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Norway's Wealth Fund Dumps Duke Energy Over 'Risk of Severe Environmental Damage'
Norway's central bank announced on Wednesday that the Norwegian Government's Pension Fund, worth $900 billion, will no longer invest in Duke Energy.
This decision is the result of an investigation by the Council on Ethics for the pension fund, which found that Duke Energy's failure to adequately respond to its leaking coal ash impoundments in North Carolina constituted "an unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage."
Based on its assessment, the council recommended that Duke Energy be excluded from the fund on ethical grounds. Nearly 4.7 million Duke shares and bonds, valued at $545 million, have been sold by the Norwegian Pension Fund.
In May 2015, I presented data and information to the Norwegian Parliament and Council on Ethics about the extensive and ongoing water pollution from Duke Energy coal ash ponds, advocating that they sell Duke Energy stocks for ethical reasons.
Waterkeeper recently sent a data packet to Norway emphasizing that Duke had not stopped ongoing leaks of heavy metals into drinking water supplies and plans to leave 70 percent of its coal ash in leaking ponds in North Carolina.
I am thrilled that the Council on Ethics determined that Duke's abysmal performance and severe environmental risk still posed by Duke Energy's leaking ash ponds warranted a special divestiture.
Duke Energy joins the list of many companies whose performance is so unacceptable to the Council of Ethics that they are black-listed as unsuitable for investment by one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds.
Waterkeeper Alliance will continue to present to major institutional shareholders of coal companies to inform them of the unacceptable environmental risk of leaking ash ponds into drinking water supplies. Until this industry finally stops its recalcitrant and illegal behavior, we will continue to advocate for divestment from these major polluters all over the world.
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Reef scene with crinoid and fish in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Reinhard Dirscherl / ullstein bild / Getty Images
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts
The future for the world's oceans often looks grim. Fisheries are set to collapse by 2048, according to one study, and 8 million tons of plastic pollute the ocean every year, causing considerable damage to delicate marine ecosystems. Yet a new study in Nature offers an alternative, and more optimistic view on the ocean's future: it asserts that the entire marine environment could be substantially rebuilt by 2050, if humanity is able to step up to the challenge.
<p>The key to success, the authors say, is lessening the impact and stresses on the ocean, while restoring damaged ecosystems, and trying to reduce carbon emissions that drive climate change.</p><p>This study examines nine parts of the ocean in detail — salt marshes, mangroves, seagrasses, coral reefs, kelp, oyster reefs, fisheries, megafauna, and the deep ocean — and suggests critical and realistic steps that can be taken to restore and protect these areas.</p>
<p>The authors refer to several models of success for reversing the decline of marine life. For instance, the global wildlife trade treaty CITES and and a <a href="https://iwc.int/commercial" target="_blank">1982 moratorium on commercial whaling</a> have reduced hunting of endangered species and helped protect the critical habitats these species depend upon. Depleted <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/managing-fisheries-helps-stocks-recover-most-of-the-time/" target="_blank">fish populations have also rebounded</a> in response to proper management techniques.</p><p>While the study fosters an optimistic view of future ocean health, it concedes that some parts of the ocean will be more difficult to restore. For instance, coral reef systems have the added pressure of <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/great-barrier-reef-suffers-biggest-bleaching-event-yet/" target="_blank">bleaching events</a> due to climate change, and the process of restoring damaged reefs is slow and expensive. However, the study notes that there are efforts to discover coral that's resistant to temperature change and bleaching events.</p><p>Restoring the oceans would be no small feat, and would require stable governmental policies, a large financial investment, and the continued evolution of scientific advances and technologies, the authors say. Action would also need to take place within a very short space of time.</p>
<p>But the biggest obstacle to restoring the oceans is mitigating the effects of climate change, according to Callum Roberts, a co-author of the study and professor at the University of York in the U.K.</p><p>"Climate change is the big problem that is looming over everything because it makes recovering nature harder, and as the climate changes, it's going to become more difficult," Roberts told Mongabay. "That's why we have to act very quickly now to start restoring nature, because that's going to help human societies to adapt over time, as well as to allow nature a better chance to survive and thrive through a changing climate."</p><p>Despite the challenges, Roberts says he believes the oceans are incredibly resilient. This is evident in marine protected areas (MPAs), where fishing and other human activities are prohibited, Roberts says.</p>
