Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere soars to levels not seen for millions of years, NOAA says

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Sat, June 4, 2022,

The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times – and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal government scientists announced Friday.

“Carbon dioxide is at levels our species has never experienced before,” said Pieter Tans, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Monitoring Laboratory.

The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The emissions have caused the planet's temperatures to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors, scientists say.

Just in the past 20 years, the world's temperature has risen about two-thirds of a degree Fahrenheit, NOAA said.

According to NOAA, these rising temperatures have unleashed a cascade of weather impacts, including episodes of extreme heat, drought and wildfire activity, as well as heavier precipitation, flooding and tropical storm activity.

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said that without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.”

A man wades into the ocean at sunset on June 22, 2021, in Newport Beach, Calif. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May averaged 421 parts per million, more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.

Levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise, when they need to be falling, scientists say. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 parts per million more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels were consistently around 280 ppm for almost 6,000 years of human civilization, NOAA said. Since then, humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide pollution, much of which will continue to warm the atmosphere for thousands of years.

NOAA said carbon dioxide levels in the air in May have reached a point last known when Earth was 7 degrees hotter, millions of years ago.

FACT CHECK: Climate change measured in decades, day to day temperature fluctuation common

The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year.

"It's depressing that we've lacked the collective willpower to slow the relentless rise in CO2,” said geochemist Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Fossil fuel use may no longer be accelerating, but we are still racing at top speed toward a global catastrophe.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Earth carbon dioxide at levels not seen for millions of years: NOAA

Sky high: Carbon dioxide levels in air spike past milestone


SETH BORENSTEIN
Fri, June 3, 2022

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shot past a key milestone -- more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times -- and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal scientists announced Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its long-time monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, averaged 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the month of May, which is when the crucial greenhouse gas hits its yearly high. Before the industrial revolution in the late 19th century carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million, scientists said, so humans have significantly changed the atmosphere. Some activists and scientists want a level of 350 parts per million. Industrial carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Levels of the gas continue to rise, when they need to be falling, scientists say. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 ppm more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.

“The world is trying to reduce emissions, and you just don’t see it. In other words, if you’re measuring the atmosphere, you’re not seeing anything happening right now in terms of change,” said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans, who tracks global greenhouse gas emissions for the agency.

Outside scientists said the numbers show a severe climate change problem.

“Watching these incremental but persistent increases in CO2 year-to-year is much like watching a train barrel down the track towards you in slow motion. It’s terrifying," said University of Wisconsin-Madison climate scientist Andrea Dutton. “If we stay on the track with a plan to jump out of the way at the last minute, we may die of heat stroke out on the tracks before it even gets to us.”

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.”

The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year. Both changes were small compared to how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere each year, especially considering that carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere hundreds to a thousand years, Tans said.

The world puts about 10 billion metric tons of carbon in the air each year, much of it gets drawn down by oceans and plants. That’s why May is the peak for global carbon dioxide emissions. Plants in the northern hemisphere start sucking up more carbon dioxide in the summer as they grow.

NOAA said carbon dioxide levels are now about the same as 4.1 to 4.5 million years ago in the Pliocene era, when temperatures were 7 degrees (3.9 degrees Celsius) hotter and sea levels were 16 to 82 feet (5 to 25 meters) higher than now. South Florida, for example, was completely under water. These are conditions that human civilization has never known.

The reason it was much warmer and seas were higher millions of years ago at the same carbon dioxide level as now is that in the past the natural increase in carbon dioxide levels was far more gradual. With carbon sticking in the air hundreds of years, temperatures heated up over longer periods of time and stayed there. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melted over time, raising sea levels tremendously and making Earth darker and reflecting less heat off the planet, Tans and other scientists said.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated levels a bit differently based on time and averaging, and put the May average at 420.8 ppm, slightly lower than NOAA’s figure.

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Bill Nye answers the most-Googled climate change questions: When did it start? How can we stop it?


