined from these studies will allow the Department to make an informed decision about not only future land use in these areas but also help determine what the future value of the land is as well,” Fathauer said in an email.

The kind of sweeping water reforms Arizona needs must ultimately come from the state legislature, says outgoing state House member Regina Cobb, a Republican.

For years, Cobb tried to advance bills to allow local officials to regulate their aquifers. The bills never got a committee hearing, Cobb said, never mind making it to the floor for a vote. CNN reached out to Gov. Doug Ducey and top Arizona lawmakers in the state House and Senate for comment; none responded.

As the Colorado River shrinks and Arizona’s share of the water continues to be cut, Cobb told CNN the state’s approach to groundwater has been unthinkable.

“Why are we allowing a foreign company to come into Arizona – which is drought-stricken right now – and have a sweetheart deal [on leases], when we are trying to conserve as much water as we can?” she asked.

“It boggles my mind.”

Read more:

The Colorado River provides drinking water and electricity to 40 million people. As its supply dwindles, a crisis looms

As California’s big cities fail to rein in their water use, rural communities are already tapped out

The West’s historic drought is threatening hydropower at Hoover Dam

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November 5, 2022
Tourists held by Peruvian indigenous group protesting oil spill will be released, says official | CNN

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CNN
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A group of tourists traveling in the Peruvian Amazon, who were detained on Thursday by an indigenous community demanding government action over an oil spill, will be released Friday, Abel Chiroque, head of the ombudsman office in Loreto, told CNN.

“We have been in touch with the leader of the Cuninico community… and they have accepted our request to release the passengers onboard the boats,” Chiroque said.

An estimated 150 tourists, believed to include American and British citizens, were traveling down the Marañon river in Cuninico of the Loreto region, Angela Ramirez told Peruvian local media RPP. The 28-year-old Peruvian is one of the tourists being held by the indigenous community.

Wadson Trujillo, leader of the Cuninico community, confirmed to RRP that his community stopped the boats in a bid to pressure the government to take action over the oil spill, which has disrupted their water supply. They are demanding the government declare a state of emergency over the oil spill.

Chiroque said three boats were being held by the community. While the passengers will be let go, the other boats carrying food and animals will stay, he added.

Ramirez told RRP the detained group included Spanish, French, American and British citizens. Children, pregnant women and the elderly were also being held, she told CNN. CNN has contacted Peru’s Interior Ministry for comment.

Estimates for the number of people detained have ranged from 70 to 150. Among those held are 20 foreigners, said Peru’s National Police.

Peru’s ombudsman office in Lima announced the release on social media, while also calling for the continued dialogue between the Cuninico community and government’s representatives.

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November 4, 2022
Lula da Silva will return to Brazil’s presidency in stunning comeback | CNN

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Sao Paulo
CNN
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Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva has been elected the next president of Brazil, in a stunning comeback following a tight run-off race on Sunday. His victory heralds a political about-face for Latin America’s largest country, after four years of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right administration.

The 76-year-old politician’s win represents the return of the left into power in Brazil, and concludes a triumphant personal comeback for Lula da Silva, after a series of corruption allegations lead to his imprisonment for 580 days. The sentences were later annulled by the Supreme Court, clearing his path to run for reelection.

“They tried to bury me alive and I’m here,” he said in a jubilant speech to supporters and journalists on Sunday evening, describing the win as his political “resurrection.”

“Starting on January 1, 2023, I will govern for the 215 million Brazilians, not just the ones who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation,” Lula da Silva also said.

He will take the reins of a country plagued by gross inequality that is still struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Approximately 9.6 million people fell under the poverty line between 2019 and 2021, and literacy and school attendance rates have fallen. He will also be faced with a deeply fractured nation and urgent environmental issues, including rampant deforestation in the Amazon.

This will be his third term, after previously governing Brazil for two consecutive terms between 2003 and 2010.

The former leader’s victory on Sunday was the latest in a political wave across Latin America, with wins by left-leaning politicians in Argentina, Colombia and Chile. But Lula da Silva – a former union leader with a blue-collar background – has sought to reassure moderates throughout his campaign.

He has built a broad alliance including several politicians from the center and center-right, including historical opponents from the PSDB, Brazil’s Social Democrat Party. Among these politicians is his vice-president, former São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, who has been cited by the Lula camp as a guarantee of moderation in his administration.

On the campaign trail, Lula da Silva has been reluctant to show his cards when it came to outlining an economic strategy – a tendency that earned sharp criticism from his competitors. “Who is the other candidate’s economy minister? There isn’t one, he doesn’t say. What will be his political and economic route? More state? Less state? We don’t know…,” said Bolsonaro during a live transmission on YouTube on October 22.

Lula da Silva has said that he would push Congress to approve a tax reform which would exempt low-earners from paying income tax. And his campaign received a boost from centrist former presidential candidate Simone Tebet, who came third in the first round earlier this month and gave Lula da Silva her support in the run-off. Known for her ties with Brazil’s agricultural industry, Tebet said in an October 7 press conference that Lula da Silva and his economic team had “received and incorporated all the suggestions from our program to his government’s program.”

He has also received the support of several renowned economists highly regarded by investors, including Arminio Fraga, a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank.

Lula da Silva received more than 60 million votes, the most in Brazilian history, breaking his own record from 2006.

But despite the huge turnout from his supporters, his victory was by a narrow margin – Lula da Silva won 50.90% of the vote and Bolsonaro received 49.10%, according to Brazil’s electoral authority.

His biggest challenge now may be unifying a politically fractured country.

Hours after the results were announced, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat or make any public statement. Meanwhile, videos on social media showed his supporters had blocked highways in two states to protest against Lula da Silva’s victory.

“We will only leave once the army takes over the country,” one unidentified Bolsonaro supporter said in a video taken in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

Lula da Silva will need to pursue dialogue and rebuild relationships, said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper, a university in São Paulo. “The president can be an important instrument for this as long as he is not only concerned in addressing his base of voters,” he said.

With more than 58 million votes cast for his rival Bolsonaro – who had been endorsed by former US President Donald Trump – Lula da Silva will have to form “pragmatic alliances” with parts of the center and the right that bought into his predecessor’s politics, adds Thiago Amparo, professor of law and human rights at FGV business school in São Paulo.

At the same time, he will have to deliver to match supporters’ expectations, Amparo added. “Many voters went to the ballot expecting that, not just to get rid of Bolsonaro, but with memories of better economic times during Lula’s previous governments.”

Many will be watching for potential change to the 2017 Labor Reform Act, which subjected more workers’ rights and benefits to negotiation with employers, and made union contributions optional. Lula da Silva had said previously that he would revoke the act but recently changed the verb to “review” following criticisms from the private sector.

He may find that enacting his agenda is an uphill battle, Amparo warns, especially with a hostile Congress. Seats that were from the traditional right are now occupied by the far right, who are not open to negotiation and not easy to deal with, underlines Amparo.

In the latest elections, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party increased its representatives in the lower house from 76 to 99, while in the Senate it doubled from seven members to 14. Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party has also increased its number of deputies from 56 to 68 and senators from seven to eight – but overall, conservative-leaning politicians will dominate the next legislature.

That friction will require some compromises, points out Camila Rocha, a political scientist at the Cebrap think tank. “[Bolsonaro’s] Liberal Party will have the highest number of representatives and important allies and will make real opposition to the government, [Lula da Silva’s] Worker’s Party will have to sow a coalition with [traditional rightwing party] União Brasil in order to govern, which means the negotiation of ministries and key positions,” Rocha told to CNN.

Environmentalists meanwhile will be watching Lula da Silva’s administration closely, as it assumes governance not only over the Brazilian nation but over the planet’s largest forest reserves.

With destruction of the vast Amazon rainforest reaching record levels under Bolsonaro’s presidency, Lula da Silva has repeatedly said during his campaign that he would seek to curb deforestation. He has argued that protecting the forest could produce some profit, citing the beauty and pharmaceutical industries as potential beneficiaries of biodiversity.

In an interview with foreign press in August, Lula da Silva called for “a new world governance” to address climate change and stressed that Brazil should take a central role in that governance, given its natural resources.

According to the head of Lula da Silva’s government plan, Aloizio Mercadante, another tactic will be to create a group including Brazil, Indonesia and Congo ahead of the UN-led November 2022 Conference of Parties. The group would aim to pressure richer countries to finance the protection of forests as well as outlining strategies for the global carbon market.

Several experts told CNN they believed his stance on environment and the climate issue could represent a fresh start in Brazil’s international relations.

For Amparo, environmental protection could indeed be springboard for Brazil’s global leadership, a major shift after Bolsonaro warned the world away from intervening in the destruction of the Amazon. “Lula would try to reposition, almost like a rebranding, Brazil in the international arena as a power to be taken into account,” he said.

“We can expect a government that goes back to talking to the world, especially with a new stance in the environmental area,” said Melo, the Insper researcher.

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October 30, 2022
Hurricane Roslyn makes landfall in Mexico with ‘life-threatening storm surge’ | CNN

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CNN
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Hurricane Roslyn slammed into west-central Mexico on Sunday morning, “bringing damaging winds, a life-threatening storm surge and flooding rains,” forecasters said.

