People Have the Power - VOTE 2020
Climate-action nonprofit Pathway to Paris first launched in 2014 with an "intimate evening" of music and conversation after the People's Climate March in New York City.
<p>Six years later, and intimate musical evenings feel like relics from another era. But the group is still bringing artists and activists together to achieve its goal of making the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris climate agreement</a> a reality. To that end, the group dropped a new music video <a href="https://vimeo.com/459419656" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tuesday</a> to remind people the world over that they have the power to act on the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>The eight-minute video features musicians and activists from 24 countries, 38 cities and six continents singing "People Have the Power" by Pathway to Paris supporter Patti Smith and the late Fred Sonic Smith. It was released in conjunction with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-week-2020-2647708978.html" target="_self">Climate Week NYC</a> and in celebration of Pathway to Paris' sixth anniversary. While the group <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/patti-smith-thom-yorke-flea-pathway-to-paris-album-1946624877.html" target="_self">cut its teeth on live concerts</a>, such as a two-night affair in Paris that coincided with the signing of the groundbreaking 2015 agreement, the organization's founders say its work is more urgent than ever now that large public gatherings are not safe.</p>
<p>"The current pandemic surrounding Covid-19 has shown moments and threads of hope and optimism, but it also has shown just how fractured the communication of our planet remains," Pathway to Paris co-founder Jesse Paris Smith said in a press release for the new video. "This same frustration has been experienced for decades with the climate crisis and just about any unifying global issue of great urgency. We struggle to adapt and survive based on the information we are given and the immense lack of alignment in our decision making. There couldn't be a more urgent time for the country and the planet to unify as one collective force, and yet we see more examples of the failure of this concept to take hold. Our current reality is one of immense suffering and a promise of continued disaster if we do not get together on our agreements, set more ambitious goals, and make drastic plans for change <em>today</em>."<br></p>
<p>To further this goal, Smith and fellow co-founder Rebecca Foon launched the video with the hope of encouraging people to make change by voting. They encourage U.S. viewers to vote in the upcoming <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/2020-election" target="_self">November election</a> and viewers the world over to vote wherever and whenever local elections occur. They also suggest people use their voice by signing petitions, contacting representatives, writing letters and having conversations about climate change with friends and family.</p><p>Joining Foon and Smith in the video to endorse this message are a wide range of celebrities, activists and ordinary people including Patti Smith, Joan Baez, Tony Hawk, Cyndi Lauper, Dr. Vandana Shiva and Bill McKibben.</p><p>"We are in a time where our interconnectedness has never been more pronounced. This time presents an opportunity for us as a planet to truly see how our epic challenges are deeply connected, and our collective solutions need to address these challenges holistically. Due to the state of emergency we find ourselves in globally (current science highlights that we might hit 1.5 degrees as soon as 2024), we need to put our resources and attention as quickly as possibly in designing and creating a world that is no longer dependent on the use of fossil fuels while building a green economy that is rooted in equity, justice, human rights and ethics if we want a future for ourselves and our children," Foon said in the press release.</p>
<p><br>Foon and Smith, both musicians themselves, noted that the pandemic has taken a toll on an industry that relies on live performances. The group has already organized two virtual festivals since quarantine measures began, one for Earth Day in April and one for World Environment Day in June.</p><p>"It is a bit terrifying to imagine the impact that the disappearance of culture and community will have on the upcoming election, though we must continue to find ways to connect and collaborate in the virtual plane, while following quarantine and social distancing guidelines," Smith said in the press release.</p>
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Heo Suwat Waterfall in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. sarote pruksachat / Moment / Getty Images
A national park in Thailand has come up with an innovative way to make sure guests clean up their own trash: mail it back to them.
<p>Thailand's Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa issued a stern warning to visitors of the country's Khao Yai National Park last week.</p><p>"I will pick up every single piece of your trash, pack them well in a box and mail it to your home as a souvenir," he wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TOPVarawut/posts/1058216911296247" target="_blank">Facebook post Sept. 14</a>, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/world/asia/thailand-park-mail-trash.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New York Times translation</a>.</p><p>The post also included a picture of an abandoned tent filled with discarded <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastic</a> bottles and other rubbish.</p>
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<p>The next day, Varawut revealed he had made good on his threat.</p><p>"The garbage that tourists left in the park is now packed into the box. It's ready to be returned to the owner of the garbage already," he wrote in a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TOPVarawut/posts/1058561024595169" target="_blank">Sept. 15 post</a>, according to a <a href="https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/thailand-national-park-mails-back-garbage-campers-litter" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Travel and Leisure </a>translation. He also posted pictures of the collected trash and a shipping box with the address marked out.</p><p>The trash was shipped back with a special message for its owners.</p><p>"You have forgotten some of your belongings at the Khao Yai National Park," the note read, according to The New York Times. "Please let us return these to you."</p>
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<p>Park officials were able to match the trash to their owners by checking rental equipment forms against a prescription bottle left in the tent. The offending visitors have also been blacklisted from returning to the park for overnight visits.</p><p>Varawut explained that abandoned trash could endanger wild animals, who might eat it by mistake when foraging for food. He said littering in the park could carry a fine of up to up to a 500,000 Thai Baht (about $16,000 U.S. dollars), a prison sentence of up to five years or both, Travel and Leisure reported. He said anyone caught littering would be reported to the police.</p><p>Khao Yai National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site about 100 miles northeast of Bangkok. It is the oldest national park in Thailand, according to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54200833" target="_blank">BBC News</a>, and is famous for its <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and landscapes, including waterfalls.</p>
<p>The lockdown initiated due to the coronavirus pandemic was a boon for the animals there, as elephants began returning to their old paths in the absence of human visitors, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/world/asia/thailand-elephants-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported in July</a>. Other animals like the Asian black bear and a type of bovine called a guar emerged from hiding too.</p><p>The park reopened to visitors July 1, but limited the number to 5,000 at a time, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/09/18/tourist-trash-mail/" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>. The Thai tourism board praised Varawut for reminding the returning visitors how to properly respect the park.</p><p>"We applaud Khao Yai National Park and The Minister of Natural Resources and Environment for their commitment to maintaining the beauty and wellbeing of our country's natural resources," Charinya Kiatlapnachai, director of the tourism authority of Thailand, told The Washington Post in an email. "Thailand's national parks and wildlife have had time to recover from damaging results of tourism such as littering over the past six months and this gesture has the best of intentions to ensure we all do our part to help our country remain clean, safe and beautiful."</p>
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Young Republican Climate Activists Split Over How to Get Their Voices Heard in November’s Election
11h
Climate
The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. filo / Getty Images
By Ilana Cohen
Four years ago, Jacob Abel cast his first presidential vote for Donald Trump. As a young conservative from Concord, North Carolina, the choice felt natural.
But this November, he plans to cast a "protest vote" for a write-in candidate or abstain from casting a ballot for president. A determining factor in his 180-degree turn? Climate change.