<p>"I've seen in localized areas how recovery can take place, and how it can take place quite quickly and spectacularly," he said. "When you protect areas, you can predict very easily the way that the response will go. You start off with things becoming more abundant, living longer, producing more offspring. Then you see the reconstruction of habitat structures on the seabed or kelp forests, then the return of some of the rarer things."</p><p>This year was supposed to be the "Ocean Super Year," with several ocean-related meetings and negotiations meant to take place, including the <a href="https://twitter.com/HighSeasAllianc/status/1235917197916213248?s=20" target="_blank">4th High Seas Treaty negotiation</a>, the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/ocean2020" target="_blank">U.N. Ocean Conference</a>, <a href="https://www.fpa2.org/news-7937.html" target="_blank">Monaco Blue Initiative</a>, and the <a href="http://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/04-Covid-19-IMO-meetings-.aspx" target="_blank"> International Maritime Organization</a>, which included a session with the Marine Environment Protection Committee. However, most have been cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19.</p>
<p>The pandemic itself has also prompted some reprieve for the oceans from human pressure, although Roberts said it's too early to identify the long-term effects.</p><p>"A lot of fishing boats are tied up right now, and that's definitely going to give a short-term benefit to marine life," he said. "Longer term, I don't know. But I think there will be a lot of thinking done after this crisis about how we need to do things better."</p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/ocean-optimism-study-says-we-can-restore-marine-health/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em>From Your Site Articles
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A daughter touches her father's head while saying goodbye as medics prepare to transport him to Stamford Hospital on April 02, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. He had multiple COVID-19 symptoms. John Moore / Getty Images
Across the country, the novel coronavirus is severely affecting black people at much higher rates than whites, according to data released by several states, as The New York Times reported.
<p>In New York, which has seen the most COVID-19 related deaths, the virus has disproportionately affected both the black and Hispanic population. In New York City, Hispanics make up 29 percent of the population, but 34 percent of the city's COVID-19 deaths, while African-Americans are 22 percent of the city's population and 28 percent of the fatalities, according to <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-deaths-race-ethnicity-04082020-1.pdf" target="_blank">new statistics</a> from the city, as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-04-08/coronavirus-disproportionally-kills-hispanics-and-blacks-in-new-york-city" target="_blank">US News and World Report</a>.</p><p>When I saw this, it made me very angry," Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/04/08/hispanic-and-black-new-yorkers-are-dying-at-highest-rates-from-coronavirus-1273789" target="_blank">Politico</a> reported. "It's sick. It's troubling. It's wrong."</p>
<p>Public health researchers say the alarming statistics highlight inequalities in resources, health, and access to care. Pervasive health conditions like asthma, diabetes and heart disease put people at a higher risk of getting seriously ill or dying if they contract COVID-19.</p><p>"There are clear inequalities, clear disparities in how this disease is affecting the people of our city," de Blasio said, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/04/08/hispanic-and-black-new-yorkers-are-dying-at-highest-rates-from-coronavirus-1273789" target="_blank">Politico</a> reported. "So many people struggle to get the healthcare they need, who didn't have the money to afford the healthcare they deserved. So many people have lived with chronic healthcare conditions."</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-covid-19-shows-unacceptable-disparities-for-african-americans-2020-4" target="_blank">Business Insider</a> reported, the numbers across the country have been even more disproportionate. In Chicago, where African-Americans make up 32 percent of the population, they have accounted for 72 percent of virus-related deaths and more than half of all positive test results. Similarly, in Milwaukee, blacks make up 28 percent of the population but have been 73 percent of all COVID-19 related deaths.</p><p>"Those numbers take your breath away, they really do," said Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/coronavirus-race.html?campaign_id=54&emc=edit_clim_20200408&instance_id=17477&nl=climate-fwd%3A&regi_id=86064351&segment_id=24329&te=1&user_id=bb077276a084ddee06decfc0648f4eef" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported. She is the city's first black woman elected as mayor. She added that the statistics were "among the most shocking things I think I've seen as mayor."</p><p>The statistics moved Dr. Anthnony Fauci, who sits on the president's coronavirus task force, to address societal health disparities at the White House on Tuesday.