Virus hunters delve into Gabon forest in search for next threat

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The scene looks like something out of a science fiction movie, or maybe some dystopian TV series.

Six men in yellow biohazard suits clamber in suffocating heat towards a cave in the heart of the Gabonese jungle.

Their quest: to unlock new knowledge on how pathogens like coronavirus leap the species barrier to humans.

In the cave is their goal—a colony of bats.

"Our job is to look for pathogens which could endanger humans and understand how transmission happens between species," explained Gael Maganga, a professor at the University of Franceville.

Bats can be hosts to viruses that do not harm them but can be dangerous to Homo sapiens, often crossing via other animals.

COVID-19 is just the latest microbe believed to have taken the zoonotic path from animals to humans.

It notably follows three other respiratory viruses, MERS in 2012, SARS in 2003 and H5N1 flu in 1997; the haemorrhagic virus Ebola in 1976; and AIDS, which is believed to have crossed over from chimps about a century ago, possibly through hunters who handled infected meat.

Bat cave

Getting to the cave is hard work. The team have to almost wade through thick soil, pieces of bark and russet-coloured leaves that exhale the musky perfume of the forest.

The environment here—hot and humid and filled with natural hazards—is tough for humans, but perfect for viruses.

Bit by bit, the scent of damp earth yields to the smell of bat droppings, which eventually becomes suffocating in the sticky air. Bees and silvery butterflies dance around the heads of the virus hunters, their faces dripping in sweat beneath their goggles.

Above them, the tree tops seem to lose themselves in the sky, and gnarly creepers hang down, as if suspended from the heavens.

The mouth of the cave suddenly rears up ahead, and a stream of bats flies out. A thick white bedding of bat droppings spreads across the ground and the rocks.

Maganga calls on the team to stretch a net across the cave's dark maw and the bats, suddenly sensing the alien presence of humans, start to hunker down inside.

But one of the scientists moves forward, shining his torch inside. Bats fly out and get caught in the net.

Now the real scientific stuff can begin. The team take out sterile swabs and take samples from the bats' mouths and rectums.

These are then carefully stored for transport back to the lab, where they will be analysed for any emerging pathogen.

Species contact

To any who would blame the bats for the catastrophe of coronavirus, the scientists are bluntly dismissive.

Human encroachment on their habitat, they say, has brought the two mammal species into closer, riskier proximity.

"Human behaviour is often the cause of an emerging virus," said Maganga. "Today, with population pressure, intensified farming or hunting, contact between humans and animals is more and more frequent."

Maganga is also co-director of the Emerging Viral Diseases Unit at Franceville's Interdisciplinary Centre for Medical Research (CIRMF).

It hosts one of Africa's two P4 laboratories—ultra-high-risk labs that operate at top levels of security.

A report issued in October by the UN's biodiversity panel IPBES said there were up to 850,000 viruses that exist in animals and may infect humans.

Seventy percent of emerging diseases circulate in animals before jumping to humans, and each year around five new diseases break out among humans, it said.

Pauline Grentzinger, a vet at the Lekedi Nature Park, a biodiversity haven near Franceville, warned against the conventional thinking "that it's humans on one side and animals on the other."

"In health terms, what happens with one (species) has a repercussion on the other. To protect natural fauna is to protect humans," she said.

Hunters not deterred

In Gabon, every outbreak of Ebola has occurred in the Zadie Caves area, which lies close to the border with the Republic of Congo. CIRMF researchers have found samples of Ebola virus among bats, confirming that the flying mammals were the host.

Maganga has also uncovered a number of coronavirus strains circulating among bats, including some that are close to the COVID-19 strain that infects humans.

Despite the obvious risk, hunters still come into the area to hunt for animals—antelopes, gazelles, monkeys and bats.

In April, Gabon imposed a ban on the sale of bats and pangolins, another species deemed to be a potential vector of coronavirus.

But villagers living near the caves say they have yet to see a case of COVID—and for many, poverty seems to trump any danger.

"In one night, I can earn a month's money," said Aristide Roux, a 43-year-old hunter, showing the body of a gazelle on a tree stump by the side of the road.


Explore further  Thai scientists catch bats to trace virus origins

© 2020 AFP

Climate change demands same leadership as COVID-19, and Australia is failing

by Medical Journal of Australia

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A leading Australian medical clinician and researcher has called on the Federal Government and the health sector to commit to showing the same leadership on climate change as was shown during the COVID-19 public health crisis.

Laureate Professor Nicolas Talley AC, a world-renowned neurogastroenterologist and Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia said in an editorial, published today, that Australia's response to COVID-19 had been "strong and effective."

"Key to this success was the valuing by governments of science and data to guide decision making.

"The pandemic forced politicians from across the Australian political divide to prioritize the evidence and expertise of the medical, scientific and public health communities over the voices of conservative commentators, business leaders and politicians," wrote Professor Talley.

"Tough political decisions were made for the sake of the nation's health.

"This bipartisan, science-based approach is a model for the future management of climate change, if implemented alongside an appropriate national plan."

