Global youth draft 'Blue New Deal' to protect oceans: 'Time to end generational injustice'

Seek public comment on global youth crowd-sourced ocean policy framework to balance ocean, human, climate, and economic health

YOUTH POLICY ADVISORY COUNCIL OF THE SUSTAINABLE OCEAN ALLIANCE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE SUSTAINABLE OCEAN ALLIANCE IS A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF YOUTH, ENTREPRENEURS, AND EXPERTS IN THEIR FIELD, COLLABORATING TO SOLVE THE GREATEST CHALLENGES FACING OUR OCEAN. THE SUSTAINABLE OCEAN ALLIANCE IS A... view more 

CREDIT: SOA

Concerned youths worldwide today delivered a policy vision for policy-makers to address the declining state of the world's ocean.

A carbon neutral economy, preserving biodiversity, achieving sustainable seafood production, and reforming ocean governance are the four fundamental pillars supporting policy recommendations debuted in the Global Blue New Deal, an ocean policy framework built around crowd-sourced youth priorities.

"Healthy oceans are essential to human survival and well-being, and environmental health must be a global priority as we recover from the pandemic and build a sustainable blue economy," says Mark Haver, Chair of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance's Youth Policy Advisory Council.

He and 14 fellow Young Ocean Leaders on the Council spent a year gathering and synthesizing more than 100 survey responses in five languages from the SOA global youth community in 38 countries on how to end the cycle of ocean decline.

"Today's oceans are overfished, rife with plastic, and overexploited for minerals, fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. We need to end this cycle of decline and generational injustice that threatens us all."

Today, June 7, 2021, is the first step of integrating public comment into the Global Blue New Deal. Our event, "Defining The Blue New Deal: A Youth Led Workshop For The Future of Our Ocean," seeks to collect feedback on our framework from youth and stakeholders ahead of larger public comment periods.

Starting in July, our public comment period seeks to engage the UN Major Group for Youth and Children, UN Ocean Decade affiliates, the NGO sector, more youth, and other ocean stakeholders in gathering input ahead of our official launch of the final Global Blue New Deal before COP26.

The Global Blue New Deal consists of four pillars. Each pillar has sub-pillars with specific ocean policy solutions.

In brief:

Pillar 1

Carbon Neutrality: Transition to a Zero Carbon Future

Limiting carbon emissions is of utmost importance to preserve ocean health due to its impact on ocean acidification levels, marine biodiversity, sea level rise and livelihoods of coastal communities, especially in Small Island Developing States.

Subpillars:

End offshore drilling and invest in renewable ocean energy, in accordance with a recent International Energy Agency report stating there is "no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net-zero pathway."

Decarbonize the shipping industry, which produces approximately 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and use revenues from economic tools such as carbon pricing to research and develop zero-carbon shipping.

Reduce land-based marine pollution which is responsible for about 80% of all marine pollution. Halt or curb manufacturing and use of plastic nurdles (small beads used in various products), plastic bags, and microplastics through use of bans, taxes, and other disincentives.

Transition to a circular economy to shift from today's linear take-make-waste model to a sustainable economic system where we reduce what we take and reuse and recycle what we already have.

Strengthen legislation and enforcement against ocean contamination to build accountability and affirm commitments to the London Protocol.

Pillar 2

Preserve Biodiversity: Apply Nature-based Solutions to Promote Healthy Ecosystems and Climate Resilience

Prioritize conservation of the planet's ecosystems, which remove carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from our atmosphere while providing cleaner air and water, reducing coastal erosion, bolstering climate resilience and providing habitat.

Subpillars:

Support the global movement to protect 30% of the world's ocean by 2030 and establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with a robust scientific foundation and "no-take zones" where extractive activities are prohibited.

Enforce against non-compliance in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to prevent "paper parks."

Establish a global moratorium against deep-sea mining -- an unjustified threat to unique deep-sea biodiversity.

Transition from "gray" manmade infrastructure, such as culverts and seawalls, to nature-based blue carbon infrastructure including the restoration of wetlands, mangroves, marshes, oyster reefs, coral reefs, kelp forests, and the installation of living shorelines to sequester carbon and promote biodiversity.

Pillar 3:

Sustainable Seafood: Match Increasing Global Demand Sustainably

With one-third of global fish stocks overfished and climate change exacerbating the pressures placed on already vulnerable fish populations, feeding future generations depends on the viability of ocean ecosystems.

Subpillars:

Encourage sustainable governance of capture fisheries to sustainably manage the fish stocks within and outside countries' Exclusive Economic Zones, and adopt precautionary and ecosystems-based approaches to fisheries management.

Enforce against Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing with clear supply chain inspection processes to certify the origin and legality of the fish landing in ports. Direct greater funding and technological support (including Vessel Monitoring Systems) to detect IUU fishing.

Eliminate capacity-enhancing fisheries subsidies, amounting today to tens of billions of dollars that promote overfishing, and redirect the funds to fisheries management and research, marine protected areas, and increased economic opportunity for coastal communities.

Provide a sustainable path for aquaculture, with low-impact production and feed supply to ensure that as we feed ourselves, we can also feed the generations of tomorrow.

Fund research and development of plant-based and cell-cultured seafood, to provide an alternative supply while assessing potential risks and benefits.

Pillar 4:

Stakeholder Engagement: Include Local Communities in Natural Ocean Resource Management

Ocean governance should be built on sound legal and institutional mechanisms that are horizontally integrated to ensure full transparency in decision-making processes and building self-sufficient community management.

Subpillars:

Ensure the sustainability of coastal ecotourism, where current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts are taken into full account with full stakeholder participation. Create financial incentives to support the most sustainable ecotourism companies and incentivize others to become more and more sustainable.

Promote ocean research and innovation to scale ocean solutions and map 100% of the global seafloor by 2030.

