CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M SLAP ON THE WRIST
Ex-CEO who oversaw doomed nuclear project sentenced

Thu., October 7, 2021



COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A utility executive who repeatedly lied to keep investors pumping money into South Carolina's $9 billion nuclear reactor debacle will spend two years in prison for fraud, a federal judge decided on Thursday.

Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh agreed with prosecutors that he should serve the sentence and the judge approved the deal, making him the first executive put behind bars for misleading the public on the project, which failed without ever generating a watt of power.

Marsh said he wants to serve his time as soon as he can because his wife of 46 years has incurable breast cancer, and he hopes to care for her after leaving prison. The judge agreed to have him report to a federal prison in North Carolina in early December.

U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis cited Marsh’s remorse and expansive cooperation with federal authorities as she reluctantly accepted the plea deal, which is well below the federal sentencing guidelines of five years. She said the prosecution and defense depiction of the crime Marsh committed is a “vanilla way to describe it,” adding that it understates "the seriousness of this non-disclosure.”

“Your crime was committed with a little more elegance and sophistication than many I see," Geiger told Marsh. "But you don’t get credit for that.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brook Andrews said imprisoning Marsh sends a message of public responsibility to powerful executives.

“It is a failure of judgment,” Andrews said. “It is a failure of conscience. It is a failure to tell the truth when telling the truth would bring dire financial consequences.”

A second former SCANA executive and an official at Westinghouse Electric Co., the lead contractor to build two new reactors at the V.C. Summer plant, have also pleaded guilty. A second Westinghouse executive has been indicted and is awaiting trial.

Marsh pleaded guilty in federal court in February to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and in state court to obtaining property by false pretenses.

Marsh is scheduled for a sentencing hearing in state court Monday. Federal prosecutors said they would agreed to his request to serve his entire sentence on both sets of charges in a federal prison.

The actions by Marsh and other executives took more than $1 billion from the pockets of ratepayers and investors, authorities said in an 87-page Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed against him and a second executive in 2020.

SCANA and its subsidiary, South Carolina Electric & Gas, were destroyed by the debt and poor management and were bought out by Dominion Energy of Virginia in 2019. State-owned utility Santee Cooper, which had a 45% stake in the project, ended up saddled with $4 billion in debt even though SCANA controlled management of the project.

Marsh has already paid $5 million in restitution. SCANA had paid Marsh $5 million in 2017, the year the utility abandoned the hopelessly behind-schedule project.

Reading a statement Thursday, Marsh said he takes responsibility for the project’s failure even though he was misled by Westinghouse, which was building the reactors. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret these nuclear plants weren’t built for the citizens of South Carolina,” he said.

For sentencing, Marsh’s attorneys also submitted 10 letters from friends, colleagues and church pastors detailing his good acts, such as helping the family of an employee killed on the job get financial and legal help, securing an air conditioner for a women’s home and taking a week out of his busy executive schedule to volunteer for vacation Bible school.

The letters also detailed his relationship with his wife, Sue, whom he married when both were teens. She has terminal and incurable metastatic breast cancer and may not be able to visit her husband in prison because of COVID-19 fears and her weakened condition, defense lawyers said.

Federal regulatory filings have documented the history of the doomed nuclear project begun in 2008. Those filings said Marsh never wavered from saying the two reactors being built at the V.C. Summer site north of Columbia would be finished by the end of 2020 — a deadline that had to be met to receive the $1.4 billion in federal tax credits needed to keep the $10 billion project from overwhelming the utility.

Prosecutors said Marsh lied and presented rosy projections on the progress of the reactors that he knew were false in earning calls, presentations and press releases to keep investors happy and pump up the company’s stock price.

After watching the hearing, environmental activist Tom Clements waited for Marsh outside. He fought the reactors since they were first proposed in 2008, saying they were unnecessary.

“Kevin, why didn't you apologize to the people of South Carolina? You accepted responsibility but you couldn't apologize to us ratepayers,” Clements asked Marsh during his 20-second walk from the courthouse door to a waiting SUV.

Marsh said nothing.

___

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.

Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press

Singh wants to see paid sick leave, vaccine passport from minority Liberal government

The NDP leader outlined his priorities for the next Parliament

Richard Raycraft · CBC News · Posted: Oct 07, 2021

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh takes part in a post-election news conference. Singh outlined his priorities for the new Parliament Thursday, calling on the Liberal minority government to commit to a range of measures on the COVID-19 pandemic. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh says he wants to see the government take "concrete, immediate" steps on a range of issues — from pandemic supports to climate change to reconciliation — in order to secure NDP support in the next Parliament.

At a news conference in Ottawa today, Singh outlined a list of NDP priorities that includes paid sick leave and a federal vaccine passport.

"We believe strongly in a federal vaccine passport, a document that can be used for interprovincial travel, to travel domestically, and something that would allow people to have proof that can be used everywhere in Canada," Singh said.


NDP leader is asked how and when he would support the Liberal minority government
Jagmeet Singh spoke with reporters on Parliament Hill on Thursday. Parliament is expected to return next month. 0:45

"That was something that was floated in the past. Mr. Trudeau talked about it but has not yet done it. So we're saying, 'Let's see some action on these things.'"

The NDP won 25 seats in the 2021 federal election, boosting its caucus by a single seat. But because the Liberals did not win a majority of seats, the NDP will have significant influence in the minority Parliament.

NDP MPs gathered for a caucus meeting Wednesday and discussed the party's priorities for the next Parliament.

Online offers of fake documents show it's time for a national vaccination passport: NDP critic

Federal public servants, RCMP and air and rail travellers must be vaccinated by month's end, Trudeau says

Along with measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Singh said he wants to see the Liberal government take more action on climate change and Indigenous reconciliation.

He cited a court case between the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, the Assembly of First Nations and the federal government over underfunding and inequity in the child welfare system.

A federal judge recently dismissed an application for a judicial review from the federal government over a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal order which left Ottawa on the hook for billions of dollars in compensation related to the child welfare system.

Federal Court upholds landmark compensation order for First Nations children

Singh called on the government to terminate the case.

"One immediate, concrete step, something that could happen right now, is Mr. Trudeau could finally stop the court case against Indigenous children," he said. "There's been ruling after ruling from the Canadian human rights tribunal, and now another decision in the courts that said ... there's no ground to appeal it, so stop the legal battles.

"That would be another sign that this Liberal government is interested in working with us, and it would signal to us interest in working together."

He said the Liberals have not yet reached out to the NDP to discuss shared priorities.

"They haven't signaled that they want to negotiate or talk so far," he said. "That's fine, I'm not concerned because they know where we stand. We've campaigned on where we stand for the past 36-plus days ... I look forward to them signalling their interest by doing any of these things."

Singh cited the worsening pandemic situation in Alberta and Saskatchewan as he called on the Liberals to maintain robust economic supports, such as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy.