Roslyn made landfall around 7:20 a.m. ET near Santa Cruz in northern Nayarit state.

The major hurricane whipped maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. A “major hurricane” is one that has maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

As of 8 a.m. ET Sunday, Roslyn was about 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of Tepic, Mexico. It was moving north-northeast at 26 kph (16 mph).

CNN Weather

“Roslyn is expected to produce a life-threatening storm surge with significant coastal flooding in areas of onshore winds through today,” the hurricane center said Sunday.

“Near the coast, the surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” forecasters said. And swells are likely to cause “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.”

CNN Weather

But there’s a bit of good news for residents who live inland. “Now that Roslyn has made landfall, rapid weakening is expected as the hurricane moves farther inland,” the hurricane center said.

Roslyn formed off the western coast of Mexico and its sustained wind speed increased by 60 mph in a 24-hour period from Friday to Saturday morning – a rapid intensification.

The hurricane has been tracking similarly to Hurricane Orlene, which made landfall October 3 just north of the Nayarit-Sinaloa border.

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October 23, 2022
Opinion: Half-Earth Day is not a celebration, but a warning | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Lydia Strohl is a freelance writer in Washington, DC. More of her work can be found here. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the author. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN
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When I first learned that October 22 marks Half-Earth Day, I thought it was because the date is six months to Earth Day. (True.) But it’s got a message all its own.

Half-Earth is the notion that for humans to survive, we must retain earth’s waning biodiversity by reserving half the planet for nature, stabilizing large swaths of ocean, prairie, rainforest and desert to house the birds, insects and ecosystems that affect the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe. Not to mention the economies, cultures and past-times that sustain us.

The Half-Earth Project was inspired by legendary Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, who died in 2021 at the age of 92. In “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life,” Wilson wrote: “We would be wise to find our way as quickly as possible out of the fever swamp of dogmatic religious belief and inept philosophical thought through which we still wander. Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.”

This means us, people, who Wilson calls a “lucky accident of primate evolution during the late Pleistocene.”

Not a particularly happy accident, perhaps, for Planet Earth. Since 1970, the global population has doubled to nearly 8 billion. And in those five decades, monitored wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69%, warns the recent Living Planet Report, World Wildlife Fund’s study of the abundance of species worldwide (select vertebrate species; others are difficult to track). Freshwater populations have been hit the hardest, declining 83% over this time period. One million plant and animal species, out of the estimated 8 million out there, are in danger of extinction.

It is time to change our ways, from using to stewarding earth’s resources. People cannot thrive at the expense of nature. Latin America has seen a whopping 94% decline in species populations. Meanwhile, deforestation for crops and cattle, legal and illegal mining and logging, development, and devastating wildfires have contributed to a 20% loss of the Amazon rainforest – an area the size of France. This doesn’t just affect the 350 indigenous communities and untold species of plants, animals and insects living there, but all of us, as the 400 billion trees that make up the Amazon rainforest produce an estimated 6% of earth’s oxygen.

What makes humans more comfortable on earth now threatens the planet: energy, food production, growth in housing and commercial development. These are all systems Wilson believed we need to rethink. But just as the problem lies with us, so does the solution.

To move people to action, Jennifer Morris, CEO of The Nature Conservancy, thinks it’s important to talk about what matters to them, citing health care, clean air and jobs. Morris spoke at a recent Half-Earth Day conference hosted by Smithsonian Institution and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, bringing together government, community, corporate and conservation stakeholders like The Nature Conservancy, Audubon, and supporters like the Bezos Earth Fund. “Governments aren’t going to move until people move,” Morris said.

The problems are thorny, however: even high-minded efforts can provoke Mother Nature. “The biggest threat to forests in Virginia is solar,” Morris said, referring to clean energy projects slated to take out thousands of acres of trees. “We can be smart where we put solar and wind … in a way that doesn’t undermine biodiversity,” Morris added.

The Half-Earth Project looks at growth through the lens of nature, with tools that map richness and rarity in wildlife populations as well as human pressures and existing protections, hoping to inform both preservation and development. I dial their online map down to my community, close to the screaming orange urban mass of Washington, DC, but dotted with green conservation areas established by both public and private authorities.

The E.O Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory – located in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, which was once decimated by civil war and other human ills – provides a blueprint not only for rebuilding biodiversity but also training new biologists and conservationists. The Half-Earth project also involves indigenous communities – which have traditionally balanced human needs with nature – in their programs, bringing together past and present, to work together towards a durable plan for our future.

While the first Earth Day took place in 1970 to celebrate conservation efforts, Half-Earth Day is more of a caution. Whatever your beliefs on climate change, this much is clear. We’re losing whitetip sharks and harpy eagles, the inspiration for ‘Fawkes’ in the Harry Potter films. Gone are the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent whose habitat, food source and nesting sites were eradicated by storms and unprecedented flooding. You may never see a pink dolphin, but the interplay of plant, animal and insect species sustains us.

Attacking a problem of this scale requires all of us – from those seated in governments and board rooms to our own kitchen tables – to come together. Too often, “solutions” whipsaw between administrations with their own political agendas. “Meanwhile, we thrash about, appallingly led, with no particular goal in mind other than economic growth, unfettered consumption, good health, and personal happiness,” Wilson wrote. He placed his faith in nature, and we should too.

“We need to listen to what the birds are telling us. We’ve lost three billion birds in my lifetime,” says Audubon CEO Elizabeth Grey, who is in her 50s. “Birds are sentinels for healthy land and water – if birds are in trouble, people are too.”

The canary is singing. Listen, before its voice is stilled.

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October 22, 2022
Opinion: For years, I was insulated from the effects of climate change. Evacuating my home was a rude awakening | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This essay is part of the CNN Opinion series “America’s Future Starts Now,” in which people share how they have been affected by the biggest issues facing the nation and experts offer their proposed solutions. Katherine Keel is a former Division 1 swimmer who moved to Colorado shortly after graduating from the University of North Carolina with a journalism degree. She is currently training to be a paramedic. The views expressed in this commentary are hers. View more opinion at CNN.

CNN
—

The first time I was evacuated was the summer of 2018. I crammed the last of my stuff into the back of the truck and looked across the street. Flames crested the top of the hill, licking the sky and threatening to descend on the community below. Strong gusts of wind rattled my blinds, and cars pulled over on the side of the road to watch the nightmarish scene. It was the 4th of July, but that year no one was celebrating.

Climate change has played a significant role in my daily life since moving to the mountain town of Basalt, Colorado, five years ago. Major roads close regularly due to flooding and mudslides, cutting off our town from the resources of the city. Most summers, smoke inhalation is an inevitable part of recreating outdoors, and it’s become commonplace to check the air quality index daily to see if it’s safe.

I’ve taken up fly fishing as a hobby, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife advises anglers to refrain from fishing when the water temperature in our rivers hits 67 degrees – as it places high stress on the fish. Tourism is down when snow totals are low in the winter, which affects a major source of income for my rural community.

And then there are the wildfires.

I remember my eyes were glued to the rearview mirror as I drove away from my house on July 4, 2018. Eerie orange flames seemed to grow taller and taller on the hillside behind me. The smoke hung heavy in the air the next morning, stinging my eyes and making it hard to breathe – even with a mask – as I walked into the grocery store. There was a somber tone in the valley, and a very palpable fear in everyone’s eyes.

While my home was spared, there have been wildfires in the area nearly every summer since 2018 that remind me just how treacherous climate change can be.

We’ve all heard scientists and experts warn of the dangers of a warming world. From as far back as I can remember, I’ve been taught and encouraged to recycle, pick up trash and conserve water. From the Earth Day parades in elementary school, to the “reuse, reduce, recycle” trends of recent years, I’ve always been a big proponent of protecting the planet. But it didn’t really hit home until more recently.

I lived in a city for most of my life and, for many years, I felt largely immune to climate change. While I knew it was happening, I was protected from the immediate impacts. I’d turn on the TV and see climate disasters happening all over the world, and yet my daily life was largely uninterrupted.

That changed pretty soon after I moved to the mountains and had to evacuate from the Lake Christine Fire. While the fire was started by incendiary ammunition, my town, like much of the state, was experiencing severe drought conditions that propelled the fire across 12,000 acres with dried grass, brush and trees as kindling.

As a community, we rallied. We supported the firefighters and first responders day in and day out, from making sandwiches to providing housing and everything in between. I’d only lived in the Roaring Fork Valley for a year but felt deeply connected to my community in a way that was surprising. Tragedy will create bonds, regardless of background, ethnicity or political affiliation. The question is how much more we can take before we speak up, take action and demand more from our elected officials.

And it’s not just me, or my small town in Colorado. Extreme weather events are becoming more commonplace in every corner of the globe. This summer, an intense heat wave in Europe set record high temperatures, and fires broke out in the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Greece. Ice shelves in Antarctica are crumbling faster than they can be replaced, and losses are double what was initially estimated by scientists in 1997.

