Jacques Cousteau's grandson launches age of the aquanaut

Underwater research hub Proteus will house 12 people on the ocean bed

It’s not every boy who spends his formative years on board a former British Royal Navy minesweeper converted into a marine laboratory, but then few grew up as the grandson of an internationally renowned oceanographic researcher.

So it was that a young Fabien Cousteau would sit aboard RV Calypso while his grandfather, the biologist, explorer and conservationist Jacques Yves-Cousteau, explained the awe-inspiring biodiversity within the depths below and its significance to life on Earth.

“It helped me see the world from the bottom up in a way that highlights what makes our planet unique,” Mr Cousteau, who first learnt to scuba dive on his fourth birthday, told The National.

As NASA was preparing to launch three members of the Expedition 63 crew some 250 miles to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spaceflight, Mr Cousteau described his ambition to create an equivalent facility for underwater research.

Named after the prophetic sea-god, the plan is for Proteus, a sort of international sea station, to sit 60ft below the ocean surface near the Dutch protectorate of Curacao. It is set to be the largest underwater research habitat ever made, located in a highly biodiverse, marine-protected part of the Caribbean

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Fabien Cousteau is the grandson of biologist, explorer and conservationist Jacques Yves-Cousteau. Courtesy Fabien Cousteau

When built, Proteus will be sustainably powered by hybrid sources, including wind, solar and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), and scientists hope to grow fresh plant life for food in its underwater greenhouse.

Although the design is yet to be finalised, the intention is for the station to be fitted with living quarters, a hydroponics lab, a submarine docking station, a medical bay and a video production studio, as well as state-of-the-art research laboratories. It will also provide full-spectrum light to ensure that the research team’s circadian rhythms are similar in the darkness at the bottom of the sea as they would be on land with sunlight.
Proteus partnerships

Mr Cousteau, now a marine biologist and ocean conservationist in his own right, aims to raise $130.4 million for the first iteration of Proteus. The project so far has financial backers from the Caribbean and the US but he is open to investment from other regions, including the Middle East.

Although the pandemic has slightly slowed progress, with funding in place he anticipates a 36-month turnaround from completed design and production of the station to its installation on the ocean bed. The first mission would then follow.

The 53-year-old’s longer-term plan is to build a network of underwater research hubs in different regions of the world’s oceans, to be able to stream big data in real time, 24/7, to help guide future climate-change policy on land.

“This brings opportunities on so many levels,” Mr Cousteau says. “Even if you're not a conservationist, I think that a smart business person or a smart government could see the value of having an underwater research station in their backyard.”

Proteus is a project of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre, a non-profit organisation founded by the aquanaut in 2016. It has strategic partnerships with major technology, data and submersibles companies, as well as with governments, though its founder says that politics should not play a role when deciding on collaborations.

Fabien Cousteau dreams of building a network of underwater research hubs. Courtesy Fabien Cousteau 

Underwater International Space Station

“This is not a research station for creating weapons of war; this is more an International Space Station than a United Nations of the sea,” Mr Cousteau says.

There is currently only one active underwater research hub – the Aquarius Reef Base off Florida Keys in the US - but that was established back in 1986.

The aquanaut says the International Space Station and Proteus have many conceptual similarities. NASA and its Extreme Environment arm (NEEMO) missions use the Aquarius station for training purposes because it offers a comparable experience to being in space.

It is envisaged that Proteus, however, will provide 10 times the size of the living quarters of the International Space Station – also equivalent to 10 times the inner internal space of Aquarius. That and Proteus’s cutting-edge technology will make it an optimal training ground for future space missions.

Another similarity between Proteus and the International Space Station is their modular nature – both can add and subtract as many pods or sections as needed.

“And we cater to being as self-sufficient as possible so that we can follow in the steps of the International Space Station and deploy people for not days but weeks, months and maybe even longer.”

3D printed coral

The new station will enable scientists to study migratory habits of animals, as well as weather patterns, which Mr Cousteau says could help farmers optimise crop yields and society adapt to climate change. The technology on Proteus will also facilitate research into viral pandemics and a potential cure for cancer using chemical compositions of organisms such as deep-water sponges or fish-eating cone snails.