<p>Climate didn't become a voting issue for Abel until months after the 2016 election. As a college freshman at Seton Hall University, he found himself increasingly frustrated by lackluster Republican responses to an issue now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/across-the-globe-millions-join-biggest-climate-protest-ever" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leading</a> millions to march in the streets. </p><p>Abel felt that his party's future, like that of his generation, depended upon it addressing climate change with the appropriate urgency.</p><p>While his progressive counterparts helped propel a "<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c686caa2-a8c5-11e9-984c-fac8325aaa04" target="_blank">Squad</a>" of climate leaders into Congress, Abel advocated for market-driven climate solutions like carbon pricing as a spokesperson for republicEn, a right-leaning climate advocacy organization. </p><p>"The Green New Deal was actually a big catalyst for a lot of young Republicans coming forward and pushing for serious Republican solutions" on climate change, said Abel. </p><p>Momentum on the left stirred new conversations on the right, as young conservatives banded together in hopes of sustaining both their party and the planet. Their cries for climate action helped open older Republicans' eyes to the risk of losing young voters, and a seat at the table in future climate policymaking, if the GOP didn't change its tune.</p><p>"Over the next 10 years," Abel said, he "wants to see Republicans come together with Democrats to come to a realistic solution," along with Republicans proposing "more and more solutions" of their own, including around what Abel considers a critical "middle ground" measure to advance decarbonization—carbon pricing.</p><strong><strong></strong></strong>
<p>"Because we're still kind of relatively new to actually taking this topic seriously and proposing policy," said Abel of the GOP, "I think our policy response could be more robust and more detailed."</p><p>Only a decade ago, Abel's story might have been a novelty. Now, it's commonplace. From <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wildfires-west-coast-death-toll-burn-2020-09-15/" target="_blank">raging</a> wildfires on the West Coast to Hurricane Sally's massive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54174831" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">flooding</a> in the South, climate disasters are politicizing young people across the ideological spectrum who have experienced them first hand. </p><p>Younger Republicans are much more engaged with climate change than their parents and grandparents, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The program's research <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shows</a> young Republicans are more likely than older ones to believe in human-caused global warming and to support climate action. </p><p>Frustrated by party leadership that doesn't <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/24/millennial-and-gen-z-republicans-stand-out-from-their-elders-on-climate-and-energy-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">represent</a> their call for urgent climate action and public discourse that discounts their views, young Republicans also seem more willing to pose their own climate solutions. They don't want to see a World War II-style mobilization; they want pragmatic proposals advancing private sector innovation. </p><p>The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. While some young Republicans who prioritize the issue of climate change remain loyal to Trump and others turn to Biden, a growing number like Abel are not supporting either candidate. </p><p>Given <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/2016-election/swing-state-margins/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump's thin margin of victory in 2016</a>, young conservatives who choose not to vote for either major presidential candidate may help Biden just as much as those who vote for him over Trump, Leiserowtiz said, depending on the state they vote in. Millennials and Gen Zers will <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">comprise</a> 37 percent of eligible voters in November, which gives them vast electoral influence, if they vote.</p><p>If youth show up in force to oust Trump from office, their votes could provide a "powerful warning sign" for the GOP, Leiserowtiz said. It would affirm that for Republicans to win the youth vote and have a path to the White House moving forward, they must embrace climate action now. </p>
Fractures Among Young Climate Conservatives
<p>While young conservatives have united around the urgency of climate change, they remain divided over how to bring their concerns to the ballot box. Some embrace right-wing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-attacks-republican-convention/2020/08/24/434e5b46-e66d-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html" target="_blank">attacks</a> painting Biden as a "tool of the left" and find his climate agenda "radical." Others can't find a way to justify voting for Trump, even if it means breaking with their party.</p><p>Patrick Mann from Orange County, California, voted for Trump in 2016. But today, he's leading Aggies for Joe at Texas A&M University and is co-founder of Texas Students for Biden. </p><p>Mann grew up watching wildfires ravage his home state, nearly forcing his family to evacuate in 2017. The GOP is failing to "meet the moment" for climate action, Mann said. He's hoping Biden will deliver on a promise to "<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/caucus/2020/01/06/joe-biden-democrat-president-iowa-caucus-restore-soul-our-nation/2806422001/" target="_blank">restore the soul of our nation</a>." </p><p>Taylor Walker from Pensacola, Florida, is also determined to make her voice heard on climate, including by casting her first-ever vote for president—but not for Biden.</p><p>Walker, a statewide campus coordinator for the conservative environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition, felt compelled to act on climate change after seeing the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/gulfspill-impacts-summary-IP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lasting environmental and economic damage</a> the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wreaked on her home state. As a practicing Christian, Walker feels a "responsibility from God to steward the environment," which means fighting climate change while protecting industry. </p><p>She lauded Trump's <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/06/22/trump-tweets-full-endorsement-of-desantis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">support</a> of Ron DeSantis' run for Florida Governor in 2018. Walker appreciated DeSantis' <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-01-11/florida-gov-desantis-signs-executive-order-to-protect-states-waters" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ambitious environmental vision</a> and said he "passed quite a few green initiatives in the first few months of his term." The governor's environmental <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article239258123.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">record</a> since has been controversial, with DeSantis earning dismal ratings from the Sierra Club and <a href="https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">League of Conservation Voters</a>. </p><p>Walker also praised Trump's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/08/reversal-trump-ban-oil-drilling-off-coasts-florida-georgia-south-carolina/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recent</a> commitment to banning offshore drilling on the state's coasts, which came two years after he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/04/trump-administration-plans-to-allow-drilling-off-all-u-s-waters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed</a> vastly expanding oil and gas drilling in U.S. continental waters. The move "shows a good faith investment" in finding clean energy alternatives, Walker said.</p><p>Walker said she'd examine both major presidential candidates' platforms and records on climate policy up until Election Day, but she doesn't think there's much, if anything, the Biden campaign could do that would convince her to swing left. If Trump can help pivot the GOP in greener directions, she said, "then more power to him."</p>
A False Equivalency
<p>Young climate conservatives may fear climate denial and delayed climate action, but more than that, they fear the growing political momentum around the Green New Deal, the massive spending it entails and <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/" target="_blank">Biden's citing of it</a> as a "crucial framing for meeting the climate challenges we face."</p><p>Many don't want to split with their party to support a Democrat whose <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/757220130/joe-biden-on-bipartisanship-gun-control-and-regrets-over-inaction-after-a-traged" target="_blank">allegedly bipartisan intentions</a> they doubt. If stymieing what they consider a radical green agenda means re-electing a climate change denying president, so be it. </p><p>"I'm scared of climate change, but I'm also scared of the Green New Deal and what it means for America," said Ben Mutolo, a republicEN spokesperson and junior at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. </p><p>Mutolo felt encouraged by former Ohio Governor John Kasich's <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/17/kasich-speech-to-democratic-convention-follows-years-of-building-conservative-credentials/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">appearance</a> at the Democratic National Convention, but he still struggles to see himself voting for Biden. Though the candidate paints himself as a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-biden-different-generation-similar-political-instinct" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">centrist,</a> Mutolo believes he's "cozying up to the ultra-progressive left." </p><p>Mutolo, who wants to see market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, feels torn between a candidate whose climate plan relies on taking an "<a href="https://joebiden.com/environmental-justice-plan/#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All-of-Government approach</a>," and one with no efforts to reign in global warming at all. <span></span></p><p>Leiserowitz said he appreciated how a conservative might feel Biden's climate plan "doesn't jive with their limited government, free-market approach."</p><p>But he sees a strong distinction between voting for a presidential candidate with a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html" target="_blank">$2 trillion climate plan</a> that includes large renewable energy investments, which have <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/politics-global-warming-april-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bipartisan support</a>, and a candidate trying "to take the country in the opposite direction, towards more fossil fuels."</p><p>Equating the two seems "hard to square rationally," said Leiserowtiz. But most people don't vote rationally. Research <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-democracy-brexit-2016-election-europe" target="_blank">shows</a> they vote based on their social and political identities, not policy positions, and are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3834737/" target="_blank">influenced</a> by messaging from their social circles.<br></p><p>As someone ready to talk climate solutions, rather than debate science, Mann, the Texas A&M student, has struggled to connect with Republican peers supporting Trump. He believes that people concerned about climate change have a moral imperative to support Biden. "Voting for someone who took us out of the Paris Agreement, you're not going to get progress on climate change," said Mann. "Trump is not making America a leader on this." </p><p>Given the vast threat posed by climate change, Mann said, a vote withheld from Biden is just as problematic as a vote for Trump. </p><p>Mann knows he can't change people's minds, but that won't stop him from trying. "All I can do is plant ideas in their mind of why it's important" to elect Biden now and put climate leaders into office beyond this November, he said. "Hopefully, those grow."</p><p>While some young climate conservatives like Mann are engaging their peers in discussions about the presidential election, others like Walker are more concerned with raising awareness of market-driven climate solutions or getting out the vote for local and Congressional races.</p><p>Whatever their course of action, the chance to help shape climate policy for a critical next four to eight years isn't lost on any of these young climate conservatives. How they cast their ballots, and in what numbers, may solidify for the right a reality already made clear on the left—political survival now goes hand in hand with efforts to stabilize the climate and invest in the futures of today's youth and those of generations to come. </p>