Hurricane Fiona ravaged Puerto Rico before it made landfall in Canada as a severe tropical storm. Historic floods in Pakistan affected 33 million people and left a third of the country underwater. Closer to home, the Marshall Fire in Boulder was the most destructive in Colorado history in terms of structures lost.

And these are just some events from this past year.

Moving to a small town has opened my eyes to the dramatic effects of a changing world. And there are lasting reminders – more than four years later, the burn scar from the Lake Christine Fire is still visible on the landscape whenever I drive down Highway 82.

Climate change has an economic impact as well. In the 2017-2018 season, snow totals were so low that our mountains couldn’t fully open all of the ski runs, and many employees who worked in hospitality were forced to take a two week “mandatory vacation.”

Climate change has become an undeniable fact of life in this area, and our safety, livelihoods and wellbeing are at stake.

Unfortunately, if we continue the way we’re headed … it’s just the beginning.

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October 21, 2022
How the Gandhis went from ‘Kennedys of India’ to the political wilderness | CNN

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CNN
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He has about 2,500 kilometers to go until his journey is complete. But the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister appears determined.

Dressed head-to-toe in white, Rahul Gandhi is walking 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) across India to meet voters and revive interest in the Indian National Congress, a once powerful political party now struggling to win votes.

Each leg is documented on live feeds and social media, but Gandhi is no longer the party leader – and won’t be taking his followers to the next national election in 2024.

That will be down to Mallikarjun Kharge, a Congress veteran, who was appointed to the top role on Wednesday, in a move that means for the first time in more than 20 years the party will be led by someone other than a Gandhi.

That a Gandhi is not going to be the face of India’s oldest political unit is almost unthinkable to many – a member of the family has been in charge of it for 40 out of its 75 years of independence, and involved in the leadership for much of the other 35 years.

But analysts say as the country shifts into a new era, riding on a wave of right-wing, nationalist politics, the family and the Congress has little significance in the country’s political present, driven in part by numerous corruption scandals and mismanagement within the party.

“The Gandhis today are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by Narendra Modi,” said New Delhi-based political commentator Arati R. Jerath.

“It’s hard to predict the future, but for a family that ruled much of independent India, it is unlikely we will see a Gandhi leader of the country again.”

As a powerful political dynasty, some have likened the Gandhis to the Kennedys, having for decades carefully navigated a series of personal tragedies alongside a tough power balancing act.

The family doesn’t take its name from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the country’s famed independence leader.

Instead, they are the descendants of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was instrumental in the country’s independence movement from British rule and in 1947 became its first prime minister. Nehru’s daughter Indira adopted the Gandhi name through her marriage to Feroze Gandhi, another party member unrelated to its leader.

Indira would later succeed her father, before handing the leadership to her son, Rajiv. Later, his wife, Sonia Gandhi, and son, Rahul, would take over.

Nehru ruled for 17 years after independence from British rule, ushering India into a new era after its bloody partition, that led to the creation of Pakistan, caused the deaths of 2 million people and uprooted an estimated 15 million more.

Nehru united the impoverished nation by planting the seeds for decades of economic, social and political development.

“He was part of the freedom struggle, and so he wanted to ensure that India reach her potential and grow,” Jerath said. “He wanted to lead his people into a brave new world.”

Throughout his time in power Nehru promoted democracy and secularism, invested in science and technology, built leading educational institutes, and promoted gender equality in the deeply patriarchal country.

When he died while in office on May 28, 1964, tributes poured in from all over the world. Two years later, his daughter, Indira Gandhi (who adopted her husband’s last name), would fill his shoes as the country’s first – and so far only – female prime minister.

Groomed for the position from an early age, Indira Gandhi was considered an astute, strong-willed, and to some, autocratic leader.

She was elected prime minister from 1966 to 1977, and again in 1980. But her years in office were marked with both personal tragedy – her son Sanjay died shortly into her second stint – and turbulence, owing, in part, to a war with Pakistan, droughts, famine and an economic crisis.

Faced with growing discontent, Indira Gandhi proclaimed a controversial state of emergency in India for 21 months in 1975 – suspending basic liberties, imposing press censorship and imprisoning opposition members.

Her years in power came to a tragic climax when, on October 31, 1984, she was shot dead at her home in New Delhi by her Sikh bodyguards, four months after she ordered Indian troops to storm the Golden Temple – one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines – to flush out separatists.

“The mood of the nation changed following the assassination,” said Rasheed Kidwai, author of “Sonia, A Biography” and visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. “But the tragic part of it is, it has a law of diminishing returns. These days, not a lot of our young children know of the sacrifices and tough decisions that were made by her.”

Indira Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, took over from her after her death.

Known as the “unwilling” prime minister who never wanted the job, Rajiv Gandhi became the youngest leader at the age of 40. But he served less than a decade, losing the 1989 general election following a corruption scandal, and was assassinated two years later by the Sri Lankan separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

During his tenure, he signed peace accords with insurgent groups in states where religious tensions were high, and is credited for developing India’s science and technology sectors, giving him the moniker “Father of Information and Technology.”

With no Gandhi at the helm, and the emergence of the BJP in the 1990s, the Congress struggled. In the years that followed, India’s leadership swung between parties.

It wasn’t until Rajiv’s Italian-born widow, Sonia, took over as leader of the Congress in 1998 that they made a political comeback.

Six years later, she led the party to victory in the general election – but stopped short of taking the top position and instead appointed economist Manmohan Singh as prime minister.

But with the ascendance of a new wave of right-wing politics, their party now lurks in the political wilderness, analysts say. In 2014, Modi was elected prime minister with a roaring majority.

“(The Gandhis) exude the tragic glamor of the Kennedys,” said Jerath, the political commentator. “This was a family that built India’s education, health care and technology institutions. Their legacy is still felt today.”

On July 3, 2019, following a humiliating and crushing defeat in the Indian general election, Rahul Gandhi publicly resigned as leader of the Congress.

Modi’s BJP had just won a historic majority in the lower house of parliament, cementing the antithesis to Gandhi’s Congress as the most formidable political force in Indian politics in decades.

“Modi has perfected the narrative that the Gandhis are the liberal elite, the dynasty that shouldn’t be in power,” said Kidwai, the author. “And as the country shifts towards the right, his politics are proving tremendously popular.”

The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group that are adherents of Hindutva ideology – to make India the land of the Hindus.

Nearly 80% of the country’s 1.3 billion people are Hindus, and analysts say Modi’s populist politics appeal to the masses.

“India is changing. As democracy has deepened, we have seen the rise of a new class of people – and this class really is not schooled in the Nehruvian principles of democracy,” Jerath said. “They are willing to buy into Hindutva politics of the Modi-led BJP. And this is something that this generation of the Gandhis have not been able to counter.”

Moreover, analysts point to decades of infighting and mismanagement within the Congress party, that have weakened its position in the country. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have also been accused of corruption – allegations they deny.

The second term of the last Congress prime minister to govern India was riddled with allegations of corruption and bribery scandals running into tens of millions of dollars.

Modi’s humble beginnings as the son of a tea seller, versus the Gandhis’ privileged and Western-influenced upbringing, also makes him more relatable to an emerging middle-class population, Jerath said. Nehru, like Rajiv and Rahul, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His daughter, Indira, at Oxford University.

“Rahul Gandhi kept looking for success but it was rather elusive,” Kidwai said. “That’s why he’s taken on a different role and gone on this campaign across the country.”

As Rahul Gandhi continues on his journey to unite the country, he may succeed in rebuilding the image of the Congress. But it seems unlikely he will ever become prime minister of the country, like his father, grandmother and great-grandfather before him. He never married and has no children. His sister, Priyanka, also a member of the party, has two young children – but it is unclear if they will ever foray into political life.

All eyes will be on the next leader, as he attempts to get enough votes to unseat Modi in 2024.

“Modi certainly has a grip on power,” Jerath said. “But if the Congress can get their act together, then we may just see a comeback.”

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October 19, 2022
Billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the waters around Alaska. Scientists say overfishing is not the cause | CNN

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CNN
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The Alaska snow crab harvest has been canceled for the first time ever after billions of the crustaceans have disappeared from the cold, treacherous waters of the Bering Sea in recent years.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries and North Pacific Fishery Management Council announced last week that the population of snow crab in the Bering Sea fell below the regulatory threshold to open up the fishery.

But the actual numbers behind that decision are shocking: The snow crab population shrank from around 8 billion in 2018 to 1 billion in 2021, according to Benjamin Daly, a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially,” Daly told CNN. “So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies.”

The Bristol Bay red king crab harvest will also be closed for the second year in a row, the agencies announced.

Officials cited overfishing as their rationale for canceling the seasons. Mark Stichert, the groundfish and shellfish fisheries management coordinator with the state’s fish and game department, said that more crab were being fished out of the oceans than could be naturally replaced.

“So there were more removals from the population than there were inputs,” Stichert explained at Thursday’s meeting.

Between the surveys conducted in 2021 and 2022, he said, mature male snow crabs declined about 40%, with an estimated 45 million pounds left in the entire Bering Sea.

“It’s a scary number, just to be clear,” Stichert said.