Saleen Martin, USA TODAY
Sat, June 4, 2022, 

Bill Nye has been the go-to science guy for teachers and students for decades, most notably with his PBS show, "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

In recent years, he has been vocal advocate for battling climate change. That will be a featured topic in his new show, “The End is Nye,” which is scheduled to air later this year on Peacock.

Nye spoke to USA TODAY this week to answer some of the most commonly Googled questions about climate change and global warming.

What is global warming? When did it start? How does climate change affect humans, animals and the ocean?

The "science guy" himself has answers to those questions and more. Here's what he had to say.

Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

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What is climate change?

Nye: So global warming is causing climate change. By holding this extra heat in the atmosphere, we are changing the world's climate faster than ever in recorded history, but faster than ever in Earth's history with the exception of when asteroids hit the Earth.
What is global warming?

Nye: Humans are adding an extraordinary amount of extra greenhouse gases; the biggest one is carbon dioxide, and then methane. We're adding these gases to the atmosphere so fast that the world has never gotten this warm this fast.

Visible light comes through past these molecules, like carbon dioxide, hits the Earth's surface where it goes to a longer wavelength, to infrared. These gases hold in a lot of that infrared, that heat.

The world is getting warmer, and with a warmer world, we have more heat energy in the ocean and storms are bigger and stick around longer. We're changing global weather patterns where it's getting to be this huge drought out West and very rainy out East.

Downpour: People haven't just made the planet hotter. We've changed the way it rains.
Is global warming real? Do you have any response to people who say it's not real?

Nye: Well, to the people who say it's not real, you're wrong. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is overwhelming. People who are in denial have been influenced too strongly by the fossil fuel industry. (The fossil fuel industry) has been able to introduce the idea that plus or minus 2% is the same as plus or minus 100%.

For example, this ice sheet in Antarctica, this huge slab of ice is going to break off of Antarctica and fall into the sea. Antarctica is the only continent under water; it's under ice. When a big piece of this ice falls into the ocean, we're going to add a lot more freshwater to the ocean, and a lot more water to the ocean. Sea levels are going to rise and the salinity of the ocean, especially in the south, is going to change very fast.

People say, "Well, when is that going to be? Is it going to be tomorrow or 10 years from now?" When it comes to geological processes, plus or minus 10 years is extraordinarily accurate. Some people, they say "Well, then that's too much uncertainty. You don't know what you're talking about." That's wrong. The uncertainty of climate change is very small. Humans are causing it. It's global. It's changing climates around the world.

‘Death by 1,000 cuts’: How the US Forest Service is losing a war over water in the West
When did global warming start?

Nye: People like to say around the year 1750; this is when James Watt, who was a mechanical engineer, got a steam engine that worked very well. A lot of people had been messing around with making steam engines for decades. The middle of the 18th century is when steam engines really got to be practical and ended up everywhere. When that happened, people started burning coal and digging up ancient plants and ancient swamps which had turned to coal. (People were) burning the coal and ancient swamps, adding carbon dioxide, which had been buried when these plants were alive, and putting that carbon back in the atmosphere very, very fast. We're talking about the last 2½ centuries. Compare 250 years with 2½ million years and that's very fast. We're adding carbon dioxide faster and faster and faster, and it's warming the world faster.
How can we stop global warming?

Nye: You probably cannot stop global warming in anybody's lifetime that's alive now.

What we can do is address it and deal with it, get ready for it, and reduce the rate at which it's happening.

We can do that by stopping the addition of carbon monoxide, especially, and then methane into the atmosphere; stop that as soon as we can. The way to stop that is to stop burning fossil fuels. The way to stop that is to provide alternative sources of electricity. This is where we get into wind, solar, geothermal, and perhaps one day nuclear fusion, where we'd have virtually unlimited supplies of electricity distributed around the world. We can stop burning fossil fuels. We could then slowly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using the same unlimited amount of electricity.

To do all this, we've got to get started. Let's go. Let's get going!

