Climate change disrupting 'language of life' across all ecosystems
Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Mon, May 16, 2022,
Chemical signals - the language of life - are being disrupted by climate change.
Living beings don’t just communicate through sound – we also communicate through chemicals using smell to find mates, food and stay away from predators.
But climate change is disrupting these processes, which Hull University researchers describe as ‘the language of life’.
Most worryingly, the change, driven by warming temperatures, is affecting organisms not just in one place, but across land, rivers and oceans – in the same patterns.
It is the first time that researchers have demonstrated that climate change affects interactions between organisms in different realms in a similar way.
Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space
Chemical communication plays an essential role in ecosystems, enabling organisms to mate and interact with each other; locate predators, food and habitats; and sense their environment.
The opinion paper demonstrates the extent to which alterations in temperature, carbon dioxide and pH levels – that are created as a result of climate change – can affect every single step of this fundamental way that organisms communicate with each other.
Dr Christina C. Roggatz, research fellow in Marine Chemical Ecology at the University of Hull and lead author of the paper, said: “This is a wake-up call. We are heavily reliant on the Earth’s ecosystems and the chemical communications that regulate them.
“The predominantly negative effects that climate change has upon the language of life within terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could have a range of far-reaching implications for the future of our planet and human wellbeing, for example by impacting food security and fundamental ecosystem services that make our planet habitable.
“Although a growing number of studies suggest that climate change-associated stressors cause adverse effects on the communication between organisms, knowledge of the underlying mechanisms remains scarce.
“We urgently need a systematic approach to be able to compare results and fully understand the potentially disruptive impact that climate change is having upon each step of this fundamental communication process. Understanding this means we are better equipped to predict and protect the future of our planet.”
Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly right
The paper reveals universal patterns of impacts from climate change across different realms.
It identifies key aspects that urgently need to be understood in order to improve our ability to predict and mitigate the effects of climate change.
The authors have also called for a systematic, universal framework approach to address highlighted knowledge gaps.
Dr. Patrick Fink, co-author and research group leader at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, said: “Chemical communication is the ubiquitous language of life on earth – but this is being jeopardised by global change.
“There's no talking with words for life under water, so aquatic organisms 'talk' in chemical signals. But this fine-tuned 'language' is in peril.
"Globally changing climate and water chemistry are causing acidification threats that may disturb chemical information exchange among freshwater and marine organisms.”
Climate change is heating up Florida. That could bring more wildfires, new report warns
Alex HarrisMIAMI HERALD
Mon, May 16, 2022
When Hurricane Michael tore through North Florida in 2018 as a Category 5 storm, it left more than 3 million acres of felled trees in its wake.
Those largely untouched trees were the perfect fuel for three simultaneous wildfires that raged through the region in March. The Chipola Complex fires turned the skies smoky and blood red, destroyed two homes, prompted the evacuation of a thousand more and consumed more than 30,000 acres of forest before firefighters got it under control.
Research from First Street Foundation released Monday suggests that as climate change warms the planet, the risk of wildfires like those in Florida could double by mid-century. Matthew Eby, executive director of the nonprofit climate research group, said its modeling shows Florida’s current 6% of properties at risk from wildfires could jump to 12% by 2052.
“Florida is already a hot place, and it’s seeing an increase,” he said. “What you end up with is a pronounced effect of the changes of wildfire risk.”
On the national map First Street created, most of the increased risk is — unsurprisingly — in the West. But Florida is a lone dark red spot on the East Coast. That’s partially because the state is expected to stay hotter for more days of the year with climate change, and also because Florida is so developed that it physically has more pieces of property at risk than in other states, where thousands of acres may count as one property.
These maps show the average risk of wildfire damage per property in 2022 and in 2052 with climate change turning up the temperature.
While Florida is better known for its floods from rainstorms, hurricanes and high tides, the state has a long history of wildfires. The report suggests that as the state gets hotter, it could make it more likely for more wildfires to form.
“The fires aren’t bigger, they just take off more often because it is drier and it is hotter,” Eby said.
In South Florida, researchers found the biggest risk is for homes near the eastern border of the Everglades. Earlier this month, ash and smoke from three separate Everglades fires were visible in Weston.
Florida’s Polk County was No. 5 on a national ranking of counties with the highest number of properties at risk of wildfire. By First Street’s math, 88% of the county’s 380,000 properties had a 1% chance of experiencing a wildfire in the next 30 years. Osceola and Pasco, although smaller counties, have similar percentages of properties at risk.
This map shows historic wildfires across Florida from roughly 1994-2020 using data from the monitoring trends in burn severity program (MTBS). New research from First Street Foundation suggests wildfire risk could double in Florida due to climate change.
Bryan Williams, a meteorologist with the Florida Forest Service, said First Street’s findings make sense to him. He sees an opportunity for more fires in Florida as the state gets hotter with climate change.