“We have another project in Curacao that we're going to start which is a coral restoration, involving research looking at 3D printing coral reef structures, inviting coral that's been evolutionarily accelerated in a natural process, so that it’s more capable of combating climate change,” he says.

The new station will enable scientists to study migratory habits of animals. Courtesy Fabien Cousteau

Previous underwater research stations – such as Aquarius, Conshelf I, Hydrolab, Sealab – have accommodated up to six people. Proteus will hold as many 12, depending on how much space is deemed to give each scientist enough comfort to be able to work for long periods at a stretch.

Food for thought

“You need to be able to have the food systems that also cater to that because you burn as much as five times as many calories underwater as you do on land,” Mr Cousteau says.

He says that the duration of Proteus’s first mission would be bound by several parameters, including the toxic effect that can become a problem when crew members are exposed to prolonged high levels of oxygen.

Seven years ago, the scientist spent 31 days underwater inside Aquarius for Mission 31 with five others, the longest time clocked up by a team of six in such a station. “As much as 4,000 internal square feet sounds like a lot of space,” Mr Cousteau says.

“You're sharing it with 12 other people with all sorts of equipment, so you’re going to be in fairly close confinement, along with the psychological pressure of knowing that you're in isolation.

“I was more than happy to go another 31 days, but I'm an unusual person,” he says. “This is my backyard. This is home for me; I've done this my entire life.”

Mr Cousteau thinks that his late grandfather would be fascinated by Proteus. Jacques Cousteau’s team assembled several living and research stations in the 1960s, called ConShelf (Continental Shelf Station) I, II and III. He died in June 1997.

“My grandfather had visions of doing ConShelf IV,” Cousteau says. “Although architecturally Proteus is nothing like what he envisioned, I think this would be something that would be very exciting to him.

"I would hope that it would be because I'm certainly taking cues from education I received from my family as well as the pioneers on Calypso. So it's very much in that vein and one that I hope will mark the next step in ocean exploration.”

Humans have explored less than 5 per cent of the ocean world, and many questions remain unanswered. With Proteus, Mr Cousteau intends to change all that, while also helping society appreciate the importance of the oceans as the world’s life support system.

As he puts it: “No healthy oceans means no healthy future.”

 

Power failure: why have young people fallen out of love with democracy?

All over the world, people in their 20s and 30s are less impressed with the electoral system than their parents’ generation. What’s going on?

Athens … where the trouble all began. Photograph: Scott E Barbour/Getty Images

Tue 20 Oct 2020 16.17 BST

Name: Democracy.

Age: The term, derived from demos, meaning common people, and kratos, strength, first cropped up in Athens in classical antiquity. The first actual democracy is generally agreed to have been established in the Athenian city-state around 508BC, by Cleisthenes, the father of Athenian democracy.

We’re talking about the system of government based on the belief in freedom and equality between people, in which power is normally held by elected representatives? That’s the one.

And a jolly good system it is, too. Well, it has its faults (Brexit, you might argue, or the current administration). But on the whole it’s probably preferable to autocracy. Some people are going off democracy, though.

This is about Trump, isn’t it? Actually, not this time. Some other people.

Which other people? Millennials.

Bah, millennials! What do they know? They’ve only been here for five minutes. Well, they are the present and the future of the planet.

If there is a future. Go on, then, what’s the story? A survey shows that those in their 20s and 30s have less faith in democratic institutions than their parents or grandparents did at the same stage of life.

Probably a survey of about 11 people. Actually, a survey of nearly five million, drawing on data from 160 countries between 1973 and 2020. “This is the first generation in living memory to have a global majority who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works while in their 20s and 30s,” said Roberto Foa, who led the study.

Where are they most dissatisfied? Particularly in the “Anglo-Saxon democracies” of Britain, the US, Australia …

Well, look who’s in power in those places, there’s your reason! Also in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Europe.

I suppose all these Generation Y-Fronters want to live under dictatorship? Dr Foa says not. It’s more about inequality and the system not working for them. For young Britons, this can mean not getting on the property ladder, debt, dependence on parents, the perception that “the chances of success or failure in life depend less upon hard work and enterprise, and more upon inherited wealth and privilege”.