How does climate change affect people?

Nye: If you live out West in California, there are water restrictions. I have a garden where I raise a lot of food; I can only water it on Thursdays and Sundays.

And there is not (the same amount of) snow in the mountains in California that would normally or used to be there. Because the world is getting warmer, the weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean are changing. It's not snowing as much as it used to, so we're not storing water as snow in the mountains the way we used to. The reason you and I are able to eat lunch and dinner today is because of food grown out West, food grown in Mexico. Those crops depend on rainfall and water stored as snow.

As we stop having water stored in reservoirs, we're not going to be able to grow as much food, and that will lead to trouble. People are going to go looking for food. They're going to move around. Food prices are going to go up, and this is one more thing that affects poor people more quickly than wealthy people. People who can't afford to get the scarcer food are going to be affected more strongly.
How does climate change affect animals?

Nye: Animals are changing where they live; they're moving.

Animals that are really moving are insects. There's this infamous beetle that attacks trees out West. As the world has gotten warmer and the winters are more mild, these beetles that have been able to attack more trees and kill them. When the occasional lightning storm does come through, it starts fires and we can't put the fires out because the trees are dead and the wind's blowing and the fires spread, which by the way, adds more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, destroys the ecosystem and chases all the wildlife away and kills everything.

It's bad, bad, bad.
You did talk about the ocean and salinity changing. How else does climate change affect the ocean?

Nye: Greenland is a very large island with a lot of ice on top of it; that ice is sloughing off into the sea, changing the ocean's saltiness. When you change that part of the ocean's saltiness, you change the way the currents flow.

You've probably heard of this famous current called the Gulf Stream. The reason we have ice-free harbors in Norway is because the Gulf Stream keeps it a little bit warm. The reason there's all this wonderful agriculture in Europe – French wines, Italian wines – is because the Gulf Stream keeps that part of Eurasia somewhat warmer than it would be otherwise. By making this central part of the Gulf Stream fresher, less salty, the saltwater doesn't sink as fast; this layer of freshwater stays on top, and this is slowing the clockwise circulation of the Gulf Stream. That will affect the climate in Europe, and that will affect the ability of people to raise food in Europe, and that will affect the economies of Europe, and that will affect everybody in the world.
How does climate change affect biodiversity?

Nye: In the case of the forest and the beetles, when you kill a bunch of trees, the ecosystem is damaged very fast; only certain species can hang in there. When you lose diversity in the ecosystem, the ecosystem becomes less resilient, less flexible, less able to tolerate changes.

This is very well-documented over the last 60 or 70 years; as you destroy diversity in ecosystems, things just get worse and worse in ecosystems. This is true in forests. It's true in the ocean. Carbon dioxide is in the air; it gets dissolved into seawater because the air is touching the ocean. The ocean becomes slightly more acidic. This slight, slight change in the free protons floating around in the ocean makes it impossible for (animals that make coral reefs) to live. When you lose the coral in the ocean, you lose the nooks and crannies for many, many, many other species and organisms to live. When you do that, you have less diversity in the ocean.
How does recycling help climate change?

Nye: Almost all the clothes almost all of us wear have some plastic in them. These materials are amazing, but they have an affect on the ecosystem. We don't want to throw this plastic away. We want to recover it and reuse it.

Especially in the case of aluminum. Aluminum takes so much energy to produce. It takes a lot of electricity to produce that from rocks. Recycling it is fantastic. We want to get everybody in the habit of not throwing this stuff away.

The other problems, with the example of plastic, we can address those problems in the coming years. But right now let's start with not throwing it away. The way we handle trash, a lot of the stuff ends up in the ocean. How does it get from the land to the ocean? We throw it away and it rolls downhill. So everybody, let's cut it out. There's all kinds of ways to incentivize to get people to do the right thing with materials. Let's start with recycling!

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia and loves all things horror, witches, Christmas and food.