</p><p>"And the reason I want to bring it up, because I couldn't help sitting there reflecting on how sometimes when you're in the middle of a crisis, like we are now with the coronavirus, it really does ... ultimately, shine a very bright light on some of the real weaknesses and foibles in our society," Fauci said, as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-covid-19-shows-unacceptable-disparities-for-african-americans-2020-4" target="_blank">Business Insider</a> reported.</p><p>"As some of you may know, the greater proportion of my professional career has been defined by HIV/AIDS, and if you go back then during that period of time when there was extraordinary stigma — particularly against the gay community — and it was only when the world realized how the gay community responded to this outbreak with incredible courage and dignity and strength and activism, that I think that really changed some of the stigma against the gay community, very much so.</p><p>"I see a similarity here because health disparities have always existed for the African American community. But here again, with the crisis, how it's shining a bright light on how unacceptable that is," he said.</p>
<p>Sharrelle Barber, an assistant research professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/coronavirus-race.html?campaign_id=54&emc=edit_clim_20200408&instance_id=17477&nl=climate-fwd%3A&regi_id=86064351&segment_id=24329&te=1&user_id=bb077276a084ddee06decfc0648f4eef" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> that the effects of policies drawn up generations ago keep many black residents in segregated neighborhoods without job opportunities, stable housing, or grocery stores with healthy food and more.</p><p>"These communities, structurally, they're breeding grounds for the transmission of the disease," Barber said. "It's not biological. It's really these existing structural inequalities that are going to shape the racial inequalities in this pandemic."</p>
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Four rolls of sourdough bread are arranged on a surface. Photo by Laura Chase de Formigny and food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post / Getty Images
By Zulfikar Abbany
Bread has been a source of basic nutrition for centuries, the holy trinity being wheat, maize and rice. It has also been the reason for a lot of innovation in science and technology, from millstones to microbiological investigations into a family of single-cell fungi called Saccharomyces.
<p>There are breads of all shapes and sizes the world over — from flats and soda breads to buns, baguettes and boules, tinned loaves, crackers, plaits and sticks, baked with a griddle, in a Dutch oven or on a stone.</p><p>Jewish communities eat unleavened bread, or "matzo," at the Passover. It's flour and water, mixed and baked in under 20 minutes to prevent the dough from fermenting.</p><p>Ancient Greeks also made unleavened breads until about the last century BC, when leavens were introduced, and wheat flour replaced barley meal. </p><p>Asian chapatis and rotis and other Middle Eastern flatbreads, such as an Egyptian "aiysh," Palestinian "shrak," Syrian "aiysh shami" or Turkish "pide" are variations of the same, often wholemeal, bread that's used for scooping up saucy food. Some use leaven; others do just fine without. They are fast-action, practical breads. </p>
Chemical leavening
<p>If you like a little heft in your loaf, you will need a leavening agent.</p><p>For those short on time, you can use baking soda. That's a chemical compound of sodium bicarbonate mixed with potassium bitartrate, or cream of tartar.</p><p>Soda breads have their traditions in parts of eastern and central Europe, and in Ireland and Scotland, with Melrose loaves and "farls."</p><p>They can taste a bit bland, though, and are often considered only as an emergency solution on Sundays. No disrespect intended: They taste just fine fresh from the oven.</p><p>Whether it's chemical or more "natural," leavening relies largely on the production of carbon dioxide.</p><p>When you mix an acid, such as vinegar, buttermilk, yogurt or apple cider, with an alkaline compound like baking soda, you get CO2. That CO2 creates bubbles, which in turn capture steam in the oven and allow a bread to rise.</p><p><span></span>But it's better with yeast. Tastes better, too. It just takes more time. </p>What is yeast?
<p>There are yeasts all around us — on grains, in the air, in biofuels. It even lives inside us, but that's not always a good thing.</p><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1090575/pdf/1471-2334-5-22.pdf" target="_blank">Candida yeast</a> can cause infections of the skin, feet, mouth, penis or vagina if it builds up too much in the body.</p><p>One of the most common yeasts, however, is <em>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</em>. That's <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/an-early-beer-archaeologists-tap-ground-at-worlds-oldest-brewery/a-45480731" target="_blank">"brewer's"</a> or "baker's" yeast.</p><p>You can get fresh baker's yeast, often in 42-gram (1.48-ounce) cubes, or as dried yeast (quick action or active, which requires rehydration) in a sachet of 7 grams.</p><p>There's little difference: One is compressed and the other is dehydrated and granulated. But they do the same thing, essentially. </p><p>Some commercial yeast producers add molasses and other nutrients. But natural yeast has plenty of useful nutrients in it anyway, including B group vitamins, so who knows whether it's good or necessary to add them. </p>How does yeast work?