What about in countries with more even wealth distribution? Iceland, for example? There’s less of a difference in views between the generations, unsurprisingly.

North Korea? Shut up.

And the baby boomers, what do they think about all of this? If you believe the stereotype, they’re all hiding in their second homes, quietly raising a glass of bubbly, to Cleisthenes, to democracy.

Do say: “Is this the latest battle in the generation wars?”

Don’t say (if you’re the Incumbent Potus, while holding up a copy of this report, in a couple of weeks): “Look, the kids don’t even want democracy, I ain’t going nowhere.”

Millennials get little satisfaction from democracy - Cambridge study

By Reuters Staff




FILE PHOTO: A ballot box is photographed inside a polling station on general election day in London, Britain, December 12, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

LONDON (Reuters) - Young people are less satisfied with democracy and more disillusioned than at any other time in the past century, especially in Europe, North America, Africa and Australia, a study by the University of Cambridge has found.

Millennials, or those born between 1981 and 1996, are more disillusioned than Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1981, or Baby Boomers born between 1944 and 1964 and the Interwar Generation of 1918-1943.

“Across the world, younger generations are not only more dissatisfied with democratic performance than the old, but also more discontented than previous generations at similar life stages,” the Cambridge study found.

The picture is bad in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, France, Australia and the United Kingdom.

But satisfaction has increased in Germany, South Korea and many of the post-Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

The main reason behind the disillusion with democracy among young people was inequality of wealth and income, the report said, citing figures showing that Millennials make up around a quarter of the U.S. population but hold just 3% of the wealth. Baby Boomers held 21% of the wealth at the same age.

The study suggested that the populist challenge to mainstream, “establishment” politics could actually help improve democratic engagement by shocking moderate parties and leaders into reversing the decay.

The Cambridge Centre for the Future of Democracy delved into data from over 4.8 million respondents collected across 160 countries between 1973 and 2020.


Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Heinrich

Nigerian security forces shoot at protesters in Lagos

Unrest has spread across African nation since early October as people protest against police brutality

Demonstrators hold hands as they gather near the Lagos State House, despite a round-the-clock curfew imposed by the authorities on the Nigerian state of Lagos in response to protests against alleged police brutality, Nigeria October 20, 2020. REUTERS

Nigerian security forces opened fire on a protest site in Lagos, intensifying violence before a 24-hour lockdown was imposed to quell rallies against police brutality.

At least three people died in the shooting, local media reported.

Demonstrations that began on October 5 have continued despite the government dissolving a police unit that has been accused of a brutal crackdown on protesters.

Thousands of mainly young people have taken to the streets of the capital Abuja, the economic centre of Lagos, and other towns, sealing off major roads and bridges, disrupting flights and bringing businesses to a standstill.

Hours before the shots were fired, the Governor of Lagos state imposed a curfew to try to quell disruptions in a region that is home to more than 22 million people.

The city also holds the headquarters of Nigeria’s biggest banks and other companies.

The southern Edo state took a similar move on Monday, after hundreds of inmates took advantage of a chaotic rally to stage a prison break.

The Lagos lockdown began after two police stations were burnt and a major motorway linking the city to the northern and south-eastern parts of the country was sealed off.

In Abuja, soldiers dispersed protesters who had gathered in parts of the city.

In the north-western Kano state, witnesses said at least two women were killed, cars were burnt and buildings were vandalised after armed men attacked demonstrators.

State police commissioner Habu Sani said the rally turned violent and five people had been hurt before calm was restored, but claimed no fatalities had been reported.

Authorities declared a 24-hour curfew in Nigeria's economic hub Lagos on October 20, 2020, as violence flared in widespread protests that have rocked cities across the country. AFP

Earlier, police Insp-Gen Mohammed Adamu ordered anti-riot police be sent in to protect lives and property.

The demonstrations have cost an estimated 700 billion naira ($1.8bn) in lost output so far, according to the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

It called for grievances to be addressed through dialogue, and for an end to the marches and street blockades that have spread to about half of the nation’s 36 states.

“Over the past 12 days, economic activities have been crippled in most parts of the country,” the chamber said.