Professor Talley cited research which showed that 2019 was Australia's hottest and driest year on record, with average temperatures 1.52°C above normal and mean rainfall 40% below the 30-year average before 1991. Australia's 2019–20 bushfires burned 10 million hectares, directly killed 33 people and destroyed more than 3000 homes. Smoke engulfed major capital cities, including Sydney and Melbourne, and smoke exposure caused an estimated 417 excess deaths and over 3000 hospital admissions.

"Australia's leading medical and nursing bodies have recognized climate change as a health emergency," wrote Professor Talley. "Governments of states and territories have committed to zero net carbon emissions by 2050, with climate change adaptation plans incorporating the health sector and investment in renewable energy."

Professor Talley called on the Federal Government to establish a National Health and Climate Change Centre within the Australian Department of Health to develop a National Plan for Health and Climate Change with real-time monitoring.

"Australia has an obligation under the Paris Agreement to submit enhanced nationally determined contributions by the end of 2020," he wrote. "We recommend that the Australian Government agree to a target of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which is what is likely required to limit global warming below 1.5°C."

Additionally, Professor Talley called on the health and medical sector to play its part. "Australia's health sector should commit itself nationally to zero net carbon emissions by 2040 in line with the National Health Service in the UK, preferably with the states and territories responsible for implementing evidence-based interventions," he said. "Reducing unnecessary medical tests and procedures will serve to reduce carbon emissions, health care costs and harmful outcomes. Research funded by the NHMRC and the Medical Research Futures Fund should guide better ways to efficiently reduce the carbon footprint of Australia's health care services."

On 3 December, the MJA co-published the MJA-Lancet Australian Countdown special report on health and climate change, which showed that "Australia has no decisive national plan to address climate change and its health consequences."

Explore further Vaccines alone won't keep Australia COVID-safe

More information: Nicholas J Talley et al. Health and climate change MJA–Lancet Countdown report: Australia gets another failing grade in 2020 but shows signs of progress, Medical Journal of Australia (2020). DOI: 10.5694/mja2.50895

Journal information: Medical Journal of Australia

Provided by Medical Journal of Australia

UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME
Fewer tourists meant less money for wildlife during the pandemic – but there's an alternative

by Joseph Hamm, The Conversation

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

"Nature is healing" read social media posts at the outset of the pandemic, as birdsong replaced the drone of traffic during lockdown. But for wildlife conservation in Africa, the reality was very different. Anti-poaching operations in protected areas were paused or restricted to limit the spread of the virus, leaving populations of threatened species like the African lion vulnerable. Now these areas are confronting COVID-19's economic fallout, and research suggests that illegal hunting, mining, deforestation, and bushmeat consumption all tend to increase during downturns.

Safari tours and other forms of wildlife tourism in Africa generate more than US$29 billion each year. Whether it's the salaries of park rangers or money for community outreach and education, much of the funding for conservation comes from this tourism revenue, including 80% of the annual budget of South African National Parks. Travel restrictions during the pandemic have gutted visitor numbers, with 90% of African tour operators reporting a drop in bookings of three-quarters or more. Many protected areas were suffering severe budget shortfalls even before the pandemic.

COVID-19 exposed the fragility of this model of conservation, but is there another way?

Conservation basic income

The idea of a conservation basic income (CBI) was recently proposed to fund efforts to safeguard biodiversity. The concept is simple: people living alongside endangered wildlife receive an unconditional monthly income to reduce their dependence on hunting for bushmeat or chopping down trees for timber and firewood.

You may have already heard of something similar. Several economists and politicians have suggested that governments could improve social security by paying each citizen a universal basic income – a regular and guaranteed payment sufficient to cover basic needs, including food and housing.

Instead of relying on tourist numbers remaining stable, the money for a CBI program could be raised in a way that's more dependable and resilient to shocks, such as a tax on carbon pollution. The UK government's recent ten-point environment plan included another option with its commitment to "green finance," which would involve governments encouraging private investment in environmental causes. CBI could also work in areas where there are many threatened species, but few tourists, such as central Africa.

Paying for ecosystem services

Another approach aiming to tackle conservation's over-reliance on tourism is monetising ecosystem services. This is an arrangement in which habitats like woodland and the environmental services they provide, like carbon storage, are bought and sold on an international market. Wildlife can be protected as a result, and businesses or states can offset their pollution or environmental damage by investing in these schemes, which now number more than 550 worldwide, with annual transactions in the region of US$40 billion.

Both wildlife tourism and payments for ecosystem services attach a monetary value to biodiversity, whether as a draw for tourists, or to maintain useful ecosystem services. This is supposed to prioritize protection ahead of more damaging methods of generating income. But in reality, these incentives often fail to compete with the appeal of more lucrative industries, such as logging or mining.

A new approach

Instead of paying for services, a conservation basic income compensates local people for the infringements and costs that conservation entails. Tourists might pay a lot to visit well-guarded reserves filled with wildlife, but restrictions on harvesting resources from these areas directly affect local communities. Having a guaranteed monthly income could mean people have less cause to resort to small-scale mining or poaching, and could help them recoup the losses that living alongside large wild animals incurs, such as livestock taken by predators.