<p><em><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20092020/young-republicans-climate-change-biden-trump-voting" target="_blank"></a></em></p><p><em>.</em><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2647767066#/" target="_self"></a></p>From Your Site Articles
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WHO Releases Plans for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution as U.S., China and Russia Opt Out
12h
Health + Wellness
Headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva amid the COVID-19 outbreak on Aug. 17, 2020. FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday that 64 high-income nations have joined an effort to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine fairly, prioritizing the most vulnerable citizens, as Science reported. The program is called the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or Covax, and it is a joint effort led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
<p>The 64 high-income countries bring the total number of participating countries up to 156, but their participation is crucial to financing the 2 billion doses that the WHO hopes to purchase and distribute before the end of 2021, according to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/21/64-high-income-nations-join-effort-to-expand-global-access-to-covid-19-vaccines-but-u-s-and-china-do-not/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">STAT News</a>.</p><p>The 156 economies participating in Covax make up 64 percent of the global population.</p><p>"COVAX is now in business: governments from every continent have chosen to work together, not only to secure <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/vaccines">vaccines</a> for their own populations, but also to help ensure that vaccines are available to the most vulnerable everywhere," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, in a WHO <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/21-09-2020-boost-for-global-response-to-covid-19-as-economies-worldwide-formally-sign-up-to-covax-facility" target="_blank">statement</a>. "With the commitments we're announcing today for the COVAX Facility, as well as the historic partnership we are forging with industry, we now stand a far better chance of ending the acute phase of this pandemic once safe, effective vaccines become available."</p>
<p>The United States, Russia and China have not agreed to join Covax. The <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> administration plans to withdraw from the WHO by next July so it refuses to participate in a WHO-led campaign, as STAT News reported. China has not said if it will participate or not, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/coronavirus-vaccine-covax-who/2020/09/21/d21c7b4a-f9d3-11ea-a510-f57d8ce76e11_story.html" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>.</p><p>"COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis that demands an unprecedented global response," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. "Vaccine nationalism will only perpetuate the disease and prolong the global recovery. Working together through the COVAX Facility is not charity, it's in every country's own best interests to control the pandemic and accelerate the global economic recovery."</p>
<p>At a briefing on Monday, Ghebreyesus denounced vaccine nationalism again, according to The Washington Post. "The race for vaccines is a collaboration, not a contest," he said to a gathering of reporters. "This is not charity. It's in every country's best interest. We sink or swim together."</p><p>Once a vaccine candidate reaches all of its endpoints for safety and efficacy, the WHO's plan will be implemented in two phases under a "fair allocation mechanism." The first phase has two discrete parts. After enough doses of a successful candidate are produced, each participating country will receive enough doses for 3 percent of their population. That first batch would go to health care and social care workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. After that first batch is distributed, a second set of doses will be distributed equally so 20 percent of the population can be inoculated. The second set of doses will be for vulnerable populations like the elderly and people with complicating health conditions, according to Science.</p>
<p>The second phase will distribute vaccine doses by need rather than by equal distribution. Countries that take part in Covax will receive vaccines based on how desperately they are needed. To determine urgency, Covax will look at the transmission rate, whether other diseases like flu are spreading rapidly, and if a healthcare system is seeing its hospitals and intensive care units overwhelmed, as Science reported.</p><p>"Providing each country with enough doses to start protecting the health system and those at higher risk of dying is the best approach to maximize the impact of the small quantities of vaccines," said Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão, the WHO's assistant director general for access to medicines and health products, as The Washington Post reported.</p><p>While the first phase of the plan may not address the most dire and urgent situations, the equal distribution of the vaccine in proportion to population is meant to encourage more countries to participate in Covax, according to The Washington Post.</p><p>"It's a very pragmatic and expedient way of trying to put forward a simple plan and will not ignite a food fight among different member states in the first phase," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as The Washington Post reported.</p>
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Exterior of Cold Tube demonstration pavilion. Lea Ruefenacht
By Gloria Oladipo
In the face of dangerous heat waves this summer, Americans have taken shelter in air conditioned cooling centers. Normally, that would be a wise choice, but during a pandemic, indoor shelters present new risks. The same air conditioning systems that keep us cool recirculate air around us, potentially spreading the coronavirus.
<p>"Air conditioners look like they're bringing in air from the outside because they go through the window, but it is 100 percent recirculated air," said Forrest Meggers, an assistant professor of architecture at Princeton University. "If you had a system that could cool without being focused solely on cooling air, then you could actually open your windows."</p><p>Meggers and an international team of researchers have developed a safer way for people to beat the heat — a highly efficient cooling system that doesn't move air around.</p><p>Scientists lined door-sized panels with tiny tubes that circulate cold water. Stand next to a panel, and you can feel it drawing heat away from your body. Unlike air conditioners, these panels can be used with the window open — or even outdoors — making it possible to cool off while also getting some fresh air. This reduces the risk of spreading airborne viruses, like the coronavirus.</p>
<p>"If you look at what the health authorities and governments are saying, the safest place to be during this pandemic is outside," said Adam Rysanek, an assistant professor of environmental systems at the University of British Columbia, who was part of the research effort. "We're trying to find a way to keep you cool in a heat wave with the windows wide open, because the air is fresh. It's just that it's hot."</p><p>Cooling panels have been around for a while, but in limited use, because scientists haven't found a good way to deal with condensation. Like a cold can of Coke on a hot summer day, cooling panels collect drops of water, so they have to be paired with dehumidifiers indoors to stay dry. Otherwise, overhead panels might drip water on people standing underneath.</p><p>Meggers and his colleagues got around this problem by developing a thin, transparent membrane that repels condensation. This is the key breakthrough behind their cooling technology. Because it stays dry, it can be used in humid conditions, even outdoors.</p>
<p>In air conditioners, a dehumidifier dries out the air to prevent condensation. This component uses an enormous amount of energy, around half of the total power consumed by the air conditioner, researchers said. The new membrane they developed eliminates condensation with no energy cost, making the cooling panels significantly more efficient than a typical AC unit.</p><p>The research team involved scientists from the University of British Columbia, Princeton, UC Berkeley and the Singapore-ETH Centre. They published their <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/08/17/2001678117" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">findings</a> in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em>.</p><p>"This study demonstrates that we can maintain comfortable conditions for people without cooling all the air around them," said Zoltan Nagy, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Texas, who was not affiliated with the study. "Probably the most significant demonstration of this study is that humans can be provided with comfort in a very challenging thermal environment using a very efficient method."</p>
<p>Researchers developed their technology for use in the persistently hot, muggy climate of Singapore, where avoiding condensation would be particularly difficult.</p><p>To test their design, they assembled a set of cooling panels into a small tunnel, roughly the size of a school bus. The tunnel, dubbed the "Cold Tube," sat in a plaza in the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. Scientists surveyed dozens of people about how they felt after walking through the tunnel. Even as the temperature neared 90 degrees F outside, most participants reported feeling comfortable in the Cold Tube.</p>Scientists said they want to make their technology available to consumers as quickly as possible, for use in homes and offices, or outdoors. Climate change is producing <a href="https://time.com/5627355/climate-change-heat-waves/" target="_blank">more severe heat</a>, which is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">driving demand</a> for air conditioners. Researchers hope their cooling panel will offer a more energy-efficient alternative to AC units. If consumers can use less power, that will help cut down on the pollution that is driving climate change.