“There is a great risk that the situation may degenerate into a case of the complete breakdown of law and order.”

Nigeria’s oil industry, the mainstay of the economy, has been unaffected and yields on the nation’s dollar bonds have risen since protests began, indicating that investors are not unduly concerned.

The fallout will worsen if the unrest drags on and violence intensifies, said Mosope Arubayi, chief economist at Vetiva Capital in Lagos.

“Locals could be scared to go to work and foreigners will fear for the security of their investment,” Mr Arubayi said.

“This will have a dire impact on the level of economic activity in the country and existing foreign investors could start exiting their position in the capital market.”

The unrest has weighed on insurance companies, the shares of which accounted for three of the five biggest declines on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

An industry index fell 1.2 per cent, the most in a week.

While the government has issued a directive to its security forces not to use violence, Amnesty International accused the police of continuing to use excessive force.

Three people were killed during clashes that erupted during a march in Abuja on Monday, bringing the toll so far to 18, Amnesty said on Twitter.

Most previous uprisings in Nigeria have been quashed by the security forces.

The size of the current protests, and the fact that they have been organised on social media and have no clear leaders, have made them difficult to calm.


Updated: October 21, 2020 01:53 AM

US welcomes Russian offer to extend nuclear pact by a year

The demise of the treaty would lift all remaining restraints on deployments of strategic nuclear warheads.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin takes part in a video conference call with members of the Security Council in Moscow, Russia [Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters]

20 Oct 2020

The last US-Russia strategic nuclear arms control pact appeared on track to win a one-year extension, as Washington on Tuesday welcomed a proposal by Moscow for such an extension if both sides freeze all nuclear warhead deployments for that period.

The apparent breakthrough, coming after months of difficult talks and two weeks before the United States presidential election, appeared to narrow the gap between the sides over the fate of the 2010 New START agreement, which is due to expire in February.

The demise of the treaty would lift all remaining restraints on deployments of strategic nuclear warheads and the missiles and bombers that carry them, fuelling a post-Cold War arms race between the world’s largest nuclear weapons powers.

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signing the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) at Prague Castle in Prague on April 8, 2010 [File: Jason Reed/Reuters]The US last week rejected a Russian offer to unconditionally extend the pact for one year, saying that any proposal that did not envisage freezing all nuclear warheads – both strategic and tactical – was a “non-starter”.

But a statement published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday suggested that the two countries’ positions had moved closer.

“Russia is proposing to extend New START by one year and is ready together with the United States to make a political commitment to ‘freeze’ the number of nuclear warheads held by the parties for this period,” it said.

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus welcomed the Russian offer, saying in a statement that the United States appreciated Russia’s “willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control.”

“The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same,” she said.

Her statement highlighted one of several questions the sides would have to resolve to pave the way to a one-year New START extension: how they would verify that the other was adhering to the warhead deployment freeze.

US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus during a press conference at the State Department in Washington, US [Mangel Ngan/Pool via Reuters]The treaty can be extended for up to five years beyond its February 5 expiration with the agreement of the US and Russian presidents.

Extending the pact would mark a rare bright spot in the fraught relationship between the two countries. Failure to do so would remove the main pillar maintaining the nuclear balance between them and add yet another element of tension.

The Russian foreign ministry said the warhead freeze and one-year extension would be possible if Washington did not make any additional demands. It said the extension would give the two sides time to discuss nuclear arms control in greater depth.

Moscow and Washington have been at odds over the treaty – and other arms control issues – despite several months of talks. The United States has called for China to be included in a broader treaty that would replace New START.

But China, whose nuclear arsenal is much smaller than those of Russia and the US, has rejected that proposal.

Last year the US pulled out of a Cold War-era arms control pact banning ground-launched nuclear and conventional ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km), citing Russian violations denied by Moscow.

SOURCE : REUTERS

U.S. welcomes Russian offer to freeze warheads totals to extend nuclear pact by a year

By Tom Balmforth, Jonathan Landay

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The last U.S.-Russia strategic nuclear arms control pact gained momentum toward a one-year extension on Tuesday as Washington welcomed a proposal by Moscow to prolong it if both sides agreed to freeze their stocks of all nuclear warheads for that period.