“Look at the past five years. Florida has basically been on the very warm side of things,” he said. “You’re seeing more drought, you’re seeing higher temps, and in April and May you’re seeing relative humidity getting pretty low. It’s kinda one of those trends that you look at and it’s concerning.”
Williams says fire season, like hurricane season, has a peak. And in Florida, that’s April and May. As of Monday, most of the state was ranked at “moderate” fire risk, the second-lowest level.
Florida fires are most commonly started by lightning, he said, and unlike in the West, where fire easily races uphill, in Florida, fires mainly spread by wind.
“We’ve had issues where a whole neighborhood gets smoked in by a fire if the wind is right that day,” Williams said. The next day, with a wind shift, they can be clear.
Three simultaneous wildfires in North Florida burned more than 34,000 acres, destroyed two homes and forced evacuations from more than a thousand homes in March. New research suggests climate change could double Florida’s fire risk in the next 30 years.
What’s your fire risk?
Unlike with flooding, there’s no nationally accepted standard for what counts as a property at risk from fire. So First Street made its own standard — about a 1 percent chance that a property could experience a wildfire within the next 30 years.
That means a home with fire risk has a far lower chance of experiencing a fire than a house that the federal government deems at flood risk, which is when a property has a 26% chance of flooding over a 30-year period.
Eby said that’s because the consequences of a fire are much more intense than a flood.
“When you think of fire, there’s no such thing as a little bit of wildfire in your home,” he said. “When you have a wildfire in your home, the structure is usually destroyed.”
This map shows the change in burn probability in all Florida counties over the next 30 years due to climate change. The percent increase indicates a range, so the darkest counties (like Collier) could see an increase of 133 to 170% in burn probability.
Along with the national report, First Street also launched a tool that lets users check the fire risk — now and in the future — for individual properties. It’s available on any real estate listing on Realtor.com, part of a collaboration that informs property buyers of the chance of climate change-driven floods and fires affecting their homes in the future.
Eby said the new fire section will go above the listing for nearby schools on the site, along with previous First Street data about flood risk.
“I think that speaks volumes to what they’re hearing from consumers and users as to the request and need for this,” he said.
Three simultaneous wildfires in North Florida burned more than 34,000 acres, destroyed two homes and forced evacuations from more than a thousand homes in March. New research suggests climate change could double Florida’s fire risk in the next 30 years.
Canada opens public consultations on national climate adaptation strategy
A male elk crosses the Yellowhead Highway in Jasper National Park, Alberta
Mon, May 16, 2022
By Nia Williams
(Reuters) - Canada launched the public consultation phase of a national climate adaptation strategy on Monday, aimed at developing its first-ever framework to help cope with increasing natural disasters and other severe impacts from global warming.
During the three-month consultation period Canadians are being asked for input on how communities and businesses should prepare for climate-related disasters like wildfires, rising sea levels and melting permafrost.
The climate in Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and the consultation comes as recent flooding displaces communities in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
"No corner of Canada is untouched, the costs of climate change are mounting in all parts of the country," Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told a news conference, adding that in the last few years the impacts of climate change had cost the country C$30 billion ($23.28 billion).
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," he said.
Canada is aiming to cut climate-warming carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. Guilbeault said the country needs to work simultaneously on reducing carbon pollution and preparing for the impacts of climate change as temperatures rise.
Recent extreme weather events include a series of atmospheric rivers that flooded British Columbia in November and a record-breaking "heat dome" in western Canada last summer that was followed by destructive wildfires.
Ottawa plans to release the final adaptation strategy by fall 2022. It will focus on long-term and short-term goals for Canada's economy, infrastructure, disaster resilience, natural environment and the health and well-being of Canadians.
Short-term priorities include enhancing food security, updating building codes and expanding Canada's network of trained responders for when natural disasters strike.
Analysts at the Canadian Climate Institute think tank said Canada is lagging other countries in preparing for the impacts of climate change, and the new strategy would help address the underinvestment to date.
($1 = 1.2884 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Nia Williams; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Citizen science shows that climate change is rapidly reshaping Long Island Sound
Hannes Baumann, Assistant Professor of Marine Sciences, University of ConnecticutTHE CONVERSATION
Sun, May 15, 2022,
Project Oceanology class retrieves a bottom trawl at the mouth of the Thames River.
Anna Sawin, CC BY-SA
In the summer of 1973, Joe Hage was in the seventh grade. Together with his peers, he boarded the old Boston Whaler from Project Oceanology just as dawn began to shimmer from behind the trees of Bluff Point. He remembers how instructors led the crowd into knee-deep waters, the velvety green marsh, eel grass tickling their mud-stuck legs, the crabs and snails and fish that flailed around in a beach seine.
To Joe, this was heaven. He was hooked for life.