<p>Before they can sell the panels, researchers said they need to make them hardy enough to survive outdoors. The anti-condensation membrane is currently so thin that you could tear it with a pencil, so it must be made stronger. Scientists also need to demonstrate that the panels work efficiently indoors. Hospitals and schools in Singapore have already shown interest in the cooling system.</p><p>"We know the physics works. Now we need to do one more test so we have a bit more of a commercially viable product," Rysanek said. "It's really about trying to get this into people's hands as quickly as possible."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/new-cooling-technology-protects-against-severe-heat-and-viral-spread-1e5b96ae793a" target="_blank">Nexus Media.</a></em></p>
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A Botswana elephant stands in a body of water. Geschenkpanda / Pixabay
Toxins in water produced by cyanobacteria was likely responsible for more than 300 elephant deaths in Botswana this year, the country's wildlife department announced on Monday.
<p>Elephants mysteriously started dying in the country's vast inland Okavango Delta from March this year, alarming conservationists and sparking an investigation. Some 330 elephants have died in the region.</p><p>Officials ruled out killing by poachers who hunt elephants for their ivory, because they died with their tusks intact. They also ruled out anthrax poisoning.</p>
How Did Cyanobacteria Poison the Elephants?
<p>Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms common in water and sometimes found in soil. Some cyanobacteria produce neurotoxins.</p><p>The cyanobacteria "was growing in pans" or watering holes, the principal veterinary officer of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Mmadi Reuben, told reporters.</p><p>Reuben said the deaths had "stopped towards the end of June 2020, coinciding with the drying of pans."</p><p>"However we have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only and why that area only? We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating," added Reuben.</p><p>Similar elephant deaths have also been recorded in neighboring Zimbabwe.</p>Climate Change to Blame?
<p>Not all cyanobacteria are toxic but scientists say varieties dangerous to humans and animals are occurring more frequently as climate change drives up global temperatures.</p><p>Southern Africa's temperatures are rising at twice the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.</p>Elephant Paradise?
<p>Africa's overall elephant population is declining due to poaching. But Botswana, home to almost a third of the continent's elephants, has seen numbers grow to around 130,000.</p><p>Botswana's government said it was continuing studies into the occurrence of the deadly bacteria. In the winter, elephants hydrate themselves mainly by eating roots and bark, especially of the baobab tree.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Activists gather in John Marshall Park for the Global Climate Strike protests on September 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. Samuel Corum / Getty Images
By Alexandra Villarreal
As West coast wildfires color the skies dystopian red and orange and an aggressive hurricane season batters the U.S. Gulf coast, college students are demanding their schools take bold action to address the climate crisis.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Caitlyn Daas is among them. The senior at Appalachian State University and organizer with the Appalachian Climate Action Collaborative (ClimACT) stands on the frontlines of her school's grassroots push to go "climate neutral," part of a years-long, national movement that has inspired <a href="https://reporting.secondnature.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hundreds</a> of institutional commitments to reduce academia's carbon footprint.</p><p>Carbon neutrality commitments typically require schools to dramatically cut their carbon emissions by reimagining how they run their campuses — everything from the electricity they purchase to the air travel they fund. Colleges across the country, from <a href="https://secondnature.org/climate-action-guidance/carbon-neutral-colleges-and-universities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the University of San Francisco</a> to American University in Washington DC have already attained carbon neutrality. Other academic institutions, including the University of California system, have taken steps to <a href="https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/may/20/university-of-california-completes-fossil-fuel/#:~:text=The%20University%20of%20California%20announced,as%20solar%20and%20wind%20power." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">fully divest from fossil fuels</a>.</p><p>But as young activists like Daas urge their universities to do their part to avert climate disaster, many are frustrated by tepid responses from administrators whom they feel lack their same sense of urgency and drive. Appalachian State, part of the University of North Carolina system, has committed to reaching net-zero emissions decades down the line, but Daas and her fellow activists fear that's far too late. She's baffled that an institution devoted to higher learning is seemingly ignoring the science around the climate emergency.</p><p>"If our voices don't matter, can you please stop telling us that they do?" Daas says.</p>
<p>College activists concerned about the climate crisis have largely focused their efforts on two popular movements that go hand-in-hand: reaching<a href="https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_3cbb5394-d27a-11ea-8d95-efad3d7293d1.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> carbon neutrality</a>, and<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/opinion/letters/colleges-divestment-fuels.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> divesting university endowments</a>. Broadly, the term "net carbon neutrality" means that a campus zeroes out all of its carbon emissions, says Timothy Carter, president of<a href="https://secondnature.org/mission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Second Nature</a>, a nonprofit focused on climate action in higher education. This can be achieved through modifying campus operations, often with the help of alternatives, such as renewable energy certificates and voluntary carbon offsets (activities that atone for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/carbon-offset" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other emissions</a>). In Second Nature's definition, investment holdings don't factor in a school's carbon footprint. Carbon neutrality often falls within a wider umbrella of climate neutrality, which also incorporates justice and other concerns.</p><p>Divestment campaigns, meanwhile, pressure universities to shed investments in fossil fuels in their endowments. "We cannot truly be climate neutral if we continue to invest in a fossil fuel industry," says Nadia Sheppard, chair of the Climate Reality Project <a href="https://climaterealityproject.org/chapters-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">campus corps chapter</a> at North Carolina State University, where oil, gas and consumable, nonrenewable fuels account for around <a href="http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_2aed037e-4b7b-11e9-9660-73d3cbdd1487.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$43m</a><a href="http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_2aed037e-4b7b-11e9-9660-73d3cbdd1487.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> in university investments</a>.</p><p>Across North Carolina, the heated campus battles brewing over climate policy this fall represent a microcosm of the national conversation. The University of North Carolina system – <a href="https://www.northcarolina.edu/about-us/" target="_blank">which includes 16 universities</a> and one gifted public residential high school – has set a <a href="https://rmi.org/our-work/electricity/elab-electricity-innovation-lab/elab-accelerator/elab-accelerator-teams-2014/elab-accelerator-2014-teams-university-north-carolina-system-energy-future/" target="_blank">2050 goal</a> to go carbon neutral, the same year as the state <a href="https://deq.nc.gov/energy-climate/climate-change/nc-climate-change-interagency-council/climate-change-clean-energy-16#:~:text=Clean%20Energy%20Plan%20Goals&text=Reduce%20electric%20power%20sector%20greenhouse,attain%20carbon%20neutrality%20by%202050.&text=Foster%20long%2Dterm%20energy%20affordability,modernizing%20regulatory%20and%20planning%20processes." target="_blank">at large</a>.</p><p>But students are frustrated by the distant deadline. "I do believe 2050 is realistic," says Isaiah Green, president of the UNC system-wide Association of Student Governments. "But it's so realistic that it's just not enough, in my opinion."</p>
<p>Laura England, a ClimACT member and senior lecturer in sustainable development at Appalachian State, approaches the issue with similar gravity as the undergraduates at her school. "That concept, 'our house is burning,' was a metaphor. But really in 2020, it is literal," she says.</p><p>Students and faculty at Appalachian State are angling for net zero emissions by 2025, or at least 2035, but have felt unheard. ClimACT lambasted the school's administration last week in a letter emancipating themselves from the official climate action planning process, at least until its leadership declares a climate emergency and responds accordingly. "The question we face is astonishingly simple," the group wrote. "Do we have the political will to chart a path toward a safe and just climate future, or will we continue careening toward hot house earth?"</p><p>Lee F Ball Jr, chief sustainability officer at Appalachian State, admires young people's passion and would "bottle" and "serve it" if he could. But to reach neutrality by 2025, the university would need to spend tens of millions of dollars it doesn't have.</p><p><span></span>"There's no real silver bullet of clean energy out there that we've been able to find, so we're in a wild west of carbon accounting and climate action," Ball says. "There's no rulebook, there's no prescription for this stuff."</p>