Some experts, however, said major questions would have to be resolved to strike a deal and voiced concern that U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest was motivated by a desire for a foreign policy achievement before the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

The step toward an agreement, after months of difficult talks, appeared to narrow the gap over the fate of the 2010 New START treaty, which is due to expire on Feb. 5, 2021.

The treaty’s demise would lift all remaining restraints on deployments of strategic nuclear warheads and the missiles and bombers that carry them, fueling a post-Cold War arms race between the world’s largest nuclear powers.

The United States last week rejected a Russian offer to unconditionally extend the pact for one year, saying any proposal that did not envisage freezing all nuclear warheads - both strategic and tactical - was a “non-starter”.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement on Tuesday suggested that the two countries’ positions had moved closer.

“Russia is proposing to extend New START by one year and is ready together with the United States to make a political commitment to ‘freeze’ the number of nuclear warheads held by the parties for this period,” the ministry said.

In a statement, the State Department welcomed Russia’s offer, saying it appreciated Moscow’s “willingness to make progress on the issue of nuclear arms control.”

“The United States is prepared to meet immediately to finalize a verifiable agreement. We expect Russia to empower its diplomats to do the same,” it said.

The statement highlighted one of several questions the sides would have to resolve to achieve a one-year New START extension: how each would verify that the other was adhering to the warhead deployment freeze.

Arms control analysts doubted detailed verification procedures could be negotiated before the U.S. election and noted that a “political” commitment would not be binding.


RELATED COVERAGE
U.S. prepared to meet immediately with Russia on nuclear arms control - State Department

“It would be very, very difficult to verify such an agreement without an intrusive inspection protocol, and ... there are a lot of serious questions whether you could negotiate such a protocol in two weeks,” said Frank Rose, a Brookings Institution analyst and former Obama administration official.

“We should not be trying to negotiate something so important on the fly,” he added.

Jon Wolfsthal, a former Obama administration official now with Global Zero, which advocates eliminating nuclear arms, questioned whether there had been a breakthrough, pointing to the unresolved verification issue.

The Trump administration has proposed “more intrusive (verification) measures than anything that has been negotiated before,” including tracking Russian strategic and non-strategic warheads from when they leave production facilities, he said.

The treaty can be extended for up to five years with the agreement of the U.S. and Russian presidents.

An extension would mark a rare bright spot in the fraught U.S.-Russian relationship. Failure to do so would remove the main pillar maintaining the nuclear balance between them.

Russia said the warhead freeze and one-year extension would be possible if Washington did not make any additional demands.

Washington had called for China to be included in a broader treaty that would replace New START, a proposal rejected by Beijing, whose nuclear arsenal is much smaller than those of Russia and the United States.

Last year, Trump pulled out of a Cold War-era arms control pact banning ground-launched nuclear and conventional ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles (500-5,500 km), citing Russian violations denied by Moscow.

Breathtaking Hubble Image Captures a Star That's Still Being Born

MICHELLE STARR
19 OCTOBER 2020

Zooming in on a small corner of cloud 7,500 light-years away, the Hubble Space Telescope has caught a fascinating stage in the development of baby stars.

It's called J025157.5+600606, and it's just a (relatively) tiny bulge in the colossal Soul Nebula (also known as Westerhout 5) in the constellation of Cassiopeia.


But, while the section of cloud seems insignificant in the broader nebula complex to which it belongs, it's an excellent place to learn about the birth of new stars.

That's because J025157.5+600606 shows what is known as a FrEGGs - Free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globules.

FrEGGs were only discovered a short time ago, and they require a particular set of conditions.



Where you can find J025157.5+600606. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA)

Stars in the large clouds of stellar nurseries are formed from cool clumps of dense molecular hydrogen that collapse under their own gravity, so stars are born nestled in thick, molecular clouds.

When a very massive, hot star starts to shine, their intense ultraviolet radiation ionises their birth cloud, creating a large, hot bubble of ionised gas called a Strömgren sphere.

FrEGGs are dense clumps of cooler gas clustered in the Strömgren sphere, and many of them are busily forming stars of their own.