<p>When you mix flour, yeast and water, you set off a veritable chain reaction. Enzymes in the wheat convert starch into sugar. And the yeast creates enzymes of its own to convert those sugars into a form it can absorb.</p><p>The yeast "feeds" on the sugars to create carbon dioxide and alcohol. The yeast burps and farts, releasing gases into the mix, and that creates bubbles to trap CO2. </p><p>It's a vital fermentation process that breaks down the gluten in the flour and helps make your bread more digestible.</p><p>The yeast cells split and reproduce, generating lactic and carbonic acid, raising the temperature and ultimately adding flavor to the mix.</p><p>The longer you leave the yeast to do its thing, the better for your bread. Time is more important than the amount of yeast. </p><p>In fact, that's an enduring question — how much yeast? I'll use 20 grams fresh yeast for 500 grams of flour. Others say that's enough yeast for 1 kilo. If you are converting a dry-yeast recipe to fresh yeast, some bakers advise tripling the weight. So, if a sachet of dried yeast is 7 grams, your fresh yeast is 21 grams.</p><p><span></span>But that also depends on the flours you are using, temperatures in the bowl and the room, and a host of other things. You'll just have to experiment and see. No number of books (and I've read a stack on bread) will help as much as trial and error.</p><p>There is one simple fact, though, and that is that more yeast does not make better bread. It might make it rise quicker and higher, but size isn't everything, right?</p><p>Oh, mind how and when you add salt. Salt slows the action in yeast. It toughens the gluten "network," or structure of your dough, making it tougher to knead or stretch.</p><p><span></span>Keep an eye on ambient temperatures as well. Yeast needs warmth to activate and react, but too much heat will kill it — that's basically what happens when you pop your loaf in the oven. You "finish" the process. </p>
Wild yeast: Sourdough
<p>So, good bread needs time. If you have a lot of time, why not move it up a notch and grow wild yeast — a sourdough starter — in your own home?</p><p>A sourdough starter is not to be mistaken (as it often is) for the leaven, or "mother," "sponge," or <em>levain</em>. That's more a second stage, a descendant of the starter. You take a scoop from your starter and add it to another flour and water mixture when you prepare the dough for a new loaf. </p><p>The sourdough process utilizes yeasts naturally present in flour and … yet more time. A longer fermentation process allows a richer lactic acid bacteria <em>lactobacilli</em> or LAB to evolve, and that can be healthy for your gut microbiome.</p><p>It's simple enough to start a sourdough starter. All you need is flour, warm water and time.</p><p>Some suggest equal measures of whole-grain flour and water at 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), some say room temperature — just don't let the water exceed 40 C or the yeasts will die. Some suggest two parts flour to three parts water. But it's up to you whether you want a drier or wetter starter. You will know only through experimentation. </p><p>Some say you should filter tap water to remove chemicals like fluoride and avoid using water that's boiled and then cooled. Others say that really doesn't matter.</p><p>The main thing is, keep it clean and give it time. Days, weeks, months and years.</p><p>In the first week, discard half of the mixture each day and add a fresh batch of flour and water. You can use the discarded starter to make patties or a truly dark Russian black bread. But that's for later.</p><p>Make sure the starter can breathe — don't screw on a lid, use a cloth to cover it. And after a week, you should start to see bubbles. That's when you know your starter alive and active.</p><p>The tricky thing now is keeping it alive and the right amount of active whenever you need some for a loaf. After over a year of cultivating a starter, I still can't get it right.</p>
<p>You have to feed your starter regularly with fresh flour and water. If it develops a watery alcohol on top, that's "hooch," a protective layer and just means your starter needs refreshing. If you've only got time to feed it once a week, slow the process by chilling it in a fridge.</p><p>Sourdough takes dedication and a scientific approach. You can't knock out a boule.</p><p>Yeast aside, it's important to allow time for your flour and water to "autolyze." If you add salt too soon, you will inhibit the gluten structure. Give it time, and two proteins in the wheat, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899726/pdf/12551_2017_Article_367.pdf" target="_blank">gliadin and glutenin,</a> will bond to give you that all-important gluten (apologies to the gluten-intolerant), the gluten will give the yeast more feed, and you will have an airy, nutritious bread at the end. </p><p>But all too often I get impatient and end up having to "juice" my sourdough with a pinch of fresh yeast. It still has that distinctive, sour taste, but it's not "pure." I won't give up. One day I'll make a perfect sourdough rye.</p>
<p class="">Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/sourdough-yeast-fungi-of-life-and-yummy-bread/a-53047010?maca=en-VAM_volltext_ecowatch-28485-html-copypaste" target="_blank">DW</a>.</p>From Your Site Articles
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A coral reef in Egypt's Red Sea. Tropical ocean ecosystems could see sudden biodiversity losses this decade if emissions are not reduced. Georgette Douwma / Stone / Getty Images
The biodiversity loss caused by the climate crisis will be sudden and swift, and could begin before 2030.