More than 45 years later, the nonprofit Project Oceanology continues its mission to teach schoolchildren about the ocean. The organization shows students how to measure temperature, pH and oxygen, and lets them sift through trawl catches of fish and crabs. Next year, Project Oceanology will welcome the millionth student on board its bright blue boats.
The project did more than teach students about the ocean: It routinely collected data for more than four decades. On every boat trip, on every excursion, students scribbled their measurements onto protocol sheets. These records went into steel cabinets, which obliviously guarded a growing treasure, waiting to be lifted.
My master’s student Jacob Snyder and I decided to do just that. We painstakingly entered every recording from every data sheet we found in those cabinets. To us, it felt a bit like historians piecing together an ancient manuscript, anxious for the time when the data would finally speak. And then they did.
Our study, published on March 21, shows how rapidly temperatures in eastern Long Island Sound have increased over the past four decades. At 0.45 degrees Celsius per decade, the sound is warming four times faster than the global ocean.
This warming trend is true for the larger Northwest Atlantic shelf, of which Long Island Sound is a part, where some areas have warmed faster than 99 percent of all ocean waters on Earth. The reasons for the extraordinary warming of the Northwest Atlantic shelf are not fully understood. Scientists believe that the warm Gulf Stream is pushing farther north and onto the shelf. Polar regions are warming more than low latitudes.
Another symptom of marine climate change is ocean acidification, measured as a slow pH decline in the ocean as the water swallows the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from human emissions. In coastal waters, pollution with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphate can come from sewers, wastewater treatment plants and fertilizer runoff, making acidification even worse.
The Project Oceanology data revealed that pH declined much more rapidly in Long Island Sound than globally, which could imply worsening conditions for shellfish farmers.
But there also seemed to be some good news. Around the year 2000, pH levels began to stabilize and even slightly rise again. This fits the timing of efforts by New York and Connecticut to curb nutrient pollution in Long Island Sound. However, rapid warming and acidification in Long Island Sound have had serious consequences for this ecosystem.
Here, our trawl data were particularly telling, showing that coldwater species such as American lobster, rock crab and winter flounder became less frequent over time. This is exactly what long-time instructors at Project Oceanology said they had noticed, too. Lobsters once supported a proud fishery in Long Island Sound, but warmer, more acidic waters, shell disease and overfishing have now decimated them to nearly complete absence.
However, a winner of dubious qualities emerged, too. Over the past decades, spider crabs have moved into Long Island Sound from the south and are now the dominant crab species in the trawls. But spider crabs are no equivalent to lobsters, neither for humans who do not like to eat them nor for the ecosystem, as spider crabs eat much more plant-based food than lobsters.
Long Island Sound has been rapidly changing, and the data collected by generations of middle and high school students just confirmed this again. Other data from Norwalk Harbor and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection have shown similar trends.
These changes are likely to continue. Lobsters are not likely to come back, because the waters are too warm now. Other species from the south, like black sea bass, will likely continue to establish populations in Long Island Sound.
Collectively, the data clearly show that marine climate change is happening right now in Long Island Sound. To better understand and anticipate the future of Long Island Sound, I feel that it is important that Project Oceanology and other groups continue their measurements.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Hannes Baumann, University of Connecticut.
Read more:
Restoring tropical forests isn’t meaningful if those forests only stand for 10 or 20 years
A cooler ocean predator than sharks? Consider the mantis shrimps
Climate change could alter ocean food chains, leading to far fewer fish in the sea
Hannes Baumann receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF-OCE 1536165) and Connecticut Sea Grant (PD-15-14).
Independent probe points to Israeli fire in journalist death
A mural of slain of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is on display, in Gaza City, Sunday, May 15, 2022. Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin on May 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
JOSEF FEDERMAN
Sun, May 15, 2022
JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israel and the Palestinians wrangle over the investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, several independent groups have launched their own probes. One open-source research team said its initial findings lent support to Palestinian witnesses who said she was killed by Israeli fire.
The outcome of these investigations could help shape international opinion over who is responsible for Abu Akleh's death, particularly if an official Israeli military probe drags on. Israel and the Palestinians are locked in a war of narratives that already has put Israel on the defensive.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American and a 25-year veteran of the satellite channel, was killed last Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was a household name across the Arab world, known for documenting the hardship of Palestinian life under Israeli rule, now in its sixth decade.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said he had spoken to Abu Akleh's family to express condolences and respect for her work “as well as the need to have an immediate and credible investigation” into her death.
Palestinian officials and witnesses, including journalists who were with her, say she was killed by army fire. The military, after initially saying Palestinian gunmen might have been responsible, later backtracked and now says she may also have been hit by errant Israeli fire.
Israel has called for a joint investigation with the Palestinians, saying the bullet must be analyzed by ballistics experts to reach firm conclusions. Palestinian officials have refused, saying they don't trust Israel. Human rights groups says Israel has a poor record of investigating wrongdoing by its security forces.