Emphasize ocean literacy and capacity building to build the skills and networks for effective leadership, policy development, stakeholder engagement, and communication to conserve and protect oceans through community management.

Build stakeholder participation in ocean governance, embrace inclusion and diversity, and involve as many stakeholders as possible in management of marine and coastal ecosystems, particularly those who are directly affected.

Background

Young Ocean Leaders, all under 35 years of age, are part of SOA's global community of youth, entrepreneurs, and experts from 165 countries and territories -- the world's largest youth-led network of ocean allies working to solve the greatest challenges facing our oceans.

"Youth are the greatest stakeholders in the future health of the ocean environment," says Marina Porto of Brazil, Co-Chair of the Youth Policy Advisory Council. "They need to be directly involved in building a sustainable blue economy that ensures the health of the ocean ecosystem while providing economic opportunities."

The United Nations has recognized the increasingly degraded state of our ocean and declared 2021-2030 a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, which officially launched June 1.

The UN has called on global ocean stakeholders to develop and support a common framework to deliver "the ocean we need for the future we want".

The ocean provides an estimated USD $3 to $6 trillion in ecosystem services, jobs, and cultural services. Fisheries and aquaculture alone contribute USD$100 billion per year and 250+ million jobs.

"We see this as our opportunity to rewrite the long history of an increasingly compromised ocean," concluded Mark Haver. "Each generation has inherited an increasingly degraded ocean environment with the poorest, most vulnerable communities feeling the impacts the most severely."

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SOA's Youth Policy Advisory Council (YPAC) is comprised of 15 Young Ocean Leaders recognized for their policy acumen and dedication to furthering environmental regulation in their region.

North America / Caribbean

Mark Haver
YPAC Chair, USA
Mark is an ocean policy and communications advisor based in Washington, DC. He's been active at the intersection of youth organizing, ocean climate policy, and politics. Mark has been involved with SOA for four years and has been driving the development of the Blue New Deal to rally global youth around an intergenerational call for a healthy ocean and just future.

Nicolas P Florestal
Haiti
Nicolas has successfully worked on establishing Haiti's first official network of Marine Protected Areas and has worked in them as an ecodiver since 2011.

Latin and South America

Marina Porto
YPAC Co-Chair, Brazil
Marina has engaged in several projects related to sustainable production and consumption, climate change and marine litter. She holds a masters degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics and is a sustainability consultant at Sofies UK.

Diwigdi Valiente
Panama
Diwi is a member of the indigenous Guna people of Central America, whose islands may disappear under the rising sea within his lifetime. He develops and leads initiatives to raise awareness and inspire political action against climate change and plastic pollution in Panama.

Europe

Leonie Meier
YPAC Secretary, Germany
Leonie is passionate about the ocean, having researched microplastic pollution for her Master's thesis. She has worked on a wide range of environmental and sustainability issues for various UN organizations and the public sector in Germany.

Lucie Guirkinger
Belgium
Half-French, half-Colombian, Lucie is a passionate marine conservationist who recently graduated from the University of Cambridge where she investigated fishers' non-compliance and how this can be addressed. She has also managed several projects on corals, sharks, rays and turtles.

Africa

Pauline Owiti
Kenya
Pauline has been serving as a Project Lead in initiatives that aim to declare the Arctic Ocean as a Marine Protected Area. She currently serves as the National Coordinator of Kenya at the United Nations Conference of Youth, the Kenya Coordinator at Extinction Rebellion, and part of Kenya Youth Biodiversity Network.

Emerson Neves
Mozambique
Emerson works for the Marine Megafauna Foundation in Mozambique. He has been recognized as a 2021 Top 100 Young African Conservation Leader, a 2021 Climate Ambassador with the Global Youth Climate Network through the World Bank, and a 2020 Disney Conservation Hero.

Oceania and Small-Island Developing States

Jeremy Raguain
Seychelles
Life in Seychelles depends on the ocean. Jeremy works with the Seychelles Islands Foundation, a non-profit organisation which manages Seychelles' UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In this role, and through his volunteering with Global Shapers and SOA, Jeremy contributes his efforts towards SDGs 13, 14 and 17 through evidence based management with environmental justice in mind.

Alanna Smith
Cook Islands
Alanna, who works for the environmental NGO 'Te Ipukarea Society,' has actively opposed Cook Islands seabed mining, worked on Marine Spatial Planning projects and biodiversity surveys, and helped raise public awareness of plastic pollution.

Asia

Surangika Jayarathne
Sri Lanka
Surangika works as a researcher in the areas of sustainable blue economy, climate change and maritime security in South Asia.

Lu Fang
China
Lu Fang leads the seafood sustainability assessment effort of an NGO, the Qingdao Marine Conservation Society. She also provides scientific and analytical support to several sustainable fisheries and aquaculture projects.

Roger Joseph (Rocky) Guzman
Philippines
Rocky is a lawyer and ocean policy specialist involved with environmental non-profits, where he handled policy campaigns related to fisheries management and ending illegal fishing, marine conservation and strengthening the rule of law.

Fidan Karimova
Azerbaijan
Fidan works to bridge the gap between water and wastewater utility needs and available technologies. She has helped entrepreneurs worldwide to bring ideas to market. A University of Maryland graduate with a Bachelor's degree in business and a Master's in environmental management, Fidan is an avid ocean supporter and artist.

Andreas Aditya Salim
Indonesia
Andreas is a lawyer dedicated to eradicating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and improvement of ocean management in Indonesia. He served as a legal counsel for the Commander of the Republic of Indonesia's Presidential Task Force to Combat Illegal Fishing for four years prior to his participation in the United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. He obtained his law degree from the University of Indonesia and is enrolled in the Berkeley Law LL.M. program

 

Projected acidification of the Great Barrier Reef could be offset by ten years

IOP PUBLISHING

Research News

New research has shown that by injecting an alkalinizing agent into the ocean along the length of the Great Barrier Reef, it would be possible, at the present rate of anthropogenic carbon emissions, to offset ten years' worth of ocean acidification.