<p>Other students in the UNC system are advocating for more transparency and accountability around their school's investments.</p><p>Kelsey Hall, the leader of a divest campaign at UNC Asheville, <a href="https://www.unca.edu/events-and-news/stories/unc-asheville-commits-to-environmental-social-and-governance-criteria-for-portion-of-endowment/" target="_blank">successfully pushed the school administration</a> to divest around 10% of its endowment from fossil fuels last year. But the other 90% remains in the hands of the UNC management company, which invests in a nebulous category of "<a href="https://uncmc.unc.edu/files/2020/02/FY-2019-UNCIF-Annual-Report-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">energy and natural resources</a>" – oil, natural gas, power, etc.</p><p>"Returns [on investments] are very, very close" between the competing portfolios so far, says John G Pierce, vice-chancellor for budget and finance at UNC Asheville. But university leadership isn't prepared to entertain divesting more of its endowment just yet.</p><p>"It's frustrating," Hall says. "But it's something that I've learned since becoming involved with the campaign, is just that, like, universities move slowly."</p>
<p>At Duke University, a top tier private institution in North Carolina, the administration has agreed to a much quicker <a href="https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2019/12/duke-university-carbon-neutrality-2024-offsets" target="_blank">2024 climate neutrality date.</a> There, students have been more concerned with how they arrive at that target.</p><p>They want the school to reduce actual emissions as much as possible, "rather than relying on more questionable, less rigorous ways of offsetting emissions in the books", says Claire Wang, a recent Duke alumna and Rhodes scholar.</p><p>"It'd be very easy for a huge polluter to, you know, only pick a low-hanging fruit, maybe bring emissions down 10%, and instead buy very cheap carbon credits for the remaining 90% and say they've reached carbon neutrality," Wang says.</p><p>Although student activists often direct their ire toward school administrations, their greatest antagonist may simply be a ticking clock. Undergraduates generally only get a four-year window on campus to make a difference, and they've lost precious time because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has in some ways pulled focus from climate issues.</p><p>Environmental campaigns, meanwhile, require long-term, dedicated attention spans. Gabriela Duncan, co-president of UNC Reinvest at UNC Chapel Hill, found article after article in her school paper about past divestment movements, and she knows that "there realistically is no way" that the university will divest during her academic career.</p><p>To avoid yet another loss of momentum, she's focusing on creating "a really strong foundation, so that we can have a sustainable movement for many years."</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> </em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/21/student-climate-protesters-urge-universities-carbon-neutral-#img-1" target="_blank"></a>From Your Site Articles
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A portion of roadway is flooded in Corpus Christi, Texas on Sept. 20, 2020 due to storm surge from Tropical Storm Beta in the Gulf of Mexico. Matt Pierce / iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus
The National Hurricane Center has run out of names for tropical storms this year and has now moved on to the Greek alphabet during an extremely active hurricane season. Late Monday night, Tropical Storm Beta became the ninth named storm to make landfall. That's the first time so many named storms have made landfall since 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was president, according to NBC News.
<p>Beta is a small but slow-moving storm. Its tropical-storm winds extend 125 miles from the eye of the storm. However, the danger from Beta is not its winds, but the tremendous amount of rain it is expected to drop on towns and cities along the Interstate 10 corridor in Texas and Louisiana, according to the <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/weather/hurricane/os-ne-hurricane-teddy-tropical-storm-beta-monday-update-20200921-ppok6b2fbvcf3mh4ykjv7k44ci-story.html." target="_blank">Orlando Sentinel</a>.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCUAT2+shtml/220401.shtml?" target="_blank">National Hurricane Center</a> issued an update late last night that the center of Beta made landfall in Texas near the Southern End of the Matagorda peninsula around 10 p.m. CDT.</p><p>The storm's slow movement will stall Beta over Texas and drench the region with five to 10 inches of rain, said Rich Otto, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, MD, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/us/tropical-storm-beta.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported. The heavy rains and wind will also create dangerous storm surges.</p>
<p>"Twenty-four hours from now it will be in roughly the same location," Otto said Monday, according to The New York Times.</p><p>That stalled movement has put roughly 11 million people under flash flood warnings that span the Texas and Louisiana coast, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/weather/tropical-storm-beta-texas-louisiana-monday/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. The sustained rain is also expected to cause river flooding and urban <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooding</a>.</p><p>Early Tuesday morning, Beta was moving no faster than people typically walk, at just 3 miles per hour. It is predicted to stall over inland Texas Tuesday and then move toward the east and northeast later in the day when it will begin to weaken, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/f19bbc72c7ec3d2040c0b942666eee90" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AP</a>. It is expected to stay in southeastern Texas through Wednesday and then move over Louisiana and Mississippi through Friday.</p>
<p>Dangerous flash floods may continue through Wednesday, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Amaryllis Cotto in Galveston, Texas, who spoke to the AP. Cotto added that 6-12 inches of rain has already fallen in the area and some areas have seen 18 inches of rain.</p><p>On Monday night, Beta's storm surge washed away a pier in Galveston, Texas. The incident was captured on video and posted to <a href="https://twitter.com/NWSHouston/status/1307883681717972992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1307883681717972992%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fweather.com%2Fnews%2Fnews%2F2020-09-21-tropical-storm-beta-texas-louisiana-flooding-damage-galveston" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p><p>The governors of Texas and Louisiana both urged residents to be vigilant during the storm. Texas Governor Greg Abbot issued a disaster declaration for 29 counties Monday, while Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency and begged residents still recovering from Hurricane Laura to be especially careful, according to <a href="https://weather.com/news/news/2020-09-21-tropical-storm-beta-texas-louisiana-flooding-damage-galveston" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Weather Channel</a>.</p>
<p>Nic Hunter, the mayor of Lake Charles, Louisiana, worried that Beta's intense rains may be "an emotional and mental toll for a lot of our citizens," as the city tries to recover after Hurricane Laura damaged 95 percent of the city's nearly 30,000 buildings, according to the AP.</p><p>While Beta slowly drenches Texas, Hurricane Teddy has strengthened in the Atlantic and is churning towards Nova Scotia in Canada. It is expected to make landfall Wednesday.</p><p>"Teddy should turn to the north-northeast and move over eastern Nova Scotia on Wednesday then over the Gulf of St. Lawrence late Wednesday into Thursday," National Hurricane Center forecasters said, according to the Orlando Sentinel.</p>
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Colette Pichon Battle, attorney, founder, and executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy. Colette Pichon Battle
By Karen L. Smith-Janssen
Colette Pichon Battle gave a December 2019 TEDWomen Talk on the stark realities of climate change displacement, and people took notice. The video racked up a million views in about two weeks. The attorney, founder, and executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy (GCCLP) advocates for climate justice in communities of color. Confronted with evidence showing how her own South Louisiana coastal home of Bayou Liberty will be lost to flooding in coming years, the 2019 Obama Fellow dedicates herself to helping others still reeling from the impacts of Katrina face the heavy toll that climate change has taken—and will take—on their lives and homelands. Her work focuses on strengthening multiracial coalitions, advocating for federal, state, and local disaster mitigation measures, and redirecting resources toward Black communities across the Gulf South.