After earlier saying they would accept an outside partner, the Palestinians said late Sunday that they would handle the investigation alone and deliver results very soon.
“We also refused to have an international investigation because we trust our capabilities as a security institution,” Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced. “We will not hand over any of the evidence to anyone because we know that these people are able to fasify the facts.” He stood with Abu Akleh's brother, Anton, and Al Jazeera's local bureau chief, Walid Al-Omari.
With the two sides at loggerheads over the Abu Akleh probe, several research and human rights groups have launched their own investigations.
Over the weekend, Bellingcat, a Dutch-based international consortium of researchers, published an analysis of video and audio evidence gathered on social media. The material came from both Palestinian and Israeli military sources, and the analysis looked at such factors as time stamps, the locations of the videos, shadows and a forensic audio analysis of gunshots.
The group found that while gunmen and Israeli soldiers were both in the area, the evidence supported witness accounts that Israeli fire killed Abu Akleh.
“Based on what we were able to review, the IDF (Israeli soldiers) were in the closest position and had the clearest line of sight to Abu Akleh,” said Giancarlo Fiorella, the lead researcher of the analysis.
Bellingcat is among a growing number of firms that use “open source” information, such as social media videos, security camera recordings and satellite imagery, to reconstruct events.
Fiorella acknowledged that the analysis cannot be 100% certain without such evidence as the bullet, weapons used by the army and GPS locations of Israeli forces. But he said the emergence of additional evidence typically bolsters preliminary conclusions and almost never overturns them.
“This is what we do when we don’t have access to those things,” he said.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said it too is conducting its own analysis. The group last week played a key role in the military’s backtracking from its initial claims that Palestinian gunmen appeared to be responsible for her death.
The Israeli claim was based on a social media video in which a Palestinian gunman fires into a Jenin alleyway, and then other militants come running to claim they have shot a soldier. The army said that because no soldiers were hurt that day, the gunmen might have been referring to Abu Akleh, who was wearing a protective helmet and flak jacket.
A B’Tselem researcher went to the area and took a video showing that the Palestinian gunmen were some 300 meters (yards) away from where Abu Akleh was shot, separated by a series of walls and alleyways.
Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the group, said B’Tselem has begun gathering testimonies from witnesses and may attempt to reconstruct the shooting with videos from the scene. But she said at this point, it has not been able to come to a conclusion about who was behind the shooting.
Sadot said any bullet would need to be matched to the barrel of the gun. The Palestinians have refused to release the bullet, and it is unclear whether the military has confiscated the weapons used that day.
“The bullet on its own can’t say a lot” because it could have been fired by either side, she said. “What can be done is to match a bullet to the barrel,” she said.
The Israeli military did not respond to interview requests to discuss the status of its probe.
Jonathan Conricus, a former Israeli military spokesman and expert on military affairs, said reconstructing a gunfight in densely populated urban terrain is “very complex” and said forensic evidence, such as the bullet, is crucial to reach firm conclusions. He accused the Palestinian Authority of refusing to cooperate for propaganda purposes.
“Without the bullet, any investigation will only be able to reach partial and questionable conclusions,” Conricus said. “One might assume that the strategy of the Palestinian Authority is exactly that: to deny Israel the ability to clear its name, while leveraging global sympathy for the Palestinian cause.”
Meanwhile, Israeli police over the weekend launched an investigation into the conduct of the officers who attacked the mourners at Abu Akleh's funeral, causing the pallbearers to nearly drop her coffin.
Newspapers on Sunday were filled with criticism of the police and what was portrayed as a public relations debacle.
“The footage from Friday is the very opposite of good judgment and patience,” commentator Oded Shalom wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. “It documented a shocking display of unbridled brutality and violence.”
Nir Hasson, who covers Jerusalem affairs for the Haaretz daily, said the problems run much deeper than Israel's image.
“This was one of the most extreme visual expressions of the occupation and the humiliation the Palestinian people experience,” he wrote.
___
Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Matthew Lee in Berlin contributed to this report.
Hundreds gather in Dearborn to mark Palestinian expulsion, protest killing of journalist
Miriam Marini, Detroit Free Press
Mon, May 16, 2022,
Hundreds gathered in Dearborn for a demonstration May 15, 2022 to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the homes by Israeli forces. The anniversary of the expulsion of Palestinians came days after famed Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while covering an Israeli raid.
Hundreds gathered at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the expulsion of thousands from their homes in Palestine.
The Nakba, which translates to "catastrophe" in Arabic, refers to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948. This year's anniversary came days after well-known Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh with Al Jazeera was killed while covering an Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp.
In Dearborn, political and religious leaders took to the microphone before hundreds of attendees, including generations of displaced Palestinians impacted by the displacement.
"Unfortunately, it feels like we convene more often than ever now, condemning killing or assassination or murder, because what happened in Palestine was certainly an assassination," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, referring to the killing of Abu Akleh, who was 51 at the time of her death. "I am proud to be standing with all of you, whether we have a stage or whether we don't, we will always continue to stand strong with Palestine until we have a free Palestine with the right to self-determination."