"We want to see the supports continue. As I outlined, we're in the worst of it right now. For Alberta and Saskatchewan, this is the worst it's ever been," he said. "It would be irresponsible and wrong to cut the help to people."

Alberta has requested and received assistance from the federal government and the military to help staff its hospitals.

Canadian Armed Forces critical care nursing officers and a CAF senior nursing officer are in Edmonton to help Alberta Health Services in the fight against COVID-19. That province has requested federal help in dealing with its COVID-19 outbreak. 

(Alberta Health Services)

While Singh criticized the governments in those provinces over their handling of the pandemic, he said the federal government needs to step up on health transfers.

The provinces and territories have come together to demand an increase in the share of health care spending covered by the federal government.
Singh reflects on the campaign

Although the NDP increased its seat total in the federal election, it was an underwhelming result for a party that was looking for a breakthrough.

Singh said that while he was proud of the campaign, he's disappointed the party didn't send more new faces to Parliament.


Following a caucus meeting, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he's proud of the campaign he ran
Singh says the feedback the party received was very positive and he looks forward to building a stronger party for the next election. 1:08

"One of the things that we've identified we need to do more work is on the ground," he said. "There's a lot of races where we were very, very close ... so that's part of the analysis that we'll be doing to get more details around what we can do to improve that."

Post election, NDP grapples with what went wrong

Parties weigh post-election priorities ahead of Parliament's return

The party announced it will conduct a review of the campaign led by political adviser Bob Dewar.

Singh and NDP brass have been accused internally of promoting his profile at the expense of local candidates in the election.

HE NEEDED TO BE PROMOTED NOBODY KNEW HIM EVEN AFTER HIS LAST NATIONAL ELECTION. THIS ELECTIONS CANADIANS GOT TO KNOW HIM

IT'S THE PARTY THAT TARGETS RIDINGS FOR SUPPORT

'NEVER'
How and when will French Church compensate victims of ‘systemic’ child abuse?

Issued on: 07/10/2021 -

Catholics priests celebrate a palm mass in the empty Saint Francois-Xavier church, in Paris, on April 4, 2020. 

© Ludovic Marin, AFP

Text by: Cyrielle CABOT

France's Catholic Church has asked for "forgiveness" after a devastating report this week laid bare the "systemic" sexual abuse of children by clergymen. But how and when will the tens of thousands of victims be compensated for the abuse they suffered?

The Catholic Church of France was left reeling on Tuesday after an independent commission revealed in a 2,500-page report that members of the clergy had sexually abused around 216,000 children since 1950 – and covered up the abuse with a "veil of silence".

According to the head of the inquiry, Jean-Marc Sauvé, the report by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (ICSA) proved that "systemic abuse" has been at work within the Church.

The report said the number of victims rose to some 330,000 when taking into account abuses committed by lay members of the Church, such as teachers at Catholic schools.

As well as laying bare the extent of the abuse, the inquiry also suggested a number of avenues to address the victims' yearning for justice and healing, from symbolic measures to financial reparation.

“Some victims mentioned money, but not all,” Sister Véronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious Men and Women of France (Corref), told FRANCE 24. “Some talked about money in the name of victims they knew, others focused on a symbolic reparation,” she added.

Recognition as first step

“Above all, the victims are demanding an official recognition of the facts by the Church,” said Didier Ferriot, coordinator of the Independent Collective of Victims of Sexual Abuse in the Church. "For some of them, this is even the only thing they want. They are not demanding any specific reparation, other than recognising what they have experienced and their status as victims,” he told FRANCE 24.

Among them is Christian Dubreuil, one of the victims who spoke to the Sauvé inquiry. The former senior civil servant was assaulted by a priest from the Archdiocese of Lyon when aged 11 and 12. "For me, the most important thing is to receive a letter from the Church acknowledging that a sex crime was committed against me," he told AFP.

"Recognising the facts is the first step in the reparation process," said Sister Margron. "This is all the more important that, for many people, the facts are now time-barred and will never be brought before a court," she added.

Report finds 216,000 children were victims of French clergy sex abuse since 1950

01:54

It's a plea Church authorities appear to have headed in the wake of the report's release.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis expressed his personal "shame", inviting French Catholics to "assume their responsibilities to ensure that the Church is a safe home for all".

French bishops have also come forward. The president of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, asked for “forgiveness” in a statement, expressing his "shame and horror".

Case-by-case approach

The Sauvé report also addressed the thorny issue of financial compensation. It proposed a clear mechanism: victims should be compensated individually, via an independent commission, rather than using worshippers’ donations.

Such a case-by-case approach is essential, said Didier Ferriot. "Some victims, in spite of what they went through, have managed to start a regular life again, working, having a social life [...]. But others have been really damaged, living now in precarious situations or being socially isolated," he explained. “That’s why only an individual approach, on a case-by-case basis, can be applied."

Margron agreed: "Needs differ from one person to the other, and that’s why ‘case-by-case’ is essential."

Who is to pay the bill?

In March 2021, months before the Sauvé report was released, the French Bishops' Conference (CEF) announced it was creating a specific endowment fund to compensate victims. "This will be funded by the bishops, priests and worshippers who wish to contribute," Karine Dalle, deputy secretary general and director of communications at the CEF, told FRANCE 24.

The fund’s first problem was its initial objective: raising 5 million euros – a substantial underestimation given the number of victims. "Today, we may have to think about hundreds of millions of euros", the Archbishop of Strasbourg, Luc Ravel, told French radio France Info following the report's release.

This fund has a second problem. While it officially depends on donations, Sauvé’s ICSA report recommends that all compensation should be financed "from the assets of the aggressors and the Church of France". In other words, it would be up to the dioceses alone to put their hands in their pockets.

“But the Church only lives on donations: they are all our resources,” Karine Dalle, deputy secretary general and director of communications at the CEF, told FRANCE 24. "Not to mention that we don't do what we want with it. According to the law, the donations of the worshippers can only be used for worship purposes. So, we can't just dip into it as we please and fund these compensations. That's exactly why we created [the CEF] fund," she explained.

"This also applies to our real estate: we can't sell a property that was given to us for religious intent, in order to compensate the victims," Dalle added.

The situation is all the more complex when the sum to be collected seems extremely difficult to measure, since many questions remain unanswered: How many victims will come forward? How many will claim compensation? And what amount will they claim?

For its part, the Corref preferred to wait for the Sauvé report before weighing on the issue. "I will propose, at our General Assembly in Lourdes in early November, that the institution which the aggressor belongs to should be responsible for compensating the victim," Sister Margron announced.

A memorial dedicated to the victims?

While the issue of financial compensation remains at the heart of the question, more symbolic projects have also been put forward by victims' associations, including public ceremonies, liturgical celebrations and a memorial.

"For several months now, we have been thinking about the creation of a memorial with the associations," said Sister Margron. "For the moment, the project is only in its early stages. There has been talk of a work of art, or a venue for exhibitions and conferences... Perhaps in Lourdes: nothing has been decided yet," she added.

