CHICAGO

Steppenwolf Theatre announces major layoffs: ‘We’re not too big to fail’
2023/08/31

The atrium lobby for Steppenwolf's theater-in-the-round, part of its campus on Halsted Street, on Oct. 25, 2021, in Chicago.

 - E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — Steppenwolf Theatre Company, one of Chicago’s most storied arts institutions and long a crucial part of the city’s identity, said Thursday that it was laying off 12% of its staff, effectively immediately.

Thirteen current employees have been let go, with seven open positions eliminated.

Steppenwolf executive director Brooke Flanagan said in an interview that the theater’s subscription base had fallen from about 10,000 subscribers in pre-pandemic 2019 to about 6,000 today. She also said that single-ticket sales were down 31%, even as expenses were up 19% over the same term. (Steppenwolf is currently negotiating with its front-of-house staff, which has formed a union and is not part of the layoffs.)

Those are sobering numbers at one of the city’s marquee cultural attractions.

Steppenwolf already has reduced its mainstage shows from eight productions to six in a season, as previously reported in the Tribune. Flanagan said those shorter seasons likely would continue for at least three years, or until the theater, which still has debt from the physical expansion of its Lincoln Park home, can find a more stable financial footing. The current plan reduces the theater’s overall annual budget from about $20 million to about $16 million.

Flanagan also said that the theater had chosen to focus on three core platforms: new work centering on its famous ensemble of artists, a commitment to teens and educators through its educational programs, and its ability to host other theaters, maintaining the broader theater ecology.

But there are to be cuts outside those areas. For example, the popular Front Bar on Halsted Street now will only open around performances, rather than most nights.

Although shocking for a theater that has expanded for so long, Steppenwolf’s cuts are not out of line with the nonprofit theater sector across the country, which has seen a staggering drop-off in audience demand and a rise in costs. The causes and solutions are both debated and contested, but Flanagan pointed to the upcoming 50th anniversary of Steppenwolf in 2026 as an opportunity for the city to reflect on the importance of a company that has taken Chicago shows and talent across the world.

In an interview Thursday, the City of Chicago’s cultural commissioner Erin Harkey (appointed during Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration) said that Mayor Brandon Johnson was aware of the crisis among nonprofit theaters and recently had convened a group that included tourism, business development officials and representatives from the city’s theaters. The goal, she said, was to assess the situation and develop a plan.

“This will have to be an all-hands-on-deck effort involving the city, the philanthropic community and the theaters,” Harkey said, also noting that the situation varied from institution to institution, with some being in better fiscal shape than others. She also said that the city’s Choose Chicago tourism arm plans a fall campaign designed to boost the city’s theater companies, the kind of effort that Flanagan said was essential for the sector’s recovery.

“We are not too big to fail,” Flanagan said. “Steppenwolf is an important part of the fabric of what makes this a great American city. This is a crucial time for philanthropists to give with seriousness and for audiences to rediscover the joy of live theater.”

© Chicago Tribune

NJ Transit engineers vote to strike but assure riders with won’t happen on Labor Day
2023/08/31

Off-duty NJ Transit engineers in May protested the agency's decision to lease new offices in a pricey complex but, according to the union, not to move forward on negotiations on a new labor agreement. Engineers voted to strike if federal mediation and negotiation requirements fail to produce a new contract.

Union NJ Transit locomotive engineers and trainmen voted Thursday to strike, an action that union officials assured riders wouldn’t happen until federal mediation and negotiation requirements are exhausted.

Roughly 81% of the 494 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen returned ballots, and of those, almost all were in favor of a future strike against NJ Transit if negotiations fail to produce a new contract for its members, BLE&T officials said. Of 399 ballots returned, 397 were cast for strike authorization and two were ruled invalid.

Union officials reiterated earlier statements that a strike would not be called immediately, but could happen at the end of various negotiation and mediation processes required by federal law governing railroad employees. The deadline for returning ballots was noon Thursday.

“NJT’s locomotive engineers have spoken loud and clear,” said Eddie Hall, National BLE&T president. “(NJ Transit) would rather litigate than negotiate. We would prefer to reach a voluntary settlement, but make no mistake, with this vote the clock is now ticking. The process to be granted release from the National Mediation Board has begun. As soon as it is lawful for us to act, we will.”

The last strike against NJ Transit was in March 1983 and lasted for 34 days.