Saleen Martin, sdmartin@usatoday.com, Twitter: @Saleen_Martin

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bill Nye answers climate change, global warming questions

US has eight years to cut its emissions by half. Scientists say there’s a way


Adam Barnes | June 3, 2022
Fri, June 3, 2022, 

Story at a glance

The U.S. can achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if it implements several strategies.

These include operating the electric grid with 80 percent clean energy and ensuring most cars sold by the end of the decade are electric.

The authors noted the main barrier to achieving the goals laid out in the study will not be based on costs but developing a coordinated effort among policy makers and other stakeholders.

The U.S. can achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if it implements several goals, including operating the electric grid with 80 percent clean energy and ensuring most cars sold by the end of the decade are electric, according to a new study.


“By 2030, wind, solar, coupled with energy storage can provide the bulk of the 80 percent clean electricity. The findings also show that generating the remaining 20% of grid power won’t require the creation of new fossil fuel generators,” said Nikit Abhyankar, one of the study’s authors and a scientist at the Electricity Markets & Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

President Biden announced his emissions reduction goal last year, months after rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels.

The authors noted the main barrier to achieving the goals laid out in the study will not be based on costs but developing a coordinated effort among policy makers.

“This study should give policy makers and other energy stakeholders some level of comfort, by showing that everybody in the field is pointing in the same direction. The case for clean energy is stronger than ever before and our study shows that the 2030 emission target can be achieved,” Abhyankar said in a release.

The study’s findings, which were based on an analysis of six recent economic models that simulate U.S. energy operations, might also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by further electrification of industries and buildings.

Findings also suggest that powering the U.S. electric grid with renewable energy, while there may be a net benefit of 1,000 per households with electric cars. Meanwhile, they note the transition could prevent up to 200,000 premature deaths and save up to $800 billion in environmental and health costs.

“Since announcing the nation’s emissions reduction pledge at the 2021 United Nations climate conference, the United States has taken steps in the right direction,” Abhyankar continued. “But a lot still needs to happen. What we are hoping is that this study will give some level of a blueprint of how it could be done.”

British curry: A dish that defines Queen Elizabeth’s reign?

Shafi Musaddique
Fri, June 3, 2022,

Alice Grahame still remembers the excitement of eating her first curry as a child, brought back home by her father in thin brown oily bags.

“The flavors were out of this world. There’s something about the smell of spices that gets you stimulated,” says the Londoner, a self-confessed aficionado of Indian food.

Her early experience of curry is commonplace among Britons: going to a takeaway for unattainable spices, or else suffering her mother’s “off the shelf, ready-made jars” of curry sauce.

Nowadays, her spice cupboard is varied with curry regularly cooked at home, ever since a Pakistani friend during her university years taught her the “proper way” of cooking curry and pilau rice.

Ms. Grahame’s trajectory reflects the absorption of new foods – and the societal changes – during Britain’s transition from global empire to postcolonialism, under the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II, now being celebrated in her Platinum Jubilee. One of the key changes during the era is represented by curry, now considered a quintessential national cuisine molded both by English ideas and immigrant diasporas.

“It’s seen in the same breath as fish and chips was,” says food historian and author Lizzie Collingham, who wrote “Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors.” “I’m cautious about labels, but it captures people’s imagination.”

A colonial mix

Elizabeth’s glittering coronation in 1953 ushered in a new era of change almost immediately, with a record 20 million people on television tuning in to see it. The occasion was also marked with the invention of “coronation chicken,” a creamy curry dish served up to feed foreign dignitaries.

Ingredients remained limited, despite wartime rationing coming to an end. Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume created coronation chicken using poached chicken, chopped onions, curry powder, tomato puree, pepper, red wine, and lemon juice.

The recipe, completed with mayonnaise, lightly whipped cream, and dried apricots (or frequently in later variations, mango chutney), made its way into the British gastronomic classic “The Constance Spry Cookery Book” and has since become a classic.