<p>That's the warning from a new study <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2189-9" target="_blank">published in Nature Wednesday</a>, which set out to determine how a variety of species and ecosystems would respond to rising temperatures over the course of the 21st century.</p><p>"We found that climate change risks to biodiversity don't increase gradually. Instead, as the climate warms, within a certain area most species will be able to cope for a while, before crossing a temperature threshold, when a large proportion of the species will suddenly face conditions they've never experienced before," lead author Dr. Alex Pigot of University College London's Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research said in a <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/apr/climate-change-could-cause-sudden-biodiversity-losses-worldwide" target="_blank">press release</a>. "It's not a slippery slope, but a series of cliff edges, hitting different areas at different times."</p>
<p>The researchers divided the globe into 100 by 100 kilometer (approximately 62 mile) grids and looked at the ranges of 30,652 species along with climate models from 1850 to 2005. They then used models to determine when the species in each grid would experience temperatures beyond their historic ranges for five years or more. The results showed that many species in an ecosystem would cross that temperature threshold at the same time, and 73 percent of species around the world facing temperature shocks would do so in the same decade.</p>
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<p>Jennifer Sunday, a McGill University biologist who was not involved with the study, told <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042020/global-warming-ecosystem-biodiversity-rising-heat-species?fbclid=IwAR1galRnXD4ZOTC0tZ_ob18WhgHpVwzDPQUPHEXA_nqw0QwQ1WoeQWFM_8s" target="_blank">InsideClimate News</a> that its novel approach allowed for new insight into the timeline for climate-driven biodiversity loss.</p><p>"We did not know about the time-course of events. We have lots of models that compare species ranges today to those at a future date, but we did not know when most of the changes were going to happen," she said. "The research also makes it clear that global warming's impacts on ecosystems could arrive very suddenly."</p><p>Just how sudden and how devastating those impacts will be depends entirely on how swiftly greenhouse gas emissions are lowered to reduce global warming.</p><p>The study found that, in a high-emissions scenario that allows more than four degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, at least 15 percent of ecosystems would suffer an event in which more than 20 percent of their key species hit their temperature limits in the same decade. This could happen before 2030 for tropical oceans and by 2050 for the far North and tropical forests.</p><p>If emissions are kept below two degrees Celsius, however, as per the goals of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a>, fewer than two percent of ecosystems will face such an event.</p>
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<p>Dr. Pigot said the experience of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" target="_self">coronavirus</a> provided a model for how swift action now could avert catastrophe later.</p><p>"Our findings highlight the urgent need for climate change mitigation, by immediately and drastically reducing emissions, which could help save thousands of species from extinction. Keeping global warming below 2°C effectively 'flattens the curve' of how this risk to biodiversity will accumulate over the century, providing more time for species and ecosystems to adapt to the changing climate – whether that's by finding new habitats, changing their behaviour, or with the help of human-led <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> efforts," he said in the press release.</p>
<p>Conservation groups also endorsed Pigot's message.</p><p>"There is already more than enough evidence that climate change is impacting the natural world and that we risk losing up to a million species. We know what the solutions are to halt climate change and biodiversity loss," Mark Wright, director of science at <a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/" target="_blank">WWF-UK</a>, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/wildlife-destruction-not-a-slippery-slope-but-a-series-of-cliff-edges" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "The world is currently rightly focused on tackling the global health emergency. However, this new research reinforces that, after we are through this extremely difficult time, we will need renewed ambitious action to address the climate and nature crisis."</p>
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An approximately one-year-old puma in the streets of Santiago, Chile on March 24, 2020, in search for food as fewer people are outside due to the pandemic. ANDRES PINA / ATON CHILE / AFP via Getty Images
