Biden sued by climate groups using novel legal argument to stop oil and gas drilling

Rachel Koning Beals - Thursday


Using an untested legal argument based on the Endangered Species Act, a coalition of environmental groups sued the Biden administration this week for failing to consider the harm to at-risk species from the emissions produced by oil and gas drilling on public lands.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and led by the Center for Biological Diversity, argues that oil burned from a well in Wyoming adds to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is heating the planet. And the impact isn’t restricted to local wildlife, the suit alleges, but the fauna as far flung as polar bears in the Arctic and monk seals in Hawaii.

If the suit succeeds, more than 3,500 drilling permits issued during the Biden administration could be revoked and future permitting could be challenged.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration said it would resume selling leases for new oil and gas drilling on public lands, but would also raise the federal royalties that companies must pay to drill, the first increase in those fees in more than a century.

The auction of leases to drill on 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states was the first such sale since President Joe Biden took office, but followed months of legal back-and-forth. The approvals, according to the Western Energy Alliance, largely cover oil and gas that had already been explored during the previous administration and don’t go far enough to bring U.S. energy on line.

Biden’s move was in reaction to calls for increasing domestic energy sources after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and post-COVID-19 inflation have sharply driven up energy prices, including gasoline just as the summer driving season kicked off.

No doubt, the issue has been a challenging one for Biden. He ran for president on a climate-friendly campaign that said he would downplay traditional fossil fuels in favor of solar, wind hydrogen and other alternative sources that pollute less. Recently, he has urged more oil and gas production to ease near-term market stress.

Russian truckmaker Kamaz struggles to settle payments due to sanctions, CEO says


Kamaz's CEO Kogogin attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum


Thu, June 16, 2022, 

(Reuters) - Kamaz, Russia's largest truckmaker, sees its exports stagnating at last year's levels or falling slightly as clients shy away from settling payments with the firm after it was hit by Western sanctions, its chief executive said on Thursday.

Under EU and UK sanctions as part of Western sanctions over Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, Kamaz has seen its foreign clients become hesitant or even reluctant to make payments to the firm.

The company, which mostly exports trucks to former Soviet countries, had planned to sell some 5,000 trucks abroad this year but has since lowered its target to between 4,000 and 5000, CEO Sergei Kogogin said.

"We have not lost our client base," Kogogin told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. "Payments are the main issue when it comes to exports. Our partners have difficulty understanding how they can pay us. And we also have difficulty understanding."

Kogogin said Kamaz's competitiveness as an exporter has also been hampered by a stronger rouble, which is beneficial to importers but hits the revenue of exporters given that they receive smaller rouble proceeds for selling their goods abroad for other currencies.

With the current exchange rate – at around 56.95 roubles per U.S. dollar and 59.17 roubles per euro – Kogogin said profit from Kamaz's exports this year would be "zero in the best case scenario".

On the domestic market, Kamaz expects to increase sales to 45,000 trucks from 36,400 last year as it fills the void left by the exit of European truck brands from Russia.

Kamaz's revenue is expected to fall in 2022, in part due to a drop in the production of its more expensive K4 and K5 models.

"It's painful for us because expensive trucks generate the bulk of the company's cash flow," Kogogin said.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by David Evans)

Putin says government must support domestic car industry, wants new plan soon


Employees work at the assembly line of the LADA Izhevsk automobile plant in Izhevsk

Thu, June 16, 2022

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his government on Thursday to quickly come up with new measures to support the domestic car industry, which has seen sales crater since the invasion of Ukraine.

Amid a crunch on demand from Russian buyers and severe logistics problems as a result of Western sanctions, car sales slumped a record 83.5% in May, according to Association of European Businesses (AEB) data.

"I would like to ask the government to tell us in detail what swift measures it is taking to support the auto industry and stabilise the internal market," Putin said in a meeting with officials broadcast on state TV.

Interfax news agency quoted him as saying the government should come up with an updated plan before Sept 1.

Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said Moscow would allocate 20.7 billion roubles ($377 million) this year to support demand for cars, Interfax reported.

Some 10.2 billion roubles would be spent on resuming car loans with the rest split between support for preferential leasing rates as well as discounts for electric and gasoline-powered vehicles.

"This is what should be implemented in the near future in order to stimulate the market for precisely those products that are freely produced and can be supplied to our consumers," the agency cited him as saying.