But calling the Bering Sea crab population “overfished” – a technical definition that triggers conservation measures – says nothing about the cause of its collapse.

“We call it overfishing because of the size level,” Michael Litzow, the Kodiak lab director for NOAA Fisheries, told CNN. “But it wasn’t overfishing that caused the collapse, that much is clear.”

Litzow says human-caused climate change is a significant factor in the crabs’ alarming disappearance.

Snow crabs are cold-water species and found overwhelmingly in areas where water temperatures are below 2 degrees Celsius, Litzow says. As oceans warm and sea ice disappears, the ocean around Alaska is becoming inhospitable for the species.

“There have been a number of attribution studies that have looked at specific temperatures in the Bering Sea or Bering Sea ice cover in 2018, and in those attribution studies, they’ve concluded that those temperatures and low-ice conditions in the Bering sea are a consequence of global warming,” Litzow said.

Temperatures around the Arctic have warmed four times faster than the rest of the planet, scientists have reported. Climate change has triggered a rapid loss in sea ice in the Arctic region, particularly in Alaska’s Bering Sea, which in turn has amplified global warming.

“Closing the fisheries due to low abundance and continuing research are the primary efforts to restore the populations at this point,” Ethan Nichols, an assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, told CNN.

Stichert also said that there might be some “optimism for the future” as a few, small juvenile snow crabs are starting to appear in the system. But it could be at least three to four more years before they hit maturity and contribute to the regrowth of the population.

“It is a glimmer of optimism,” Litzow said. “That’s better than not seeing them, for sure. We get a little bit warmer every year and that variability is higher in Arctic ecosystems and high latitude ecosystems, and so if we can get a cooler period that would be good news for snow crab.”

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October 16, 2022
Vancouver’s air quality affected as several wildfires rage | CNN

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CNN
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Wildfires burning in British Columbia and Washington state have triggered an air quality advisory for metro Vancouver, according to a Metro Vancouver district press release.

The smoke is contributing to high concentrations of fine particulate matter in the area, which pose the greatest risk to health, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Local Canadian officials have urged residents to “postpone or reduce outdoor physical activity while PM 2.5 concentrations are high, especially if breathing feels uncomfortable.”

United States Environmental Protection Agency

Fine particulate matter, also known as PM 2.5, refers to airborne solid or liquid droplets with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less, the press release explained. That’s 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, according to the US EPA. PM 2.5 can easily penetrate indoors because of its small size, according to the press release.

Stagnant weather conditions are forecast to persist for at least the next few days, according to Vancouver officials, meaning the air quality is also not likely to change.

“Smoke concentrations may vary widely across the region as winds and temperatures change, and as wildfire behaviour changes,” the Metro Vancouver press release said.

There are currently nine active wildfires in Washington, according to a Friday update from Northwest Interagency Coordination Center. This includes the Cedar Creek Fire, which is 40% contained. It has burned 122,794 acres since it began on August 1, according to the Incident Information System.

There is also smoke from a wildfire on Cypress Mountain, a popular ski area in West Vancouver, “contributing to hazy conditions already being experienced in Metro Vancouver,” said the press release.

Due to unseasonably warm and dry conditions, Metro Vancouver officials have also extended lawn watering restrictions from Saturday until October 31 in order to better conserve the region’s drinking water,” according to a Metro Vancouver water conservation advisory.

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October 15, 2022
After Hurricane Ian left Cuba in the dark, protestors took to the streets. Now the government is set to charge them | CNN

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CNN
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Protestors in Cuba who have been taking to the streets after Hurricane Ian damaged the island’s already faltering power grid could face criminal charges, Cuba’s Attorney General’s office said Saturday.

In a note published in the island’s communist party newspaper, Granma, prosecutors said they were investigating cases of arson and vandalism of state property, streets closures and “insults to officials and forces of order.”

Additionally, parents of minors who take part in the protests could face charges of child endangerment, according to the note.

Anti-government protests are usually quickly broken up by police in Cuba, but after Hurricane Ian worsened the island’s critical power shortages, Cubans across the island have taken to the streets to complain.

After forming in the Southern Caribbean Sea, Hurricane Ian made landfall late last month as a Category 3 hurricane in Cuba just southwest of La Coloma in the western Pinar del Rio province.

The hurricane’s fierce winds and rain left at least three people dead, state media said, and knocked out power to the entire island.

Two of the deaths occurred in Pinar del Rio, where a woman died after a wall collapsed on her and a man died after his roof fell on him, state media said.

The state-run National Electric System turned off power in Havana to avoid electrocutions, deaths and property damage until the weather improved. But the nationwide blackouts were caused by the storm and were not planned.

The storm exacerbated an economic crisis that has been gripping Cuba, leading to shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Blackouts across the island were regular all summer, which led to rare scattered protests against the government. Those protests picked up after the hurricane made life harder for Cubans already struggling.

Often at night, protestors in cities and towns have banged on pots and pans, angry at government power cuts. Some protestors have called for electrical service to be restored while others have demanded that Cuban leaders step down.

The recent protests have not reached the scale as those of July 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets demanding change, in the largest anti-government demonstrations since the 1959 revolution.

After days of power cuts by the government last year, residents in the small city of San Antonio de los Baños ran out of patience. On July 11, 2021, they took to the streets in a moment of rare public dissent on the island.

Cubans across the nation were able to live stream and view in real time the unfolding protests in San Antonio de los Baños – and join in.

Almost immediately thousands of other Cubans were demonstrating. Some complained the lack of food and medicines, others denounced high-ranking officials and called for greater civil liberties. The unprecedented protests spread to small cities and towns.

While Cuban officials have long blamed US sanctions for the island’s woes, protestors during the summer of 2021 raged squarely against their own government for their worsening living conditions.

In a speech on state-run TV, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel blamed the island’s economic problems on US sanctions, said the protests were the result of a subversion campaign directed from abroad and called on Cubans loyal to the revolution to take back the streets. The state cracked down.

Cuban prosecutors said this summer that close to 500 people were convicted and sentenced in connection with the protests, in the largest mass trials on the island in decades. Prison terms ranged between four and 30 years for crimes that included sedition.

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October 15, 2022
What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste | CNN Business

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CNN Business
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In the past two months, Apple, Google and Samsung have all unveiled their newest smartphones and other devices with the goal of getting consumers to upgrade ahead of the holidays. But in the process, these and other companies may also be adding to a growing problem: electronic waste.

The limited lifespan of many tech gadgets combined with few options to fix older devices, have caused the issue of e-waste to surge over the years. United Nation’s data indicates the world generated a staggering 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste in 2019, and only 17.4% of that was recycled.

Friday marks International E-Waste Day, an annual opportunity to reflect on the impacts of electronic waste and do more to repair or recycle them. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEE) Forum, a Brussels-based nonprofit that has spearheaded the occasion since 2018, said the focus this year is on taking action with the small bits of e-waste many people may unintentionally hoard, including your old cell phone, headphones, remote controls and computer mouse.

“People tend not to realize that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes,” Pascal Leroy, director general of the WEEE Forum, said in a statement.

The issue of e-waste is about much more than just cleaning out space in your junk drawers.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says large swaths of e-waste are shipped to developing countries that lack the capacity to reject these imports or infrastructure to safely recycle them. The World Health Organization also warned that children, with their smaller hands, are often used to process mountains of e-waste in developing nations in search of valuable elements such as copper, silver, palladium and more. The WHO said more than 18 million children are exposed to a range of negative health impacts as they engage in this informal e-waste processing industry.

Here are a few steps you can take with the phones, laptops and chargers you have stashed at home to alleviate the e-waste burden.

If you live in an area that offers e-waste disposal services (either via specific pickup dates or at a drop-off location), experts say that’s among the easiest and most intuitive ways to clear out old gadgets.

Various coalitions have emerged in recent years to give consumers the option to responsibly dispose of devices. The e-Stewards group and Sustainable Electronics Recycling International each offer online tools to find recycling centers that they have certified.

The collective impact of recycling e-waste can be staggering. For every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, the EPA says 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.

But not all municipalities in the US offer infrastructure for e-waste recycling.

If you can’t find a recycling center nearby, a growing list of major retailers — including Staples and Best Buy — also have programs that let customers bring in e-waste for recycling. And many producers, including Apple

(AAPL), have programs that offer credits or free recycling in exchange for trading-in used gadgets. Google

(GOOG), for example, offers an option to request a free shipping label to mail in some used gadgets and electronics for recycling.

Environmental advocates say the most important step to tackling the mounting e-waste problem is simply to try and use your electronics for as long as possible. In some ways, that’s getting easier than ever.

While tech manufacturers have come under fire for tactics aimed at making you upgrade, policymakers have recently enacted changes to push companies to make it easier for customers to repair consumer electronics and support the rise of the Right-to-Repair movement.

Earlier this year, Apple and Samsung launched their self-service repair stores, offering parts for users seeking do-it-yourself fixes for their smartphones. Google similarly announced it would offer genuine Pixel parts for DIY-ers at an online store this year.