The boundary between the FrEGG and the sphere is seen in the Hubble image as a glowing purple region as the heat from the hot nearby star photoevaporates the outer layer of gas.

This density loss means we can peer inside and see the new baby stars being born.


J025157.5+600606. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sahai)

Because the FrEGGs are so dense, this process doesn't stop the star formation occurring inside. But it does, ultimately, hinder it, curtailing the gas supply that would feed the star forming within.

For this reason, the stars born inside FrEGGs are relatively low mass compared to the much more massive O- and B-type stars that evaporate off their gas.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Smaller and cooler stars have much longer lifespans than their chonkier siblings. It's even possible that this was how our Sun was born, billions of years ago.

You can view the full-size image of J025157.5+600606, and download wallpaper sizes, on the Hubble Space Telescope website.

 ENVIRONMENT

Ice Melt in Alaska Threatens to Unleash Unprecedented 'Mega-Tsunami', Scientists Warn

PETER DOCKRILL

19 OCTOBER 2020

A giant, catastrophic tsunami in Alaska triggered by a landslide of rock left unstable after glacier melting is likely to occur in the next two decades, scientists fear - and it could happen within the next 12 months.

A group of scientists warned of the prospects of this impending disaster in Prince William Sound in an open letter to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (ADNR) in May.

While the potential risks of such a landslide are very serious, there remain a lot of unknowns about just how or when this calamity could take place.

What is clear is that glacier retreat in Prince William Sound, along the south coast of Alaska, does seem to be having an impact on mountain slopes above Barry Arm, about 97 kilometres (60 miles) east of Anchorage.

Analysis of satellite imagery suggests that as Barry Glacier retreats from Barry Arm due to ongoing melting, a large rocky scar called a scarp is emerging on the face of the mountain above it.

This indicates an incremental, slow-moving landslide is already taking place above the fjord, but if the rock face were to suddenly give way, the consequences could be dire.

Although it's remote, this is an area that's frequented by commercial and recreational boats, including cruise ships.

Pale scarp lines above Barry Glacier. (Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory/USGS)

"It was hard to believe the numbers at first," one of the researchers, geophysicist Chunli Dai from the Ohio State University told NASA's Earth Observatory.

"Based on the elevation of the deposit above the water, the volume of land that was slipping, and the angle of the slope, we calculated that a collapse would release 16 times more debris and 11 times more energy than Alaska's 1958 Lituya Bay landslide and mega-tsunami."

If the team's calculations are correct, such a result borders on the unthinkable, because the 1958 episode – likened by eyewitnesses to the explosion of an atomic bomb – is often thought to be the tallest tsunami wave in modern times, reaching a maximum elevation of 524 metres (1,720 feet).

A much more recent slope failure event in 2015 in Taan Fiord to the east produced a tsunami reaching as high as 193 metres (633 ft), and the researchers say these failures can be brought about by numerous causes.

"Slopes like this can change from slow creeping to a fast-moving landslide due to a number of possible triggers," the May report explains.

"Often, heavy or prolonged rain is a factor. Earthquakes commonly trigger failures. Hot weather that drives thawing of permafrost, snow, or glacier ice can also be a trigger."

(Gabe Wolken)

Since the report's release earlier in the year, subsequent landslide analysis has suggested little or no movement of land masses on the slope, although in itself that doesn't tell us much, since research shows that the rock face has been shifting since at least 50 years ago, at some points speeding up, while slowing down at others.

While these kinds of subtle variations are still being investigated, the overall view is that the speed of glacier retreat increases the probability of more dramatic slope failures.

"When the climate changes, the landscape takes time to adjust," co-author of the letter and geologist Bretwood Higman from nonprofit Ground Truth Alaska told The Guardian.

"If a glacier retreats really quickly it can catch the surrounding slopes by surprise – they might fail catastrophically instead of gradually adjusting."

Ongoing monitoring by numerous organisations – including ADNR, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the US Geological Survey – is keeping tabs on developments at Prince William Sound, to track movements above the Barry Glacier, and to refine predictions of what the fallout from a mega-tsunami would be.