The research, by CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, used a high-resolution model developed for the Great Barrier Reef region to study the impact of artificial ocean alkalinization on the acidity of the waters in the Great Barrier Reef. The study is based on the use of existing shipping infrastructure to inject a source of alkalinity into the ocean, which could also be considered as an acceleration of the chemical weathering of minerals through natural processes. Their results are published today in the IOP Publishing journal Environmental Research Letters.

The Great Barrier Reef is a globally significant coral reef system that supports productive and diverse ecosystems. At present, it is facing unprecedented stress from ocean warming, tropical cyclones, sediment and nutrient runoff, marine pests, and ocean acidification. Among these stressors, ocean acidification represents one of the most significant threats to the long-term viability of the reef, since it impacts the ability of the corals to build and repair their hard structures and recover from bleaching events.

In response to the declining health of coral reef ecosystems, a wide range of potential intervention concepts and technologies are currently under consideration, with the goal of minimising environmental pressures and enhancing the resilience of the coral reef ecosystem. These include active and direct environmental engineering approaches, such as artificial ocean alkalinization, a technique to offset or ameliorate the changes associated with ocean acidification and enhance oceanic carbon uptake. Essentially, artificial ocean alkalinization involves adding a source of alkalinity, such as olivine, to seawater, thereby "reversing" the shift in the carbon chemistry equilibrium process that occurs when the ocean takes up anthropogenic carbon. Olivine is an abundant mineral resource, which is already mined near the Great Barrier Reef.

The goal of this study was to investigate the reduction of the impact of ocean acidification on a scale hitherto unconsidered. According to the authors, "The majority of the artificial ocean alkalinization modeling studies to date have focused on the potential for alkalinization as a carbon dioxide removal technique. Few studies have explored the role of alkalinization with a focus on offsetting the changes associated with ocean acidification at a regional scale." The study therefore used a recently developed 4 km-resolution coupled hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model, validated for the Great Barrier Reef region, which allowed the simulation of the impact of the alkalinity injection on individual reefs along the length of the Great Barrier Reef (~2,000 km) for the first time. The results showed that by releasing the alkalinizing agent from an existing shipping lane, the resulting de-acidification would reach almost the whole of the Great Barrier Reef.

This report describes the novel and timely use of a regional model as a testbed for an ocean acidification mitigation technique. The study found that, by assuming the use of existing shipping infrastructure (a bulk carrier releasing 30 000 tons per day) as the alkalinity delivery mechanism, artificial ocean alkalinization would offset or ameliorate the projected acidification by ten years on 250 reefs. In doing so, it would also sequester 35,000 t of carbon in the ocean per year, or 0.0001% of the current global CO2 emissions.

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Deforestation darkening the seas above world's second biggest reef

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Research News

 

Converting Central American tropical forests into agricultural land is changing the colour and composition of natural material washing into nearby rivers, making it less likely to decompose before it reaches the ocean, a new Southampton-led study has shown.

The flow of dissolved organic material, such as soil, from land to the oceans plays an important role in the global carbon and nutrient cycles. Changing how land is used can alter the type and amount of material being transported, with widespread implications for ecosystems.

In this latest study, an international research team set out to learn more about the effects of deforestation on the coastal environment by studying material that flowed into rivers from various settings in a Central American rainforest, tracking its progress into the sea off the coast of Belize, home to the world's second largest barrier reef.

Stacey Felgate, a PhD Student at the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre, led the study working with partners in Belize. Stacey said, "Like many countries in the region, Belize is experiencing a rapid rate of deforestation due to increasing need for agricultural and urban land, whilst the economy also relies on the fishing and tourism industries on the coastline. Despite this, there has been very little research into the impact that changing land-use at such a fast pace is having on the region's coastal ecosystems."

The findings of the research, published in the journal JGR Biogeosciences, showed that significantly more coloured material is entering the rivers from land used for farming, compared to naturally forested sites.

As the material continued its journey along the river, the team noticed that it accumulated, suggesting that it was not accessible to the micro-organisms who break down natural matter and convert it into carbon dioxide.

When the material reaches the coast, its coloured nature means that it absorbs light and can darken the sea, potentially affecting marine life such as seagrass and corals which need light to grow. The researchers have therefore identified further research into this possible impact as a vital next step in understand what steps are needed to protect coastal ecosystems from deforestation.

Stacey added, "The potential for human activities on land to negatively impact the coastal environment is not unique to Belize, and so our findings are relevant more broadly, particularly for coastal developing nations where deforestation is ongoing but there are no integrated conservation plans between what is happening on land and what is happening in the oceans."

This study is part of a wider project led by Dr Claire Evans of the National Oceanography Centre. The work was funded by the Commonwealth Marine Economies Programme, which aims to enable safe and sustainable marine economies across the Commonwealth Small Island Developing States.

Other partners in the study included University of Belize, the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute (Belize), and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Stacey Felgate discusses the findings of her study and why protecting our oceans matters in the University of Southampton's film for World Oceans Day, 'Below the Surface'

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Physicists report definitive evidence how auroras are created

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

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IMAGE: PHYSICISTS LED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA REPORT DEFINITIVE EVIDENCE THAT AURORAS THAT LIGHT UP THE SKY IN THE HIGH LATITUDES ARE CAUSED BY ELECTRONS ACCELERATED BY A POWERFUL ELECTROMAGNETIC... view more 

CREDIT: AUSTIN MONTELIUS, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, that fill the sky in high-latitude regions have fascinated people for thousands of years. But how they're created, while theorized, had not been conclusively proven.