It's still a relatively new idea though and hasn't been implemented yet, but one charity is raising money to conduct a two-year trial in an area of Zimbabwe with high levels of poverty and poaching. Each month, every adult would receive US$50 and every child US$20 (paid to their mother or guardian), with payments delivered by mobile phone.

As with any new idea, questions abound. Would increased income result in bigger environmental impacts, as people can more easily afford land-clearing equipment, for instance? Is it possible that such a scheme attracts new arrivals to the area, increasing local pressure?

It's important to remember that the threats facing the world's biodiversity are varied. Economic considerations form only part of a complex picture. How CBI would interact with a cultural tradition like Maasai lion hunting, for instance, is still unclear. But 2020 has exposed the fatal flaws in a conservation model reliant on wealthy tourists and regular air travel. New ideas are vital in the effort to safeguard the environment post-pandemic.


Explore further Divergent wildlife conservation perspectives in Africa
Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A RADICAL IDEA WORKS

Ethnic studies curriculum tied to increased graduation, retention rates, study finds

by San Francisco State University
DECEMBER 23, 2020

Students taking a College of Ethnic Studies course. 

Credit: San Francisco State University

 

In 1968, San Francisco State University activists made history by organizing the longest student-led strike in the U.S.

 What did they want? 

Curricula that represent people of color.

This demand was met a year later when the University formed its College of Ethnic Studies (CoES)—the first of its kind in the nation. Since then, various research studies have shown that ethnic studies courses could give a big boost to student success. A recent report with San Francisco State data supports that idea.

Written by College of Ethnic Studies Dean Amy Sueyoshi and Associate Provost of Institutional Analytics Sutee Sujitparapitaya and published this semester in the journal Ethnic Studies Review, the paper takes a quantitative look at ethnic studies. Using data from the University's Division of Institutional Analytics, Sueyhoshi and Sujitparapitaya show a strong correlation between ethnic studies curricula and high retention and graduation rates.

"We should look at education as a way to bring opportunity to all people regardless of their background," Sueyoshi said. "It's a way to distribute wealth and create an educated citizenry. The report shows ethnic studies can support that."

The report's analysis is based on a sample of 22,250 first-time freshmen who first enrolled at SF State between the Fall 2008 and Fall 2013 semesters. The data shows that SF State students with a major in the CoES had high six-year graduation rates. (Six-year graduation rate is defined as the percentage of students who graduate within six years or less.)

For example, when looking at students who entered the University in Fall 2010, CoES majors had a six-year graduation rate of 77 percent. To put it into perspective, data from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that the average six-year graduation rate for public institutions is 61 percent.

Even students who did not have a CoES major but had a CoES minor showed a high graduation rate. For the Fall 2013 cohort, students with a CoES minor had a six-year graduation rate of 85 percent.

What might these findings suggest? Sujitparapitaya says that it validates some of the prior qualitative research on the value of ethnic studies. Those research reports suggest that ethnic studies could lead to higher student engagement and retention.

"There are studies that recognize that when students see themselves in curriculum or can relate to it, they perform better," Sujitparapitaya said. "That's the essence of ethnic studies."

Sujitparapitaya cautions, though, that correlation should not be confused with causation. But even with this caveat, Sueyoshi says discovering this data is a major development for higher education because it quantitively validates past qualitative research on how ethnics studies curricula support student success.

"Ethnic studies courses are meant to be relevant to and representative of different types of students," Sueyoshi said. "We know through qualitative research that courses designed this way can lead to better student engagement." In turn, it could lead to higher retention and graduation rates, she added.

Some higher education administrators and policy makers question whether ethnic studies curricula is worth investing in. The report shows why the answer is yes, Sueyoshi says.

"If we care about graduation rates and if we care about the success of underrepresented students, then we should invest in ethnic studies courses," she said. "This data shows that."

Explore further  

Black, Latino families urged to emphasize college graduation rates in enrollment decisions

More information: Amy Sueyoshi et al. Why Ethnic Studies, Ethnic Studies Review (2020). 

DOI: 10.1525/esr.2020.43.3.86

Provided by San Francisco State University

AMELIORATING CAPITALI$M

Study explores diversity-innovation link in pulp and paper industry

by Laura Oleniacz, North Carolina State University

DECEMBER 23, 2020
 

The Talley tower welcomes students returning to campus for the fall 2020 semester. 

Credit: Becky Kirkland

Innovation is key to corporations' success, allowing companies to identify and respond to new market opportunities. In a new analysis, researchers from North Carolina State University compared companies ranked among the world's most innovative with the largest pulp and paper companies to understand how diversity among company leaders may affect innovation.


The study, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, analyzed the gender, ethnicity, age and educational background of members of the boards of companies in the pulp and paper industry. Researchers then compared those findings with the composition of the boards of companies considered to be among the world's most innovative according to Boston Consulting Group's 2018 annual survey and ranking. The study uncovered differences in diversity trends that researchers say could be important to a company's ability to innovate.

"You can see subtle differences in the composition of the boards from a diversity perspective," said the study's senior author Marko Hakovirta, professor and chair of the NC State Department of Forest Biomaterials. "Those subtle differences, in my opinion, can escalate to the culture of innovation in the company. That goes to the selection of the CEO, who is on the management team and what the innovation agenda of the corporation is."