“We are still actively engaged in mediation with the union and a strike is not permissible while mediation is ongoing – that would be a violation of the Railway Labor Act, said Jim Smith, a spokesperson for NJ Transit.

The BLE&T is the last of 15 rail unions to reach a contract with NJ Transit and announced earlier this month it would take a strike vote of its members. The union has been without a new contract for three years.

“There is a long (mediation) process that goes well into 2024,” Kevin Corbett, NJ Transit president and CEO, said in an earlier interview with NJ Advance Media.

The federal Railway Labor Act spells out the process for when federal negotiators get involved, and other required steps before a strike is allowed, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The act also provides mandatory dispute resolution procedures that include use of a federal mediator through the National Mediation Board. That is the step NJ Transit and the union are in now, Corbett said.

In past interviews, NJ Transit officials said it has offered similar contracts and wage increases that 14 other rail unions agreed to under a process called pattern bargaining.

The strike vote sent the union and NJ Transit to court on Aug. 17 after the agency contended the vote and union statements violated a June 2022 court order against any wildcat job actions and sought a contempt of court ruling. NJ Transit attorneys argued the union planned to strike on a day after the vote on Sept. 1.

The judge dismissed NJ Transit ‘s motion but did issue an order that required the union to email members they were not to strike after the vote to comply with the June 2022 order, court documents said.

National BLE&T union officials repeated earlier statements that it would follow the Railway Labor Act.

The June 2022 court order was issued after engineers staged a sick out during the Juneteenth 2022 holiday, which other unions that settled contracts were paid for but engineers who were working under the old contract, did not. That job action resulted in hundreds of canceled trains and suspension of service on the evening of June 17.

Negotiations are stalled because the BLE&T and NJ Transit disagree over salaries.

BLE&T officials want salaries similar to what engineers are paid on other regional passenger railroads such as Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road. They argued that engineers have to meet higher training and qualification standards than other rail employees do, which should be worth a higher wage.

The disagreement flared up during a May demonstration outside NJ Transit’s Newark headquarters where off duty engineers picketed and criticized the agency for spending $440 million to lease new office space at 2 Gateway Center for the next 25 years. The agency faces an approaching budget gap predicted to hit $957 million in mid-2026.

“Our members at NJT are furious that the agency has millions for penthouse views, but not a dime for train crews who kept the trains running throughout the worst days of the pandemic and haven’t had a raise since 2019,” Hall said in a statement.

Following Labor Day, BLE&T officials will begin a public information and advertising campaign to educate both commuters and New Jersey’s voters about the status of contract talks and the transit agency’s decision to spend funds for “lavish office space rather than wages for the people who keep the trains moving,” officials said.

In 2016, locomotive engineers and conductors were the last two unions to settle with NJ Transit and officials announced contingency plans in the event of a strike, Under those plans, agency buses could only move 40,000 of the 105,000 daily commuters to and from New York. Both unions ratified a second contract offer in July 2016.

NJ Transit commuters aren’t the only ones facing a potential strike in their future.

Metro North commuters in Connecticut could face a strike this fall after two Transportation Worker Union locals took a strike vote after officials of those unions said negotiations before the National Mediation Board were at an impasse, CT Insider reported.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.

© Advance Local Media LLC.

'Morality police': Fox News hosts freak out after Canada warns LGBTQ travelers about dangers of visiting US

David Badash,

 The New Civil Rights Movement
August 31, 2023

Fox News screengrab.

Claiming Canada’s new warning to its LGBTQ people is a “political” attack on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and not an “actual concern,” several Fox News hosts on Thursday delivered caustic commentary against the Canadian government and U.S. cities including LGBTQ-friendly San Francisco and New York.

“Well, they’re talking about Florida, right? They’re aiming this at Ron DeSantis, and the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which is one of the most ridiculous interpretations of that bill that I’ve ever seen,” declared Fox News guest host Michele Tafoya, the former NBC Sports reporter who kicked off her political career with a “controversial stand on race relations.”

After mentioning that the NAACP had issued a travel warning for LGBTQ people thinking of visiting Florida, Tafoya insisted, “this is all very much, this is very political, and it’s misdirected.”

“I think they need to be a little more concerned about countries in the Middle East who throw LGBTQ types off buildings and disrupt weddings and don’t even allow us to think about it,” she continued. “So this is, it’s rich coming from Canada, that banned certain people from thinking and talking certain ways to suggest that you might be in danger here.”