<h4>How did Hurricane Katrina—which <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/150082.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">displaced more than 1 million people</a> in the Gulf region—propel your work, and how does it shape your mission today?</h4><p>I got into this work in the aftermath of the hurricane in 2005, and it's been 15 years as of August 29. Katrina was a massive disaster that I felt compelled to respond to. It was my hometown. I stayed because I began to understand how that disaster was a manifestation of a global climate reality.</p><p>We are anchoring the <a href="https://m4bl.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Movement for Black Lives</a> work that's centered around a national black climate agenda, and part of that will include in-depth communications to bring climate into the realm of Black lives—into communities that have been marginalized and targeted by our colonizing system. Part of our work is to begin a process of acknowledging the trauma that comes with being a person of color in this country, being in an environmental justice community and being poisoned every day, and going through a climate disaster. <em>We</em> are on the frontlines.</p>
<h4>How do you help communities heal from this trauma when the underlying problems have not been solved? </h4><p>The most difficult and time-consuming layer is building, healing, and strengthening relationships between different communities and acknowledging that many of us, especially people of color, have been systematically pitted against each other as part of a broader social infrastructure. What does it mean to reconcile these communities with each other? For example, we're making a <a href="https://www.gcclp.org/heal-and-reconcile" target="_blank">Sacred Waters Pilgrimage</a> down the Mississippi River for Black and Indigenous women to address the tensions between those two communities in the U.S. and begin to heal those relationships. In the climate movement, these are the people who are tokenized; it's just assumed they can stand on the frontlines together with no acknowledgment that there's a deep history of mistrust and tension between these groups—not of their own creation, and rooted in colonization. You've got to take some time to understand how the cultures are different and how people are perceived. You've got to reconcile and heal before you can work, and only then can the work that you do together stand. Otherwise, the work that you do together will fall.</p>
<h4>In addition to building coalitions, what kinds of services does the GCCLP provide to help residents cope with the impacts of extreme storms?</h4><p>We started out providing free legal services to folks recovering after a disaster. We are there as service providers but we also offer a political education about what is happening to you and why. We don't just get your <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/resources/going-under-long-wait-times-post-flood-buyouts-leave-homeowners-underwater" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">FEMA paperwork completed for flood remittance</a>, although that's part of what we'll do. You're also going to leave with an understanding of the frequency of flooding, the climate impacts, and how your area in particular has just been affected and is going to be affected in the future.</p><p>Today, we have four main programs, and in each, we have a level of advocacy within them: We do Equitable Disaster Recovery; Water Equity/Water Economy; <a href="https://www.gcclp.org/copy-of-equitable-disaster-recovery" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sustainable Economy/Energy Democracy</a>; and Land, Labor and Just Transition. Our federal disaster advocacy work centers around the modification and re-envisioning of the Stafford Act, which controls and activates FEMA. We also do some state-level advocacy around mitigation planning here in the five Gulf South states. That involves educating decision makers not just on what the community needs but pointing out what's out there and within our budgetary reach or legislative duty. </p>
<h4>A lot of the initial recovery work following Katrina centered around <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/how-best-rebuild-hurricane-ravaged-city-listen-residents-says-new-orleans-native" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">building climate-resilient communities</a> that could withstand future storms. Has that work been successful?</h4><p>Over the years, as we've watched people trying to create resilient communities that are more physically ready for the storms that are coming, we've seen it either lead to gentrification or segregation or investment in non-Black, non-Native places. Money never makes it to the frontline. So we've got to put in our own infrastructure systems at the community level, rooted in political education around economy, racialized capitalism, and wealth-building.</p><p>In our understanding of climate change, the economy plays a major (if not <em>the</em> major) role in how we got to this place. The economic philosophy of this country is one of extraction; it's an extractive economy that started with the attempted genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, all for profit, power, land, and control. So, we help communities to practice receiving, making decisions about, and distributing money to places where they want to see their dollars go—which is basically holding Black wealth. We help local organizations set up community-controlled funds all across the Gulf South region after every disaster. Yes, the community receives dollars, but they also go through a 12-month process to collectively develop a system of shared governance so that, should this happen again, we have systems of our own around our own money and its destination.</p>
<h4>The practice of "<a href="https://qz.com/1876202/new-flood-risk-maps-could-undermine-marginalized-neighborhoods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blue-lining</a>" is a new climate-driven threat that withdraws support for vulnerable communities living in high-risk flood areas. How did that manifest in New Orleans after Katrina, and how might it impact other areas?</h4><p>It's happening already in places south of New Orleans where decision makers have understood we will not make it. We're going to lose those areas. My community is one. You watch as <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/our-national-flood-insurance-program-going-underwater" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">federal flood insurance becomes impossible</a> because of the designations of flood risk by the Army Corps of Engineers. A point comes when you can't even get flood insurance to protect your home. After Katrina, officials said, "Everything below Interstate 10 is pretty much written off so if you live below I-10, you should begin to plan to move."</p><p>I think we're going to see false information about flood lines. On flood maps of south Louisiana, the city of New Orleans is not shown in the flood zone because of the levee system, which was only rebuilt to the standards that failed the first time. As a result, people in New Orleans can get insurance but people south of New Orleans can't.</p>
<h4>How do you reach community members who are not already part of the climate conversation but face climate change impacts in their immediate futures?</h4><p>Outreach is mainly folks just talking to the people they know. And we're part of larger coalitions that help us build new relationships. The problem is that the climate conversation has not yet made it into the daily rhetoric of Black, Indigenous, and brown communities, so giving generic information is not good enough. We're going to do more virtual education because video and social media are just how people get their information now in this COVID reality.</p><p>But the majority of folks we're trying to reach do not sit on a computer all day so there's still the problem of how to make it real. You have to understand that communication is not just words, especially down here in the South. You can sit under a tree next to somebody for a long time without words, yet a lot is actually being communicated, and they can feel that your energy is serious and authentic. I never had a problem communicating urgency to people of the Gulf South. They know I'm from here, that I love this place, and that I wouldn't be taking their time talking like this if it weren't serious.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/connector-gulf-south-15-years-and-counting" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>.</em></p>
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A palm tree plantation in Malaysia. Yann Arthus-Bertrand / Getty Images Plus
Between 2000 and 2013, Earth lost an area of undisturbed ecosystems roughly the size of Mexico.