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October 14, 2022
High levels of toxic chemical found in sports bras, watchdog warns | CNN Business

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CNN Business
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New testing on a variety of popular branded sports bras and athletic wear has revealed high levels of BPA, a chemical compound that’s used to make certain types of plastic and can lead to harmful health effects such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and obesity.

Sports bras sold by Athleta, PINK, Asics, The North Face, Brooks, All in Motion, Nike, and FILA were all tested for BPA in the past six months, and the results showed the clothing could expose wearers to up to 22 times the safe limit of BPA, based on standards set in California, according to the Center for Environmental Health. The CEH, which conducted the testing, is a non-profit consumer advocacy group focused on exposing the presence of toxic chemicals in consumer products.

Under California law — specifically Proposition 65, enacted in 1986 — the maximum allowable dose level for BPA via skin exposure is 3 micrograms per day.

The group also tested athletic shirts from brands that included The North Face, Brooks, Mizuno, Athleta, New Balance, and Reebok and found similar results.

The CEH said Wednesday it has sent legal notices to the companies, which will have 60 days to work with the center to remedy the violations before the group files a complaint in California state court requiring them to do so.

To date, the watchdog said its investigations have found BPA only in polyester-based clothing containing spandex. “We want brands to reformulate their products to remove all bisphenols including BPA. In the interim, we recommend limiting the time you spend in your activewear by changing after your workout,” the group said.

Athleta, Nike, Reebok, The North Face and Victoria’s Secret (which owns PINK) did not immediately provide a comment.

BPA (Bisphenol A) is found in a large number of everyday products, from water bottles and canned foods to toys and flooring. In adults, exposure to BPA has been linked to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity and erectile dysfunction.

Premature death was also associated with BPA exposure, a 2020 study found. More recently, BPA has also been linked to asthma in school-age girls.

“People are exposed to BPA through ingestion, from eating food or drinking water from containers that have leached BPA, or by absorption through skin,” Kaya Allan Sugerman, CEH’s illegal toxic threats program director, said in a statement.

“Studies have shown that BPA can be absorbed through skin and end up in the bloodstream after handling receipt paper for seconds or a few minutes at a time. Sports bras and athletic shirts are worn for hours at a time, and you are meant to sweat in them, so it is concerning to be finding such high levels of BPA in our clothing,” Allan Sugerman said.

Over the past year, the group has asked more than 90 companies, including Walgreens and socks and sleepwear brand Hypnotic Hats, to reformulate their products to remove all bisphenols, including BPA. Some have already agreed to do so.

“Even low levels of exposure [to BPA] during pregnancy have been associated with a variety of health problems in offspring,” said Dr. Jimena Díaz Leiva, science director with CEH.

Although CEH litigates under California’s Clean Drinking Water and Toxics Enforcement Act of 1986, it says the repercussions of its settlements extend beyond California “as it is most often economically infeasible for companies to reformulate for just the California market.”

“Our legal action has been successful in pushing entire industries to remove certain chemicals from products like children’s candy or toys,” the group said in a statement to CNN Business. “These cases not only serve to protect California consumers but also consumers throughout the country.”

– CNN’s Sandee LaMotte contributed to this story

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October 13, 2022
Facing risk of blackouts this winter, the UK will drill for more oil | CNN Business

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CNN Business
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The UK government could award oil and gas companies more than 100 new licenses to drill in the North Sea, as it looks for ways to bolster energy security amid a global supply crunch.

Launched Friday, the licensing round won’t lead to new UK production for several years. And when drilling does begin, Britain will still be dependent on energy imports, according to the government, leaving it vulnerable to soaring prices and supply disruptions of the kind that threaten blackouts this winter.

UK utilities company National Grid

(NGG) warned Thursday that households and businesses could be left without power for up to three hours at a time in a worst-case scenario of very cold weather, low levels of wind, gas shortages and an inability to import electricity from Europe. It said it would take steps to mitigate the risk, including bringing old coal-fired power stations back online if necessary.

Starting November 1, National Grid will also offer financial incentives to customers to reduce power consumption at peak times.

Kathryn Porter, an energy consultant at Watt-Logic, told CNN Business that National Grid was still underestimating the risks to supply, but that blackouts for households were unlikely because it could disconnect large energy users at peak times if necessary.

The latest licensing round won’t improve the immediate supply picture and could face a legal challenge from environmental activists. Greenpeace said that new oil and gas licenses were “potentially unlawful” and that it would be looking for ways to act.

“New oil and gas licenses won’t lower energy bills for struggling families this winter or any winter soon nor provide energy security in the medium term,” Philip Evans, energy transition campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said in a statement.

“New licenses — and more importantly more fossil fuels — solve neither of those problems but will make the climate crisis even worse,” he added.

Analysis by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the regulator that grants licenses, shows the average time between discovery of oil and gas deposits and first production is close to five years, though that lag is “falling.”

In a statement on Friday, the NSTA said it will prioritize areas in the southern North Sea that can be developed quickly and where gas has already been discovered. Companies have until January 12 to apply for licenses, with permits expected to be issued as soon as the second quarter of 2023.

The NSTA said the licensing round has been subject to a “climate compatibility check” to ensure it aligns with the UK government’s commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. It added that producing gas domestically has a much lower carbon footprint than importing it from abroad.

The International Energy Agency said last year that investment in new fossil fuel supply projects, including drilling for oil and gas, must stop immediately if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

The UK government set out plans earlier this year to generate 95% of Britain’s electricity from low carbon sources by 2030. The plan, which allows drilling for oil and gas, will also ramp up nuclear power and wind energy.

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October 7, 2022
Sanibel Island residents return to see if their homes survived devastating Hurricane Ian as Biden surveys damage | CNN

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Residents of Florida’s Sanibel Island are warned they could be shocked when they return by boat Wednesday to their hard-hit community to set eyes for the first time on the devastation wrought a week ago by Hurricane Ian whose damage zone President Joe Biden is also due to visit today.

“It is going to be emotional when they see their properties up close and the amount of damage that this storm inflicted upon them,” City Manager Dana Souza told CNN of how residents and business owners may react on Sanibel Island, where Ian wiped out parts of the causeway, severing its connection to the mainland.

The opening of Sanibel to residents comes the same day President Joe Biden is visiting Florida to see Ian’s destruction first-hand. The President, who received an aerial tour of the damage in Fort Myers, was also briefed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida officials on the response to the storm and recovery efforts.

“Today we have one job and only one job,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “That’s to make sure the people of Florida get everything that they need to fully, thoroughly recover.”

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At least 110 people have been reported killed as a result of the storm – 105 of them in Florida and five in North Carolina. And it’s not clear how many people are still missing as officials work to compile a list of those who remain unaccounted for, Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Monday.

More than 1,000 search and rescue personnel have combed through 79,000 structures across the Sunshine State, DeSantis told reporters Tuesday, with more than 2,300 rescues logged.

Statewide, about 290,000 customers still have no power Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us, many of them in hard-hit Lee and Charlotte counties. Many schools also remain shuttered, some hospitals are still struggling to provide care, and boil-water notices remain in place in some areas.

DeSantis toured the damage on Sanibel Wednesday for the first time. “You can go over it in a helicopter and you see damage, but it does not do it justice until you are actually on the ground, and you see concrete utility poles sawed off right in half, massive power lines everywhere, massive amounts of debris,” he said.

As Sanibel Island residents access their properties, the area is still “extremely unsafe,” Mayor Holly Smith said. And houses that look fine from the outside may prove to be too damaged to live in.

Wednesday was the first time Julie Emig, 64, and Vicki Paskaly, 68, returned to their home on the island. The couple – who have been married since 2020, but together since 1992 – bought their “dream home” two years ago and initially evacuated thinking they would be gone for just three days.

“Pulling up here we can already see the vegetation is in tatters. It’s really hitting home now,” Vicki told CNN as she and her partner pulled up to their home by boat.

The couple’s garage was full of mud. Lines on the wall show water downstairs reached about 6 feet, and on their lower level, the refrigerator was now on the counter and the kitchen island was on its side.

“It’s just gone, our beach is gone, the building’s trashed, the trees are gone, it was all so lush in there,” Paskaly said.

“It’s surreal, it’s a dream and I know we’ll wake up to a nightmare,” Emig said.

Dan and Tony Tabor were lucky. The couple returned to their Sanibel home prepared for the worst, with water, bleach and drywall cutters in tow to begin the rebuilding process.

Instead, they found it practically untouched by the storm, with the screens on their porch still in place and plants left outside still upright. If they wanted to, they said, they could spend tonight in the home. “We are so happy,” Tony Tabor said, but “I feel so guilty, because our neighbors have seen so much damage to their houses.”

Meanwhile, it could be some time before hundreds of residents of Naples, in Collier County, can get back in their homes, City Manager Jay Boodheshwar, told CNN.

“There was a significant amount of homes, in fact, an entire neighborhood was submerged at least with 3 feet of water. Some areas got 6 to 7 feet of water,” Boodheshwar said. “I would guess it’s probably hundreds of households that are going to be experiencing a period of time when they’re not going to be able to be in their homes.”