Russian statistics agency Rosstat says car prices have jumped nearly 50% since the start of the year, slamming demand in a country where household incomes have declined while inflation hovers near 20-year highs.

In recent weeks a string of officials have warned about a possible demand slump that could accentuate the economic crisis, already expected to be the worst in at least two decades.

Despite a high-profile import substitution drive, Russia's auto industry had remained heavily reliant on foreign investment and equipment.

Lada-maker Avtovaz, Russia's largest car manufacturer, halted production for more than two months citing a shortage of electronic parts.

French auto giant Renault struck a deal in May to sell its majority stake in Avtovaz to a Russian science institute, reportedly for the symbolic sum of just one rouble, with a six-year option to buy it back.

($1 = 54.8750 roubles)

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Gareth Jones and Jonathan Oatis)

Elon Musk sued for $258 billion over 

alleged Dogecoin pyramid scheme

Thu, June 16, 2022,

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion on Thursday by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc and space tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to then let the price tumble.

Musk is CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX.

"Defendants were aware since 2019 that Dogecoin had no value yet promoted Dogecoin to profit from its trading," the complaint said. "Musk used his pedestal as World's Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement."

The complaint also aggregates comments from Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and others questioning the value of cryptocurrency.

Tesla, SpaceX and a lawyer for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A lawyer for Johnson did not immediately respond to requests for comment on what specific evidence his client has or expects to have that proves Dogecoin is worthless and the defendants ran a pyramid scheme.

Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the decline in Dogecoin's market value since May 2021, and wants it tripled.

He also wants to block Musk and his companies from promoting Dogecoin and a judge to declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under federal and New York law.

The complaint said Dogecoin's selloff began around the time Musk hosted the NBC show "Saturday Night Live and, playing a fictitious financial expert on a "Weekend Update" segment, called Dogecoin "a hustle."

Tesla in February 2021 said it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin and for a short time accepted it as payment for vehicles.

Dogecoin traded at about 5.8 cents on Thursday, down from its May 2021 peak of about 74 cents.

The case is Johnson v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-05037.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Human trash discovered on Mars — but NASA’s explanation leaves unanswered questions


NASA photo

Mark Price
Thu, June 16, 2022,

A piece of human trash has been found on Mars and as embarrassing as that sounds, at least it’s not a cigarette butt.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover announced the “surprise” find Wednesday, June 15, and shared photos showing what appears to be a square of aluminum foil snagged between rocks.

Scientists believe they know what it is, but they’re still debating how it got there.

“My team has spotted something unexpected. It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day last year,” NASA wrote on Facebook.

“It’s a surprise finding this here because my descent stage crashed about 2 km (1.2 miles) away. Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?”

If NASA was hoping for theories, they definitely asked the wrong crowd.

Commenters on social media are mostly horrified that humans are polluting a planet we’ve never visited in the flesh. Some chastised the agency for being sloppy, while a few pranksters claimed they spotted NASA trash in other Mars photos, including a Big Gulp cup from 7-Eleven.

“NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover — please tidy up after yourself. I hope you are going to pick up your mess,” Christopher Hughes wrote on the agency’s Facebook page.

“How to pollute without physically (being) in a place: that’s another level,” Michela Gusmini posted.

“I guess it will not be long until we start seeing soda bottles, discarded fast food packaging and plastic litter on Mars. Maybe we need to send a robot with a broom to start tidying up already,” Michael Harris said.

Some among the commenters came to NASA’s defense, noting it might cost millions in tax dollars to pick up our trash on Mars.

“Just because humans don’t like scraps and debris, doesn’t mean the Martians hate it too. We know nothing about them. They could eat pollution for all we know,” David Savage wrote on Facebook.

It’s not clear if NASA knew a piece of thermal blanketing had fallen off during descent. The reflective material is created by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and wrapped around the space craft to regulate temperature, the agency says.

The Perseverance Rover landed on Mars in February 2021 to “seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of ... broken rock and soil ... for possible return to Earth.”

NASA rover investigates 'bacon strip' on Mars


NASA rover investigates 'bacon strip' on Mars

Brian Lada
Fri, June 17, 2022, 10:09 AM·2 min read

NASA's Perseverance Rover has been driving around the surface of Mars since landing on the planet on Feb. 18, 2021, and the latest geological wonder explored by the robotic pioneer is exciting for geologists and could cause cravings for breakfast food.