“I can’t think of a single law that has anyone in danger for being part of the LGBTQ community,” Tafoya, who holds a masters in business administration, added.

The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona, who posted the videos, pointed to an ACLU report titled: “Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures.” It notes the civil rights organization “is tracking 496 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S.” The report lists 10 anti-LGBTQ bills in Florida, including four that have already passed into law, one of which is being fought in court.

As the discussion continued, Fox News host Dagen McDowell claimed Canada is “clearly worried about people’s feelings and not their physical safety. Because there are other countries, New Zealand, Australia, and France, have warned their citizens about violent crimes and shootings in our cities. That’s an actual concern.”

“If Canada was worried about anybody coming to the United States, say, ‘Hey, be careful if you go to places that have historically been friendly to the, and I gotta get this right because Canada again, turned it around, 2SLGBTQI+, San Francisco, New York City, you will get injured if you come here. So they rather than caring about again, safety, that should be in the warning and you mentioned yep, Canada is your, Jordan Peterson has to go through some social media reeducation, which is like Soviet Union Gulag-era nonsense. Well done. Oh, when you can only have two beers a week.”

“I also find it rich, Kennedy, that the morality police emanating from Canada don’t turn them around,” added yet another host.

Pharma-funded Republicans go to bat for drug industry as Medicare moves to negotiate prices

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
August 31, 2023

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) (Photo: X)

"Did a Big Pharma CEO write these talking points for you on the back of a campaign check?" one critic asked Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn.

Polling data released this week shows that nearly 90% of Republican voters support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.

But congressional Republicans—many of whom receive substantial funding from the pharmaceutical industry—have staked out the opposite position, bashing the Biden administration's rollout of the initial list of medications that will be subject to price negotiations and parroting drugmakers' arguments against the popular reforms.

"The Inflation Reduction Act's socialist drug price controls will stunt the development of lifesaving treatments and cures while granting the government more unnecessary control over Americans' lives," Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) wrote on social media, invoking the well-worn and misleading narrative that curbing medicine costs would stifle innovation.

Blackburn received $215,500 in campaign donations from pharma and other health product PACs between 2017 and 2022, according to OpenSecrets.

"Did a Big Pharma CEO write these talking points for you on the back of a campaign check?" Tennessee State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-90) wrote in response to Blackburn. (Johnson is currently exploring a U.S. Senate run against the Republican.)

Every GOP lawmaker in the U.S. House and Senate voted against the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which requires Medicare to negotiate the prices of a subset of high-cost prescription drugs. After the legislation passed, Republicans swiftly began working to roll it back, taking specific aim at Medicare's new authority to negotiate drug prices, which are far higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy nations.

Republican presidential candidates—including former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination—have also vocally criticized the law and suggested they would work to repeal it if they win in 2024.

Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services listed the first 10 drugs it plans to negotiate, drawing predictable backlash from the pharmaceutical industry, which lobbied against the IRA's passage and is now suing over the drug pricing provisions. Several of the drugs included on the initial list were already set to face generic competition in the coming years.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the IRA's drug pricing reforms will save Medicare $160 billion over the next decade.

"Any effort by far-right Republicans to paint lowering the costs of prescription drug prices for Americans as a bad thing is laughable."

With President Joe Biden looking to make the drug price negotiations a centerpiece of his 2024 reelection campaign, Republican strategists are urging the GOP to aggressively counter the White House with messaging that mirrors industry claims about the IRA's potential impact on innovation—claims that advocates have long dismissed as false and self-serving.

"Republicans have to figure out how to go after it," Joe Grogan, a Republican strategist who served as a domestic policy adviser for Trump, toldPolitico. "They go after it by taking it head on: it is killing clinical programs, fundamentally restricting the amount of treatments."

Some GOP lawmakers are taking just that approach.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), whose campaign received $253,400 from pharma and health product PACs between 2017 and 2022, said in a statement Tuesday that Medicare price negotiations "risk reversing decades of progress on bringing lifesaving treatments and medical breakthroughs to American patients."

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who has received donations from drug companies that are suing the Biden administration over the price negotiations, added that "the Biden administration is trying to take a victory lap while at the same time they are pricing seniors out of their healthcare and ensuring future cures never reach those who need them."