The Abstract sat down with Hakovirta to talk about the link between diversity in the company's board and innovation.

TA: Why did you focus on the pulp industry?

Hakovirta: The pulp and paper industry, while it has the potential for innovation, has typically been considered very traditional. The perception is that there haven't been many changes in products or technology. This industry is nowadays called the "bioeconomy," and is highly focused in creating sustainability solutions. We wanted to explore the level of diversity on the boards of the largest bioeconomy companies by revenue by looking at age, gender, ethnicity and education. We compared what we found to the composition of boards of companies considered to be highly innovative.

TA: What are some of the opportunities for innovation in pulp and paper?

Hakovirta: There are opportunities for disruptive innovation related to some of the paper manufacturing processes that are about 100 years old. I would really like to see radical innovation where the fossil-based plastics are totally replaced in packaging, or business models that create solutions to better recycle some of those products. There are a lot of packages that are difficult to recycle because of the plastics or the aluminum in them. I'd like to also see more radical solutions when it comes to digitalization and big data.


TA: What were your major findings about how the two types of companies differed in terms of diversity on their boards?

Hakovirta: In some of the pulp and paper companies, there were cases where you had one ethnicity in the board. When you look at the most innovative companies, you don't see that happening.

In terms of the age of the board of directors of the bioeconomy, there was quite a different distribution. It's more senior. The most innovative companies have a broader distribution, which shows us they have more openness to getting younger folks.

When you looked at the gender side, the distribution was almost the same; there was no major difference there.

There were differences in the educational background of board members between the two groups. The board of directors of pulp and paper companies have business or economics degrees, even though these are very technical companies. It might be related to the fact that in these bioeconomy companies where the investments for new mills can cost hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, you need to do a lot of investment planning. Whereas in case of the innovative companies, they have more engineering backgrounds which may perhaps be more connected to technical product innovations.

TA: Why were you interested in diversity and innovation?

Hakovirta: The best, most effective team is the team that has members with diverse backgrounds, and diversity of thought. Innovation is all about new thinking—challenging the norm. If you don't have a diverse team on the board, then that open thinking and practice of challenging the norm may not be as common. And you can see that in this paper. The more diverse the board is, the more likely that companies are considered innovators.

TA: What should companies take away from this?

Hakovirta: Companies should challenge themselves to think about board composition and the selection process. When they select board members, they should look at what skills, capabilities and backgrounds are of interest to the really high-level strategic direction of the company. If they want to be seen as innovators, diversity is a part of their strategy. Pulp and paper or bioeconomy companies should show the real commitment to innovation by having individuals on their boards who represent more diversity and thus diversity of thought and openness to innovation culture.


Explore further Boys' club barriers create issues for Australian boards

More information: Marko Hakovirta et al. The importance of diversity on boards of directors' effectiveness and its impact on innovativeness in the bioeconomy, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1057/s41599-020-00605-9

Plastic is blowing in the wind

by Weizmann Institute of Science

DECEMBER 23, 2020

The research setup included an intake at the top of the mast. The Tara research schooner, 2016. The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Credit: Weizmann Institute of Science

As the plastic in our oceans breaks up into smaller and smaller bits without breaking down chemically, the resulting microplastics are becoming a serious ecological problem. A new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science reveals a troubling aspect of microplastics—defined as particles smaller than 5 mm across. They are swept up into the atmosphere and carried on the wind to far-flung parts of the ocean, including those that appear to be clear. Analysis reveals that such minuscule fragments can stay airborne for hours or days, spreading the potential to harm the marine environment and, by climbing up the food chain, to affect human health.

"A handful of studies have found microplastics in the atmosphere right above the water near shorelines," says Dr. Miri Trainic, in the groups of Prof. Ilan Koren of the Institute's Earth and Planetary Sciences Department in collaboration with that of Prof. Yinon Rudich of the same department, and Prof. Assaf Vardi of the Institute's Plant and Environmental Sciences Department. "But we were surprised to find a non-trivial amount above seemingly pristine water."

Koren and Vardi have been collaborating for a number of years on studies designed to understand the interface between ocean and air. While the way the oceans absorb materials from the atmosphere has been well studied, the opposite-direction's process—aerosolization, in which volatiles, viruses, algal fragments and other particles are swept from seawater into the atmosphere—had been much less investigated.

As part of this ongoing effort, aerosol samples were collected for study in the Weizmann labs during the 2016 run of the Tara research vessel, a schooner on which several international research teams at a time come together to study the effects of climate change, primarily on marine biodiversity. The Weizmann team affixed the inlet of their measuring equipment to the top of one of the Tara's masts (so as to avoid any aerosols produced by the schooner, itself) and Dr. J. Michel Flores, of Koren's group, joined the mission to tend to the collecting as the schooner sailed across the North Atlantic Ocean.

Identifying and quantifying the microplastic bits trapped in their aerosol samples was far from easy, as the particles turned out to be hard to pick out under the microscope. To understand exactly what plastic was getting into the atmosphere, the team conducted Raman spectroscopy measurements with the help of Dr., Iddo Pinkas of the Institute's Chemical Research Support to determine their chemical makeup and size. The researchers detected high levels of common plastics—polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene and more—in their samples. Then, calculating the shape and mass of the microplastic particles, along with the average wind directions and speeds over the oceans, the team showed that the source of these microplastics was most likely the plastic bags and other plastic waste that had been discarded near the shore and made its way into the ocean hundreds of kilometers away.