Tsunami projections. (Briggs et al., open letter to ADNR, May 2020)

Preliminary modelling from the May report, which hasn't yet been peer-reviewed, suggests a tsunami reaching hundreds of feet in elevation along the shoreline would result from a sudden massive failure, propagating throughout Prince William Sound, and into bays and fjords far from the source.

Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that the impacts of relatively rapid glacier retreats in the era of climate change could pose similar kinds of landslide and tsunami threats in many other places around the world, not just in Alaska.

"It's really pretty terrifying," Higman told Columbia University's GlacierHub blog in May, likening the environmental risks to volcanoes – something that humanity has understood to be a dangerous, unpredictable geohazard for much, much longer.

"Maybe we're entering a time now where we need to look at glaciated landscapes with the same kind of glasses."

The findings are available on the ADNR website.

Google screwed rivals to protect monopoly, says Uncle Sam in antitrust lawsuit: We go inside the Sherman parked on a Silicon Valley lawn

Search engine giant has officially become 1990s Microsoft

Tue 20 Oct 2020 

Kieren McCarthy in San Francisco BIO 

Analysis The US Department of Justice has launched its long-awaited antitrust action against Google, accusing the tech giant of unlawfully protecting its search monopoly through “anti-competitive and exclusionary practices.”

The action doesn't explicitly mention breaking up Google, but does ask for "structural relief as needed to cure any anticompetitive harm," which is going to send shivers down the backs of Sundar Pichai and the rest of the Alphabet team.

In a striking parallel to antitrust action taken against Microsoft back in 1998, the accompanying 64-page lawsuit [PDF] cites the Sherman Act and accuses Google of “unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising in the United States.”

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen explicitly referenced the context in the DoJ’s official announcement: “As with its historic antitrust actions against AT&T in 1974 and Microsoft in 1998, the Department is again enforcing the Sherman Act to restore the role of competition and open the door to the next wave of innovation—this time in vital digital markets.”

It is the first major antitrust action taken against the new wave of tech giants – Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook – and is likely to be just the start in a series of legal challenges to Alphabet's market power.

The Justice Dept's lawsuit is joined by 11 state attorneys general – all Republican, reflecting the dire state of partisan politics in the US. Last month, an excoriating Congressional report that also accused tech giants of abusing their market power was formally supported only by Democrats, even though both political sides are largely in agreement. We note a second group of state attorneys general, a mix of Dems and Republicans, are preparing a separate antitrust case against Google, so look out for that.

Today's lawsuit itself has a relatively narrow focus given Google’s massive scale: its search and search advertising markets. But, as the complaint notes, the impact is huge.

“Google is the monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide. For years, Google has accounted for almost 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anti-competitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising,” the DoJ charges.

An Apple a day

The lawsuit digs into the agreements that Google has with other large tech companies to make it the default search engine on computers and devices, pointing out that they are exclusionary and “collectively lock up the primary avenues through which users access search engines, and thus the internet.” It homes in on the extent of Google's monopoly in internet search:

Between its exclusionary contracts and owned-and-operated properties, Google effectively owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80 percent of the general search queries in the United States. Largely as a result of Google’s exclusionary agreements and anticompetitive conduct, Google in recent years has accounted for nearly 90 percent of all general-search-engine queries in the United States, and almost 95 percent of queries on mobile devices.

It also pushes the issue that ultimately sank Microsoft in the 1990s over its Internet Explorer browser: Google makes its search engine the default on billions of devices, prevents the pre-installation of competitors, and in some cases doesn’t allow people to delete its software.

Of particular focus is the deal with Google and Apple where Google pays Apple billions of dollars to make Google the default search on Apple’s iOS devices. Combined with similar deals with web browser companies, phone makers, and mobile networks, Google has created “a continuous and self-reinforcing cycle of monopolization,” the government argues.

Big Tech to face its Ma Bell moment? US House Dems demand break-up of 'monopolists' Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google

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To make the antitrust charges stick and so force change, however, the DoJ will need to demonstrate that this behavior results in harm to consumers. It argues that Google’s actions “reduce the ability of innovative new companies to develop, compete, and discipline Google’s behavior.”