In a new study, a team of physicists led by University of Iowa reports definitive evidence that the most brilliant auroras are produced by powerful electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms. The phenomena, known as Alfven waves, accelerate electrons toward Earth, causing the particles to produce the familiar atmospheric light show.

The study, published online June 7 in the journal Nature Communications, concludes a decades-long quest to demonstrate experimentally the physical mechanisms for the acceleration of electrons by Alfven waves under conditions corresponding to Earth's auroral magnetosphere.

"Measurements revealed this small population of electrons undergoes 'resonant acceleration' by the Alfven wave's electric field, similar to a surfer catching a wave and being continually accelerated as the surfer moves along with the wave," says Greg Howes, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa and study co-author.

Scientists have known that energized particles that emanate from the sun--such as electrons racing at approximately 45 million miles per hour--precipitate along the Earth's magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with oxygen and nitrogen molecules, kicking them into an excited state. These excited molecules relax by emitting light, producing the colorful hues of the aurora.

The theory was supported by spacecraft missions that frequently found Alfven waves traveling Earthward above auroras, presumably accelerating electrons along the way. Although space-based measurements had supported the theory, limitations inherent to spacecraft and rocket measurements had prevented a definitive test.

The physicists were able to find confirmatory evidence in a series of experiments conducted at the Large Plasma Device (LPD) in UCLA's Basic Plasma Science Facility, a national collaborative research facility supported jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation.

"The idea that these waves can energize the electrons that create the aurora goes back more than four decades, but this is the first time we've been able to confirm definitively that it works," says Craig Kletzing, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa and a study co-author. "These experiments let us make the key measurements that show that the space measurements and theory do, indeed, explain a major way in which the aurora are created."

The phenomenon of electrons "surfing" on the electric field of a wave is a theoretical process known as Landau damping, first proposed by Russian physicist Lev Landau in 1946. Through numerical simulations and mathematical modeling, the researchers demonstrated that the results of their experiment agreed with the predicted signature for Landau damping.

The agreement of experiment, simulation, and modeling provides the first direct evidence that Alfven waves can produce accelerated electrons, causing the aurora, says Troy Carter, professor of physics at UCLA and director of the UCLA Plasma Science and Technology Institute.

"This challenging experiment required a measurement of the very small population of electrons moving down the LPD chamber at nearly the same speed as the Alfven waves, numbering less than one in a thousand of the electrons in the plasma," Carter says.

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James Schroeder, assistant professor of physics at Wheaton College and the study's corresponding author, earned a doctorate at Iowa. Frederick Skiff, professor in the UI Department of Physics and Astronomy, is a study co-author. Stephen Vincena and Seth Dorfman, with UCLA's Space Science Institute, are contributing authors.

More detailed information is available at: https://homepage.physics.uiowa.edu/~ghowes/research/aurora.html.

The U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA funded the research.

 

10,000-year-old DNA pens the first tales of the earliest domesticated goats

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Research News 

IMAGE: INDENTATION OF SEVERAL GOAT HOOVES IN A BRICK FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF GANJ DAREH. view more 

CREDIT: THE 'TRACKING CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE PROJECT'.

New research has revealed the genetic makeup of the earliest goat herds. The findings, assimilated from DNA taken from the remains of 32 goats that died some 10,000 years ago in the Zagros mountains, provide clues to how early agricultural practices shaped the evolution of these animals.

Archaeological evidence has previously pointed to the Zagros Mountains of western Iran as providing the earliest evidence of goat management by humans. Here at the site of Ganj Dareh, the bone remains indicate deliberate slaughtering of male goats once they were fully grown.

In contrast, female goats were allowed to reach older ages, meaning early goat-keepers maximised the number of breeding female animals, similar to herders in the area today.

The close relationship between these early herders and goats can be seen in the very foundations of the settlement, with several bricks bearing the imprint of cloven goat hooves. However, their goats resembled the wild bezoar, with a larger body size and scimitar horn shape.

The international collaboration of researchers behind the study included individuals from Trinity College Dublin, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Copenhagen, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) of France, and the National Museum of Iran.

The landmark study has just been published in the international journal PNAS.

Dr Kevin G Daly, Research Fellow in Trinity's School of Genetics and Microbiology and first author of the paper, said:

"Our study shows how archaeology and genetics can address highly important questions by building off ideas and results from both fields. Our genetic results point to the Zagros region as being a major source of ancestry of domestic goats and that herded, morphologically wild goats were genetically on the path to domestication by about 10,200 years ago."

Links to modern goats

Genetic analyses enabled the researchers to determine that the ancient goats fell at the very base of the domestic goat lineage, suggesting that they were closely related to the animals first recruited during domestication.

A surprising find, however, was the discovery of a small number of goats of the 32 whose genomes appeared more like their wild relatives - the bezoar ibex. This strongly suggests these early goat herders continued to hunt goats from wild herds.

Dr Daly added:

"This first livestock keeping shaped the goats' genomes. There were signs of reduced Y chromosome diversity - fewer males were allowed to breed, leading to an increased tendency of relatives mating. Surprisingly, the Zagros goat appeared to not have undergone a population bottleneck often associated with domestication and lacked strong signals of selection found in later domestic goats."

Dan Bradley, Professor of Population Genetics at Trinity, said:

"Ancient DNA continues to allow us to plumb the depths of ancient prehistory and examine the origins of the world's first livestock herds. Over 10,000 years ago, early animal farmers were practising husbandry with a genetic legacy that continues today."