On Thursday, June 16, NASA said that the rover was driving over "the bacon strip," a nickname for a region that had piqued the interest of scientists.

The location was not inspired by the discovery of pigs on Mars, but rather the way the area resembles a strip of bacon when viewed from space.



The path that the Perseverance Rover has driven superimposed on a satellite image of the surface of Mars. In early June, the rover reached an area nicknamed the "bacon strip." (NASA/JPL)

Since arriving at the site, NASA scientists have started to call the area "Hogwallow Flats" and is a geological jackpot.

"The nearby rocks are a sight to behold," the Perseverance Rover's Twitter account said, adding that it is "paradise" for rock nerds.

The cheeky Twitter account quipped that "My team is happy as pigs in mud(stone)!"

On its journey to the Martian bacon strip, NASA scientists also noticed something that seemed out of place.

Nestled in the crevasse of a rock was a shiny object unlike anything else in the otherworldly landscape.

After a closer look, NASA determined that it was not a rock, but a piece of foil from Earth that was used during the ascent stage when Perseverance landed on Mars.




Two images of a piece of foil found on Mars that were used as a thermal blanket when NASA' perseverance Rover enters the atmosphere of the Red Planet. (NASA/JPL)

While it was easy to identify the object as foil, it did raise a burning question that may forever be unanswered.

"My descent stage crashed about 2 km away," the rover's Twitter account said. "Did this piece land here after that, or was it blown here by the wind?"

NASA's Perseverance Rover has snapped and sent home over one-quarter of a million photos from the surface of Mars since landing in 2021.

It is also outfitted with a small weather station so that the robot can gather atmospheric data on Mars, including temperature, wind speed, humidity and the amount of dust in the air.

On June 9, 2022, Perseverance reported a high temperature of 2 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, followed by an overnight low of 113 F below zero. It is currently late autumn where Perseverance is located, meaning that even lower temperatures are right around the corner as it approaches winter.

‘Nerve-racking’ video shows bear follow family for half-mile while on trip to Canada


Screengrab from Instagram

Helena Wegner

Thu, June 16, 2022, 

A Utah family captured video as a bear followed them on a trail in Canada for a half-mile.

Brighton Peachy, a family lifestyle blogger with thousands of followers, posted her family’s encounter with a bear in British Columbia on Instagram on June 14.

One video shows the bear appear from behind large rocks near parked vehicles. Then it begins to approach the family.

“OK, he’s following you babe,” she is heard saying in the video.

Peachy then begins yelling, “Hey bear!” and tells her child not to run.

The couple backs away slowly and her husband raises his arms in the air.

Then they picked up their toddler and pulled out their bear spray.

Peachy continues to film the bear while walking backward. She said the bear followed them on the trail for a half-mile.

“You wanted to see a bear,” her husband tells one of their children.

Eventually the family ran into a group of hikers and both groups continued along the trail as the bear followed, Peachy said in another video.

When they lost sight of the bear, both groups split up. The family didn’t run into the bear again on their hike back.

“This was a good reminder that even if you know all the things you’re ‘supposed to do,’ wildlife still might not care. You’re in their territory,” Peachy said on Instagram.

What to do if you see a bear?

First, the National Park Service advises people to avoid an encounter with a bear by keeping your distance and not surprising them.

If a bear does notice you, park officials say to talk calmly to the bear and wave your arms to make yourself known to the animal.

“A standing bear is usually curious, not threatening,” park officials said.

It’s also important to stay calm, officials said, so avoid screaming or making sudden movements.

Then if you have small children, pick them up, park officials said. Hike in groups because it creates more noise to deter a bear.

Never give a bear food, officials warn, and don’t drop your bags because it can protect your back.

And officials advise against running.

“Bears can run as fast as a racehorse both uphill and down. Like dogs, they will chase fleeing animals,” officials said.

US Border crossing hit another record, but the migrants are changing


Mario Tama

Julia Ainsley and Didi Martinez
Thu, June 16, 2022, 4:15 PM·3 min read

The number of undocumented immigrant crossings at the southwest border once again broke records in May, prompted in large part by surges in migration by nationalities that were previously rarely found at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Customs and Border Protection data obtained by NBC News.