A 2021 report by Patients for Affordable Drugs concluded that "Big Pharma's innovation argument just does not stand up to scrutiny," noting that "the money that U.S.-based drug companies make by charging Americans high prices is 76% greater than what's needed to fund their entire global research and development expenditures."

Democrats have vowed to combat attempts by the pharmaceutical industry and Republicans to sabotage or repeal the IRA, which represents a modest effort to rein in drugmakers' power to drive up prices.

"The products that will now be subject to negotiation are used by millions of seniors in Medicare each year, costing each of them thousands of dollars," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee. "I will be following the negotiation process closely and will fight any attempt by Big Pharma to undo or undermine the progress that's been made."

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) argued Wednesday that "any effort by far-right Republicans to paint lowering the costs of prescription drug prices for Americans as a bad thing is laughable."

Alabama  GOP AG pushes 'criminal conspiracy' charges for people who help abortion-seeking women flee state

Brad Reed
August 31, 2023, 

Attorney General of Alabama Steve Marshall speaks to members of the press after the oral argument of the Merrill v. Milligan case at the U.S. Supreme Court on October 4, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court heard oral argument of the case that challenge whether the new congressional map of Alabama violates the Voting Rights Act.

 (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall thinks that people who help abortion-seeking women flee his state should face potential criminal charges.

CNN reports that Marshall made a court filing this week in which he argued that "providing transportation for women in Alabama to leave the state to get an abortion could amount to a 'criminal conspiracy.'"

Marshall made his filing in response to legal complaints filed by abortion rights group the Yellowhammer Fund, as well as two women's health centers, who argued that the Alabama AG had absolutely no right to regulate efforts to help women get abortions in states outside of his own.

Marshall, however, is arguing that helping women obtain abortions in states where it is still legal should be prosecuted if such a "conspiracy" originated in Alabama.

"The conspiracy is what is being punished, even if the final conduct never occurs,” Marshall argued in this week's filing. “That conduct is Alabama-based and is within Alabama’s power to prohibit.”

Alabama currently has one of the nation's strictest abortion laws, making it far more likely than in other states that women seeking abortions will try to leave it to get care in other states.

Marshall has also suggested that he would not only prosecute anyone who helps pregnant women travel out of state but he would also prosecute women who take abortion pills.

How climate change boosts hurricanes
Agence France-Presse
August 31, 2023, 

Satellite data illustrates the heat signature of Hurricane Maria above warm surface water in 2017. NASA

Scientists are sounding the alarm on human-caused climate change's impact on hurricanes such as Idalia, which rapidly intensified over a warm Gulf of Mexico before making landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

Record-warm oceans counter El Nino

Back in May, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted a "near normal" Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

That was in large part because of the El Nino global weather pattern, which causes a higher than average "vertical wind shear" in the Atlantic, which in turn suppresses hurricane activity.

"If you have big changes in the wind with height, that tends to import dry, lower-energy air into the core of a tropical cyclone and prevent it from strengthening," Allison Wing, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University, told AFP.

But come August, NOAA increased its forecast prediction for the season to "above normal," based on ocean and atmospheric conditions "such as record-warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures" that "are likely to counterbalance the usually limiting atmospheric conditions associated with the ongoing El Nino event."

"It's been a sort of tricky year in terms of thinking about the whole seasonal forecast because we have these two opposing factors," said Wing.


- What is known about climate change -

One-eye catching example: on July 24 a buoy off the southern tip of Florida recorded an alarming peak temperature of 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit (38.4 Celsius), readings more commonly associated with hot tubs, and a possible new world record.

"Warm waters, both at the surface of the ocean and beneath, provide the fuel that intensifies tropical storms and hurricanes," said Michael Mann, a climatologist at University of Pennsylvania. "That allows them to both intensify faster and attain higher maximum intensities."


You still need the right conditions to lead to hurricane formation -- but when they come along, storms will take advantage of warming oceans to generate fiercer winds and cause bigger storm surges.

"You can think of climate change as sort of like loading the dice," added Wing. "There's still a variety of different possible outcomes for any individual storm, but you have a greater chance of having those high-intensity storms."

Apart from affecting the maximum intensity of hurricanes, climate change can also increase the amount of rain they are able to dump, Andrew Kruczkiewicz, an atmospheric scientist and researcher at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, told AFP.


"The warmer the atmosphere is, the greater the capacity for water," he said. "This can mean increased intense precipitation events."

Kruczkiewicz added he was personally worried people who had moved inland to escape Idalia could find themselves caught nonetheless in extreme weather.