Checking the seawater beneath the sample sites showed the same type of plastic as in the aerosol, providing support for the idea that microplastics enter the atmosphere through bubbles on the ocean surface or are picked up by winds, and are transported on air currents to remote parts of the ocean.

"Once microplastics are in the atmosphere, they dry out, and they are exposed to UV light and atmospheric components with which they interact chemically," says Trainic. "That means the particles that fall back into the ocean are likely to be even more harmful or toxic than before to any marine life that ingests them."

"On top of that," adds Vardi, "some of these plastics become scaffolds for bacterial growth for all kinds of marine bacteria, so airborne plastic could be offering a free ride to some species, including pathogenic bacteria that are harmful to marine life and humans."

"The real amount of microplastic in the ocean aerosols is almost certainly greater than what our measurements showed, because our setup was unable to detect those particles below a few micrometers in size," says Trainic. "For example, in addition to plastics that break down into even smaller pieces, there are the nanoparticles that are added to cosmetics and which are easily washed into the ocean, or are formed in the ocean through microplastic fragmentation."

Size, in the case of plastic particles, does matter, not only because lighter ones may stay airborne for longer periods. When they do land on the water's surface, they are more likely to be eaten by equally small marine life, which, of course, cannot digest them. Thus, every one of these particles has the potential to harm a marine organism or to work its way up the food chain and into our bodies.

"Last, but not least, like all aerosols, microplastics become part of the large planetary cycles—for example, carbon and oxygen—as they interact with other parts of the atmosphere," says Koren. "Because they are both lightweight and long-lived, we will be seeing more microplastics transported in the air as the plastics that are already polluting our oceans break up—even if we do not add any further plastics to our waterways." he adds.

Explore further  Kuril-Kamchatka Trench in the Pacific Ocean is a trap for microplastics

More information: Trainic, M., Flores, J.M., Pinkas, I. et al. Airborne microplastic particles detected in the remote marine atmosphere. Commun Earth Environ 1, 64 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00061-y

Provided by Weizmann Institute of Science

You're probably emitting an astonishing amount of carbon dioxide in your daily routine

by Tim Breitbarth, Adam Karg and Kasey Symons, The Conversation

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Credit: Shutterstock

Few people would stop to consider if their sporting activities damage the environment. But our research shows Victorians use a huge chunk of their "personal carbon budget" driving to and from sport events each year—either to watch or participate, or to transport children.


To have any hope of limiting global warming to 2℃ this century—the upper limit of the Paris Agreement—each person in the developed world should only be emitting about two  tons of CO2 per year. We must start getting used to this lifestyle change now. But through sports-related travel alone—mostly driving—some Victorians are emitting almost one ton of CO2 a year.

These sport-related emissions equal the total CO2 a person in Pakistan or Africa emits in a year.

Obviously, sport participation is to be encouraged. But Australian sport policy is usually all too quiet on its contribution to the climate emergency, and finding solutions.

Driving the climate problem

The data was gathered by our Swinburne University Sport Innovation Research Group. It is based on self-reported travel data in November 2019, from a sample of 300 people representing the Victorian population.

Travel for soccer, swimming, cricket, football, basketball and tennis featured most commonly, followed by gym, jogging, walking and golf.

Our analysis assumed walking and biking to an activity emits no greenhouse gases. Public transport accounts for less than 0.02 kilograms per kilometer (kg/km). A combustion engine car produces an average 0.29 kg/km.

Among Victorians actively engaged in sport, 43% of mobility was related to their own participation, 36% to being a spectator and 21% to driving or accompanying others, such as children. Research into swimming clubs suggests children's sport participation results in a bigger carbon footprint than that of adults, due to parent drop-offs and pickups.

Ferrying kids to and from sport contributes substantial carbon emissions. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Cars were used on 39% of all trips, and public transport on 41% of trips. This means just one of every five kilometers was walked or cycled.

Consider a person who exercises, attends sporting events as a spectator and takes their kids to the oval or swimming pool. On average, we found such a person creates 935kg (almost a ton) of CO2 per year if using their car. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has led to a renewed reliance on cars.

A tree, if planted today, would take more than 40 years to absorb that one ton of carbon. Clearly, mitigating emissions should be given priority over carbon offsetting.

Such sport-related travel behavior may be due to various factors, including:
a long distance to sporting facilities
sports facilities not served by public transport and not connected to safe cycle paths
lifestyle choice and convenience
persistent habits due to lack of awareness and role models.

Rare sporting leaders

Achieving climate action requires improving people's "climate literacy"—their understanding of how humans are affecting the climate, and how the climate affects human systems and associated costs. Here, professional sport has a big role to play. The AFL and NFL, Swimming Australia, Cricket Australia, Football Australia, Motor Racing Australia and others can do more to promote climate literacy within and beyond their organizations.