CBP stopped migrants at the southwest border of the U.S. more than 239,000 times in May, though this includes migrants who attempted to cross more than once. The number of individual migrants who attempted to cross the border was 157,555, still up by 2% over April’s previous record high.

The number of border crossers from India, Turkey, Russia, Haiti, Brazil, Colombia and Nicaragua increased in part because it is harder for border agents to subject some of those nationalities to the Covid-19 border restrictions known as Title 42 that let the U.S. quickly send migrants back to their home countries. India, Russia and the other home countries of these migrants are reluctant to accept the migrants back. As a result, the data shows that most are allowed into the U.S. to pursue their immigration claims.

Colombians, for example, accounted for nearly 20,000 border crossings in May, a sharp increase from the 821 Colombians who crossed in May 2021. Only 134 of the nearly 20,000 Colombians who crossed the border in May were subjected to Title 42.

A Colombian woman who referred to herself as Jemena, but would not reveal her full name, told NBC News that she recently emigrated to Texas despite Title 42 being in place. She said she fled the country after gangs threatened her 11-year-old son and “disappeared” her husband. She said she was aware there was a possibility she could be expelled after her long journey, but that it was “worth the risk.”

The percentage of Haitian migrants expelled because of Title 42 was also low in May. However, U.S. flights returning Haitian nationals to their home country have increased in the first part of June, and U.S. officials at the border expect the flights to deter more Haitians from making the journey.

Many of the Haitians are coming to the U.S. from third countries like Brazil, where they sought work after the 2010 earthquake only to lose their livelihood during the Covid pandemic, according to U.S. officials. When those people are deported to Haiti, they are landing in a country they have not known in over a decade.

Meanwhile, migrants from the Central American countries that for the last decade fueled the majority of migration across the southern border have fallen because of Title 42. Sixty percent of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were stopped from entering the U.S. under the Covid restrictions.

A federal judge in Louisiana has placed a temporary block on the lifting of Title 42, saying the Biden administration did not properly allow states that would be affected by the change to weigh in before it tried to end the policy on May 23.

SpaceX employees say Elon Musk is an 'embarrassment' as he waffles on work-from-home


REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Jon Fingas
·Reporter
Thu, June 16, 2022


Elon Musk's disdain for remote work doesn't fully extend to Twitter. As The New York Times and The Verge note, Musk told Twitter staff in an inaugural all-hands meeting that employees at the social network who produce "excellent" work at home should be permitted to keep their positions. While the aspiring new owner stressed that he would much rather have people working in the office, he thought it "wouldn't make sense" to fire someone who was a net positive for the company. He added he would verify with managers that those remote employees were making useful contributions.

Musk gave Tesla and SpaceX employees an ultimatum in late May, warning that they had to work at least 40 hours a week their main offices unless they had "particularly exceptional" reasons to stay remote. The executive felt it was particularly important for more senior-level members who needed an in-person "presence." This stands in sharp contrast to Twitter's existing stance allowing many employees to stay remote indefinitely, not to mention policies at Apple, Google and other tech heavyweights that allow staff to spend some or all of their workday at home.

The statements also come as Musk is facing a mounting backlash from his rank-and-file. The Verge says it has seen an open letter from SpaceX workers criticizing their CEO, accusing Musk of becoming a "frequent source of distraction and embarrassment" through his public actions. They also said the spaceflight firm wasn't living up to either its "No Asshole" mantra or a zero-tolerance policy on sexual misconduct. The letter writers wanted SpaceX to condemn Musk's behavior, hold all leaders accountable for their actions, and clarify its policies while enforcing them more consistently.

There was no mention of the exact issues that prompted the letter. Musk has drawn increasing criticism, however. A SpaceX flight attendant reportedly accused Musk of sexual misconduct, prompting a $250,000 settlement. That's on top of ongoing claims Musk's companies allow horrible behavior, including lawsuits from multiple women alleging Tesla fostered sexual harassment in the office. Musk has further been accused of posting transphobia on Twitter (such as blasting the pregnant man emoji) and supporting trucker protests in Canada that were laced with harassment and racist incidents. The entrepreneur isn't on great terms with many people at the moment, and his dislike of remote work underscores this.