Last year, climate change boosted Hurricane Ian's rainfall by at least 10 percent, according to recent research.


- Seasons getting longer -

There's increasing evidence that the storm season itself is getting longer, as the window during which ocean surface temperatures support tropical storm formation begins sooner and ends later, said Mann -- a relationship that appears to hold true in both the Atlantic hurricane basin and the Bay of Bengal.

While there is ample research that climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous, whether it is also making them more frequent is much less certain and more study is required.

Men who endorse “masculinity contingency” beliefs have more negative views on electric vehicles, study finds

2023/08/31



A recent study found that men’s adherence to traditional masculinity ideology is linked to negative attitudes towards electric vehicles, or EVs, and a lower likelihood of intending to purchase them. The study, published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychology of Men and Masculinities journal, suggests that deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity may influence men’s consumer choices in the expanding EV market.

The link between identity and consumer behavior has been the subject of research for many years, and previous studies have suggested that what people buy often reflects who they are, or who they want to be. In the scope of “masculinity,” consumer behavior does not only refer to being biologically male, but encompasses a set of social and cultural norms that cisgender men may feel pressured to adhere to. These include being “dominant,” “abrasive,” and strictly appealing to the opposite sex.

The study utilizes “masculinity contingency” to understand consumer choices and unpack how these choices reflect identity from a masculine perspective. Masculinity contingency refers to the idea that an individual’s sense of masculinity is not inherent, but is reliant upon their ability to adhere to the social and cultural norms placed upon cisgender men.

In other words, one’s sense of being “masculine” relies on meeting specific social and cultural criteria, and a failure to meet these criteria tends to result in feelings of diminished masculinity and a desire to “redeem” oneself via displaying more stereotypically masculine behaviors.

The study was completed with the aim of increasing the amount of work on masculinities, and in particular masculinity contingency, while also increasing the understanding of attitudes towards EVs amongst men. The participants of the study were 400 cisgender men, from the ages of 18 to 85, living in the United States. All of the men were recruited from Prolific, a platform that allows researchers to recruit participants for studies, and the study itself was conducted through a series of two surveys, both provided through the software Qualtrics.

The first survey had the participants respond to statements that pertained to traditionally masculine ideals by choosing from seven options ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Similarly, the second survey had the participants respond to statements that pertainted to their attitude towards EVs, such as their hypothetical desire to purchase one, by choosing from five options ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

Then, the results of both surveys were analyzed using maximum difference scaling – a research method that breaks down how people value different options relative to each other as opposed to rating each item independently.

While the study proposed three different hypotheses, the main thrust of all three was that masculinity contingency would negatively influence the participants’ attitudes towards EVs. The results of the study indicated a negative association between masculinity contingency and attitudes towards EVs.

In other words, the study confirmed that men who strongly adhere to traditional masculine norms had less favorable attitudes towards EVs, and in addition, were less likely to consider purchasing an EV and were more likely to rank an EV as the least preferred type of car.

While the study offers valuable insights into how traditional views of masculinity may influence attitudes towards EVs, it is important to note specific caveats that may be important context for the findings’ interpretations. The study collected data online, which limited the scope of participants to those who had access to the internet. The surveys were only conducted once per participant, which only captures their opinions at a single point in time as opposed to their consistent opinions over a longer time period. In addition, the research relied on the participant’s self-reported sense of masculinity, which could be subject to biases.

The study, “Masculinity Contingency and Consumer Attitudes Towards Electric Vehicles”, was authored by Mike C. Parent, an assistant professor of counseling at the University of Texas at Austin who holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology.

© PsyPost

BIRD TO MAMMAL SPILLOVER
Bird flu kills scores of sea lions in Argentina

Agence France-Presse
August 30, 2023, 

Animal health authorities have recently reported dead sea lions in several locations along Argentina's extensive Atlantic coast© Diego IZQUIERDO / TELAM/AFP

Scores of sea lions have died from bird flu in Argentina, officials said Tuesday, as an unprecedented global outbreak continues to infect mammals, raising fears it could spread more easily among humans.

Animal health authorities have recently reported dead sea lions in several locations along Argentina's extensive Atlantic coast, from just south of the capital Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz near the southern tip of the continent.

Another "50 dead specimens have been counted... with symptoms compatible with avian influenza," read a statement from a Patagonian environmental authority.