Some pushed the idea of organising ceremonies or masses, but the president of the Congregation is sceptical. "The Catholic Church knows very well how to organise a big mass: it's almost too easy," Sister Margron quipped. "It is very important to organise a collective event. But it has to be well thought out and, above all, it should not be the only measure," she explained.

"But the reparation process will only be complete once the Church will have carried out a profound overhaul of its working system, and when the victims will be assured that these events will never occur again," she insisted."To do this, we need to rethink ecclesiastic training, the question of the secrecy of confession, think about the coordination with justice and even about the theology itself. This can only be done in the long run".

Such topics will be high on the agenda of both the Corref and the French Bishops' Conference ahead of their respective gatherings in Lourdes in November.

"The victims don't want words anymore, they want concrete steps and tangible actions", Didier Ferriot summed up, before adding: "And the first thing to do will be to study this report, and approve its many recommendations."

This article was adapted from the original in French by Henrique Valadares.

France rebukes top bishop for saying confessional secrecy trumps law in sex abuse cases

Issued on: 07/10/2021 -

A Catholic priest listens to a confession.

© Ezequiel Becerra,AFP/ File picture

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

France’s top bishop has been summoned by the interior minister after saying that the pact of secrecy would prevent a priest from reporting sex crimes against children that were revealed during Catholic confession.

Following the publication of a report this week about sexual abuse of children by the clergy, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, who is archbishop of Reims and head of the Bishops’ Conference of France, said in a radio interview that the secrecy of the confession rite takes precedence over the laws of the republic.

Under French law, anyone who is aware of a sex crime against a minor is obliged to report it to the authorities and risks heavy fines and imprisonment if failing to do so.

“Nothing takes precedence over the laws of the republic in our country,” French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Thursday.

He added that Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin – who also oversees religious issues – would receive de Moulins-Beaufort next week at the request of President Emmanuel Macron “in order to make sure that things are clear”.

In the Catholic religion, confession is a rite during which sinners acknowledge their sins to a priest and seek forgiveness from God. It is usually performed anonymously in a confession booth, behind a screen, so that the priest can hear but not see the penitent.

“Confession must remain secret because it opens a space where one can speak freely... before God,” de Moulins-Beaufort said on franceinfo radio.

De Moulins-Beaufort said it was unlikely that many pedophiles would admit to their crimes during confession and that even if they did, it would be in euphemistic terms.

He added that when children indicate during confession that they are being abused, the church must look for other ways to help them speak out. “Many children only speak during confession because they know it is secret,” he said.

(REUTERS)

French Church and state clash over sex abuse confessions

01:55

Video by: Olivia SALAZAR-WINSPEAR

WW3.0

US troops secretly training Taiwanese since last year: report

Issued on: 07/10/2021 

Washington (AFP)

US special operations forces and marines have been secretly training Taiwanese troops for more than one year, risking the ire of China, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The Journal said about two-dozen US service members have trained Taiwanese ground and maritime forces "for at least a year," amid China's rising verbal threats against the island ally of the United States.

The report cited unnamed officials for the report. Taiwan's Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report.

The Pentagon did not confirm or deny it. Spokesman John Supple said the US support for Taiwan's military is gauged on its defense needs.

"Our support for and defense relationship with Taiwan remains aligned against the current threat posed by the People’s Republic of China," Supple said in a statement.

"We urge Beijing to honor its commitment to the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait differences."

The report appeared to confirm Taiwan media articles last November -- which cited Taiwan's Naval Command -- that US troops had arrived there to train Taiwan marines and special forces in small-boat and amphibious operations.

Those reports were subsequently denied by US and Taiwanese officials, who emphasized the two sides are involved in bilateral military exchanges and cooperation.

The United States supplies weapons to Taiwan, including missiles for defense and fighter jets, amid Beijing's threat to forcibly retake control of the island and reintegrate it with China.

A US-made E2K Early Warning Aircraft (EWA) takes off from a motorway in Pingtung, southern Taiwan, during the annual Han Kuang drill in September 2021 

Sam Yeh AFP/File

The US also maintains an ambiguous commitment to defend Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

A video released last year and featured in Taiwan media showed US troops taking part in an exercise on the island dubbed "Balance Tamper."

Chinese forces have stepped up their activities toward Taiwan in the past year, conducting sea assault exercises and flying large sorties of bombers and fighters close to Taiwan airspace.

On Monday, Taiwan scrambled its own air force after a record 56 Chinese warplanes crossed into its air defense zone.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price called the Chinese activity "destabilizing" and "provocative."

"We strongly urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan," he said, calling US commitment to the island "rock-solid".

© 2021 AFP

SHELL LEAVES ITS MARK

Oil cleanup in southern Nigeria still a 'long way' from target


Issued on: 07/10/2021 - 

Oil legacy: Soil from the banks of a polluted river in B-Dere, Ogoniland 

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI AFP


Abuja (AFP)

A much-touted cleanup of oil pollution in southern Nigeria has yet to start in parts of the hotspot Ogoniland, almost three years after contracts were handed out, and residents remain without proper drinking water, a report said Thursday.

Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer, has struggled with oil spills for decades, triggering social unrest and even militancy across the Niger Delta.

The kingdom of Ogoniland in Rivers state, home to about a million people, became an emblem of the problem after years of oil and gas exploration and production by a joint venure with Shell.

After mass protests led by activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and the so-called Ogoni Nine, Shell stopped production in 1993.

The Nigerian government pledged to restore the damage after a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assessment of the area 10 years ago.

The UN said at the time that an initial cleanup would cost $1 billion and take five years. Cleanup activities finally started in January 2019.

But a report by two NGO monitors issued more than halfway through the five-year timeframe says the cleanup will probably take far longer.

"We can see some progress being made, and it’s important to recognise that," said Florence Kayemba, programmes director of the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), which co-authored the report with the Centre for Human Rights and Development (CEHRD).

Over 1,000 temporary jobs for community members with cleanup contractors have been created, the monitors said.

Thirteen out of 50 lots considered "simple" to clean have been certified as completed, they added.

However, "this is just a quarter... and we have yet to begin cleanup of complex sites, so this shows that we have really quite a long way to go," said Calvin Laing, SDN's executive director.

"That five-year target seems unrealistic now."

Emergency measures prescribed by the UN in 2011 "are yet to be delivered," the report noted.

"Communities which were identified as having highly contaminated drinking water sources in 2011 still do not have access to improved, safe drinking water sources," it said.

"Health screening of communities that would help understand the impact of pollution is yet to commence."

Cleanup activities need to happen "much faster" added Kayemba, but "without sacrificing quality."

SDN and CEHRD set up an interactive online dashboard on Thursday to help track progress.

The Ogoniland cleanup is "crucial" said Laing, as it "could also be a template for elsewhere in the Niger Delta."

Earlier this year, Shell agreed to pay around 95 million euros ($110 million) to Ogoniland communities over spills in the 1970s, although it has said damage to pipelines was caused by third parties.