Though coronation chicken is “revolting” to Dr. Collingham, it stands as a marker between the end of the British Empire and an incoming era of postcolonial immigration under the queen’s long reign.

“It comes from Anglo-Indian cuisine, which is a weird mix. The British in India during the 19th century loved mango chutney. In India you have different relishes in different regions, perhaps sprinkling coconut on curries or adding sultanas. The British, however, would sprinkle all of them together,” she says.

Coronation chicken was an oddity, however, in the postwar period. Curry had fallen out of favor, due to kitchens moving out of basements with the loss of servants and curry cooking being deemed as “quite smelly.”

Curry, through a Victorian lens

British upper classes had dined on curry as far back as the 1600s, but it disappeared in the late 17th century. When Britain grasped control of Bengal via the East India Company, curry reappeared on British tables both at home and abroad.

Over time, Britons adapted versions of their subjects’ dishes suited to their own taste, inventing a standardized curry powder.

“They don’t really understand the sophisticated use of spices in India, too tricky to bring home to Britain – so they simplify it,” says Dr. Collingham. “The Victorians really felt that they made Indian food their own. It was their food, part of the nation. You’ll find Victorian cookery writers saying it was a national British food.”

Evidence of this Anglo-Indian evolution is found on page 77 of a recipe book from 1840, handwritten by a domestic servant by the name of Eleanor Grantham in East Yorkshire in northern England.

Instead of oil, she recommends cooking with beef dripping to create an imitation of curry that Sam Bartle, collections officer at the East Riding Archive, calls “horrible, but edible.”

Ms. Grantham’s curry recipe uses sour apples, milk, sultanas, and, most importantly, curry powder “widely available because of colonial trade links,” says the archivist. “It’s about fusing seasonal ingredients with Indian ingredients, and the start of curry as associated with Britain.”
The arrival of modern curry

Though much has changed since Ms. Grantham’s East Yorkshire recipe, curry continues to play a pivotal role in social life – but now driven by chefs of immigrant origin. East Yorkshire is famous for its “Balti curry” in Bradford, a former industrial city with a high concentration of curry houses largely run by Pakistani and Indian migrants, who make up almost a quarter of Bradford’s population.

But it is the impact of Bangladeshi immigration into Britain during the 1960s, just the second decade of the queen’s reign, that historians credit with popularizing curry as we know it today.

“A food revolution goes hand in hand with immigration in the second and third decade of the queen’s reign,” says Dr. Collingham. “Bangladeshi seamen often worked unpleasant jobs on steamship boiler rooms, and so jumped ship to find work in the U.K.”

Many found jobs in catering, washing plates, before buying bombed-out fish and chips shops and adapting the English dish with curry sauce.

By the 1970s, Bangladeshis pioneered the modern-day curry house, operating a menu of mainstay dishes: chicken korma, dhansak (usually mutton or goat meat), rogan josh (lamb curry), and madras curry (known for packing in heat).

Still, chefs do accommodate the “less tropical palates of locals,” notes former restaurant worker Shahena Begum, a second-generation British Bangladeshi from Huddersfield in northern England. That might mean blending sauces to reduce chunkiness, or adding coconut cream to make it vegan friendly. It’s a contrast to food cooked at home, she says.

Sometimes the changes even have taken her aback, she says: the abundance of sugar added “to suit the Western palate” or the accompaniment of chicken tikka masala by fries, for example.
The new wave

A newer, wealthier wave of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent in the 1990s turned up their noses at the creamy curries cooked by their predecessors. Instead, they refocused curry on street food and specializing around regional and cultural cuisines.

Aktar Islam’s Michelin-starred restaurant Opheem cooks food inspired by influences across India. His “experimental approach” garners advanced bookings as one of London’s most recognized places to eat. “There’s a nuanced understanding about Indian-inspired food nowadays and [about] what British curry is,” says Mr. Islam.

Similar high-end, luxury “authentic” restaurants now dominate British cities, attracting a new generation of young Britons accustomed to evolved palates.