Authorities have asked the population to avoid beaches along Argentina's roughly 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) coastline where cases have been reported.

Sea lions are marine mammals, like seals and walruses. Adult males can weigh about 300 kilograms (660 pounds).

The H5N1 bird flu has typically been confined to seasonal outbreaks, but since 2021 cases have emerged year-round, and across the globe, leading to what experts say is the largest outbreak ever seen.

Hundreds of sea lions were reported dead in Peru earlier this year, as the virus has ravaged bird populations across South America.

There is no treatment for bird flu, which spreads naturally between wild birds and can also infect domestic poultry.

Avian influenza viruses do not typically infect humans, although there have been rare cases.

However, the outbreak has infected several mammal species, such as farmed minks and cats, and the World Health Organization warned in July this could help it adapt to infect humans more easily.


"Some mammals may act as mixing vessels for influenza viruses, leading to the emergence of new viruses that could be more harmful to animals and humans," the WHO said in a statement.

© 2023 AFP

Avma.org

https://www.avma.org/news/usda-tracking-bird-flu-spillover-events-mammals

USDA tracking bird flu spillover events in mammals 

Apr 24, 2023 ... The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is tracking cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection in mammals to better ...

Elifesciences.org

https://elifesciences.org/articles/86051

Viruses: How avian influenza viruses spill over to mammals -... 

Apr 11, 2023 ... The second way that spillover can happen involves a mammal getting directly infected with a bird virus (Figure 1B). This individual then ...

Thelancet.com

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(23)00173-8/fulltext

Avian influenza spillover into mammals - The Lancet Microbe 

May 26, 2023 ... 4.4b has been circulating globally, leading to more than 50 million dead wild birds and culled poultry. Concerningly, the virus has also started ...

Greece blaze is 'largest wildfire ever recorded in EU'

David McBrayer
August 29, 2023

A wildfire near Prodromos, 100 km northeast of Athens (Spyros Bakalis/AFP)


A forest blaze in Greece is "the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU" and the bloc is mobilising nearly half its firefighting air wing to tackle it, a European Commission spokesman said Tuesday.

Firefighters have been battling the flames for 11 days in northeastern Greece which have killed at least 20 people and pose an "ecological disaster".

Eleven planes and one helicopter from the EU fleet have been sent to help Greece counter the fire, north of the city of Alexandroupoli, along with 407 firefighters, spokesman Balazs Ujvari said.

The EU's civil protection service said the fire has burnt over 810 square kilometres (310 square miles) -- an area bigger than New York City.


"This wildfire is the largest in the EU since 2000, when the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) began recording data," the service said.

Since it began on August 19, the bodies of 20 people have been found, 18 of them migrants including two children that were discovered in a region often used as an entry point from neighboring Turkey.

Greece's fire service told AFP that the blaze was "still out of control" in the northeast region's Dadia National Park, a major sanctuary for birds of prey.

A large fire previously hit the park in 2011, forest ranger Dora Skartsis said, lamenting that "everything that was regenerated since has been lost" in recent days.

"We're talking about a huge ecological disaster. The image is tragic," said Skartsis, who also heads a biodiversity protection group in the region.

The forest also plays a vital economic role in supporting logging, beekeeping and tourism activities in Evros, one of the poorest regions of the country.


In Alexandroupoli alone, at least 4,000 sheep and goats have been killed in the blaze and warehouses containing animal feed destroyed, according to Kostas Dounakis, who heads the local cattle breeders' association.
Deadly impact

The European Union currently calls on a fleet of 28 aircraft -- 24 water-dumping planes and four helicopters -- supplied by member countries to help battle blazes in the bloc and in nearby neighbors.


It is working on creating a standalone, EU-funded air wing of 12 aircraft that will be fully in place by 2030.

"We do know that fires are getting more severe," Ujvari noted.

"If you look at the figures every year in the past years, we are seeing trends which are not necessarily favorable, and that calls for, of course, more capacities at the member states' level."

Greece has been ravaged by numerous fires this summer which the government attributes to climate change.

The EU air deployment "underscores our commitment to swift and effective collective action in times of crisis," the EU's commissioner for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic, said.

Environment Minister Theodoros Skylakakis also announced that work must begin on flood prevention to prevent landslides along the now barren terrain when rains return in the autumn.