© 2021 AFP

Giant ground sloths may have been meat-eating scavengers

The Ice Age beasts feasted on plants and meat, fossil hair analysis suggests

Some 12,000 years ago, the giant ground sloth Mylodon darwinii might have stopped outside Chile’s Mylodon Cave to take a few bites out of the carcass of a llamalike Macrauchenia, as shown in this artist’s rendition.
JORGE BLANCO


By Carolyn Gramling
5 HOURS AGO

Modern sloths may be dedicated vegetarians, but at least one of their massive Ice Age cousins chowed down on meat when it had the chance. Darwin’s ground sloth — which could grow to over 3 meters long and weigh as much as about 2,000 kilograms — may have been an opportunistic scavenger, chemical analyses of fossil sloth hair suggest.

Paleontologist Julia Tejada of the University of Montpellier in France and colleagues analyzed the chemical makeup of two amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, within the fossil hair of two giant ground sloth species: Darwin’s ground sloth (Mylodon darwinii) of South America and the Shasta ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis) of North America (SN: 4/25/18). The team compared these with samples from living sloths, anteaters and other modern omnivores.

Nitrogen isotopes, different forms of the element, can vary a lot among different food sources as well as between ecosystems. Those isotope values in one amino acid, glutamine, change significantly with diet, increasing the higher the animal is on the food chain. But diet has little impact on the nitrogen values in another amino acid, phenylalamine. By comparing the nitrogen isotopes in the two amino acids found in the sloths’ hair, the researchers were able to eliminate ecosystem effects and zoom in on diets.

The data reveal that while the diet of the Shasta ground slothwas exclusively plant-based, Darwin’s ground sloth was an omnivore, Tejada and colleagues report October 7 in Scientific Reports.

The findings upend what scientists thought they knew about the ancient animals. Scientists have assumed the ancient creatures were herbivores. That’s in part because all six modern species of sloth are confirmed vegetarians, and in part giant ground sloths’ teeth and jaws weren’t adapted for hunting or powerful chewing and tearing (SN: 6/20/16).

But Darwin’s ground sloth could have managed to ingest already-killed meat, Tejada and colleagues say. And that might help solve a long-standing puzzle: the apparent absence of large carnivorous mammals in South America at the time. Darwin’s ground sloth, the researchers add, may have filled a vacant ecological niche: the scavenger who wouldn’t say no to a meaty meal.

A magnetic field reversal 42,000 years ago may have contributed to mass extinctions

The weakening of Earth's magnetic field correlates with a cascade of environmental crises

Red ochre handprints dating to almost 42,000 years ago decorate a wall in the El Castillo cave in Spain. Red ochre has been previously suggested as an ancient form of sunscreen.
PAUL PETTITT, GOBIERNO DE CANTABRIA

By Carolyn Gramling

A flip-flop of Earth’s magnetic poles between 42,000 and 41,000 years ago briefly but dramatically shrank the magnetic field’s strength — and may have triggered a cascade of environmental crises on Earth, a new study suggests.

With the help of new, precise carbon dating obtained from ancient tree fossils, the researchers correlated shifts in climate patterns, large mammal extinctions and even changes in human behavior just before and during the Laschamps excursion, a brief reversal of the magnetic poles that lasted less than a thousand years. It’s the first study to directly link a magnetic pole reversal to large-scale environmental changes, the team reports in the Feb. 19 Science.

During a reversal, Earth’s protective magnetic field, which shields the planet from a barrage of charged particles streaming from the sun, can lose strength (SN: 1/28/19). So some researchers have suggested that these flip-flops may be linked to extinction events (SN: 11/19/20).

But evidence for this has proven elusive. In fact, “the general belief had been that geomagnetic changes had no impact on climate or anything else,” says Alan Cooper, an evolutionary biologist at BlueSky Genetics in Adelaide. One reason for that belief is a dearth of precise dates for the timing and duration of the geomagnetic event to correlate with environmental, ice core and magnetic rock records.

Enter New Zealand’s kauri tree, among the most ancient in the world. The country’s swampy bogs preserve the relics of kauri trees dating as far back as the Laschamps excursion. Cooper and his colleagues obtained cross-sections from four ancient trees recovered from a swamp at Ng­āwhā Springs in northern New Zealand, and analyzed them for carbon-14, a radioactive form of carbon. (This is the first paper Cooper has led since he was fired from the University of Adelaide in December 2019 for misconduct, allegations which he has denied.)

Kauri trees (one shown) have grown in New Zealand for thousands of years. By analyzing tree rings of preserved trees in the Ngawha swampland, scientists identified evidence to suggest a magnetic pole flip around 41,000 years ago.

MARK MEREDITH/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES

In particular, one massive preserved log dating to about 41,000 years ago offered up a 1,700-year-long carbon-14 record. That record revealed major changes in carbon-14 during the time period running up to and including the Laschamps excursion, the team reports. That makes sense: Increasing incoming cosmic rays — as would occur with a weakened magnetic field — also produce more carbon-14 in the atmosphere, a carbon signature which would then become incorporated into the tree’s tissues.

The team simulated how a weakened magnetic field might alter atmospheric weather patterns. The computer analysis suggested that the increase of charged particles entering the atmosphere would also increase the production of atmospheric hydrogen and nitrogen oxides — molecules that tend to consume ozone. That would reduce the ability of stratospheric ozone to shield Earth’s denizens from ultraviolet radiation. The atmospheric changes would also affect how much sunlight is absorbed at different layers in the atmosphere, leading to large-scale changes in weather patterns that would have cooled the planet.

Such effects may have in fact occurred at that time. Using the carbon-14 dates from the kauri trees, the team examined sediment, pollen, and other data from before and during the Laschamps excursion that point to sudden cooling at locations from Australia to the Andes.

Surprisingly, the most intense effects did not occur during the actual pole reversal, the team found, but in the several hundred years leading up to it, spanning about 42,300 to 41,600 years ago. During the actual reversal, the field was only about 28 percent as strong as it is today. But during that transitional period, field strength shrank to about 6 percent of its current strength. The researchers dubbed this the “Adams Transitional Geomagnetic Event” — for Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Adams is often associated with the number 42, said in his books to be the answer to “the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.”

Scientists have long debated whether climate change or human hunters were more to blame for extinction events that wiped such giant mammals as woolly mammoths and Diprotodon, a kind of super-sized Australian wombat. “It was actually one of the motivators for this study,” says study coauthor Chris Turney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

In a 2015 study by Cooper, Turney and colleagues, “we noticed that some of the megafaunal extinctions appear to cluster, and we started asking why,” Turney says (SN: 7/23/15). One such cluster of Australian megafauna extinctions, including the demise of Diprotodon and the giant kangaroo Procoptodon goliah, occurred around 42,000 years ago.