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Innovative batteries put flying cars on the horizon

PENN STATE

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRIC VEHICLE REVOLUTION IS PAVING THE WAY FOR URBAN AIR MOBILITY, BUT PEOPLE MUST NOT BE NAIVE IN THINKING THAT ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES WILL SUFFICE FOR ELECTRIC FLIGHT.... view more 

CREDIT: ERIC ROUNTREE, EC POWER

Jet packs, robot maids and flying cars were all promises for the 21st century. We got mechanized, autonomous vacuum cleaners instead. Now a team of Penn State researchers are exploring the requirements for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles and designing and testing potential battery power sources.

"I think flying cars have the potential to eliminate a lot of time and increase productivity and open the sky corridors to transportation," said Chao-Yang Wang, holder of the William E. Diefender Chair of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center, Penn State. "But electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles are very challenging technology for the batteries."

The researchers define the technical requirements for flying car batteries and report on a prototype battery today (June 7) in Joule.

"Batteries for flying cars need very high energy density so that you can stay in the air," said Wang. "And they also need very high power during take-off and landing. It requires a lot of power to go vertically up and down."

Wang notes that the batteries will also need to be rapidly recharged so that there could be high revenue during rush hours. He sees these vehicles having frequent take-offs and landings and recharging quickly and often.

"Commercially, I would expect these vehicles to make 15 trips, twice a day during rush hour to justify the cost of the vehicles," said Wang. "The first use will probably be from a city to an airport carrying three to four people about 50 miles."

Weight is also a consideration for these batteries as the vehicle will have to lift and land the batteries. Once the eVTOL takes off, on short trips the average speed would be 100 miles per hour and long trips would average 200 miles per hour, according to Wang.

The researchers experimentally tested two energy-dense lithium-ion batteries that can recharge with enough energy for a 50-mile eVTOL trip in five to ten minutes. These batteries could sustain more than 2,000 fast-charges over their lifetime.

Wang and his team used technology they have been working on for electric vehicle batteries. The key is to heat the battery to allow rapid charging without the formation of lithium spikes that damage the battery and are dangerous. It turns out that heating the battery also allows rapid discharge of the energy held in the battery to allow for take offs and landings.

The researchers heat the batteries by incorporating a nickel foil that brings the battery rapidly to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Under normal circumstances, the three attributes necessary for an eVTOL battery work against each other," said Wang. "High energy density reduces fast charging and fast charging usually reduces the number of possible recharge cycles. But we are able to do all three in a single battery."

One entirely unique aspect of flying cars is that the batteries must always retain some charge. Unlike cellphone batteries, for example, that work best if fully discharged and recharged, a flying car battery can never be allowed to completely discharge in the air because power is needed to stay in the air and to land. There always needs to be a margin of safety in a flying car battery.

When a battery is empty, internal resistance to charging is low, but the higher the remaining charge, the more difficult it is to push more energy into the battery. Typically, recharging slows as the battery fills. However, by heating the battery, recharging can remain in the five- to ten-minute range.

"I hope that the work we have done in this paper will give people a solid idea that we don't need another 20 years to finally get these vehicles," said Wang. "I believe we have demonstrated that the eVTOL is commercially viable."

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Also working on this project were Xiao-Guang Yang and Shanhai Ge, both assistant research professors in mechanical engineering, and Teng Liu, doctoral student in mechanical engineering, all at Penn State; and Eric Roundtree, EC Power, State College, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the U.S. Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer program and the William E. Diefenderfer Endowment funded this research.

Turning off lights can save migrating

birds from crashing into buildings

Decades-long case study of Chicago's McCormick Place shows how lights, weather, and migration conditions combine to affect how many birds die flying through a city

FIELD MUSEUM

Research News

 

IMAGE: FOUR COLORFUL BIRDS KILLED CRASHING INTO THE WINDOWS AT MCCORMICK PLACE, NOW IN THE FIELD MUSEUM'S COLLECTIONS. view more 

CREDIT: KAREN BEAN, FIELD MUSEUM

Every night during the spring and fall migration seasons, thousands of birds are killed when they crash into illuminated windows, disoriented by the light. But a new study in PNAS shows that darkening just half of a building's windows can make a big difference for birds. Using decades' worth of data and birds collected by Field Museum scientists at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center, the researchers found that on nights when half the windows were darkened, there were 11 times fewer bird collisions during spring migration and 6 times fewer collisions during fall migration than when all the windows were lit.

"Our research provides the best evidence yet that migrating birds are attracted to building lights, often causing them to collide with windows and die," says Benjamin Van Doren, a postdoctoral associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the paper's lead author. "These insights were only possible thanks to over 40 years of work by David Willard at the Field Museum, who led collisions and light monitoring efforts."

In 1978, Willard, the museum's collections manager emeritus, heard an offhand remark about birds hitting the McCormick Place, North America's largest convention center that happens to be just a mile south of the museum. So, he investigated.

"I went down early one morning, just out of curiosity, and wandered around and actually found four or five dead birds," says Willard. "I might not have gone back if I hadn't found anything that first day, and now here we are, 40 years later and 40,000 birds later."

Willard and his colleagues, including Field Museum co-author Mary Hennen and other Field staff and volunteers, have visited the site every day before sunrise during migration season, sometimes as early as 3:30 in the morning. Some days there are no birds; other times, there are as many as 200. Willard collects the dead birds and brings them back to the museum, where he records each one in a ledger and adds them to the museum's collection.

Around twenty years ago, Willard began to notice a pattern-- on nights when the lights were out at McCormick Place, around holidays or construction work, there were fewer birds on the ground the next morning. As the building's lighting patterns began to vary more, he began gathering data on which windows were illuminated each night, in addition to collecting the birds he found on the pavement.