<p>That's the mind-melting finding of a <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30418-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2590332220304188%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">new study published in One Earth</a> Friday, and the researchers say it has "profound implications" for global <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> and for humans who rely on natural resources.</p><p>"We were expecting there to be high levels of intact ecosystem and wilderness loss, but the results were shocking," lead researcher Brooke Williams of the University of Queensland told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/19/shocking-wilderness-the-size-of-mexico-lost-worldwide-in-just-13-years-study-finds?fbclid=IwAR2XlFeNEaoMktkBPoteocAS4Bi-Kx5dErhWX9qzNB-CZ9VBsBpxmdEMrTw" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "We found substantial area of intact ecosystems had been lost in just 13 years – nearly two million square kilometres – which is terrifying to think about. Our findings show that human pressure is extending ever further into the last ecologically intact and wilderness areas."</p>
<p>In total, the researchers found that 1.9 million square kilometers (approximately 700,000 square miles) of previously intact ecosystem area had been "highly modified" during the study period. They also found that 58.4 percent of Earth's land ecosystems were under "moderate or intense" pressure from human activity, while only 41.6 percent of ecosystems were intact and 25 percent were true wilderness.</p><p>The 1.9 million square kilometers lost were mostly tropical and subtropical grasslands in Asia, South America and Africa, according to the <a href="https://newsroom.wcs.org/News-Releases/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/14950/STUDY-Since-2000-A-Mexico-Sized-Chunk-of-Intact-Land-Has-Been-Swallowed-up-by-Humanity.aspx" target="_blank">Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which participated in the research</a>. The rainforests of Southeast Asia also suffered significant human encroachments.</p>
<p>To achieve these results, an international team of 17 scientists from six countries used satellite imagery to assess the human footprint on land-based ecosystems and how it had changed between 2000 and 2013, The Guardian explained. The researchers found that human pressure increased on nearly 20 percent of the globe and decreased on only around six percent.</p><p>"Data does not lie," senior author James Watson from WCS and the University of Queensland said in the WCS press release. "Humanity keeps on shrinking the amount of land that other species need to survive. In a time of rapid <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate change</a>, we need to proactively secure the last intact ecosystems on the planet, as these are critical in the fight to stop extinction and halt climate change."</p>
<p>The study comes amidst other dire news for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and biodiversity. A UN study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/nature-destruction-biodiversity-loss-un-2647682550.html" target="_self">released last week</a> found that world governments had failed to achieve any of the 20 targets they had set for preserving biodiversity by 2020. Another study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/humans-destroying-wildlife-report-2020-2647567577.html" target="_self">published this month</a> found that wildlife populations had plummeted 68 percent on average over the last 50 years.</p><p>Williams explained to WCS why the loss of intact ecosystems is such a big deal for humans and other animals.</p><p>"Intact lands are relied on by biodiversity for habitat, and by people for ecosystem services such as climate regulation and clean water," Williams said. "We continue to take these last functioning places for granted, and our results show urgent action is needed to protect those lands that do remain intact."</p>
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A home burns during the Bobcat Fire in Juniper Hills, California on September 18, 2020. Kyle Grillot / AFP/ Getty Images
By Stuart Braun
"These are not just wildfires, they are climate fires," Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, said as he stood amid the charred remains of the town of Malden west of Seattle earlier this month. "This is not an act of God," he added. "This has happened because we have changed the climate of the state of Washington in dramatic ways."
<p>As megafires devastated the entire West Coast of the U.S., Inslee rejected reference to wildfires since the word implies naturally occurring fires.</p><p>By contrast, the term climate fires explicitly links record-breaking blazes that have burned across California, Oregon and Washington to global heating caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas. </p><p>As California Governor Gavin Newsom inspected the ashen countryside in the county of Oroville in his home state, he doubled down on the source of the fires. "This is a climate damn emergency," he said.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQyNzMwNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTY1MzE3OH0.AJoxfvXx3isdh4RDPwAsP3EQ5hROX38poO_ZU9eRBJ4/img.png?width=980" id="eaf1a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7168b081bbcd14500a8bcef691b4d659" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>The pointed link to climate has been partly a response to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trump-downplays-climate-concerns-over-deadly-us-wildfires/a-54928125" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">President's Donald Trump's insistence</a> that poor forest management, not climate change, is to blame for the fires. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/cable-news/cable-news-largely-failed-mention-connection-between-climate-change-and-wildfires-its" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">research shows</a> barely 13% of broadcast news segments about the West Coast fires during their peak mentioned climate change.</p>
'These Aren't Wildfires'
<p>Sam Ricketts, who led climate policy and strategy for Governor Jay Inslee's 2020 presidential campaign, tweeted on September 11 that "These aren't wildfires. These are #climatefires, driven by fossil fuel pollution."</p><p>"The rate and the strength and the devastation wrought by these disasters are fueled by climate change," Ricketts told DW of fires that have burnt well over 5 million acres across California, Oregon, Washington State, and into neighboring Idaho. </p><p>In a two-day period in early September, Ricketts notes that more of Washington State burned than in almost any entire fire season until now, apart from 2015. </p><p>California, meanwhile, was a tinderbox after its hottest summer on record, with temperatures in Death Valley reaching nearly 130 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. It has been reported as the hottest temperature ever measured on Earth.</p><div id="29ad9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8346fe7350e1371d400097cd48bf45a2"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1306969603180879872" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Drought-parched wetlands in South America have been burning for weeks. https://t.co/pjAKdFcKPg #Pantanal https://t.co/ImN2C5vwcp</div> — NASA Earth (@NASA Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/statuses/1306969603180879872">1600440810.0</a></blockquote></div><p>As evidenced by Australia's apocalyptic Black Summer of 2019-2020, fires are burning bigger and for longer, with new records set year-on-year. Right now, Brazil's vast and highly biodiverse Pantanal wetlands are suffering from catastrophic fires.</p>
#climatefires Started in Australia
<p>Governor Inslee this month invoked the phrase climate fires for arguably the first time in the U.S., according to Ricketts.</p><p>But the term was also used as fires burnt out of control in Australia in late 2019. In the face of a 2000km (more than 1,200 miles) fire front, and government officials and media who <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/trump-climate-change-denial-emissions-environment-germany-fake-heartland-seibt/a-52688933" target="_blank">played down the link to climate change</a>, Greens Party Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and a friend decided that reference to bushfires was inadequate. </p><p>"We both just said, we've got to start calling them climate fires, that's what they are," the Australian Senator told DW.</p><p>Hanson-Young says scientists have been warning for decades that these would be the effects of global heating. "We've been told these kinds of extreme weather events and destruction is what climate change would look like, and it's right here on our doorstep," she said from her home state of South Australia — where by early September fire warnings had already been issued.</p><p>"Calling them climate fires was making it absolutely crystal clear. It is essential that there's no ambiguity," she said </p><p>Having deliberately invoked the term, Hanson-Young soon started to push it on social media via a #climatefires hashtag. </p>How to Talk About the Urgency of Global Heating
<p>The need to use more explicit language when talking about extreme weather events linked to climate change is part of a broader push to express the urgency of global heating. In 2019, activist Greta Thunberg tweeted that the term "climate change" did not reflect the seriousness of the situation. </p><p>"Can we all now please stop saying 'climate change' and instead call it what it is: climate breakdown, climate crisis, climate emergency, ecological breakdown, ecological crisis and ecological emergency?" she wrote. </p><p>"Climate change has for a long time been talked about as something that is a danger in the future," said Hansen-Young. "But the consequences are already here. When people hear the word crisis, they understand that something has to happen, that action has to be taken."</p><p><span></span>Some terms are now used in public policy, with state and national governments, and indeed the EU Parliament, declaring an official climate emergency in the last year. </p>Words That Reflect the Science
<p>But while the West Coast governors all fervently link the fires to an unfolding climate crisis, U.S. President Donald Trump continues to avoid any reference to climate. In a briefing about the fires, he responded to overtures by Wade Crowfoot, California's Natural Resources Secretary, to work with the states on the climate crisis by stating: "It'll start getting cooler. You just watch." Crowfoot replied by saying that scientists disagreed. Trump rejoined with "I don't think science knows, actually." </p><p>It was reminiscent of the anti-science approach to the coronavirus pandemic within the Trump administration, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/donald-trump-admits-playing-down-coronavirus-risks/a-54874350" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">at least publicly</a>. Fossil fuel companies are also benefiting from his disavowal of climate science, with the Trump administration having <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-trumps-paris-climate-accord-exit-isnt-really-a-problem/a-51124958" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pulled out of the Paris Agreement</a> and reopened fossil fuel infrastructure like the Keystone XL pipeline. </p><p>But the science community has responded, with Scientific American magazine endorsing Trump's Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden, the first presidential endorsement in its 175-year history. </p><p>Hanson-Young says the use of explicit language like climate fires has also been important in Australia due to the climate denialism of politicians and the press, especially in publications owned by Rupert Murdoch. As fires burnt out much of Australia's southeast coast, they were commonly blamed on arson — a tactic also recently used in the U.S.</p>Climate Rhetoric Could Help Decide Election
<p>The language of climate has begun to influence the U.S. presidential election campaign, with Democratic nominee Joe Biden labelling President Trump a "climate arsonist."</p><p>Biden is touting a robust climate plan that includes a 2050 zero emissions target and a return to the Paris Agreement. Though lacking the ambition of The New Green Deal, it has been front and center of his policy platform in recent days, at a time when five hurricanes are battering the U.S. Gulf Coast while smoke blanketing the West Coast spreads all the way to the East. </p><p>People are experiencing the climate crisis in a visceral way and almost universally relate to the language of an emergency, says Ricketts. "They know something is wrong."</p>From Your Site Articles
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World's Richest One Percent Are Producing More Than Double the Carbon Emissions as the Bottom 50 Percent
21 September
Climate
A new report from Oxfam found that the wealthiest one percent of the world produced a carbon footprint that was more than double that of the bottom 50 percent of the world. PickPik
A new report from Oxfam found that the wealthiest one percent of the world produced a carbon footprint that was more than double that of the bottom 50 percent of the world, The Guardian reported. The study examined 25 years of carbon dioxide emissions and wealth inequality from 1990 to 2015.