The team compared the dates of the magnetic event with previous records from ice cores that can reflect changes in solar activity. These data suggested the solar activity was at a minimum at the time. The combination of a weak magnetic field and this decrease in the sun’s output around the same time “created the perfect storm” of climate and broader environmental changes, placing a major stress on megafauna populations, Turney says. Those factors may also have led to increased competition between megafauna and human populations, as well as with Neandertals, he says.

Another possible line of evidence for a diminished ozone layer: an increasing abundance of red ochre handprints made by humans in cave paintings, the researchers note. Red ochre is thought to have been used as a sunscreen (SN: 7/3/20). There may also have been increasing use of caves between about 42,000 and 40,000 years ago, possibly as shelter from the more intense sun, the researchers report.

This is the first study to consider such a broad range of environmental consequences of extreme magnetic field changes, says Monika Korte, a geomagnetist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. “The suggested links seem conceivable to me,” Korte says. But, she adds, “the biggest value of the paper is that it’s putting out several ideas that should be investigated further.”

Whether other magnetic reversals may have prompted similar upheavals in the past remains unknown, but “we hope the community will look at biological and archaeological datasets through this different lens,” Turney says. Improving the precision of isotopic dating for these events will be key — and radiocarbon dates gleaned from the New Zealand kauri trees may be able to help with other recent reversals, such as a brief reversal event called the Mono Lake Excursion that occurred about 34,000 years ago.

What long-term environmental havoc may have been wreaked by much longer reversal events recorded in ancient rocks, such the 20,000-year-long Brunhes-Matuyama reversal that began 781,000 years ago, is an even more tantalizing question, Cooper says. “The impacts may have been enormous.”

The Climate Crisis Will Change the Way We Eat

It may not feel like it, but our food is already
grappling with the effects of climate change.

KE   By Koh Ewe

7.10.21

STAPLES LIKE COFFEE AND RICE ARE THREATENED BY A CHANGING CLIMATE. NOW SCIENTISTS AND FARMERS ARE TRYING TO SAVE OUR FAVORITE FOODS. 

This story is part of the VICE Creators Summit, a series of panels and workshops to co-create futures for a habitable planet. Find out more here.

The most compelling images of climate change—cracked, drought-devastated soil, raging wildfires, and flash floods—are all persistent reminders that the Earth is tunneling into the danger zone. But climate change is affecting us in more insidious ways, too. It may not feel like it, but our food is already grappling with its effects.

The Climate Crisis Is Not Just About the Environment, So Why Are We Acting Like It Is?
TAMMY GAN  30.9.21


Extreme weather patterns and increasingly frequent natural disasters are affecting crop production and all this spells inevitable changes in the foods and tastes that we have come to know and love.

If you want to keep your morning coffee routine, wine nights, and daily rice bowls, here are a few more reasons to care about climate change. Below are some staples that may be irrevocably affected.

Rice

RICE PRODUCTION IS BEING THREATENED BY RISING SEA LEVELS AND UNPREDICTABLE RAINFALL

Rice is the staple crop for over half of the world’s population, especially common in Asia. But because of rising sea levels, saltwater has been seeping into more fields around the world, turning the soil salty and making it nearly impossible to grow rice. Studies predict that coastal areas currently housing 1.3 billion residents will be inundated with seawater in the next 120 years.

Even where soil salinity isn’t high, rice production is also seriously affected by unpredictable rainfall—rice is a water-intensive crop. Scientists are now trying to develop rice strains that are more drought- and flood-tolerant.

At the same time, rice production contributes to global warming through significant methane emissions. Scientists are now looking at ways to keep cultivating rice, minus the greenhouse gases.

Coffee



DROUGHT AND “COFFEE LEAF RUST” FUNGUS ARE AMONG THE BIGGEST THREATS TO COFFEE PRODUCTION

Our obsession with a soul-satisfying cup of joe is both an intricate art and sometimes an anxiety-inducing pursuit. But global warming is seriously threatening coffee farms. We have already seen its effects through rising coffee prices this year, after a severe drought in Brazil drastically reduced crop yields.

On the other hand, higher rainfall and humidity make coffee plants especially vulnerable to the fatal “coffee leaf rust” fungus, which debilitates the plants from yielding crops. A coffee leaf rust epidemic that swept across Central America cost the jobs of 1.7 million farmers from 2011 to 2017.

According to a 2016 report by the Climate Institute, the global area suitable for coffee production is expected to be halved by 2050—less than 30 years from now.

Chickpeas



HUMMUS MADE FROM CHICKPEAS. 

Another food that scientists are desperately trying to save is chickpea. Commonly found in hummus and dal, chickpeas are an important protein source for over a billion people, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. But due to deliberate cultivation of the crop over thousands of years, most modern chickpeas have been stripped of their genetic diversity. This makes the crop less resistant to droughts and extreme heat brought about by climate change—annual chickpea yields may be reduced by up to 50 percent because of drought, according to scientists. In an attempt to enhance global chickpea security, scientists have been trying to reintroduce genetic diversity to the beloved legume by hunting wild chickpeas.

Wine


FACED WITH INCREASINGLY SEVERE WILDFIRES, WINES MAY LOSE THEIR CHARACTERISTIC FLAVORS TO SMOKE TAINT. 

Environmental changes at vineyards are reflected in the taste of wine, and climate change is posing fresh challenges to grape growing, making it more difficult for famous wines to retain their characteristic flavors.

How Your Favorite Everyday Products Are Damaging the Earth
NANTICHA OCHAROENCHAI 27.9.21


For example, grapes that are exposed to wildfire smoke for extended periods of time may result in smokey overtones when they’re processed into wine. A hint of smokiness may be an interesting addition to its flavor, but too much of it can taste like “licking an ashtray,” according to Anita Oberholster, an enology specialist at UC Davis who studies the effects of smoke taint.

As wildfires become more frequent and extreme, winemakers and researchers in California are now working to protect vineyards from the effects of climate change, including smoke taint.

With reporting from Tammy Gan.

Follow Koh Ewe on Instagram.

CLIMATE

Rice feeds half the world. Climate change’s droughts and floods put it at risk

Scientists and growers will need to innovate to save the staple crop

In a severe drought, rice farmers in California’s Sacramento Valley have to leave some of their fields unplanted (upper left).
CALIFORNIA RICE COMMISSION, BRIAN BAER

By Nikk Ogasa
SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 

Under a midday summer sun in California’s Sacramento Valley, rice farmer Peter Rystrom walks across a dusty, barren plot of land, parched soil crunching beneath each step.

In a typical year, he’d be sloshing through inches of water amid lush, green rice plants. But today the soil lies naked and baking in the 35˚ Celsius (95˚ Fahrenheit) heat during a devastating drought that has hit most of the western United States. The drought started in early 2020, and conditions have become progressively drier.

Low water levels in reservoirs and rivers have forced farmers like Rystrom, whose family has been growing rice on this land for four generations, to slash their water use.