It's not birds this time: Russians have found new creatures in Ukraine that "carried viruses"


Ukrayinska Pravda
ALYONA MAZURENKO — THURSDAY, 16 JUNE 2022

The Russian occupiers have published further "evidence" of the existence of mythical biolaboratories in Ukraine, where Ukraine and the United States allegedly created viruses that would be transmitted by mosquitoes.

Source: The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

Details: The occupiers report that "an official statement on U.S. biological activities on the post-Soviet territory has been published on the Pentagon's website."

The United States allegedly admitted to funding "46 Ukrainian biolaboratories" and confirmed the connection between the U.S. Department of Defence with the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defence’s new version of events, this time it’s not birds or bats that are "biological weapons", but instead "mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, which are carriers of transmissible infections such as dengue fever, Zika, [and] yellow fever."

Quote from occupiers: "Let's focus on the P-268 project. The Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv and the University of Colorado took part in its implementation.

The stated goal of the project is to study viruses that can infect mosquitoes of the genus Aedes. According to the technical reference, the virus preparation was conducted by an institute in Kyiv and delivered to the United States for field aerobiological research."

Details: Also, Russian "experts" claim that "former scientists with experience in the field of weapons of mass destruction" were allegedly working on the project.

In the end, the occupiers came to the conclusion that the United States is increasing its "military-biological potential": "At the same time, Ukraine is given the role of a testing ground, gathering of biological materials and study of the specifics of infectious diseases."

Background:

During the first weeks of the invasion, Russian propagandists said they had discovered "secret U.S. biolaboratories" in Ukraine that contained pathogens of the plague and anthrax. Photo and video evidence was not published, only photos of alleged documents from the Security Service of Ukraine with grammatical mistakes or a laptop with a NATO sticker, etc.

The occupiers also allegedly found "laboratories" with "combat" narcotics.

Later in Russia, they began spreading the nonsense that experiments on birds were being conducted in laboratories in Ukraine that were supposed to transmit diseases and infect people of "Slavic appearance." Some Russian deputies have even stated that there is a "Ukrainian trace" in the surfacing of the coronavirus.

According to opinion polls published in Russia, Russians still trust their government, as well as the state and propaganda media sources.

ICYMI

Meet the Peecyclers. Their Idea to Help Farmers Is No. 1.


Catrin Einhorn
Fri, June 17, 2022, 1

Urine is used to fertilize crops in southern Niger. (Will Miller/McKnight Collaborative Crop Research Program via The New York Times)

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — When Kate Lucy saw a poster in town inviting people to learn about something known as peecycling, she was mystified.

“Why would someone pee in a jug and save it?” she wondered. “It sounds like such a wacky idea.”

She had to work the evening of the information session, so she sent her husband, Jon Sellers, to assuage her curiosity. He came home with a jug and funnel.

Human urine, Sellers learned that night seven years ago, is full of the same nutrients that plants need to flourish. It has a lot more, in fact, than Number Two, with almost none of the pathogens. Farmers typically apply those nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — to crops in the form of chemical fertilizers. But that comes with a high environmental cost from fossil fuels and mining.

The local nonprofit group that ran the session, the Rich Earth Institute, was working on a more sustainable approach: Plants feed us; we feed them.

Efforts like these are increasingly urgent, experts say. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has worsened a worldwide fertilizer shortage that is driving farmers to desperation and threatening food supplies. Scientists also warn that feeding a growing global population in a world of climate change will only become more difficult.

Now, more than 1,000 gallons of donated urine later, Lucy and her husband are part of a global movement that seeks to address a slew of challenges — including food security, water scarcity and inadequate sanitation — by not wasting our waste.

At first, collecting their urine in a jug was “a little sloshy,” Lucy said. But she was a nurse and he was a preschool teacher; pee did not scare them. They went from dropping off a couple of containers every week or so at an organizer’s home to installing large tanks at their own house that get professionally pumped out.

Now Lucy feels a pang of regret when she uses a regular toilet.

“We make this amazing fertilizer with our bodies, and then we flush it away with gallons of another precious resource,” Lucy said. “That’s really wild to think about.”

Toilets, in fact, are by far the largest source of water use inside homes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Wiser management could save vast amounts of water, an urgent need as climate change worsens drought in places like the American West.

It could also help with another profound problem: Inadequate sanitation systems — including leaky septic tanks and aging wastewater infrastructure — overload rivers, lakes and coastal waters with nutrients from urine. Runoff from chemical fertilizer makes it worse. The result is algal blooms that trigger mass die-offs of animals and other plants.