<p>The findings, <a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-confronting-carbon-inequality-210920-en.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y" target="_blank">Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery</a>, reveal how current economic systems have created extreme carbon inequity and brought the planet to the brink of ecological collapse. It also provides a roadmap for governments around the world to create fairer, more sustainable economies.</p><p>"Our current economic model has been an enabler of catastrophic climate change and equally catastrophic inequality," former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report.</p><p>The brief found that the roughly 630 million people who make up the world's wealthiest 10 percent were responsible for 52 percent of the world's carbons emissions from 1990-2015. They alone depleted the world's "carbon budget" by 31 percent. Carbon budgets define the total amount of carbon emissions allowed within a set period. By contrast, the world's poorest 50 percent, consisting of nearly 3.1 billion people, were responsible for just seven percent of global emissions and four percent of the available carbon budget.</p><p>The analysis further examined how wealth correlates to carbon emissions. It found that the richest one percent, about 63 million people, were responsible for 15 percent of carbon emissions. The wealthiest five percent were responsible for more than a third of carbon emissions growth over the 25-year time frame. The growth emissions from the top one percent amounted to three times the growth in emissions compared to the bottom 50 percent.</p>
<p>"The over-consumption of a wealthy minority is fueling the climate crisis yet it is poor communities and young people who are paying the price," Tim Gore, Head of Climate Policy at Oxfam and author of the report said in a <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity" target="_blank">press release</a>. "Such extreme carbon inequality is a direct consequence of our governments decades long pursuit of grossly unequal and carbon intensive economic growth."</p><p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/climatechange-emissions-wealth/in-suvs-and-on-planes-richest-1-drive-climate-heating-emissions-idUSL8N2GF31C" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported that consumption from the world's wealthiest people had depleted the carbon budget to the point where there isn't much room for poorer countries to grow without worsening the climate crisis.</p><p>In order to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, poorer countries will need to develop renewable energy sources while the wealthiest people and nations will need to limit over-consumption, reported Reuters.</p><p>"The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity," Gore told the Guardian. "A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best."</p>
<p>The report noted that if emissions continue to go unchecked, the wealthy will use up the world's available carbon budget by 2030, even if the rest of the world slashed its emissions to zero today.</p><p>Oxfam reported that transportation contributed about a quarter of current global emissions, citing SUVs as the second biggest contributing factor.</p><p>"Simply rebooting our outdated, unfair, and polluting pre-Covid economies is no longer a viable option," Gore said in the Oxfam release.</p><p>"Governments must curb the emissions of the wealthy through taxes and bans on luxury carbon such as SUVs and frequent flights. Revenues should be invested in public services and low carbon sectors to create jobs, and help end poverty," Gore added.</p>
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The label of one of the recalled thyroid medications. FDA
If you are taking medication for an underactive thyroid, check your prescription.
<p>Acella Pharmaceuticals, LLC is recalling some of its NP Thyroid® tablets because they are not strong enough to work properly, according to an announcement published by the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/acella-pharmaceuticals-llc-issues-voluntary-nationwide-recall-two-lots-np-thyroidr-thyroid-tablets" target="_blank">Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Thursday</a>. Patients with underactive thyroids, technically known as hypothyroidism, who take weaker medicine may experience symptoms of the condition. These include fatigue, dry skin, low heart rate, depression and unexpected weight loss or gain.</p><p>"To date, Acella has received four reports of adverse events for these lot numbers possibly related to this recall," the company said.</p>
<p>The recall marks the second time this month that a thyroid drug was pulled for being too weak, or subpotent, <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article245872655.html" target="_blank">the Miami Herald pointed out</a>. RLC Labs, Inc. <a href="https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/rlc-labs-inc-issues-voluntary-nationwide-recall-all-lots-nature-throidr-and-wp-thyroidr-current" target="_blank">recalled</a> nearly 500 lots of Nature-Throid® and WP Thyroid® for the same reason Sept. 3. Weeks before that, several lots of thyroid medication were recalled for being too strong, <a href="https://www.slashgear.com/popular-thyroid-drugs-recalled-because-theyre-weaker-than-expected-05636932/" target="_blank">SlashGear reported</a>.</p><p>The most recent recall concerns one lot of Acella's 15-mg NP Thyroid® and one lot of its 120-mg NP Thyroid®. The recall comes because testing revealed the lots to be subpotent. They may contain as little as 87 percent of the amount of levothyroxine, or T4, indicated on the label.</p><p>"Acella is proactively notifying its wholesalers by email and phone to discontinue distribution of the two above referenced lots being recalled and is arranging for return of all recalled products," the company said in the recall announcement. "Patients who are currently taking NP Thyroid® from the lots being recalled should not discontinue use without contacting their healthcare provider for further guidance and/or a replacement prescription."</p>
<p>Pregnant or elderly patients with hypothyroidism face additional risks if they take subpotent medication. For pregnant people, the weakened drug could cause early miscarriage or damage to the fetus such as impairment of skeletal or brain development or the onset of fetal hyperthyroidism. In elderly patients or patients with preexisting heart conditions, taking the weakened drugs could lead to palpitations, heart pain or cardiac arrhythmia.</p><p>The recalled products were packed in 100-count bottles and had expiration dates of Oct. and Nov. 2020. Their lot numbers were M327E19-1 and M328F19-3.</p><p>"[C]onsumers may be able to determine that their product is not impacted by the recall if the 'use by,' 'discard after,' or 'expiration date' on their prescription bottle is on or after December 2020," the recall notice said.</p><p>If patients experience any harmful side effects from taking the medication, they should contact their healthcare providers. They can also report the adverse reaction to the FDA's MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program <a href="https://www.fda.gov/safety/medwatch-fda-safety-information-and-adverse-event-reporting-program/reporting-serious-problems-fda" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Anyone with questions about the recall can contact Acella Pharmaceuticals at recall@acellapharma.com or 1-888-280-2044.</p>
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