Rystrom stops and looks around. “We’ve had to cut back between 25 and 50 percent.” He’s relatively lucky. In some parts of the Sacramento Valley, depending on water rights, he says, farmers received no water this season.

California is the second-largest U.S. producer of rice, after Arkansas, and over 95 percent of California’s rice is grown within about 160 kilometers of Sacramento. To the city’s east rise the peaks of the Sierra Nevada, which means “snowy mountains” in Spanish. Rice growers in the valley below count on the range to live up to its name each winter. In spring, melting snowpack flows into rivers and reservoirs, and then through an intricate network of canals and drainages to rice fields that farmers irrigate in a shallow inundation from April or May to September or October.

If too little snow falls in those mountains, farmers like Rystrom are forced to leave fields unplanted. On April 1 this year, the date when California’s snowpack is usually at its deepest, it held about 40 percent less water than average, according to the California Department of Water Resources. On August 4, Lake Oroville, which supplies Rystrom and other local rice farmers with irrigation water, was at its lowest level on record.

Drought in the Sacramento Valley has forced Peter Rystrom and other rice farmers to leave swaths of land barren.N. OGASA

Not too long ago, the opposite — too much rain — stopped Rystrom and others from planting. “In 2017 and 2019, we were leaving ground out because of flood. We couldn’t plant,” he says. Tractors couldn’t move through the muddy, clay-rich soil to prepare the fields for seeding.

Climate change is expected to worsen the state’s extreme swings in precipitation, researchers reported in 2018 in Nature Climate Change. This “climate whiplash” looms over Rystrom and the other 2,500 or so rice producers in the Golden State. “They’re talking about less and less snowpack, and more concentrated bursts of rain,” Rystrom says. “It’s really concerning.”

Farmers in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam — the biggest rice-growing countries — as well as in Nigeria, Africa’s largest rice producer — also worry about the damage climate change will do to rice production. More than 3.5 billion people get 20 percent or more of their calories from the fluffy grains. And demand is increasing in Asia, Latin America and especially in Africa.

To save and even boost production, rice growers, engineers and researchers have turned to water-saving irrigation routines and rice gene banks that store hundreds of thousands of varieties ready to be distributed or bred into new, climate-resilient forms. With climate change accelerating, and researchers raising the alarm about related threats, such as arsenic contamination and bacterial diseases, the demand for innovation grows.

“If we lose our rice crop, we’re not going to be eating,” says plant geneticist Pamela Ronald of the University of California, Davis. Climate change is already threatening rice-growing regions around the world, says Ronald, who identifies genes in rice that help the plant withstand disease and floods. “This is not a future problem. This is happening now.”

The top rice producers are in Asia

The world’s top rice producer is China, at 214 million metric tons. India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam are next. In Africa, Nigeria (6.8 million) is the largest producer. Brazil (11.8 million) and the United States (10.2 million) are also top producers, according to 2018 data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Worldwide rice production, 2018
OURWORLDINDATA.ORG
SOURCE: FAO

Saltwater woes

Most rice plants are grown in fields, or paddies, that are typically filled with around 10 centimeters of water. This constant, shallow inundation helps stave off weeds and pests. But if water levels suddenly get too high, such as during a flash flood, the rice plants can die.

Striking the right balance between too much and too little water can be a struggle for many rice farmers, especially in Asia, where over 90 percent of the world’s rice is produced. Large river deltas in South and Southeast Asia, such as the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam, offer flat, fertile land that is ideal for farming rice. But these low-lying areas are sensitive to swings in the water cycle. And because deltas sit on the coast, drought brings another threat: salt.

Salt’s impact is glaringly apparent in the Mekong River Delta. When the river runs low, saltwater from the South China Sea encroaches upstream into the delta, where it can creep into the soils and irrigation canals of the delta’s rice fields.

In Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta, farmers pull dead rice plants from a paddy that was contaminated by saltwater intrusion from the South China Sea, which can happen during a drought.

HOANG DINH NAM/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

“If you irrigate rice with water that’s too salty, especially at certain [growing] stages, you are at risk of losing 100 percent of the crop,” says Bjoern Sander, a climate change specialist at the International Rice Research Institute, or IRRI, who is based in Vietnam.

In a 2015 and 2016 drought, saltwater reached up to 90 kilometers inland, destroying 405,000 hectares of rice paddies. In 2019 and 2020, drought and saltwater intrusion returned, damaging 58,000 hectares of rice. With regional temperatures on the rise, these conditions in Southeast Asia are expected to intensify and become more widespread, according to a 2020 report by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Then comes the whiplash: Each year from around April to October, the summer monsoon turns on the faucet over swaths of South and Southeast Asia. About 80 percent of South Asia’s rainfall is dumped during this season and can cause destructive flash floods.

Bangladesh is one of the most flood-prone rice producers in the region, as it sits at the mouths of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. In June 2020, monsoon rains flooded about 37 percent of the country, damaging about 83,000 hectares of rice fields, according to Bangladesh’s Ministry of Agriculture. And the future holds little relief; South Asia’s monsoon rainfall is expected to intensify with climate change, researchers reported June 4 in Science Advances.

A hot mess

Water highs and lows aren’t the entire story. Rice generally grows best in places with hot days and cooler nights. But in many rice-growing regions, temperatures are getting too hot. Rice plants become most vulnerable to heat stress during the middle phase of their growth, before they begin building up the meat in their grains. Extreme heat, above 35˚ C, can diminish grain counts in just weeks, or even days. In April in Bangladesh, two consecutive days of 36˚ C destroyed thousands of hectares of rice.

In South and Southeast Asia, such extreme heat events are expected to become common with climate change, researchers reported in July in Earth’s Future. And there are other, less obvious, consequences for rice in a warming world.

One of the greatest threats is bacterial blight, a fatal plant disease caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. The disease, most prevalent in Southeast Asia and rising in Africa, has been reported to have cut rice yields by up to 70 percent in a single season.

“We know that with higher temperature, the disease becomes worse,” says Jan Leach, a plant pathologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Most of the genes that help rice combat bacterial blight seem to become less effective when temperatures rise, she explains.

And as the world warms, new frontiers may open for rice pathogens. An August study in Nature Climate Change suggests that as global temperatures rise, rice plants (and many other crops) at northern latitudes, such as those in China and the United States, will be at higher risk of pathogen infection.

Meanwhile, rising temperatures may bring a double-edged arsenic problem. In a 2019 study in Nature Communications, E. Marie Muehe, a biogeochemist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, who was then at Stanford University, showed that under future climate conditions, more arsenic will infiltrate rice plants. High arsenic levels boost the health risk of eating the rice and impair plant growth.