Collier County issued a mandatory curfew Wednesday beginning at midnight – Naples’ begins at 10 p.m. – and ending at 6 a.m. Thursday, according to a Facebook post from Collier County Emergency Management.

“The purpose of the curfew is to protect the safety of the citizens of Collier County and their property as they begin the process of recovering from the effects of Hurricane Ian,” the post read, adding that the curfew does not apply to emergency responders, employees at health care facilities, any essential workers that provide important services or those seeking medical assistance.

Those in violation of the curfew will be subject to a second-degree misdemeanor, the agency said.

Many homes in the once-tranquil community on Sanibel Island “are not livable,” Sanibel Fire Chief William Briscoe has said.

“There are places off their foundation, and it’s very dangerous out there,” he said previously. “There are alligators running around, and there are snakes all over the place.”

Most of the electrical poles and transmission lines remain down, along with wastewater systems, Souza said. “Without those necessary infrastructure, it is difficult to sustain a community of 7,000 people year around,” Souza added.

“It will be some time before we can resume normal life on Sanibel,” he said.

The island’s year-round population is about 7,000 people, growing to 35,000 during the high season that typically would begin in about a month, Souza said.

But it could take a month or longer just to restore power to some areas of Sanibel and Pine islands, Lee County Electric Cooperative spokesperson Karen Ryan told CNN.

“It will be much easier to restore power once we can gain access to the island,” she said.

DeSantis directed transportation authorities to prioritize the repair of the Sanibel Causeway.

“Access to our barrier islands is a priority for our first responders and emergency services who have been working day and night to bring relief to all Floridians affected by Hurricane Ian,” he said in a statement.

Pine Island residents should be able to access their community by car later Wednesday, Gov. DeSantis announced, when crews are expected to complete a temporary fix for a part of a damaged bridge washed away in the storm.

At Salty Sam’s Marina in Fort Myers, owner Darrell Hanson and many of his employees – about 120 at this time of year and up to 200 at the height of tourist season – are working to salvage what they can, some of them dealing with the loss of their livelihoods and personal property.

“In the parking lot, we must have had about 12 feet of water. Everything on the first floor was … destroyed,” said Hanson, who has so far been unable to access his own home on Sanibel Island. “All our gift stores and restaurants and everything, they’ve lost all their inventory. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that each business lost.”

“But the employees have all come together,” he said, choking back tears. “They’re all out there working their butt off.”

Employee Ty Landers, who works on a pirate cruise at the marina, rode out the storm at his family’s home in Fort Myers. Fortunately the home and his family are safe, he said.

But some of his coworkers weren’t so lucky.

“Many of our employees, even on the pirate ships, my crewmates, they lost their houses, they lost everything,” Landers told CNN. “Hopefully when the time’s right they’ll come back. But right now their lives fell apart, and they’re putting it back together.”

In Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers, public schools will be closed until further notice after several of its 22 schools were damaged by Ian.

“The storm lasted here for over 12 hours, just hammering away. Nothing is safe right now,” Charlotte County public schools spokesperson Mike Riley said.

Florida hospitals have also been struggling. Emergency departments sustained damage, staffing is impacted as hospital workers were displaced or lost their vehicles, and some facilities lost reliable access to water.

“We were ready, we had our generators all ready. We had plenty of fuel. What we couldn’t anticipate and didn’t anticipate was the loss of water from our utility companies,” said Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and CEO of Lee Health.

Many areas remain under boil water notices since the storm made landfall, damaging critical infrastructure, as well as homes.

Residents of Lee and Charlotte counties – the two counties with the highest death tolls from the hurricane – will be able to get temporary blue coverings with fiber-reinforced sheeting at no cost for their roofs to help reduce further damage, according to a Charlotte County news release.

Jessica Hernstadt, a resident of Fort Myers Beach in Lee County, said the community “looked like an apocalyptic disaster” when she made her way there after Ian slammed the shore, with cars, pots, pans and clothing littering the area.

Homes the storm tore from their foundations blocked the streets leading to her house, which she found ablaze when she arrived, she told CNN in an interview Wednesday.

Later, combing through the ashes, Hernstadt found just one item unscathed: a candlestick holder her great-grandmother carried in her pockets as she emigrated from Poland to the US.

“It was the simplest, most prized possession that I had, and it gave me a sense of hope, especially today being Yom Kippur,” she said Wednesday, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. “We will survive. Our town will survive, and there’s hope to rebuild.”

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October 5, 2022
Death toll soars to 76 in Florida after Hurricane Ian demolished entire communities | CNN

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Newly homeless Floridians are struggling to restart their lives while rescuers scramble to find any remaining signs of life among the wreckage of Hurricane Ian.

In some cases, emergency workers are juggling both unimaginable tasks.

“Some of the guys on Pine Island, they lost everything, but they’re doing what they can,” said emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who was preparing to join first responders on a rescue mission Sunday near decimated Sanibel Island and Pine Island.

“It brings tears to my eye to see how hard they’re working.”

But because Hurricane Ian washed out Sanibel Island’s lone road to mainland Florida, “we’re helicoptering in and doing our grid search,” Abo said.

More than 1,100 people have been rescued from inundated parts of southwest and central Florida since Ian crashed into the state last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office said. More than 800 were rescued in Lee County alone, Sheriff Carmine Marceno said Sunday.

But as the search for survivors continues, rescuers are also finding more bodies. Officials say Ian killed at least 76 people in Florida and four more in North Carolina.

Those lucky enough to survive face an arduous road to recovery. More than 689,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Florida still did not have power as of Sunday evening, according to PowerOutage.us. Many are without clean tap water, with well over 100 boil-water advisories in places around the state, according to Florida Health Department data.

Hurricane Ian could be the most expensive storm in Florida’s history, devastating communities from the state’s western coast to inland cities like Orlando.

While Florida has more flood insurance policies than any other state, only about 13% of homes there have flood insurance, and only 18% who live in the counties that had mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders in place ahead of Ian, according to an analysis by actuarial firm Milliman.

On Sunday, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Americans don’t have to live in a flood zone to benefit from flood insurance.

“I think anybody who lives near water should certainly purchase flood insurance because it’s your No. 1 tool to help protect your family and your home after the storm,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said.

“If you live near water or where it rains, it can certainly flood, and we have seen that (with) multiple storms this year.”

She said FEMA is in the process of updating its flood zone maps. “While in certain areas we require flood insurance, everybody has the ability to purchase flood insurance,” Criswell said

“It is certainly in your best defense to help protect your property in the aftermath of any of these storms.”

But the most severe lashing took place in southwestern coastal cities like Fort Myers and Naples, where some neighborhoods were annihilated.

“We’re flying and we’re operating in areas that are unrecognizable,” US Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brendan McPherson said.

“There’s no street signs. They don’t look like they used to look like. Buildings that were once benchmarks in the community are no longer there.”

Many of the Ian-related deaths have been reported in southwestern Florida’s Lee County, which includes Fort Myers and Sanibel Island, where at least 42 people died.

Local officials are facing criticism about whether mandatory evacuations in Lee County should have been issued sooner.

Officials there did not order evacuations until less than 24 hours before the storm made landfall, and a day after several neighboring counties issued their orders.

DeSantis defended the timing of Lee County’s orders, saying they were given as soon as the storm’s projected path shifted south, putting the area in Ian’s crosshairs.

“As soon as we saw the model shift northeast, we did exactly what we could to encourage people to” evacuate, Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane said Sunday.

“I’m just disappointed that so many people didn’t go to shelters, because they’re open.”

Ruane called the reporting about a possible delay in issuing a mandatory evacuation “inaccurate.” He said the county did what it was supposed to do, without providing any evidence that the reporting was inaccurate.

“I think the most important thing that most people need to understand is we opened up 15 shelters. During Irma there were 60,000 people in our shelters. There’s 4,000 people in the shelters right now,” Ruane said Sunday.

“Unfortunately, people did get complacent … As far as I’m concerned, the shelters were open, they had the ability, they had all day Tuesday, they had a good part of Wednesday as the storm was coming down – they had the ability to (go to a shelter).”

The US Coast Guard made plans to evacuate people from Lee County’s Pine Island on Sunday, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

In addition to the 42 deaths in Lee County, Hurricane Ian also contributed to the deaths of 12 people in Charlotte County, eight in Collier County, five in Volusia County, three in Sarasota County, two in Manatee County, and one each in Polk, Lake, Hendry and Hillsborough counties, officials said.

President Joe Biden continued to pledge federal support for Florida, saying Hurricane Ian is “likely to rank among the worst … in the nation’s history.”

The President and first lady Jill Biden are set to travel to Puerto Rico Monday to survey damage from Hurricane Fiona, then head to Florida on Wednesday.

After Hurricane Ian finished its devastating crawl over Florida, residents tried to venture back to their damaged or destroyed homes and sifted through debris.

Residents from Sanibel and Captiva islands were cut off from mainland Florida after parts of a causeway were destroyed by the storm, leaving boats and helicopters as their only exit options.

Civilian volunteers rushed to help residents on Sanibel, where some homes were obliterated.

Andy Boyle was on Sanibel Island when the hurricane hit. He said he lost his home and two cars, but feels lucky to be alive.