The new PNAS study is the most in-depth use of the data on lighting patterns to date, combining Willard's specimens and lighting observations with other conditions that might play a role in bird mortality, including weather records and radar data revealing the number of birds in the sky on a given night. "We developed a statistical model based on the number of windows illuminated at McCormick Place, weather conditions, migratory passage, and time of season. This allowed us to isolate the relationship between window lighting and collisions while accounting for these other factors," says Van Doren. "By joining these different sources of data, we were able to understand how lights, weather, and migration each contribute to collision mortality."

The team found that the total number of birds in the sky on a given night and the direction of the wind both play a role in mortality, but the biggest determining factor was light: when more windows were darkened, fewer birds died. "The sheer strength of the link between lighting and collisions was surprising," says Van Doren. "It speaks to the exciting potential to save birds simply by reducing light pollution."

CAPTION

A drawer of birds killed crashing into the city's windows in the Field Museum's collection.

CREDIT

Ben Marks, Field Museum

The researchers were able to quantify that bird-saving potential: they predict that halving the lighted window area could decrease collision counts by 11 times in spring and 6 times in fall. By turning out half the lights during migration seasons, bird mortality at McCormick Place could be reduced by 59%.

The researchers note that McCormick Place is far from unique-- it's been monitored for longer than any other Chicago building, but, Willard says, "There's hardly an address in downtown Chicago that doesn't have a bird in the Field Museum's collection, thanks to the efforts of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors." However, there are a few factors that make the McCormick Center especially dangerous for birds, including its massive size, its isolation from other buildings, and its proximity to Lake Michigan, which birds are sometimes hesitant to fly over.

"Buildings all across North America, all across the world, are killing birds, and those add up," says Doug Stotz, a senior conservation ecologist at the Field. "What we've learned in the past 20 years about lights being on has caused the city of Chicago to create its Lights Out program, which requires buildings' external lights to be turned off during peak migration. I hope this paper will show why it's important to turn off internal lighting as well, especially in Chicago, which is the country's deadliest city for migrating birds."

Van Doren is also eager to see the project's findings applied. "Our study contains a hopeful message: we can save birds simply by turning off lights during a handful of high-risk days each spring and fall," he says. "By adapting our existing public migration forecasts to identify nights with high collision risk, we will be able to issue targeted lights-out advisories several days in advance."

In addition to the study's implications for bird conservation, it also speaks to the importance of natural history collections in documenting global change. "These collision data are even more valuable because they are backed up by specimens that are available for study in the Field Museum," says Ben Winger, one of the paper's senior authors, an assistant professor and curator at the University of Michigan and a Field Museum graduate student alumnus . "This will allow future scientists to go a step further and study the connections between many aspects of avian biology and conservation relevant questions."

"It's a classic museum data set," agrees Stotz. "We do a lot of collecting without knowing exactly what the specimens will be used for. But down the line, when people say, 'I wish we had information on X, Y, or Z,' we do-- it's in the museum."

CAPTION

Dave Willard's ledger of birds added to the museum's collections, with a measuring tool and a Tennessee Warbler specimen.

CREDIT

Kate Golembiewski, Field Museum

Study shows cities can consider race and income in household energy efficiency programs

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, ENGINEERING SCHOOL

Research News

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IMAGE: RESEARCHERS SURVEYED ENERGY USE IN TALLAHASSEE, FLA., AND ST. PAUL, MINN. SHOWN ARE UTILITY WORKERS IN TALLAHASSEE'S REACH PROGRAM. view more 

CREDIT: CITY OF TALLAHASSEE UTILITIES

Climate change and social inequality are two pressing issues that often overlap. A new study led by Princeton researchers offers a roadmap for cities to address inequalities in energy use by providing fine-grained methods for measuring both income and racial disparities in energy use intensity. Energy use intensity, the amount of energy used per unit floor area, is often used as a proxy for assessing the efficiency of buildings and the upgrades they receive over time. The work could guide the equitable distribution of rebates and other measures that decrease energy costs and increase efficiency.

Examining inequality in cities has been hampered by a lack of energy use data at fine spatial scales within cities. Until now, only Los Angeles has been able to use a data-driven approach to shine a light on where energy use inequalities exist, focusing specifically on the effect of income disparities. But according to new results reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, to truly understand and fully address energy use inequality, cities must take an even more nuanced approach--one that unpacks race-related disparities from income. As the authors report, examining the issue solely through the lens of income risks missing significant race-related inequalities that exist beyond income effects.

"Often, in discussions about social justice, people sometimes ask, 'Oh, how do you know it's a race effect and not 'just' an income effect?'" said co-author Anu Ramaswami, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University. "This paper actually shows you the data, that there's a structurally linked income-race effect, and an additional race effect even within the same income group."

Ramaswami and her colleagues arrived at their findings by studying two cities, Tallahassee, Florida, and St. Paul, Minnesota. The findings showed that when evaluating annual energy use, homes in the lowest income neighborhoods on average used 25-60% higher energy use per square foot compared to the highest income neighborhoods. What was more surprising was that within the income groups, predominantly non-white neighborhoods had higher energy use intensity compared to predominantly white neighborhoods.

"We were struck when we first saw these patterns," said Ramaswami, who also is Princeton's Sanjay Swani '87 Professor of India Studies and director of the Chadha Center for Global India.

The results were even starker considering seasonal energy use in summer and winter. Focusing on seasonal energy use intensity, the study uncovered disparities by income, and disparities by race within the lowest-income group, that can be greater than 150%, which are five times larger than the 25% disparity previously known in U.S. cities, based on the limited data availability in prior studies. The study found that households in low-income non-white neighborhoods report higher energy use intensity, reflective of lower energy efficiency of the buildings, as well as lower participation in rebate programs.

The method she and her colleagues developed can be applied in other cities and utility sectors (mobility, water, etc.) and is available now for adoption by cities interested in addressing racial inequalities. "We don't think it's only these two cities," Ramaswami said. "These effects are probably happening everywhere."