Leaching in

When grown in a greenhouse at 5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures with elevated carbon dioxide levels (representing a future climate), California rice varieties absorbed more of a type of highly toxic arsenic from the soil, raising the rice’s arsenic levels above European Union safety thresholds.
Arsenic levels in rice grains

CREDIT: E. OTWELL
SOURCE: E.M. MUEHE ET AL/NATURE COMM.2019

Arsenic naturally occurs in soils, though in most regions the toxic element is present at very low levels. Rice, however, is particularly susceptible to arsenic contamination, because it is grown in flooded conditions. Paddy soils lack oxygen, and the microbes that thrive in this anoxic environment liberate arsenic from the soil. Once the arsenic is in the water, rice plants can draw it in through their roots. From there, the element is distributed throughout the plants’ tissues and grains.

Muehe and her team grew a Californian variety of rice in a local low-arsenic soil inside climate-controlled greenhouses. Increasing the temperature and carbon dioxide levels to match future climate scenarios enhanced the activity of the microbes living in the rice paddy soils and increased the amount of arsenic in the grains, Muehe says. And importantly, rice yields diminished. In the low-arsenic Californian soil under future climate conditions, rice yield dropped 16 percent.

According to the researchers, models that forecast the future production of rice don’t account for the impact of arsenic on harvest yields. What that means, Muehe says, is that current projections are overestimating how much rice will be produced in the future.
Managing rice’s thirst

From atop an embankment that edges one of his fields, Rystrom watches water gush from a pipe, flooding a paddy packed with rice plants. “On a year like this, we decided to pump,” he says.

Able to tap into groundwater, Rystrom left only about 10 percent of his fields unplanted this growing season. “If everybody was pumping from the ground to farm rice every year,” he admits, it would be unsustainable.

One widely studied, drought-friendly method is “alternate wetting and drying,” or intermittent flooding, which involves flooding and draining rice paddies on one- to 10-day cycles, as opposed to maintaining a constant inundation. This practice can cut water use by up to 38 percent without sacrificing yields. It also stabilizes the soil for harvesting and lowers arsenic levels in rice by bringing more oxygen into the soils, disrupting the arsenic-releasing microbes. If tuned just right, it may even slightly improve crop yields.

But the water-saving benefits of this method are greatest when it is used on highly permeable soils, such as those in Arkansas and other parts of the U.S. South, which normally require lots of water to keep flooded, says Bruce Linquist, a rice specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension. The Sacramento Valley’s clay-rich soils don’t drain well, so the water savings where Rystrom farms are minimal; he doesn’t use the method.

Building embankments, canal systems and reservoirs can also help farmers dampen the volatility of the water cycle. But for some, the solution to rice’s climate-related problems lies in enhancing the plant itself.

Fourth-generation rice farmer Peter Rystrom (left) stands with his grandfather Don Rystrom (middle) and his father Steve Rystrom (right).

CALIFORNIA RICE COMMISSION, BRIAN BAER

Better breeds

The world’s largest collection of rice is stored near the southern rim of Laguna de Bay in the Philippines, in the city of Los Baños. There, the International Rice Genebank, managed by IRRI, holds over 132,000 varieties of rice seeds from farms around the globe.

Upon arrival in Los Baños, those seeds are dried and processed, placed in paper bags and moved into two storage facilities — one cooled to 2˚ to 4˚ C from which seeds can be readily withdrawn, and another chilled to –20˚ C for long-term storage. To be extra safe, backup seeds are kept at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colo., and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault tucked inside a mountain in Norway.

All this is done to protect the biodiversity of rice and amass a trove of genetic material that can be used to breed future generations of rice. Farmers no longer use many of the stored varieties, instead opting for new higher-yield or sturdier breeds. Nevertheless, solutions to climate-related problems may be hidden in the DNA of those older strains. “Scientists are always looking through that collection to see if genes can be discovered that aren’t being used right now,” says Ronald, of UC Davis. “That’s how Sub1 was discovered.”

Over 132,000 varieties of rice seeds fill the shelves of the climate-controlled International Rice Genebank. Breeders from around the world can use the seeds to develop new climate-resilient rice strains.IRRI/FLICKR (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Sub1 gene enables rice plants to endure prolonged periods completely submerged underwater. It was discovered in 1996 in a traditional variety of rice grown in the Indian state of Orissa, and through breeding has been incorporated into varieties cultivated in flood-prone regions of South and Southeast Asia. Sub1-wielding varieties, called “scuba rice,” can survive for over two weeks entirely submerged, a boon for farmers whose fields are vulnerable to flash floods.

Some researchers are looking beyond the genetic variability preserved in rice gene banks, searching instead for useful genes from other species, including plants and bacteria. But inserting genes from one species into another, or genetic modification, remains controversial. The most famous example of genetically modified rice is Golden Rice, which was intended as a partial solution to childhood malnutrition. Golden Rice grains are enriched in beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. To create the rice, researchers spliced a gene from a daffodil and another from a bacterium into an Asian variety of rice.

Three decades have passed since its initial development, and only a handful of countries have deemed Golden Rice safe for consumption. On July 23, the Philippines became the first country to approve the commercial production of Golden Rice. Abdelbagi Ismail, principal scientist at IRRI, blames the slow acceptance on public perception and commercial interests opposed to genetically modified organisms, or GMOs 

(SN: 2/6/16, p. 22).

Looking ahead, it will be crucial for countries to embrace GM rice, Ismail says. Developing nations, particularly those in Africa that are becoming more dependent on the crop, would benefit greatly from the technology, which could produce new varieties faster than breeding and may allow researchers to incorporate traits into rice plants that conventional breeding cannot. If Golden Rice were to gain worldwide acceptance, it could open the door for new genetically modified climate- and disease-resilient varieties, Ismail says. “It will take time,” he says. “But it will happen.”

Climate change is a many-headed beast, and each rice-growing region will face its own particular set of problems. Solving those problems will require collaboration between local farmers, government officials and the international community of researchers.

“I want my kids to be able to have a shot at this,” Rystrom says. “You have to do a lot more than just farm rice. You have to think generations ahead.”

Climate-resilient rice

To keep rice bowls around the world full, researchers breed new varieties of rice that can endure stresses like drought, floods and salt.

Sahbhagi Dhan: Traditional rice varieties take 120 to 150 days to harvest and require four irrigations. Sahbhagi Dhan is a drought-tolerant variety harvested after 105 days and just two irrigations. In normal conditions, it produces about twice as much rice (four to five metric tons per hectare) as other local varieties in India. Under drought conditions, it produces one to two metric tons per hectare; local varieties produce none.

Scuba rice contains a gene that enables the plant to survive several days underwater, important for areas that experience flooding.

IRRI/FLICKR (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Scuba rice: Sub1, a submergence-tolerance gene, has been bred into scuba rice varieties. Rice normally dies after three to four days of total submergence — many varieties will exhaust themselves to death trying to quickly grow to the water’s surface. Sub1 varieties (shown), however, refrain from this frenzied growth spurt, and can withstand over two weeks underwater, able to survive the sudden floods of the summer monsoon.

Salt-tolerant rice: Made by inserting an area of the genome called Saltol, salt-tolerant rice varieties are better able to regulate the amount of sodium ions, toxic in high amounts, in their tissues. Saltol has been incorporated into high-yield varieties throughout the world.