Environmental sporting initiatives have been shown to foster loyalty and turn supporters into environmental ambassadors. And some organizations are real leaders.

For example, in 2012, German Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg became the first professional sports club to publish a sustainability report approved by the Global Reporting Initiative, a leading sustainability standards organization.
  

Survey findings on CO₂ emissions from own sport participation and spectating, and accompanying others to sport. Author supplied

Wolfsburg recently published its fifth report. It shows of the 9,500 tons of CO2 produced during the 2019-20 season, fan travel was responsible for 60%, team and business travel for 6% and employee travel for 2%.

It plans to reduce emissions by 55% within the decade, while acknowledging remaining emissions must be negated through credible carbon offset schemes. Importantly, the club does not shy away from initiating discussions and positive environmental action within its industry, region and fan base.

Wolfsburg is not alone; the United Nations has declared English professional football team Forest Green Rovers the first carbon-neutral professional sports organization. Its policies include offsetting all fan travel through certified sustainable development projects, such as a solar-powered rural electrification project.

At the time of writing, 174 sport organizations have signed the UN's Sport for Climate Action framework. These include Tennis Australia, Bowls Australia, the Australia SailGP Team, Richmond Tigers and, most recently, the Australian Olympic Committee.

But most sport signatories—including all the Australian ones—are yet to craft "best on ground" sustainability strategies, or adopt environmental consciousness as a normal part of their business.

Turning climate literacy into innovation

Human-caused climate change and global warming will bring fundamental structural change to societies and economies.

Drastic measures could be taken to force sporting organizations to change. For example, public funding of sports could be contingent on meeting environmental targets.

Australian sports organizations should not need be dragged to taking climate and environmental action. They are known for their innovative and ambitious mindsets, which they've traditionally directed towards improving sporting and commercial performance.

Now it's time sports organizations turned their collective minds to better understanding the costs and damage caused by CO2 emissions—and finding solutions.


Explore further   Astronomers create 40% more carbon emissions than the average Australian. Here's how they can improve

Provided by The Conversation

Disposable surgical masks best for being heard clearly when speaking, study finds

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

Research News

 

IMAGE: MASKS ARE AN IMPORTANT TOOL FOR FIGHTING COVID-19 BUT WEARING ONE CAN MAKE IT DIFFICULT FOR OTHERS TO HEAR US SPEAK. USING A UNIQUE LABORATORY SETUP, ILLINOIS RESEARCHER RYAN COREY... view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO COURTESY RYAN COREY

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researcher Ryan Corey recently heard from a friend who teaches at a school where some of the students have hearing loss. The friend wanted to know if he had any ideas to help her communicate with these students while wearing a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. Corey, who also has hearing loss, did not know what to tell her. So, he headed to the Illinois Augmented Listening Laboratory to look for solutions.

Corey, an electrical and computer engineering postdoctoral researcher under professor Andrew Singer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, leads a team that studies audio signal processing, especially for listening devices like hearing aids. The results of the team's new study evaluating the acoustic effects of face masks on speech are published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

To see a video explaining this research, click here.

"Previous research performed on this subject has focused on medical masks worn in health care settings," Corey said, "But no one has looked at the acoustic effects caused by different kinds of fabric masks, so that's where I focused our study."

The team tested medical masks, disposable surgical masks, masks with clear plastic windows around the mouth, and homemade and store-bought cloth masks made of different fabric types and numbers of layers.

The researchers used a special loudspeaker, custom built by School of Art and Design graduate Uriah Jones and shaped like a human head so that sound radiates as it would coming from a human mouth.

"We put the different masks onto the head-shaped loudspeaker and played the same sound for every test," Corey said. "We also placed the speaker onto a turntable to add a directional component to our data."

The team collected data from a mask-wearing human speaker, as well.

"Using a real person makes the sounds less repeatable because we can't say the same thing the same way every time. However, it does let us account for the real shape of the head and real movements of lips," Corey said. "Even though these two data sets are a bit different, they both show which sound frequencies are most affected by mask-wearing and which masks have the strongest effects."

Their data showed that all masks muffle the quiet, high-frequency sound generated when a person pronounces consonants. "Those sounds are already a challenge for those with hearing loss, with or without masks, and even become a challenge for those without hearing loss when you throw a mask into the mix."

Masks also block visual cues like facial expression and lip motion, so speech reading is no longer an option when wearing most masks. Almost everyone uses speech reading to some extent, with or without hearing loss, Corey said.

"That's why we tested the clear-window masks that have become very popular," he said. "Unfortunately, the trade-off is that you can see through them, but they block the most sound of all the masks we tested."

The study found that disposable surgical masks offer the best acoustic performance among all tested, Corey said. Loosely woven 100% cotton masks also perform well but, as shown in a study by other Illinois researchers, they may not be as effective as surgical masks at blocking respiratory droplets. That study showed that tightly woven cotton and blended fabrics may block more droplets, but Corey's team found that they also block more sound. Based on the droplet study, Corey suggested that multilayer masks made of loosely woven cotton may offer a reasonable compromise between droplet-blocking efficiency and acoustic performance.