Hundreds gathered in Dearborn for a demonstration on Sunday, May 15, 2022, to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by Israeli forces. The anniversary of the expulsion of Palestinians came days after famed Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while covering an Israeli raid..More
In a statement Wednesday, Qatar-based news organization Al Jazeera said Israeli occupation forces assassinated Abu Akleh. An initial investigation into the shooting by the Israeli army found that it was unclear whether Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli fire, but multiple eyewitness accounts from other journalists at the scene said the shooting didn't come from the Palestinian side.
Abu Akleh was one of the most prominent and recognizable names in Arab journalism. She is the 55th Palestinian member of the press to be killed by the Israeli army while performing their job since 2000, according to Al Jazeera.
Calls for an independent investigation into the shooting have echoed nationally and globally, including from journalism protection groups and the White House. Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the United States, according to The New York Times.
A thorough and cooperative investigation into the shooting is the only feasible pathway forward, said Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council/American Jewish Committee, in metro Detroit.
"The truth is, the only way we're going to get to a better place and to peace is by working together by shared society," Lopatin told the Free Press Sunday evening. "Through the process of Israel and Palestinians working together, I think we'll come to a better place and hopefully really learn how to do these kinds of things. Whoever killed her, whichever side killed her, by accident or whatever it was, won't happen again. I really believe from tragedy can come something better, some light if we work together."
Among those calling for an objective investigation is U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents Michigan's 13th Congressional District and is of Palestinian descent.
"It doesn't matter, until the end of the day, even if I'm the only one that votes against the $3.8 billion of unconditional aid," Tlaib said. "This is our money, our money that is putting tethers on children in Jerusalem, that is caging children and detaining them, that is killing, not only (Abu Akleh), but people before her.
"The fact of the matter is, we cannot be silent because we have the facts on our hands...I'm not afraid, I'd rather lose an election than turn my back to this kind of violence and oppression."
Sunday's demonstration was one of many taking place nationwide in remembrance of the Nakba and Abu Akleh. A scholarship fund dedicated to Abu Akleh's legacy and to inspire young aspiring journalism students, particularly Palestinian women, has been established.
Contact Miriam Marini: mmarini@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hundreds commemorate Palestinian expulsion amid grief for journalist
How media reports of 'clashes' mislead Americans about Israeli-Palestinian violence
Maha Nassar, Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, University of ArizonaTHE CONVERSATION
Mon, May 16, 2022,
When does a 'clash' become an 'assault'? AP Photo/Maya Levin
Israeli police attacked mourners carrying the coffin of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 13, 2022, beating pallbearers with batons and kicking them when they fell to the ground.
Yet those who skimmed the headlines of initial reports from several U.S. media outlets may have been left with a different impression of what happened.
“Israeli Police Clash with Mourners at Funeral Procession,” read the headline of MSNBC’s online report. The Wall Street Journal had a similar headline on its story: “Israeli Forces, Palestinians Clash in West Bank before Funeral of Journalist.”
Fox News began the text of its article with “Clashes erupted Friday in Jerusalem as mourners attended the burial of veteran American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot dead Friday when covering a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.”
There is no mention in the headlines of these articles about who instigated the violence, nor any hint of the power imbalance between a heavily armed Israeli police force and what appeared to be unarmed Palestinian civilians.
Such language and omissions are common in the reporting of violence conducted by Israel’s police or military. Similar headlines followed an incident in April in which Israeli police attacked worshippers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Then, too, police attacks on worshippers – in which as many as 152 Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets and batons – were widely described as “clashes.”
And headlines matter – many Americans do not read past them when consuming news or sharing articles online.
Neutral terms aren’t always neutral
The use of a word like “clashes” might seem to make sense in a topic as contentious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which violent acts are perpetrated by both sides.
But as a scholar of Palestinian history and an analyst of U.S. media coverage of this topic, I believe using neutral terms such as “clashes” to describe Israeli police and military attacks on Palestinian civilians is misleading. It overlooks instances in which Israeli forces instigate violence against Palestinians who pose no threat to them. It also often gives more weight to official Israeli narratives than to Palestinian ones.
U.S. media have long been accused of misleading their audience when it comes to violence committed against Palestinians. A 2021 study from MIT of 50 years of New York Times coverage of the conflict found “a disproportionate use of the passive voice to refer to negative or violent action perpetrated towards Palestinians.”
Using the passive voice – for example, reporting that “Palestinians were killed in clashes” rather than “Israeli forces killed Palestinians” – is language that helps shield Israel from scrutiny. It also obscures the reason so many Palestinians would be angry at Israel.