In one dramatic example, manatees in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida are starving to death after sewage-fueled algal blooms destroyed the sea grass they depend on.

“The urban environments and aquatic environments become hideously polluted, while the rural environments are depleted of what they need,” said Rebecca Nelson, a professor of plant science and global development at Cornell University.

Beyond the practical benefits of turning urine into fertilizer, some are also drawn to a transformative idea behind the endeavor. By reusing something once flushed away, they say, they are taking a revolutionary step toward tackling the biodiversity and climate crises: moving away from a system that constantly extracts and discards, toward a more circular economy that reuses and recycles in a continuous loop.

Chemical fertilizer is far from sustainable. The commercial production of ammonia, which is mainly used for fertilizer, uses fossil fuels in two ways: first, as the source of hydrogen, which is needed for the chemical process that converts nitrogen from the air into ammonia, and second as fuel to generate the intense heat required. By one estimate, ammonia manufacturing contributes 1% to 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Phosphorus, another key nutrient, is mined from rock, with an ever-dwindling supply.

Across the Atlantic, in rural Niger, another study of urine fertilization was designed to address a more local problem: How could female farmers increase poor crop yields? Often relegated to the fields farthest from town, the women struggled to find or transport enough animal manure to replenish their soils. Chemical fertilizer was far too expensive.

A team including Aminou Ali, director of the Federation of Maradi Farmers’ Unions in south-central Niger, guessed that the comparatively fertile fields closer to people’s homes were getting a boost from people relieving themselves outside. They consulted with medical doctors and religious leaders about whether it would be OK to try fertilizing with urine and got a green light.

“So we said, ‘Let us test that hypothesis,’” Ali recalled.

It took some convincing, but the first year, 2013, they had 27 volunteers who collected urine in jugs and applied it to plants along with animal manure; no one was willing to risk their harvest on pee alone.

“The results we got were very fantastic,” Ali said.

The next year, about 100 more women were fertilizing with it, then 1,000. His team’s research ultimately found that urine, either with animal manure or alone, increased yields of pearl millet, the staple crop, by about 30%. That could mean more food for a family, or the ability to sell their surplus at market and get cash for other necessities.

It was taboo for some women to use the word urine, so they renamed it oga, which means “boss” in the Igbo language.

To pasteurize the pee, it stays in the jug for at least two months before the farmer applies it, plant by plant. The urine is used at full strength if the ground is wet, or, if it is dry, diluted 1:1 with water so the nutrients do not burn the crops. Scarves or masks are encouraged, to help with the smell.

At first, the men were skeptical, said Hannatou Moussa, an agronomist who works with Ali on the project. But the results spoke for themselves, and soon men started saving their urine, too.

“It’s become now a competition in the house,” Moussa said, with each parent vying for extra urine by trying to persuade the children to use their container.

Wising up to the dynamic, some kids have started demanding money or candy in exchange for their services, she added.

The kids are not the only ones who see economic potential. Some entrepreneurial young farmers have taken to collecting, storing and selling urine, Ali said, and the price has spiked in the past couple of years, from about $1 for 25 liters to $6.

“You can go pick up your urine like you’re picking up a gallon of water or a gallon of fuel,” Ali said.

So far, the research on harvesting and packaging the nutrients in urine is not advanced enough to solve the current fertilizer crisis. Collecting urine at scale would, for example, require transformative changes to plumbing infrastructure.

Then there is the ick factor, which peecycling supporters confront head on.

“Human waste is already being used to fertilize foods you find in the grocery store,” said Kim Nace, a co-founder of the Rich Earth Institute, which collects the urine of some 200 volunteers in Vermont, including Lucy’s, for research and application on a handful of local farms.

The stuff being used already is treated leftovers from wastewater plants, known as biosolids, which contain only a fraction of urine’s nutrients. It can also be contaminated by potentially harmful chemicals from industrial sources and households.

Urine, Nace asserted, is a much better option.

So every spring, in the hills around the Rich Earth Institute, a truck with a license plate reading “P4Farms” delivers the pasteurized goods.

“We see very strong results from the urine,” said Noah Hoskins, who applies it to hayfields at the Bunker Farm in Dummerston, where he raises cows, pigs, chickens and turkeys.

He said he wished the Rich Earth Institute had more pee to give.