The good news is that most masks do not completely block sound, they simply deflect it away from the mouth. This detail means that simple amplification devices can make masked speech more accessible to everyone. In particular, the lapel microphones that are already used in many classrooms and lecture halls are only mildly affected by face masks. Many hearing aids support remote microphone accessories that are also worn near the lapel.

"Most people do not walk around with lapel mics and amplification systems while wearing a mask, but it can help in settings where it does make sense, like classrooms and meetings," Corey said.

###

The U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence supported this study.

Corey and Singer are affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory. Singer also is affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and industrial and enterprise systems engineering at Illinois.

Editor's notes: To reach Ryan Cory, email corey1@illinois.edu.

The paper "Acoustic effects of medical, cloth, and transparent face masks on speech signals" is available from the U. of I. News Bureau. DOI: 10.1121/10.0002279

Masks block 99.9% of large COVID-linked droplets: study

by Marlowe Hood 
DECEMBER 23, 2020

Large respiratory droplets are thought to be the main driver of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Illustration by Banksy

Face masks reduce the risk of spreading large COVID-linked droplets when speaking or coughing by up to 99.9 percent, according to a lab experiment with mechanical mannequins and human subjects, researchers said Wednesday.

A woman standing two meters (yards) from a coughing man without a mask will be exposed to 10,000 times more such droplets than if he were wearing one, even if he is only 50 centimeters away, they reported in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

"There is no more doubt whatsoever that face masks can dramatically reduce the dispersion of potentially virus-laden droplets," senior author Ignazio Maria Viola, an expert in applied fluid dynamics at the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering, told AFP.

Large respiratory droplets—which act like projectiles before being pulled toward the ground by gravity—are thought to be the main driver of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, he noted.

Smaller ones, sometimes called aerosol droplets, can remain suspended in the air for longer periods.

"We continuously exhale a whole range of droplets, from micro-scale to millimeter-scale," Maria Viola said by phone.

"Some of the droplets will drop faster than others" depending on temperature, humidity and especially air speed, he said.

The study focused on particles larger than 170 microns in diameter—roughly two to four times the width of a human hair.

Aerosol particles, which tend to follow currents in the air, are generally described as smaller than 20 or 30 microns.

Intermediate size droplets can behave either way, the study found.

Universal mask wearing

"If you wear a mask, you are mitigating the virus transmission by an order of magnitude—10 times less," Maria Viola said.

"In our study, for the larger droplets we measure, we're talking about 99.9 percent less."

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle, Washington, 55,000 lives could be saved in the United States over the next four months if a policy of universal mask use were adopted.

The Institute's modellers—who accurately predicted in mid-July that COVID-19 deaths in the US would top 224,000 by November 1—project 561,000 deaths on current trends by April 1, 2021.

Universal mask-wearing would reduce the global death toll by 400,000 over the same period, from 2.9 million to 2.5 million, they calculate. To date, the virus has claimed about 1.7 million lives.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) updated its COVID-19 guidance on masks to recommend they be worn indoors in the presence of other people if ventilation is inadequate.

The guidelines apply especially in areas of known or suspected community transmission.

Masks serve primarily to reduce the emissions of virus-laden droplets by people when they cough, sneeze, sing, talk or simply breathe, but they can also help prevent the inhalation of droplets by the person wearing them.

"Cloth masks not only effectively block most large droplets—20-30 microns and larger—but they can also block the exhalation of fine droplets and particles, also often referred to as aerosols," according to the CDC.

Explore further  Masks not enough to stop COVID-19's spread without distancing: study

More information: Lucia Bandiera et al. Face coverings and respiratory tract droplet dispersion, Royal Society Open Science (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.201663

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

Changes caused by worsening wildfires in California forests will last centuries

by Joseph Serna

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The single-engine Cessna was buzzing 1,000 feet above a Northern California burn scar as University of California, Berkeley scientist Scott Stephens shifted excitedly in his seat and peered out the window for a better view.

Down below, heavy machinery kicked up clouds of dust as commercial loggers attempted to salvage whatever timber they could, while a vast canopy of green, gold and brown rolled beneath the aircraft. Occasionally, this brilliant autumn quilt would be marred by with burn patches.

"That's fantastic, just fantastic," Stephens exclaimed. "It's a real mosaic!"

But as the flight continued, the fall colors gave way to a desolate sea of gray and black. Trees now looked like charred toothpicks jutting from an ash pile.

That was the path, Stephens explained, that the North Complex fire took on Sept. 8 into Berry Creek, a rural Butte County hamlet some nine miles north of Oroville dam.

As California takes stock of its worst wildfire season on record, experts say that increasingly large and devastating fires have already altered the state's iconic forests for centuries to come. Exacerbated by a warming climate and decades of aggressive fire suppression efforts—which left large areas of wilderness overgrown—these fires will continue to alter the landscape and, in some cases, will leave it more susceptible to wildfire than ever before, they say. In other cases, the flames were likely to restore patches of wildland to their original state.

California's diverse ecosystem— its lush coastal mountain ranges in the north; its flat, fertile valleys down its middle; and its snow-capped spine of the Sierra casting a rain shadow over the sere Mojave desert—have evolved over eons. That evolution has not stopped however, and today it's being influenced greatly by drought, fire and increasing temperatures, experts say.