It’s not just The New York Times. A 2019 analysis by data researchers in Canada of more than 100,000 headlines from 50 years of U.S. coverage across five newspapers concluded that “the U.S. mainstream media’s coverage of the conflict favors Israel in terms of both the sheer quantity of stories covered, and by providing more opportunities to the Israelis to amplify their point of view.”
That 2019 study also found that words associated with violence, including “clash” and “clashes,” were more likely to be used in stories about Palestinians than Israelis.
Competing narratives
One problem with using “clash” is that it obscures incidents in which Israeli police and security forces attack Palestinians who pose no threat to them.
Amnesty International, a human rights advocacy group, described the recent incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as one in which Israeli police “brutally attacked worshippers in and around the mosque and used violence that amounts to torture and other ill-treatment to break up gatherings.”
The word “clashes” does not convey this reality.
Using “clashes” also gives more credibility to the Israeli government version of the story than the Palestinian one. Israeli officials often accuse Palestinians of instigating violence, claiming that soldiers and police had to use lethal force to stave off Palestinian attacks. And that’s how these events are usually reported.
But Israeli human rights group B'Tselem’s database on Israeli and Palestinian fatalities shows that most of the roughly 10,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since 2000 did not “participate in hostilities” at the time they were killed.
We saw this attempt to shift the blame to Palestinians for Israeli violence in the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. According to her colleagues at the scene of her death, an Israeli military sniper deliberately shot and killed the veteran journalist with a live bullet to her right temple, even though she was wearing a “PRESS” flak jacket and helmet. One or more snipers also shot at Abu Akleh’s colleagues as they tried to rescue her, according to eyewitness accounts.
At first, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that “armed Palestinians shot in an inaccurate, indiscriminate and uncontrolled manner” at the time of her killing – implying that Palestinians could have shot Abu Akleh. Then, as evidence mounted disproving this account, Israeli officials changed course, saying that the source of the gunfire “cannot yet be determined.”
A mural of slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. AP Photo/Adel Hana
The New York Times initially reported that Abu Akleh “was shot as clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinian gunmen took place in the city.” Further down in the same story, we read that Palestinian journalist Ali Samudi, who was wounded in the same attack, said, “There were no armed Palestinians or resistance or even civilians in the area.” Yet this perspective is missing from the headline and opening paragraphs of the story.
A few days later, an analysis of available video footage by investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat concluded that the evidence “appears to support” eyewitnesses who said no militant activity was taking place and that the gunfire came from Israeli military snipers.
The New York Times has not updated or corrected its original story to reflect this new evidence.
It provides an example of why the use of “clash” has been widely criticized by Palestinian and Arab journalists. Indeed, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association in 2021 issued guidance for journalists, urging that they “avoid the word ‘clashes’ in favor of a more precise description.”
An incomplete picture
There is another problem with “clashes.” Limiting media attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only when “clashes erupt” gives Western readers and viewers an incomplete picture. It ignores what B’Tselem describes as the “daily routine of overt or implicit state violence” that Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories face.
Without understanding the daily violence that Palestinians experience – as documented by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International – it is harder for news consumers to fully comprehend why “clashes” take place in the first place.
But the way people get their news is changing, and with it so are Americans’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is especially true among younger Americans, who are less likely to receive their news from mainstream outlets.
Recent polls show that younger Americans generally sympathize with Palestinians more than older Americans. That shift holds among younger Jewish Americans and younger evangelicals, two communities that have traditionally expressed strong pro-Israel sentiments.
U.S. journalists themselves are also working to change how outlets cover Israeli violence. Last year several of them – including reporters from The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and ABC News – issued an open letter calling on fellow journalists “to tell the full, contextualized truth without fear or favor, to recognize that obfuscating Israel’s oppression of Palestinians fails this industry’s own objectivity standards.” So far, over 500 journalists have signed on.
Accurate language in the reporting of Israeli-Palestinian violence is not only a concern for journalists’ credibility – it would also provide U.S. news consumers with a deeper understanding of the conditions on the ground and the deadly consequences.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Maha Nassar, University of Arizona.
Read more:
Protests by Palestinian citizens in Israel signal growing sense of a common struggle
As the Palestinian minority takes to the streets, Israel is having its own Black Lives Matter moment
Maha Nassar is a 2022 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
Bankers brush off concerns about Brazil's polarized election
Tue, May 17, 2022
By Tatiana Bautzer
NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) - On one side is a president questioning the integrity of the electoral system. On the other, a challenger warning he could roll back the country's biggest privatization in decades.
But investment bankers are sanguine about the impact of Brazil's presidential election this year on investor appetite for upcoming deals.
They say investor attention is focused on global risks such as higher U.S. interest rates and inflation or the war in Ukraine, executives say, making a presidential contest between two familiar faces seem like a manageable concern.
"Given the global outlook, Brazil represents an attractive opportunity for investors as a global commodity provider, likely overriding any potential short term political uncertainty," said Max Ritter, managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co responsible for Latin America.
Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has stuck to proven left-wing rhetoric while riding a healthy lead in the polls. However, bankers see his choice of centrist former Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin as a nod toward the market-friendly policies he adopted on taking office in 2003.
Ricardo Lacerda, founder and CEO of Brazilian investment bank BR Partners, acknowledged the risk that far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters could challenge the election result, after casting doubts on Brazil's electronic voting system.
But he said interest in mergers and acquisitions remains strong in Brazil, even as appetite for new share offerings has waned.
"Some investors are looking at Brazil again after the sharp interest rates hikes boosted the real," Lacerda said.
The head of Latin America at Citigroup, Eduardo Cruz, said there may be a window for renewed share issues by the end of the year, although he expects mostly listed companies selling new stock rather than a new wave of initial public offerings.
Even the bankers on a deal publicly criticized by Lula say there is little sign of cold feet.
Bolsonaro's government is racing to privatize state power company Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, or Eletrobras, with a share sale diluting the government's stake and raising more than $6 billion before the October election.
Lula has warned "serious business leaders" to steer clear of the deal, telling supporters at a rally that buyers taking part in privatizations under Bolsonaro "will have to talk to us."
Three bankers involved in the Eletrobras deal, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said they continue to see strong interest in Eletrobras among foreign investors. They called the comments from Lula overheated campaign rhetoric.
"There are not many assets available worldwide with a strong upside potential as Eletrobras after the privatization", one of them said. (Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Brad Haynes and Stephen Coates)
How the new Latin America left is seeking a greener future
Mon, May 16, 2022
By David Alire Garcia
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Colombia's presidential front-runner Gustavo Petro wants, if he wins later this month, to stop all new oil exploration and move his country to a greener future.
That lines him up with Chile's recently-elected President Gabriel Boric, a Millennial who has also pledged to take a firm stance on tackling climate change.
As Latin America sees a resurgent 'pink tide' - with most of the region set to be headed by leftists by the end of the year - the greener hue of these newer leaders contrasts with the old guard "resource nationalists," who have typically seen tight state control of energy and metals as the best path to economic progress and self-determination.
The wild card? Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The former president and front-runner in his country's October election has long been identified with support of oil development - but he is also eager to contrast himself with far-right incumbent and climate skeptic President Jair Bolsonaro.
Colombian voters will vote on May 29 in a first-round presidential election where Petro, 62, aims to catapult the left to its first victory in decades. The ex-guerrilla turned politician has tapped environmental activist and rising progressive star Francia Marquez to be his running mate.
Marquez, who would be Colombia's first Afro-Colombian vice president, stressed in an interview that she and Petro would break not only with the country's conservatives, who have long embraced oil and coal, but also with fellow regional leftists like Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an unapologetic backer of fossil fuels.
"The point is that both the left and the right are fomenting a policy of extractivism when humanity faces the challenge today of transitioning from this extractivist economy to a sustainable economy," Marquez, 40, told Reuters. "Life isn't possible without our planet."
Petro has vowed to freeze new oil and gas exploration, protect water resources, and provide more security for environmental defenders in Colombia, the world's most dangerous country for such activists.
In Chile, meanwhile, a new law is set to bind the country to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Companies will have to adapt to new "borders" put in place to limit emissions and pollution, Boric's environment minister told Reuters on Friday.
LULA 2.0
In Brazil, the region's largest economy, Lula often hearkens back to the prosperity that defined his previous 2003-2011 stint in power. Back then, a commodities super-cycle fueled by surging Chinese demand for steel, soybeans and other goods filled government coffers.
Lula also presided over state-run Petrobras' discovery of some 50 billion barrels of crude in offshore deposits, a tantalizing find that was seen as a potential gamechanger for alleviating poverty.
In recent interviews, the 76-year-old has brushed off suggestions he follow Petro's lead and shun potentially lucrative oil projects.
Even so, Senator Humberto Costa, a close Lula ally, sees a faster green energy transition in Brazil if the left regains power, including more solar, wind and biomass generation.
"I think the newest thing would be environmental and energy concerns," he told Reuters, dubbing them "more urgent" than during Lula's earlier government.
The lawmaker also said Lula would permit only "self-sustaining development" in the Amazon rainforest, unlike Bolsonaro.
For traditional Latin American leftist leaders, control and use of resources is bound up with a legacy of exploitation dating back to colonial times - and their policies center on keeping profit-maximizing foreign and private hands away from their natural riches.
Lopez Obrador last month won congressional support to nationalize the exploitation of lithium, a crucial battery metal that Mexico does not yet produce. The Mexican leader has since said he wants to join Chile, Argentina and Bolivia to advance likeminded development.
He has also sought to strengthen state oil firm Pemex and national electricity company CFE's dominance in their respective sectors, canceling competitive oil and renewable power auctions, and prioritizing the dispatch of power from CFE plants, even though they overwhelmingly burn fossil fuels.