Astronomers Get Ready to Probe Europa’s Hidden Ocean for Life

Jupiter’s most enigmatic moon, one of a few ocean worlds in the solar system, will be the target of upcoming missions by NASA and the European Space Agency.

PHOTOGRAPH: NASA

BEYOND MARS AND the asteroid belt, half a billion miles from the sun, the solar system might seem frigid, bleak, and lifeless. But scientists believe there’s a chance tiny alien creatures could reside on a distant moon, and you might find them if you look in the right place. For many researchers, that place is Europa, below its thick, icy crust.

Planetary scientists are discovering more about Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, one of Earth’s nearest ocean worlds—places like Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus that have bodies of salty water and other liquids that could be amenable to the emergence of life. They’re presenting new findings this week about Europa’s cracked surface, hidden ocean, and geological activity at the biggest annual planetary conference in the United States, organized by the American Astronomical Society, held virtually for the second year in a row. The research serves as a prelude to tantalizing opportunities for new observations by upcoming NASA and European Space Agency missions.

“Europa is fantastic. Of anywhere in the solar system, outside the Earth, it has the greatest potential, I think, for maintaining a habitable environment that could support microbial life,” says Michael Bland, a US Geological Survey space scientist in Flagstaff, Arizona. After modeling the moon’s dynamic, rocky interior, Bland believes the conditions on its deep seafloor could be amenable to life, according to new work that he and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Catherine Elder presented at the conference on Monday.

Europa’s ocean is buried under about 10 miles of ice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s too cold for life. As the moon orbits Jupiter, tidal forces generate heat that melts around 5 percent of the moon’s mantle, far below ground. Some of that magma could migrate up 100 miles through small cracks in the cold, rocky material above it, erupting onto the seafloor, Bland argues. If this process indeed happens, and frequently enough, it would function like hydrothermal vents do on Earth: These volcanic seafloor fissures provide the energy and chemical ingredients for life, far below the reach of sunlight and photosynthesis. Hardy organisms thrive in such dark, high-pressure environments on our world, and perhaps they do on others as well.

But for the process to work, the magma has to reach the underground sea quickly, before it freezes and hardens. Its upward velocity might be just barely fast enough for it to work out that way, Bland’s models show, meaning there’s a chance for life on Europa’s seafloor. “It’s plausible, but specific conditions have to be met, and it’s not guaranteed,” he says.

Europa is considered one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, first spotted by Galileo Galilei with his pre-NASA telescope four centuries ago. Its compatriots include Io, a volcanic, sulfuric, radiation-bombarded wasteland close to Jupiter, and, orbiting further out beyond Europa, massive Ganymede and cratered Callisto. The latter two may harbor underground oceans, as well, but if so, the water would lie much deeper beneath even thicker crusts.

But Europa is unique. Not only is its crust relatively thin, but its surface is covered with thousands of narrow, criss-crossing ridges and crevices, some extending for hundreds of miles. By mapping currently available images, Michelle Babcock, a planetary scientist at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, identified around 70 “tortuous ridges” among them: wiggly, irregular structures unlike the straight and arced ridges scientists can already explain.

While they're not yet sure what causes the ridges’ convoluted paths, all the laceration marks on the moon’s exterior could originate in some way from its slightly elliptical orbit, which repeatedly carries it closer to—and then farther from—Jupiter. “As it’s orbiting Jupiter, the shell is being stretched and pulled, and that tidal stress is causing fractures and cracks, contributing to a lot of surface features,” Babcock says. They presented their findings with colleagues Britney Schmidt and Chase Chivers on Monday.

Such geological activity might play a role in explaining another mystery: Europa’s seemingly young surface. Unlike its neighbors, which have pockmarked appearances thanks to being pummeled by comets and asteroids for eons, Europa has few craters to show for its age. Somehow the moon is continually giving itself a facelift, and its many ridges could be involved in covering or erasing such craters over time, Babcock and their colleagues argue.

Other Europa-focused researchers at the conference are exploring which telltale signs of alien bacteria might be there, how such pivotal evidence could bubble up onto the surface or be spewed into space in plumes, as well as the effects of Jupiter’s radiation zapping the surface, which could destroy these signs of life before they’re found.

To definitively answer any of these questions, however, requires new space missions. Europa was last visited by a dedicated spacecraft—named in honor of its discoverer, Galileo—two decades ago. It made close passes by the moon and its neighbors and took images with its cameras in the process. Before that, Voyager 2 snapped photos as it flew by in 1979. NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since its arrival in 2016, will make some observations during flybys over the next couple of years. The European Space Agency’s JUICE probe, scheduled to launch next year, will do so as well, though it will be spending more time around Ganymede.

After that, Bland, Babcock, and their colleagues look forward to NASA’s Europa Clipper, a mission years in the making that’s planned for launch in 2024. “The Europa Clipper will assess Europa’s habitability and how we might be able to use these investigations for other ocean worlds, thinking about the potential for life there as well,” says Kathleen Craft, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, who will be presenting at the conference on Thursday.

The car-sized orbiter, with 100-foot solar panels unfurled on each side, will use radar, radio signals, and gravity science to study the structure of the moon, including measuring the thickness of the ice shell and the depth of the underground ocean. It will also try to snag samples from its plumes, which could include droplets from the ocean itself that might reveal information about how conducive to life it really is, Craft says. A baguette-sized instrument will ingest gas and vapor, analyze and classify the contents, and then beam the crucial data back to scientists at home.

Its mission also includes conducting aerial surveillance for a potential lander mission to Europa, which could scoop up material on the surface, or drill down for it, looking for that coveted evidence of extraterrestrial lifeforms.

To prepare for a future lander, researchers are scoping out somewhat similar places on Earth, such as in Greenland. Satellite imagery of proxy places like these will give them a realistic idea of what Europa’s terrain will be like, and that’s crucial, because right now their photos don’t have high enough resolution. And that could be dangerous: An icy region that might suggest a smooth landing place could hide a more complexly structured glacier, with smaller, unseen hazards. “But it’s a completely alien environment,” says Curt Niebur, NASA’s lead scientist for Planetary Science Flight Programs and Europa Clipper program scientist.

They will have to weigh the scientific value of a landing site—one with good odds of showcasing signs of life—versus the risk involved in touching down there. “Invariably, scientists say, ‘The most interesting spot to land is over there,’ and the engineers say, ‘We will blow up if we try to land there,’” he says.

Before Niebur and his colleagues can nail down the details of where the lander will go and how it will touch down, they need high-resolution images, better than anyone has yet, because landing in the wrong spot could scuttle the long-term investment in research and development leading up to such a flagship mission. Imagine, he says, if aliens sent a poorly placed probe to Earth, which sampled the wrong part of the ocean and only got a teaspoon’s worth of lifeless water. That’s why, he says, “everything hinges on Europa Clipper.”