Mr. Islam credits this boom on better education of Britain’s postcolonial history and more Britons traveling abroad, thereby granting them an understanding of the “difference between real Indian food and British curry.”

For Ms. Begum, who bridges the gap between the immigrant pioneers embraced in the early years of Queen Elizabeth and a new generation, curry epitomizes change and mass acceptance.

After years of being made to feel embarrassed for eating curry for dinner at home, she says, “curry, as a national dish, is like a love letter.”

Swedish Leader May Be Sunk by Kurd Lawmaker Who Irks Turkey



Niclas Rolander
Fri, June 3, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Sweden’s prime minister may next week have to put her fate in the hands of a Kurdish-born lawmaker who has drawn the ire of Turkey, just as the Nordic country is seeking to overcome the veto of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to its bid for membership of the NATO defense bloc.

Magdalena Andersson said on Thursday she will resign if her Justice Minister Morgan Johansson loses a confidence vote brought by the opposition in parliament, due on June 7. The motion needs one extra vote to pass, putting the spotlight on Amineh Kakabaveh, a non-affiliated member of legislature with Kurdish background.

While Andersson’s Social Democrats are gaining in polls just three months before the next elections, the situation is complicated by Sweden’s joint application with Finland for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The bid, reversing two centuries of Sweden’s military non-alignment, is currently being stalled by Turkey, which has demanded that the country do more to clamp down on Kurdish groups that Erdogan views as terrorists. In exchange for her support, Kakabaveh has previously agreed with Andersson’s party to expand cooperation with one of those groups, Syrian PYD.

“As long as our agreement holds, I will not support a motion of no confidence,” Kakabaveh said in an interview. “I’m awaiting an answer” from the government, she said.

Johansson has faced harsh criticism from the opposition, which blames him for not doing enough to curb a wave of crime and deadly shootings that have engulfed Swedish suburbs, where conflicts between rivaling gangs have intensified.

The number of gun homicides in Sweden almost trebled from 2012 to 2021, and in the first five months of the year, 31 people were shot to death in the country of 10 million. That development sets Sweden apart from the rest of Europe, where deadly shootings have decreased in the last decade.

At a news conference in parliament, Andersson slammed the opposition initiative, saying it was dangerous political brinksmanship.

“We now have three months to go before the election,” Andersson said. “We are in a very delicate situation for our and Finland’s application to NATO, and creating political turmoil and uncertainty is completely irresponsible.”

On Friday, the Center Party said it would not support the vote of no-confidence against Minister Johansson. “The government needs to do much more to increase security for Swedes, but it is not achieved through a political game that doesn’t solve any problems, 100 days before the election,” party leader Annie Loof said on Facebook.

China blocks moves to step up protection of emperor penguins


FRANK JORDANS
Fri, June 3, 2022

Crowds of emperor penguins in Antarctica in 2005. (Zhang Zongtang / Associated Press)

China has blocked efforts to step up protection of emperor penguins that are increasingly threatened by the effects global warming is having on their natural habitat in Antarctica, officials said Friday.

Dozens of countries had backed giving the world's largest penguins special protection status at a 10-day meeting in Berlin of parties to the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty was forged in 1959 to ensure that the continent remains the preserve of science, and free of arms.

“An overwhelming majority of parties held the opinion that there is sufficient scientific evidence for the species to be put under the special protection,” the German government, which hosted the May 22-June 2 meeting, said in a statement Friday.

Though a formal decision was “blocked by one party," it said that most countries attending the meeting planned nevertheless to put in place national measures to protect emperor penguins.

Chinese officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment. But delegates attending the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Beijing had made clear it wanted more time to consider the implications of upgrading the protection status of the penguins.

The meeting was partly overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, with many countries speaking out against Russia’s invasion.

Russia, which like Ukraine is active in Antarctica, was represented at the meeting by an official from its embassy in Berlin, with other delegates participating remotely by video link.