It goes on: “Google has foreclosed any meaningful search competitor from gaining vital distribution and scale, eliminating competition for a majority of search queries in the United States. By restricting competition in search, Google’s conduct has harmed consumers by reducing the quality of search (including on dimensions such as privacy, data protection, and use of consumer data), lessening choice in search, and impeding innovation.”

And further: “By suppressing competition in advertising, Google has the power to charge advertisers more than it could in a competitive market and to reduce the quality of the services it provides them.”

Google: Antitrust is so 1990s

This is something Google has hit back at straight away. Kent Walker, Google's global affairs senior veep took up just this point in a statement filed shortly after the lawsuit went public.

"Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed," he opined. "People use Google because they choose to, not because they're forced to, or because they can't find alternatives.

"This lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. To the contrary, it would artificially prop up lower-quality search alternatives, raise phone prices, and make it harder for people to get the search services they want to use."

He points out that paying to promote your own products is perfectly legal and that people use Google as their default search engine because it's the best. It would be easy enough to choose another vendor, he argued, since people downloaded over 200 billion apps last year to get the software of their choice.

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"This isn’t the dial-up 1990s, when changing services was slow and difficult, and often required you to buy and install software with a CD-ROM," he said.

"Today, you can easily download your choice of apps or change your default settings in a matter of seconds—faster than you can walk to another aisle in the grocery store."

As for the lawsuit itself, while you could argue that the narrow focus is a good thing, there are signs that it has been rushed, which may ultimately prove to be dangerously short-sighted.

A slew of attorneys working on the case resigned last month citing pressure from the Attorney General William Barr to launch the lawsuit before election day. They wanted more time to pull the case together.

The result has been that the DoJ has fallen back heavily on its successful case against Microsoft, drawing clear parallels. But as similar as Microsoft and Google are on the surface – tech giants using their extraordinary resources to control markets – there is a world of difference between the internet of the 1990s and now.

The lawsuit feels a little outdated in that respect and may not advance a necessary shift in antitrust thinking for the new digital era. For example, the lawsuit skims over the fact that Google has been increasingly favoring its own services over competitors; for example putting its own listings above those from others like Yelp.

It also barely touches the main driver of the entire modern tech economy: data. Access to people’s data, and connecting that data to individuals, building ever-larger databases to sell to advertisers is behind much of the tech giant’s behavior, particularly when it comes to anti-competitive actions and privacy violations.

That could be a major tactical error as the antitrust lawsuit could – and arguably should – have been used to build a legal record on the issue of data which could then be moved forward to tackle other companies like Facebook which don’t fit so neatly into the traditional antitrust bucket.

Lawyers can cash in

There are also numerous examples of the lawsuit feeling a little rushed and lacking the solid foundation that you would expect from such a huge case. As one example, take this sentence:

“This leaves the preset default general search engine with de facto exclusivity. As Google itself has recognized, this is particularly true on mobile devices, where defaults are especially sticky.”

There is no explanation of “especially sticky” – a phrase that the tech industry instinctively understands but which the legal system is likely to be completely confused by. The case doesn’t feel sufficiently locked down, especially when Google is going to throw every lawyer it has at the case and can afford to pick at every small point.

As for the chances of success: it should be a no-brainer. There is ample evidence of Google’s misbehavior and it should be easy to prove that one company having an effective monopoly over something as critical as searching the internet – a monopoly it aggressively protects – is not in the interests of American citizens.

But there is a world of difference between winning the case and having a real impact on the future. Google will fight extremely hard to limit the impact of the case on its business model and it is easy to see how it could still end up being the default search engine even after it is banned from pushing exclusionary agreements. The improvements could be slight.

And, if antitrust actions are not pulled further into the digital era through this Google case, it is possible that a company like Facebook could escape largely unscathed. Nevertheless, after nearly a decade of Google getting away with increasingly monopolistic actions – let’s not forget the FTC voted against its staff’s recommendation to investigate Google back in 2012 – it is good to see the US government finally act.

It’s just a shame it seems to have rushed things at the last minute for pure political reasons. ®

PS: Google's stock price is up more than 2.5 per cent at time of writing on the lawsuit's filing.

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