Inequalities surrounding income and race in the U.S. tend to be conflated because lower income communities often have higher non-white populations, while higher income areas tend to be predominantly white. To untangle these variables, Ramaswami and her co-authors worked with city officials and utility companies to obtain detailed energy use data.

"Part of the problem is that race and income are so intertwined, you need fine-scale data to actually unpack inequality," Ramaswami said. "Typically, cities get energy use data at the zip code level, which is very coarse, but we got data at the level of census blocks through a unique collaboration with our partner cities and utilities, who are committed to understanding baseline inequalities in their neighborhoods."

In total, the researchers obtained anonymized and aggregated data from utilities covering all 90,000 households in Tallahassee, and all 110,000 in St. Paul. They divided total household energy use in a neighborhood by the total square footage of the dwellings to compute the average energy use intensity for that neighborhood. They then compared energy use intensity across different neighborhood groups partitioned into five income brackets, and further by the racial composition of the neighborhoods within each income bracket.

The results revealed a number of surprises. In St. Paul, for example, the lowest income group had a 27% higher annual energy use intensity (use per square foot) compared to the highest income group. St Paul's result is comparable to the 25% disparity by income seen in Los Angeles. However, Tallahassee's disparity in annual electricity use intensity by income was found to be more than double at 66%. Furthermore, when the researchers further partitioned the income groups by racial composition of the census block groups, they found substantial additional disparities by race even within the same income groups. For example, in St. Paul, the poorest predominantly non-white neighborhoods had a 40% higher energy use intensity compared to poorest predominantly white neighborhoods. Such racial disparity was seen within all income brackets except for the very wealthiest block groups, which were majority white to begin with.

When the team took a closer look at seasonal energy use, -- i.e. energy used for heating and cooling in winter and summer--they found an up to 167% disparity in electricity use intensity between the lowest and highest -earning households in St. Paul, with the lowest-earning households footing that outsized energy burden. In Tallahassee, seasonal energy use showed large racial disparities within the lowest income group of the order of 156%.

"To my knowledge, this is the first study to show inequalities in urban energy use by race, and to show that it's different from energy use inequality by income," says Karen Seto, the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at Yale University, who was not involved in the research. "The study corroborates other studies that show significant within-city inequalities" by both race and income, she said, "whether it's exposure to heat or green space."

The researchers also examined household participation in several types of rebate programs designed to increase energy use efficiency and decrease costs. They found that homes in wealthier predominantly white neighborhoods were more likely to participate in rebate programs, while poorer predominantly non-white ones tended to slip through the cracks.

"Making this type of data visible is helpful for making people understand that infrastructure-related racial disparities are not just some abstract thing--it's real and you can see it in the data," Ramaswami said. "We all say we want social justice, but to get to that, it helps to be quantitative."

Ramaswami and her colleagues hope that cities across the country adopt their method to better understand their own energy equity dynamic. They are already working with officials in Austin, Texas, to apply this new approach.

Ultimately, they also hope to follow up on their findings to determine what is actually driving disparities in energy use intensity and rebate participation, so cities can use that information to further close the gap on inequalities.

"The new understanding gained from this study is already quite a lot," said Kangkang Tong, first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University. "But it will take another several studies to really understand the reasons behind our findings, to help communities improve their energy use efficiency."

The study also addresses fundamental questions about the geographical scale researchers can use to measure social inequality in urban areas. The researchers found that choosing to study social inequality across city blocks as the unit of analysis provides different results than studying inequality across larger block groups or even larger census tracts. This is part of a fundamental question that scholars from many disciplines -- including geography, public health, computer science, mathematics, and political science -- are grappling with, called the modifiable areal unit problem. The problem is that measures of dispersion and inequality change as the spatial unit area of observation is modified - whether it is a city block, block group, census tract, or zip code. Ramaswami said the PNAS paper is the first to characterize the modifiable areal unit problem for the issue of energy use inequality in cities by exploring multiple metrics for energy use inequality across a range of scales. These findings are highly policy relevant because it means measuring disparity ratios from data aggregated at the block-level could give very different results from computing them from block-group or census tract-level data.

"This is also another area for further research, wherein policy-relevant questions can trigger fundamental scientific discoveries." Tong said.

###

The research paper, "Measuring social equity in urban energy use and interventions using fine-scale data" was published June 7 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to Ramaswami and Tong, co-authors include Richard Feiock and Corey (Kewei) Xu, of Florida State University; Michael Ohlsen of Florida State University and the City of Tallahassee; and Patrick Schmitz (formerly) of Xcel Energy, Minnesota. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.

SOLIDARITY WITH CUPE MEMBER IN PRISON IN TURKEY

 

Last September CUPE member Cihan Erdal went to Turkey to conduct research.  Employed by Carleton University in Ottawa, Cihan is a PhD student, a sociologist, an academic, youth researcher, peace and LGBTI+ activist, and a member of CUPE 4600.   And he has been a prisoner in a Turkish jail for 10 months.  Think about that for a second.   If you have heard Cihan’s story and want to help by sending a protest message to the Turkish government just click HERE.  Otherwise please read on.   Cihan is imprisoned because he was, 7 years ago, a member of the People's Democratic Party in Turkey (HDP in Turkish). The HDP was and is a legal political party that opposes many of the policies of the current Turkish government. The evidence against him? 2 social media posts.   CUPE and LabourStart are working to get him home to Canada.  Cihan’s union has been pressuring the Canadian government to do more to get him released.  LabourStart (this is where you come in) is trying to ensure that the Turkish government knows that its actions are being watched and that Cihan knows that he has not been forgotten.  At CUPE's request we are running THIS campaign.   At this point I could appeal to all the CUPE members on our mailing list.  Or to all the university workers.  Or to everyone who can imagine what it must be like to spend 10 months and counting in a Turkish prison.  But really, do I need to?   Take just a few seconds and send a protest message in solidarity with Cihan.  Help get him back to Omer, his partner, and their home in Ottawa.  And tell Cihan that he hasn’t been forgotten and that thousands of Canadians want him released.   Please.  Click HERE, Send some solidarity his way. To learn more about Cihan's situation listen to this RadioLabour interview with his partner Omer Ongun  HERE. In Solidarity, Derek Blackadder LabourStart Canada