Despite differences with Beijing over the penguins and the deep diplomatic discord between Moscow and the West over Ukraine, the meeting was able to adopt by consensus a package of conservation measures for Antarctica. These included moves to designate four new protected areas in the future and limit tourism to the frozen continent.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

French arms firm busts sanctions to help Russia build weapons

Sat, June 4, 2022,


It was the BMD-4 with the Thales-made Catherine FC thermal imaging camera that took part in the shelling of Ukrainian civilian cars in Bucha.

I saw a post by volunteers on a social network, and together with my fellow lawyers we launched our own probe into the French manufacturer's involvement in Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.

Oleksandr Dubilet,

Chairman of the Board of CB "PrivatBank" (1997-2016), Financial and banking expert

So-called exemplary company

In France, Thales is not just a public company. There are three arguments to support this assertion.

1) The company specializes in the manufacture of systems for military, aerospace and maritime purposes

2) The company's shares are listed on the Paris Stock Exchange

3) It is not so much the private shareholder (the Dassault family with its 24.62% share) that is important, but the French government and its 25.67% share. Simply put, a company that is more than a quarter controlled by the French government, exports components that kill Ukrainians.

Thales

According to open sources, Thales supplied Catherine FC thermal imaging cameras to Russia, which were used to manufacture the Essa, Plissa and Sosna-U thermal sighting systems. They enhance the combat capabilities of modified Russian T-80, T-90, T-72 tanks and other military vehicles.

Conscious violators

After photo and video evidence of "fruitful" cooperation between Thales and Russia appeared on the Internet thanks to volunteers, my fellow lawyers and I have found real evidence that Thales supplied these combat components after the imposition of sanctions related to Russia's annexation of the Crimea.

Since this model of equipment was created in 2016, foreign manufacturers had to supply components at least a year earlier. Consequently, Thales sold military goods and technologies to Russia after the introduction of the first wave of sanctions (Council Regulation (EU) No. 833/2014 of July 31, 2014).

Catherine FC

Are these sanctions significant? Undoubtedly. In 2015, Thales failed to sign a $1.3 billion deal to supply two helicopter carriers to Russia. Instead, both ships were sold to Egypt.

I will also talk about a lesser-known episode of illegal but profitable cooperation between Thales and the aggressor state. The French company Sofradir, a subsidiary company of Thales, specializes in the manufacture of infrared detectors for military, space and commercial use.

According to NGO Disclose, in 2016, the company supplied 83 infrared detectors (S24) and 258 infrared detectors (S02) to Russia's CJSC TPK Linkos.

What is Linkos? According to the Arms of Russia information agency, Linkos specializes in the development and production of computers and communications equipment, optical, optical and electronic and microwave systems and complexes, night vision equipment and quantum electronics products.

In addition, Sofradir supplied 138 infrared detectors (S10) to JSC NPO GIPO, the Russian state institute of applied optics, which develops and manufactures optical and electronic systems. Since 2008, GIPO has been a part of the Rostekhnologii state corporation.

Mutually beneficial cooperation between this subsidiary of Thales and Russian military institutions is evidenced by two decisions (documents 1 and 2) of the 2016 Inter-ministerial Commission for the Study of Military Exports (CIEMMG) of France. According to the documents found by our team, French officials allowed Sofradir to supply military technology and goods despite the sanctions.

In 2019, Sofradir and Ulis merged and created a new company – Lynred. The well-known Thales is a 50% shareholder in Lynred.

The conclusion is simple: Sofradir actually misled the Inter-ministerial Commission by concluding an additional agreement "to fulfill the contract." The additional agreement extended the contract and aimed at circumventing sanctions for further supplies of military technology to Russia.

I and my colleagues found information that proves that Thales violated the sanctions in both the first (thermal imaging cameras) and the second (infrared detectors, through the subsidiary Sofradir) episodes, in the public domain (!). In my opinion, this illustrates the perception of sanctions very well. That is, the above French companies did not even bother to conceal evidence of their sanctions violations.