“A lot of people have very expensive, well-built homes on Sanibel, and they felt with their multi-million dollar homes built like fortresses, they would be fine,” he said.

Boyle was riding out the storm at home when the dining room roof collapsed. “That’s when we started to get concerned,” he said.

He described waving down National Guard aircraft the next day outside his house, and seeing the scenes of devastation around the island.

“When you go to the east end of the island, there’s just a lot of destruction. The houses surrounding the lighthouse are all gone. When you go to the west end of the island, the old restaurants up there, they’re all gone. The street going to Captiva is now a beach,” Boyle said.

In Naples, Hank DeWolf’s 4,000-pound boat dock was carried through a condo complex and is now in his neighbor’s yard. And the water brought someone’s car into his own backyard. He doesn’t know who it belongs to or how to remove it.

Another neighbor, Joanne Fisher, told CNN she’s coping with some shock in the storm’s aftermath, but she is in clean-up and salvage mode. Her oven is filled with mud, and water still spills out of the kitchen cabinets.

“I’m almost ready to cry right now talking to you,” Fisher said. “But it’s okay because we’re alive and we’re here. And that is the most important thing.”

Residents were also evacuated from the Hidden River area of Sarasota County after a compromised levee threatened to flood homes, the sheriff’s office said Saturday.

Further complicating recovery is the lack of electricity and spotty communication in impacted areas.

It could take up to a week from Sunday before power is restored in storm-damaged counties, said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of Florida Power & Light Company.

And some customers may not be back on the grid for “weeks or months” because some buildings with structural damage will need safety inspections.

In Cape Coral, just southwest of Fort Myers, 98% of the city’s power structure was “obliterated” and will need complete reconstruction, Fire Department Chief & Emergency Management Director Ryan Lamb told CNN’s Jim Acosta.

Around 65% of all power outages in Florida from the storm had been restored as of early Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us.

Florida is also working with Elon Musk and Starlink satellite to help restore communication in the state, according to DeSantis.

“They’re positioning those Starlink satellites to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas,” DeSantis said.

Emergency responders in Lee County will be among those receiving Starlink devices.

In Charlotte County, residents are “facing a tragedy” without homes, electricity or water supplies, sheriff’s office spokesperson Claudette Smith said.

“We need everything. We need all hands on deck,” Smith told CNN Friday. “The people who have come to our assistance have been tremendously helpful, but we do need everything.”

Hear why this expert believes Hurricane Ian damage could have been prevented

Hurricane Ian may have caused as much as $47 billion in insured losses in Florida, according to an estimate from property analytics firm CoreLogic. That could make it the most expensive storm in the state’s history.

After pummeling Florida, Ian made its second landfall in the US near Georgetown, South Carolina, Friday afternoon as a Category 1 hurricane.

In North Carolina, the four storm-related deaths include a man who drowned when his truck went into a flooded swamp; two people who died in separate crashes; and a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator in a closed garage, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

No deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said Saturday.

The storm has flooded homes and submerged vehicles along South Carolina’s shoreline. Two piers – one in Pawleys Island and another in North Myrtle Beach – partially collapsed as high winds pushed water even higher.

Edgar Stephens, who manages the Cherry Grove Pier in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, stood yards away as a 100-foot section from the pier’s middle crashed into the ocean.

Stephens said the Cherry Grove Pier is a staple for community members and tourists alike.

“We’re a destination,” he said, “not just a fishing pier.”

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October 2, 2022
This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage | CNN

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Anthony Grande moved away from Fort Myers three years ago in large part because of the hurricane risk. He has lived in southwest Florida for nearly 19 years, had experienced Hurricanes Charley in 2004 and Irma in 2017 and saw what stronger storms could do to the coast.

Grande told CNN he wanted to find a new home where developers prioritized climate resiliency in a state that is increasingly vulnerable to record-breaking storm surge, catastrophic wind and historic rainfall.

What he found was Babcock Ranch — only 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers, yet seemingly light years away.

Babcock Ranch calls itself “America’s first solar-powered town.” Its nearby solar array — made up of 700,000 individual panels — generates more electricity than the 2,000-home neighborhood uses, in a state where most electricity is generated by burning natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel.

The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping along roads helps control storm water. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to Florida’s robust building codes.

Some residents, like Grande, installed more solar panels on their roofs and added battery systems as an extra layer of protection from power outages. Many drive electric vehicles, taking full advantage of solar energy in the Sunshine State.

Climate resiliency was built into the fabric of the town with stronger storms in mind.

So when Hurricane Ian came barreling toward southwest Florida this week, it was a true test for the community. The storm obliterated the nearby Fort Myers and Naples areas with record-breaking surge and winds over 100 mph. It knocked out power to more than 2.6 million customers in the state, including 90% of Charlotte County.

But the lights stayed on in Babcock Ranch.

“It certainly exceeded our expectations of a major hurricane,” Grande, 58, told CNN.

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The storm uprooted trees and tore shingles from roofs, but other than that Grande said there is no major damage. Its residents say Babcock Ranch is proof that an eco-conscious and solar-powered town can withstand the wrath of a near-Category 5 storm.

“We have proof of the case now because [the hurricane] came right over us,” Nancy Chorpenning, a 68-year-old Babcock Ranch resident, told CNN. “We have water, electricity, internet — and we may be the only people in Southwest Florida who are that fortunate.”

Grande said Hurricane Ian came through southwest Florida “like a freight train.” But he wasn’t afraid that he would lose everything in a storm, like he was when he lived in Fort Myers.

“We’re very, very blessed and fortunate to not be experiencing what they’re experiencing now in Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach,” Grande said. “In the times that we’re living in right now with climate change, the beach is not the place to live or have a business.”

Syd Kitson, a former professional football player for the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, is the mastermind behind Babcock Ranch. Kitson envisioned it to be an eco-conscious and innovative neighborhood that is safe and resilient from storms like Ian.

The ranch broke ground in 2015 with the construction of the solar array — which was built and is run by Florida Power and Light — and its first residents moved into the town in 2018. Since then, the array has doubled in size and thousands of people have made Babcock their home.

“It’s a great case study to show that it can be done right, if you build in the right place and do it the right way,” said Lisa Hall, a spokesperson for Kitson, who also lives in Babcock Ranch.

“Throughout all this, there’s just so many people saying, ‘it worked, that this was the vision, this is the reason we moved here,’” Hall told CNN.

Perhaps the highest endorsement for the city is that it is now a refuge for some of Ian’s hardest-hit victims. The state opened Babcock Neighborhood School as an official shelter, even though it didn’t have the mandated generator. The solar array kept the lights on.

Some of Chorpenning’s friends who live on Sanibel Island — which is now cut off from the mainland after Ian’s devastating storm surge severed the causeway — came to shelter at a friend’s house at Babcock Ranch. It will be a while before they can go back, she said.

“They’re going to be renting a place over here for a while, while they figure out what’s going to happen out there,” she said. “I joked that we may be the only people in southwest Florida whose property value just increased.”

Even Kitson chose to ride out the storm in Babcock to see how the community would fare in the hurricane. Kitson declined CNN’s request for an interview; Hall said he is focused on helping neighboring communities rebuild.

“He was there during the storm; he said, ‘where else would I be?’” Hall said. “We built it to be resilient and as much as you plan and think you’ve done the right thing, you don’t know until you put it to the test.”

As utilities scramble to restore power across the state, Babcock residents say September storms showed that America’s energy infrastructure is not well-equipped to handle worsening extreme weather events. Hurricane Fiona ravaged Puerto Rico’s power grid when it made landfall there on September 18. Now, Ian has left millions of people in the dark in Florida.

Babcock residents say their neighborhood is a model for urban development in a climate change-ravaged future.

“It’s not what it was 20 or 25 years ago; the storms are getting bigger and bigger, and it’s no surprise, because the warnings have all been there,” Grande said. “I think Babcock Ranch’s future has gotten even brighter.”

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October 2, 2022
Colorado’s state fish swims back from brink of extinction | CNN

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The greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, was declared extinct over 50 years ago. But last week officials found the first confirmation that the trout are once again reproducing in the wild.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife discovered that the trout are naturally reproducing in Herman Gulch in Summit County, according to a news release.

The discovery serves as evidence that the department’s intensive reintroduction program has succeeded in bringing the fish back from the brink of extinction.

The species was thought to be extinct in 1937 due to pollution from mining, fishing and competition for resources with other trout, according to the news release. But in 2012, Colorado Parks and Wildlife discovered a small population of greenback cutthroat trout in Bear Creek, on the southwest edge of Colorado Springs, likely descendants of fish brought for tourists to fish.

This triggered a multi-agency effort to protect the tiny stretch of water where the endangered fish were reproducing, according to the release.

Besides protecting the trout habitat, officials also developed a captive population in a hatchery. Starting in 2016, they began releasing young greenback cutthroat trout from these captive-born populations into the wild – including in Herman Gulch.

The Herman Gulch trout are the first to reach adulthood and start reproducing on their own, the release says. There are other captive-born fledgling populations in several other basin streams, but they aren’t old enough to reproduce.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis lauded the discovery as a conservation win.