Experts blame poor government preparation for Greek fires' devastation

Agence France-Presse
September 2, 2023

Greek Wild Fires ((Sakis MITROLIDIS/AFP)

While the Greek government has been quick to blame global warming for the summer's devastating wildfires, some experts argue that poor planning is at least as much to blame.

The European Commission has said that the blaze in the Dadia national park, which has been burning for two weeks now, is the largest on record in Europe.

That and other deadly fires across Greece were expected to consume more than 150,000 hectares (370,600 acres) of land, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament this week.

And the flames have so far claimed 26 lives.

"Is the climate crisis the alibi for everything?" said Mitsotakis. "No, it is not an alibi -- but it is part of the interpretation," he insisted.

Climate change is a theme the government has touched on repeatedly in the context of the wildfires but, as Mitsotakis appeared to at least implicitly acknowledge, it is not the whole story.

This year's fires are certainly stronger than those of previous years because of climate change, said Alexandros Dimitrakopoulos, head of Forest Protection and the Wildland Fire Science Lab at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

But that does not fully explain the extent of the damage, he told AFP, pointing out that 10 percent of the country's woodlands had gone up in smoke since 2007.

- 'Better planning needed' -

"Better planning in the fight against fires is needed, as well as better cooperation between the fire services and the specialists in geomorphology of wooded zones," Dimitrakopoulos argued -- geomorphology being the scientific study of the form or shape of the land.

Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens, made a similar point, arguing that the emphasis should be on adequate measures to prevent forest fires.

But the recurring problem, he said, was the dysfunctional relationship between the state and scientific bodies.

"The scientific tools exist and can help detect and prepare for difficult climatological conditions," he said -- such as the extreme drought that has struck the Evros region near the border with Turkey and other regions.

Opposition politicians took a similar line during a fierce parliamentary debate Thursday.

They accused the government of having been too slow to put preventative measures in place and of poor coordination between the various government agencies concerned.

- An international problem -

Mitsotakis, hitting back, referred to the growing climate crisis, the summer's extended heatwave in Greece and the hot dry winds that had fueled the fires.

And he pointed out that Greece was far from being the only country to suffer such massive wildfires, pointing to similar disasters this summer in Canada, Spain and the United States.

"Even those countries that have a greater financial capacity than Greece" were unable to cope with the fires, he argued.

He also announced he would be recruiting more firefighters and buying equipment such as drones to help monitor such disasters.

He had sharp words too for "certain scientists" who, he said, saw fit to publish their data on the wildfires in the news media -- such as the extent of the terrain burnt -- when the research that might have put the figures in context had not been completed.

But the National Observatory of Athens was having none of that, hitting back in a statement issued Friday.

"In a democracy and in the era of published data at the European and international level, science and the national research centres are obliged to inform society of the results of their activities and the natural conditions that affect the lives of citizens," it sa

Mega project raises questions about psychological scientists’ accuracy in predicting societal change

2023/08/29


How accurate are psychological scientists in predicting societal change? A series of four studies published in American Psychologist suggest that psychologists are no better at such predictions compared to laypeople.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it media appearances of psychologists discussing their predictions regarding what changes we ought to expect in various domains of life. However, these predictions were often outside their area of expertise. Across a series of four studies, Igor Grossmann, PhD (@psywisdom) and colleagues looked into the accuracy of psychologists and laypeople in predicting future societal change and compared these predictions to what unfolded in the real world.

“My interest in this topic stemmed from the lack of insight about how scientists viewed and anticipated major societal risks like pandemics in the past. In this and related projects (such as WorldafterCovid and the Forecasting Collaborative) I wanted to explore how scientists think such major societal shifts may unfold, assess the accuracy of these forecasts, and identify areas where predictions have been more or less successful,” said Grossmann, a professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo.

“By examining whether and how serious scientists made predictions about such uncertain events like the pandemic, and investigating how public intellectuals and scientists engaged with the media at the onset of the pandemic, my team also sought to uncover the domains in which predictions were made, thereby aiming to enhance the understanding of scientific accuracy and how it can be improved.”

Study 1 examined psychological scientists’ discussion regarding the pandemic in the news media, utilizing The Coronavirus Corpus which included over 1.8 million texts of news content containing an interview with an academic psychologist regarding the pandemic. A total of 169 unique articles were retained, which included 719 unique judgments from 213 different scientists (e.g., impact of pandemic on child development).