A third cougar has been sighted wandering through a residential neighborhood in the Chilean capital of Santiago as millions of the city's residents are under lockdown measures in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
<p>A video shared by the National Zoo of Chile shows the big cat being released at "dusk under strict security measures" darting from an enclosure back into its mountain landscape. The zoo adds that the big cat was captured in a private home on Monday and was in deemed in good enough health to release it the same day, according to a Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zoologiconacionaldechile/posts/3238908382799914" target="_blank">post</a>.</p><p>Two other cougars have also been captured in the city as a majority of its six million residents are practicing quarantine and self-isolation measures amid the coronavirus outbreak. As people have moved inside for the last two weeks, wild animals often pushed to urban outskirts have been making their way into city centers.</p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="77827e0b75e8757004242624fd75cc54"><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/zoologiconacionaldechile/videos/213107676637654/" data-allowfullscreen="true"></div></div>
<p>"They sense less noise and are also looking for new places to find food and some get lost and appear in the cities," Horacio Bórquez, Chile's national director of livestock and agriculture service, said of the animals in a report by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52197631" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p><p>The foothills surrounding Santiago have also been experiencing a severe <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">drought</a>, which <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-chile-puma/chilean-capital-gets-another-visit-from-cougar-amid-coronavirus-lockdown-idUSKBN21K37Q" target="_blank">Reuters</a> adds may be further pushing the thirsty felines toward urban centers in search of water. Central Chile has received 30 percent lass rainfall that normal over the last decade in what scientists have nicknamed a "<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6219" target="_blank">megadrought</a>." Last year was particularly dry with rainfall deficits of 80 to 90 percent, according to <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145874/long-term-drought-parches-chile" target="_blank">NASA</a>.</p><p>"An 80 percent deficit means that the semi-arid region north of Santiago has seen almost no water, as seen in the marked browning of the vegetation," said <a href="http://www.dgf.uchile.cl/rene/" target="_blank">René D. Garreaud</a>, a scientist at the University of Chile. "South of Santiago has received some rain — 100 to 300 millimeters (4 to 12 inches). That is still not much, but it has been enough to keep the vegetation green."</p>
<p>It is unclear whether wildlife is "rebounding" in the absence of humans or if they are simply taking advantage of a unique situation. In recent weeks, social media has shared videos of wildlife making its way to human-populated areas as if in response to global lockdowns – claims that <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-fake-animal-viral-social-media-posts/" target="_blank">National Geographic</a> has challenged. Many of the reports – which include accounts of <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dolphins-swans-italy-lockdown/" target="_blank">swans</a>, <a href="https://mashable.com/article/coronavirus-fake-dolphins-venice-animals-viral-posts/" target="_blank">dolphins</a>, and even <a href="https://www.indy100.com/article/drunk-elephants-china-corn-yunan-province-9414431" target="_blank">drunk elephants</a> – are either misrepresented or a regular occurrence.</p><p>"The phenomenon highlights how quickly eye-popping, too-good-to-be-true rumors can spread in times of crisis. People are compelled to share posts that make them emotional," writes the publication. "When we're feeling stressed, joyous animal footage can be an irresistible salve. The spread of social phenomena is so powerful, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep19767" target="_blank">2016 research shows</a>, that it can follow same models that trace the contagion of epidemics."</p><p>As human populations grow and encroach on natural habitat, interactions between people and wildlife continue to increase. Protective regulations have further helped once-endangered animal populations to bounce back, further <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/mountain-lion-encounters-rise-experts/story?id=62144482" target="_blank">spurring</a> potential urban-wildlife conflict. A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5559" target="_blank">2019 study</a> suggests that understanding animals living at the wildland-urban interface is necessary to ensure the safety of both animals and humans, which is "especially true for large carnivores" as these species are not always tolerated by the public.</p>
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