“While we will continue to stock greenback trout from our hatcheries, the fact that they are now successfully reproducing in the wild is exciting for the future of this species,” he said in the release. “This is a huge wildlife conservation success story and a testament to the world-class wildlife agency Coloradans have in Colorado Parks and Wildlife.”

The biologists who carried bags of fish up steep mountain trails in hopes of saving the rare fish also expressed their excitement about the discovery.

“Our team of field technicians literally high-fived right there in the stream when we captured that first fry that was spawned this year,” Boyd Wright, an aquatic biologist who has led the reintroduction project, said in the release. The fry was proof that the captive-born fish were indeed breeding on their own. “When moments later we captured a one-year-old fish produced in 2021, we were truly beside ourselves.”

“After many years of hard work and dedication, it is extremely satisfying to see our efforts paying off,” he said.

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October 1, 2022
Noru became a super typhoon in 6 hours. Scientists say powerful storms are becoming harder to forecast | CNN

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Residents on the small resort island of Polillo are accustomed to severe weather – their island sits in the northeastern Philippines, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean where storms typically gather strength and turn into typhoons.

But even they were stunned by the intensity of Typhoon Noru, known locally as Typhoon Karding, that turned from a typhoon into a super typhoon in just six hours before hitting the region earlier this week.

“We’re used to typhoons because we’re located where storms usually land,” said Armiel Azas Azul, 36, who owns the Sugod Beach and Food Park on the island, a bistro under palm trees where guests drink coconut juice in tiny thatched huts.

“But everything is very unpredictable,” he said. “And (Noru) came very fast.”

The Philippines sees an average of 20 tropical storms each year, and while Noru didn’t inflict as much damage or loss of life as other typhoons in recent years, it stood out because it gained strength so quickly.

Experts say rapidly developing typhoons are set to become much more common as the climate crisis fuels extreme weather events, and at the same time it will become harder to predict which storms will intensify and where they will track.

“The challenge is accurately forecasting the intensity and how fast the categories may change, for example from just a low-pressure area intensifying into a tropical cyclone,” said Lourdes Tibig, a meteorologist and climatologist with the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities.

The same happened in the United States last week when Hurricane Ian turned from a Category 1 storm into a powerful Category 4 hurricane before making landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida on Wednesday.

Such rapid intensification, as it’s known in meteorological terms, creates challenges for residents, authorities and local emergency workers, including those in the Philippines, who increasingly have no choice but to prepare for the worst.

When Azul received warning that Typhoon Noru was approaching the Philippines last Saturday, he began his usual preparations of setting up his generator and tying down loose items.

At that stage, Noru was predicted to make landfall on Sunday as the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane.

But as the storm grew closer, it strengthened into a super typhoon, the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, making landfall Sunday evening with ferocious winds that lifted waves and lashed properties on the shoreline.

Azul said his community was fortunate to have TV signal in the resort, and as soon as they found out that the typhoon was much stronger than forecast, his staff brought in all the bistro’s outdoor furniture and tied down the roofs of their guesthouses, while local government units evacuated people living near the shore.

“But other parts of the island which don’t have internet connectivity and only rely on radio signals might not have got the message in time,” he said.

The typhoon damaged the resort town, as strong winds toppled beach huts and damaged nearby fishing cages.

Azul added that coconut trees planted across the island about a decade ago after Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy) battered the area had just started to bear fruit but were now completely wiped out.

“We have to pick up the pieces, and rebuild again,” he said.

On the main island of Luzon, Noru left a trail of destruction in the province of Nueva Ecija, known as the “rice granary” of the country.

Ruel Ladrido, 46, a farmer owner in Laur, Nueva Ecija, said his rice fields were not flooded but strong winds damaged his crops.

“It didn’t rain hard near me, but the winds uprooted some of my fields. It will affect our harvest this season, but what can we do? I don’t know the extent of the damage yet, but we’ll have to plant again,” he told CNN on Tuesday.

As of Friday, 12 people had died in the aftermath of Noru, including five rescue workers in Bulacan province, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

The estimated damage to agriculture ballooned to some 3 billion Philippine pesos (about $51 million), affected 104,500 farmers and fisher folk, and damaged over 166,630 thousand hectares of crop land, according to the NDRRMC.

The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, is already vulnerable to typhoons, but as sea levels rise and ocean temperatures warm, the storms expected to become more powerful, according to research published in 2018.

The study found that the stronger typhoons carry more moisture and track differently. They are also “aggravated by sea level rise, one of the most certain consequences of climate change.”

A separate study published last year, by researchers at the Shenzhen Institute of Meteorological Innovation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, found that typhoons in east and southeast Asia now last between two and nine hours longer and travel an average of 100 kilometers (62 miles) further inland than they did four decades ago. By the end of the century, they could have double the destructive power.

As such, it’ll become more difficult to forecast their track and predict ones that will quickly gain strength, or undergo rapid intensification – defined as when wind speeds increase by at least 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour) in 24 hours or less.

Although rare, the Philippines is no stranger to this phenomenon as 28% of all tropical cyclones that made landfall in the country dating back to 1951 underwent rapid intensification based on official data, according to Gerry Bagtasa, a professor with the University of the Philippines’ Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology.

Bagtasa said factors such as high moisture, warm ocean surface temperatures and low wind shear determine the scale of rapid intensification, but those weather readings “don’t have to be extraordinary in their values” to create rapid intensification.

He remarked that Typhoon Noru’s track across the Philippine Sea before making landfall was “just average for this season” and the wind shear – or the change of wind speed and strength with height in the atmosphere – was not extraordinarily low.

Bagtasa also said forecasters find it difficult to predict rapid intensification in the Pacific, because even though satellite monitoring has improved, there isn’t enough data to forecast worsening weather events.

“There are also many unprecedented events happening recently worldwide, and since forecasters typically rely on their past experiences, new events can ‘throw off’ forecasts, so to speak,” he said.

Mirian Abadilla, a doctor and municipal health officer in Cabangan, Zambales province, on the Philippine island of Luzon, has been involved in her community’s disaster management response since 1991.

She says in that time, typhoons have become harder to forecast, and her community has no choice but to prepare for the worst.

“The typhoons are definitely getting stronger because of climate change, and getting harder to predict,” she said. “But each time we get hit with a typhoon, we try to keep improving our disaster response – that’s the only way for us to stay alert.”

She said local governments held meetings as Typhoon Noru approached the coast to go over relief and rescue plans.

“Filipinos are getting better at disaster preparedness … because we have to be,” she said.

Every province, city, municipality and barangay in the Philippines is required to follow national disaster risk reduction and management system under an act imposed in 2010 to address the island nation’s climate vulnerability.

Local governments must conduct preemptive evacuation based on the projected warnings from the national weather department, and it’s recommended they hold regular disaster rescue drills with responders and host briefing seminars for communities.

In a press briefing on Monday, Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. praised local government units for “doing a good job” in explaining the situation to the local population as Noru approached, and for carrying out evacuations that may have prevented mass casualties.

But he also seemed to acknowledge the unpredictability of the storms that regularly threaten the Philippine coast, and the need to always be prepared.

“I think we may have gotten lucky at least this time, a little bit,” Marcos Jr. said.

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October 1, 2022
Californians will soon be able to turn their remains into soil with human composting | CNN

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CNN
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California has become the latest state to provide its residents with an eco-friendly, if unorthodox, option for their remains after death: composting.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last Sunday, according to a news release from the bill’s author, state Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia.

The process is officially called “natural organic reduction,” and involves “fostering gentle transformation into a nutrient-dense soil, which can then be returned to families or donated to conservation land,” the release explained.

Natural organic reduction is less harmful to the environment than the other two legal options (cremation and burial), according to the release. Burial can allow chemicals to leek into the soil, and cremation requires the burning of fossil fuels and releases carbon dioxide.

The law will not go into effect until January 2027, according to the text of the bill. The law stipulates the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, a subdivision of the Department of Consumer Affairs, will develop regulations for facilities performing the process.

In the release, Garcia called natural organic reduction “an alternative method of final disposition that won’t contribute emissions into our atmosphere and will actually capture CO2 in our soil and trees.”

“If more people participate in organic reduction and tree-planting, we can help with California’s carbon footprint,” she said. “This bill has been in the works for the last three years, and I am very happy that it was signed into law. I look forward to continuing my legacy to fight for clean air by using my reduced remains to plant a tree.”

Recompose, a company which has been offering natural organic reduction services since 2020, also lauded the law in the release.

“Recompose is thrilled that the options for nature-based death care in California have expanded,” said the company’s CEO and founder Katrina Spade in the release. “Natural organic reduction is safe and sustainable, allowing our bodies to return to the land after we die.”

According to Recompose’s website, natural organic reduction works much like composting your vegetable scraps does. The body is placed in a vessel along with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. Over a month, microbes work to break the body down into a cubic yard of soil, which can then be used in a loved one’s garden, or anywhere else.

Washington became the first state to legalize so-called “human composting” in 2019. Lawmakers similarly cited the ecological benefits of reduction over burial and cremation.

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October 1, 2022