Turkish mafia boss dishes dirt, becomes YouTube phenomenon

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — From alleged drug trafficking and a murder cover-up to weapons transfers to Islamic militants, a convicted crime ringleader has been dishing the dirt on members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party through a series of tell-all videos that have captivated the nation and turned him into an unlikely social media phenomenon.© Provided by The Canadian Press

Sedat Peker, a 49-year-old fugitive crime boss, who once openly supported Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, has been releasing nearly 90-minute long videos from his stated base in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, making scandalous but yet-unproven drip-by-drip allegations, in an apparent bid to settle scores with political figures.


The weekly YouTube videos have been viewed more than 75 million times, causing an uproar, heightening concerns over Turkish state corruption and putting officials on the defensive. They have also exposed alleged rifts between rival factions within the ruling party and added to Erdogan’s troubles as he battles an economic downturn and the coronavirus pandemic.

On Sunday morning, a couple in Istanbul were absorbed while watching Peker’s latest release. They were among millions in Turkey who tuned in.

“I’ve added (Peker's videos) to the category of TV series I watch every week,” Gulistan Atas said. “Just like a TV episode, I wait in excitement, and every week on Sunday, we prepare our breakfast when we get up and watch them along with our breakfast.”

Clad in a waistcoat or a half-buttoned shirt displaying a medallion, Peker taunts his opponents from behind a desk with neatly arranged notes, prayer beads and books, promising to bring their downfall using nothing more than a “tripod and a camera.”

His initial videos targeted former Interior Minister Mehmet Agar and his son, Tolga, a ruling party lawmaker, whom he accused of raping a young Kazakh journalism student and later covering up her murder as a suicide. Mehmet Agar, Peker suggested, misappropriated a luxury marina that may have been used in drug trafficking operations. Agar later resigned from the marina's board.

Subsequent videos leveled accusations against business people and media figures close to the government, as well as former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim's son, claiming he was involved in drug smuggling from Venezuela. But the target of Peker's most vitriolic and mocking attacks is Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, whom he accuses of abuse of power and corruption while aiming to become Turkey's president. Peker justifies the tell-all by saying Soylu betrayed him despite the crime leader's help to defeat a rival faction within the ruling party.

All those implicated have rejected Peker's accusations.

In an explosive claim with international dimensions, the mob boss said that a former security advisor to Erdogan accused of leading a paramilitary force had sent weapons to Al-Qaida-linked militants in Syria. Erdogan hasn't yet addressed those claims although the government has in the past denied allegations that it had armed jihadis.

Erdogan ignored the Peker videos for weeks, but broke his silence on May 26, when he dismissed earlier allegations by the mafia leader as a conspiracy against Turkey.

“We will spoil these games, these plots. No one should doubt that we will disrupt this devious operation,” Erdogan said. “We pursue members of criminal gangs wherever in the world they flee to ... We will not leave these criminals alone until we bring them back to our country and hand them over to the judiciary.”

Peker responded to Erdogan that week and suggested that the Turkish strongman could be the focus of future videos. He later said he would speak about Erdogan after his meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden on June 14 so as not to “weaken his hand.” In his latest video Sunday, he said his revelations would be conducted with respect and wouldn't hurt the state itself.

“Will finding and bringing me (to Turkey) change the reality,” he said.

Opposition parties, meanwhile, have seized on the allegations to demand the resignations of implicated figures as well as parliamentary and judiciary inquiries.

The ruling party and its nationalist allies have blocked opposition bids to launch parliamentary inquiries into Peker’s claims as well as into the arms smuggling allegations.

Authorities have issued a new warrant for Peker’s arrest.

Can Selcuki, the director of polling and analysis platform Turkiye Raporu, said of Peker: “We shouldn’t forget that he’s a criminal," but explained the videos' popularity as a need for information.

“It seems to me people are asking this illegal operator these questions because they can’t get answers elsewhere. And this tells me there’s a growing demand in Turkish society for more transparency," Selcuki said.

Peker addresses his viewers, especially people under age 40, as the real owners of Turkey who have the power of demanding accountability and change.

A nationalist who advocates unity between Turkic-speaking nations, Peker has been in and out of prison since age 17 for his involvement in organized crime and other offenses. After his last release from prison in 2014, he held rallies to support Erdogan’s party and leveled threats against his opponents. His 2015 wedding to Ozge Peker, who was his lawyer, drew a host of celebrity guests.

In April, an operation was launched against Peker's group, leading to the arrest of around 60 of his associates.

His home in Istanbul was also searched. Peker maintains that he was forced to speak out after his wife and two daughters were allegedly mistreated and humiliated during the police raid.

“They ask me why I am doing it,” Peker said in the latest video. “I swear to God that at first I did it out of anger, I expected an apology ... Now, I don’t know why I am doing it ... I feel like doing it.”

Gulistan Atas' husband Alparslan Atas said Peker's videos were like the movies “The Godfather” and “Scarface,” to be forever etched in people's memories.

“I like that the state’s dirty laundry has come to light and spread around because knowing that the people who are in politics with their hands on the Quran can at the same time do cocaine business gives me interesting information,” he said.

___

Robert Badendieck, Zeynep Bilginsoy, Mehmet Guzel and Ayse Wieting contributed to this report from Istanbul.

Suzan Fraser, The Associated Press