Study 2 was conducted in two parts. In part one, 401 scientists from 39 countries made forecasts in April 2020 regarding societal change due to the pandemic. This included cultural change in the United States across 11 domains, such as generalized trust, expected birth rates, delay of gratification, among others (verbatim questions can be found here).

Participants made their forecasts for 6 months, 1 year and 2 years into the future, with response options ranging from a 50% or greater decrease to a 50% or greater increase. Of the 11 domains that were tested, accuracy of predictions was reliably assessed for seven (including “polarization, traditionalism, individualism, trust, climate change, life satisfaction, and depression”). Participants also indicated one psychological or social issue in the United States that was not mentioned in the study, but that they believed would evolve in the coming months/year.

Part two of Study 2 was conducted after the initial peak of COVID-19. This included another group of 316 psychological scientists from 26 countries. At the same time, a sample of 394 participants who were nationally representative of the United States were recruited via Prolific. The procedure was approximately the same as that of part one.

However, alongside the 11 domains of Study 2, participants also predicted changes for four additional domains (e.g., charitable giving). In addition to predicting change, participants also provided confidence ratings of their predictions on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely). Reliable benchmarks of accuracy were attainable for 10 of the domains (including “loneliness, charitable giving, violent crimes, polarization, traditionalism, individualism, trust, climate change, life satisfaction, and depression”).

Study 3 was also conducted in two parts. A total of 411 laypeople and 270 scientists were prompted to provide retrospective judgements of change and confidence ratings for the same domains as in Study 2. Specifically, they provided an estimate of the amount of change they perceived on a given issue compared to six months prior. Participants also indicated the types of information they considered when providing their judgments.

In Study 4, 203 participants were prompted to consider scientists, practitioners and laypeople, and rate how accurate they would be when predicting societal change throughout the COVID-19 pandemic across the various domains of interest (e.g., life satisfaction, loneliness). They also indicated who they would prefer to hear recommendations from regarding the societal issues tackled in this project (e.g., scientist with expertise in epidemiology, practitioner with expertise in social work, average american, for a total of 10 groups to consider).

“The average person should understand that psychological scientists’ predictions regarding societal changes during the COVID-19 pandemic were found to be no more accurate than those of laypeople,” Grossmann told PsyPost.

“Despite their formal training and expertise, these scientists often based their judgments on intuition and heuristics rather than empirical evidence. This work also showed that neither specific expertise nor experience significantly improved the accuracy of these ‘off-the-cuff’ predictions. This underscores the complexity of forecasting societal responses to unprecedented events like the pandemic. At the same time, and in contrast to laypeople, scientists were more uncertain about their predictions, thus showing a sign of ‘meta-accuracy’ – they were potentially more aware of their limitations.”

An important question that emerges from this work is how to improve scientists’ predictive accuracy regarding societal effects of major events such as the pandemic.

“In this project, the lack of accuracy in predicting societal changes is not confined to one domain or level of expertise, raising questions about the underlying reasons for these inaccuracies. More investigation is needed to determine how psychological scientists can improve their forecasting abilities, perhaps by implementing models that focus on prediction-oriented designs rather than solely relying on post-hoc explanations,” Grossmann explained.

“We must also explore how to use psychological expertise in ways that take uncertainty into account and how biases like negativity bias might be corrected in both expert and policy considerations. Finally, this project does not examine what happens when scientists make predictions as a group or by relying on formal modeling of past data – a typical way many scientists operate; this question was addressed in a parallel Forecasting Collaborative initiative we ran in parallel, results from which appeared in Nature Human Behaviour this year (and were similarly disappointing).”

The researcher added, “I would like to emphasize that while the study found shortcomings in the predictive capabilities of psychological scientists, it doesn’t diminish the importance of psychological/social science in informing public understanding and policy – after all, in this study people expect scientists to be at the decision table and they were more aware of uncertainty associated with making societal predictions.”

“The findings also highlight the need for improved methods of prediction and communication of uncertainty in times of crisis. Future work should explore ways to enhance accuracy, including training strategies at both institutional and individual levels.”

The research, “On the Accuracy, Media Representation, and Public Perception of Psychological Scientists’ Judgments of Societal Change”, was authored by Cendri A. Hutcherson, Konstantyn Sharpinskyi, Michael E. W. Varnum, Amanda Rotella, Alexandra S. Wormley, Louis Tay, and Igor Grossmann.

© PsyPost

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