During the summer, hundreds of fire-adapted Sequoias were destroyed in the Sierra along with conifers, with rangers speculating many of the trees may never return. In Big Basin Redwoods State Park west of San Jose, ecologists wonder about the long-term prospects for the forest behemoths as the cool, foggy environment they thrive in warms and dries.

In the Los Padres National Forest, years of repeated fires have already changed the vegetation covering the hillsides, increasing the fire risks for residents around them.

And now, after the North Complex fire, the area around Berry Creek can be added to that list, said Ryan Bauer, who leads the hazardous fuels and prescribed fire program for the Plumas National Forest.

"This was to the point that as you drive through that forest, there aren't even large logs left on the ground, it pretty much cleaned up the surface fuels and left a big bed of ash with sticks sticking out of it," Bauer said. "It'll repair itself, nature is strikingly resilient, but it's certainly not going to come back a forest."

The North Complex fire began on Aug. 17 as separate fires that moved toward one another uneventfully until the morning of Sept. 8 when they merged and jumped a scenic river and sped out of the national forest and into rural Butte County. By the time the fire was fully contained Dec. 3, it had burned 318,935 acres, killed 16 people and damaged or destroyed 2,455 buildings, many of them homes.

The roar of such fires has been compared to a jet engine, or oncoming freight train. Bauer said those comparisons don't quite fit.

"I think of it more as an avalanche of fire," he said. "It's not just rolling down the hill, it's compounding itself and making itself worse and more powerful as it goes, starting more fires and then this cloud of embers ahead of it lighting additional fires."

In the early and late parts of the fire, it burned moderately and slowly mostly to the north and east, creating that "mosaic" of three- to five-acre patches of char that Stephens was so excited about.

The California spotted owl appreciates the variety of a quasi-burned forest, where it can prey on small animals that are drawn to the new vegetation for food, Stephens said. Fully developed trees like mosaic burns too, because they reduce competition for resources and burn away dead and dying ground litter that flames climb to reach the treetops.

But that type of burn was only about 25% of the fire's entire footprint, officials said.

Most of the North Complex fire—like the other large blazes that have blackened more than 4 million acres in California this year—burned too much area too intensely to be seen as an overall benefit for California's larger forest ecology, he said.

"The problem is it's not small patches of forest, it's large continuous patches that have burned under high severity, completely out of scale with what is desired," Stephens said.

The first vegetation to return to the extremely burned areas will be grass and invasive shrub species like French broom and Scotch broom, which, despite their bright yellow flowers, are a threat to nearby residents because of how hot they burn and how close they grow together, making them a potential link to a wildfire transforming into an urban conflagration.

"You're not going to want to leave it around," said David Derby, forester for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's Butte unit. "That's what we're having around Paradise. It's kind of green and pretty, but it is thick and flammable and it's scary if it catches on fire."

With time, some oak trees will regrow from their root systems, Derby said, but huge areas of conifers will not, as they rely on their foliage and cones to propagate and the fire was too intense for any of it to survive. The area was so thick with conifers only because of a century of fire-suppression anyway, so burning an entire stand of them and giving oaks a leg up could actually restore the area to its pre-human settlement appearance, Derby said.

"It could be hundreds of years in some places," Derby said. "You'll have a big opening and things will start seeding from the edges and eventually it will fill in."

In the near term, there are lessons from both the North Complex fire and Paradise in 2018 that could be applied to the lands around Berry Creek and Feather Falls, among other areas, to ensure that if and when fire returns, it's less severe, experts say.

Along the edges of the fire's impressive Sept. 8 run, what the fire didn't destroy was proof that the fuel treatments—including removing dead fuel from the ground and trimming the lower third of tall trees—slowed the fire and saved homes, officials said.

In Quincy, the Plumas County seat, years of work by federal foresters and the local fire safe council made fighting the fire there possible, Bauer said.

"If those treatments hadn't been completed, we would've lost a number of homes," Bauer said. "None of them worked 100%, but with the combination of several of them, we were able to stop the fire spread in there."

Berry Creek residents had been scrambling to accomplish similar projects since the Camp fire but were unable to find the support. Wind-driven fires are virtually impossible to stop because of their speed and unpredictability, firefighters say, but they can pose less of a threat to a community if a healthy, well-managed forest slows their approach.

That was a lesson learned the hard way in Paradise, which had been visited by fire only 10 years earlier.

The Camp fire exploded, in part, because logs and dead trees from the 2008 Humboldt fire were left to dry and rot where they died and fell, providing a jackpot of fuel to sustain a fire as it burns through the quick-burning shrubs and grass that are first to return, officials said.

Foresters should make sure as many trees around these rural communities are salvaged as possible, Bauer and Derby said, with that responsibility falling to various federal, state and local agencies depending on the location.

"Even with the major increase in wildfires that climate change models are predicting for us, there is a way that we can see forests persist in California into the future," Bauer said. "It tells me we know how to fix the problem, and we have the tools. It's just the scale is so staggeringly large ... we'll just see if we can be effective at the scale we want to be effective at if we want to stay in California's forests."


Explore further  Better weather won't keep California from grim fire landmark

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