In Bolivia, one of the region's poorest countries, the need to spur development by exploiting gas fields has long clashed with environmental concerns. Current socialist President Luis Arce is also keen to make the most of his country's natural resources - including gas and lithium - but in a break from the resource nationalists he has indicated he is open to bringing in outside help.
In the campaign homestretch in Colombia, Marquez is keen to avoid unrealistic expectations for Petro's green agenda.
"Will this change happen overnight? No, it won't happen in four years," she said. "But we need the political will to say, 'Yes, we must begin the transition."
(Reporting by David Alire Garcia in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo; Editing by Christian Plumb and Rosalba O'Brien)
Analysis-White House weighs inflation vs. farmers in new biofuel mandates
Mon, May 16, 2022
By Jarrett Renshaw and Stephanie Kelly
(Reuters) - The White House is expected to announce in coming weeks the amount of biofuels like corn-based ethanol that U.S. refiners must blend into their fuel this year, a decision that will force it to weigh taming consumer inflation against supporting the nation's farmers.
How the administration balances the competing priorities could play a role in November's midterm elections, as high consumer prices pose a political threat to President Joe Biden's Democratic party and Farm Belt voters remain a crucial constituency.
The White House National Economic Council, led by Brian Deese, is pouring over numbers to gauge whether lowering blending mandates for ethanol and renewable diesel will help blunt rising food and fuel prices, according to two sources familiar with the process.
Cutting mandates for ethanol and advanced biofuels like biodiesel could theoretically cut food costs by reducing demand for corn, soy and other staple crops that have become more scarce since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Trimming the mandates could also potentially take pressure off pump prices by reducing blending compliance costs for some oil refiners.
But doing so would anger farmers and the biofuels industry that insist the annual blending mandates are critical to supporting their livelihoods.
White House officials are meeting with lobbying groups representing oil and consumer goods giants, including the Food Manufacturing Coalition, American Bakers Association, American Petroleum Institute and Renewable Fuels Association, as they weigh the possible changes.
"I have never in the history of the program seen such a confluence of issues potentially impacting the outcome. If there was a perfect storm, this is it," said Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association.
The Environmental Protection Agency sent its proposal on biofuel volume mandates for the years 2020 through 2022 to the White House for final review in late April. The proposal would retroactively lower the mandate for 2020 and 2021 but to boost it back up again for 2022, three sources told Reuters. The EPA declined to comment.
ETHANOL AND HIGH GAS PRICES
The U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, enacted in 2005, requires refiners to blend biofuels like ethanol into the fuel pool or buy credits from refiners who do. The program has been an economic boon for states like Iowa and Nebraska, but smaller refiners who have not invested in blending facilities say the cost of buying credits threatens their plants.
U.S. credits tied to ethanol are trading at over $1.60 each, the highest since August, while biomass-based credits are over $1.80 each, near the highest since June. The ethanol credits, which traded as low as 8 cents apiece in early 2020, have remained at historically higher levels since last year.
Economists say some portion of the cost of the credits is passed on to consumers, resulting in higher pump prices. Some refiners and their union backers are encouraging the White House to lower the ethanol mandate below 15 billion gallons in 2022 to drive the credit costs down.
Without the cost of compliance credits, however, adding ethanol to the nation's fuel pool can actually reduce pump prices, by expanding the overall volume of available fuel using a substance cheaper than straight gasoline.
The White House earlier this year tapped into that dynamic by announcing it was lifting a ban on summer sales of higher ethanol blends of gasoline, called E15.
FOOD VS FUEL
Corn-based ethanol accounts for the overwhelming majority of blending under the RFS. In 2022, the EPA proposal would require refiners to blend 15 billion gallons of ethanol and 5.77 billion gallons of advanced biofuels.
In recent years, while ethanol demand has remained stagnant, demand for advanced biofuels like renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel has surged as states like California and Oregon adopt their own renewable fuel mandates. That has swollen demand for oilseeds like soybeans and canola that serve as biofuel feedstocks and compete with other food crops for finite planting area.
The edible oils are used in everything from cakes, chocolate and frying fats to cosmetics, soap and cleaning products.
Robb MacKie, president of the American Bakers Association, which includes companies like Kroger Co and Tasty Baking Company, first raised concerns about supply and prices for these products with the EPA last year, asking that blending levels be rolled back to 2020 levels.
Then Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February made the problem worse.
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley production, and two-thirds of the world's exports of sunflower oil used for cooking. Also, Indonesia recently banned exports of palm oil, cutting off more than half of the global supply.
Soybean futures have risen over 20% so far this year to more than $16 per bushel, while corn futures have gained about 30% to over $7.90 a bushel.
"In light of what we are experiencing, the alarm bells are ringing," MacKie said.
(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw and Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Heather Timmons, Richard Valdmanis and Marguerita Choy)