“We’re in a moment where chemical fertilizer has more than doubled in price and is really representing a part of our system that is way out of our control,” Hoskins said.

One of the biggest problems, though, is that it does not make environmental or economic sense to truck urine, which is mostly water, from cities to distant farmlands.

To address that, the Rich Earth Institute is working with the University of Michigan on a process to make a sanitized pee concentrate. And at Cornell, inspired by the efforts in Niger, Nelson and colleagues are trying to bind urine’s nutrients onto biochar, a kind of charcoal made, in this case, from feces. (It is important not to forget about the poop, Nelson noted, because it contributes carbon, another important part of healthy soil, along with smaller amounts of phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen.)

Similar experiments and pilot projects are underway around the world. In Cape Town, South Africa, scientists are finding new ways to harvest urine’s nutrients and reuse the rest. In Paris, officials plan to install pee-diverting toilets in 600 new apartments, treat the urine and use it for the city’s tree nurseries and green spaces.

Karthish Manthiram, a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, said he was interested to see where the efforts would lead. His own lab is trying to develop a clean process to synthesize nitrogen from the air.

“These are all methods that need to be pursued because it’s too early right now to tell what’s going to win out,” Manthiram said.

What feels certain, he said, is that the current methods of acquiring fertilizer will be replaced, because they are so unsustainable.

Peecyclers in Vermont describe a personal benefit from their work: a sense of gratification thinking about their own body’s nutrients helping to heal, instead of hurt, the earth.

“Hashtag PeeTheChange,” quipped Julia Cavicchi, who directs education at the Rich Earth Institute. “Puns aren’t the only reason I’m in this field, but it’s definitely a perk.”

© 2022 The New York Times Company

ETHNIC CLEANSING/CULTURAL GENOCIDE

Authorities in occupied part of Ukraine say everyone born there is now Russian, a new step to erase Ukrainian identity
Alia Shoaib
Thu, June 16, 2022, 

Russian soldiers guard Melitopol, the main city of the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, on June 14, 2022AP

Children born in Ukraine's occupied Zaporizhzhia will be made Russian citizens, authorities said.

The move is part of a longer drive to reshape occupied Ukraine to wipe its Ukrainian identity.

Russia also forced people to use Russian currency and switched the TV signals to Russian ones.

Children born in an occupied part of Ukraine will no longer be considered Ukrainians at birth, authorities there said.

Instead, they will be given Russian citizenship and considered part of the Russian population.

The step is one of a series of measures in place through occupied Ukraine which are removing its national character and treating it instead as part of Russia.

The announcement about citizenship came from officials speaking to Russian state-run news outlet Ria Novosti.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-installed administration in Zaporizhzhia, told Ria that the citizenship changed would be retroactive, affecting any babies born since the invasion began on February 24.

Rogov alleged that the move was made because Ukrainian authorities stopped issuing the documents and locals asked Russia to step in. He did not provide evidence for this claim, and it was not possible to verify it.

Ukraine condemned the move to hand out passports as a "flagrant violation," according to the BBC.

The policy for newborns comes alongside efforts to grant Russian citizenship to adults in occupied areas. Passports have been distributed in the occupied cities Kherson and Melitopol

That continued a years-long policy of giving Russian citizenship to Ukrainians in the areas of the Donbas region that have been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.

Wider efforts to impose a Russian rather than Ukrainian identity on occupied areas have included imposing the Russian ruble as the currency instead of Ukraine's hryvnia, limiting access to Ukrainian websites, and replacing TV broadcasts from Ukrainian channels to Russian ones.

Teachers have been brought in from Russia to teach the Russian curriculum in schools in Kherson, according to the UK government, and children have been prohibited from speaking Ukrainian in schools in Mariupol, according to the advisor to the city's mayor before Russia took over.

Rogov told Russia's TASS news agency that a referendum would soon be held in Zaporizhzhia to decide whether the region should formally become part of Russia.

A similar referendum was held in Crimea after Russia annexed it in 2014. Its result — 97% in favor of joining Russia — was rejected by Ukraine, its allies, and the United Nations General Assembly as illegitimate.

The Atlantic Council — a think tank — said earlier this year that turning Ukrainians into Russian citizens was a deliberate strategy by Russia to give itself a rationale for occupation: the need to defend its new citizens.