Demanding action

An EU Council decision bans the supply of dual-use goods and technology to Russia. However, you may be interested to know that this document has a loophole that reads as follows: the authorized state body may issue a license to supply such goods under contracts concluded before August 1, 2014.

And the French company Thales took full advantage of it, deliberately extending the old contracts through additional agreements and actually supplying military goods in 2015-2018.

My team of lawyers is working on each of two episodes of criminal cooperation between Thales and its subsidiary Sofradir with Russia. We have sent statements to the EU Council as the body that imposed the sanctions, as well as informing the law enforcement agencies, in particular, the French prosecutor's office. Our goal is to open criminal cases based on these statements.

Having revealed the corporate structure of Thales and identified the shareholders (in particular, the French government), we plan to address the shareholders of this company, French banks, secondary monitoring bodies and stock exchanges and demand that they take appropriate action against sanctions violators.

As in the case of our legal "hunt" for the Belgian company New Lachaussee, which supplied ammunition equipment for the Kalashnikov concern, the purpose of international lawsuits against Thales is to punish violators of sanctions and show the toxicity of any cooperation with the aggressor state.

At a time when Ukrainians are dying for European values, Europe must be completely on our side.

Japan sets new record, brings world closer to internet 100,000 times faster than current speeds



Jane Nam
Fri, June 3, 2022

The world is about to get a whole lot faster — 100,000 times faster to be exact, thanks to researchers in Japan who have set a new record for data transmission speeds.

The Network Research Institute at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) reported on May 30 that they had successfully demonstrated the world’s first transmission speed of 1.02 petabit per second in a multi-core fiber (MCF).

Petabit (PB) refers to the unit of data, and 1 PB is equivalent to 1,000,000 Gigabytes (GB). The new record could usher in new home internet speeds that are 100,000 times faster than any of the current fastest services on the market.

With this power, 1 petabit per second would mean 10 million channels of 8K broadcasting per second, making live coverage easily achievable from all corners of the world with virtually no lapse.

With 1.02 PB traveling over 32 miles per second, we could soon send 127,500 GB of data every second.

This was not the first time researchers have tested petabit speeds. During the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, technology giant Intel broadcasted live coverage of 19 days of the event to Brazil, Japan and Intel sites in the U.S. (by invitation only).

Global content technology strategist and 8K lead at Intel Ravindra “Ravi” Vehal claimed, “We are way beyond proof of concept.”

The newest record set by NICT is not only faster than previous attempts, it transmits data using a standard optic fiber cable, meaning it is technology that is potentially available for immediate and wide use.

For first time, uranium deposits found at 'impossible' depths by China

Robert Besser
4th June 2022, 


BEIJING, China: In what is being hailed a breakthrough for the country's national security, nuclear authorities in China have announced that their researchers have discovered rich uranium deposits deep below the Earth.

According to scientists involved in the project, large industrial-grade deposits were found at depths previously thought impossible to reach, increasing China's estimated total uranium reserve to more than two million tons.

This week, the China National Nuclear Corporation stated, "This world-leading project is a major breakthrough for our country."

With its nuclear power supply increasing faster than any country in the world, with seven or eight new reactors being built each year, China's demand for uranium has been increasing.

However, as most of China's uranium mines are small in scale and offer poor ore quality, more than 70 percent of its supply comes from countries, including Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. This reliance on foreign sources is considered by Beijing to be a security risk.

Li Ziying, director of the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology, said the discoveries challenged mainstream theories on uranium deposit formations, as it is generally believed that the deposits can only be found in shallow and geophysically stable areas.

However, some of the largest uranium deposits recently discovered in southern China are located at depths of more than 1,500 meters below the surface.

According to Chinese nuclear authorities, Li and his colleagues discovered that uranium could rise straight from the earth's mantle and become trapped in small "hotspots" several thousand meters below ground during massive tectonic collisions.

In an interview with Science and Technology Daily, Li said the difficulty was that there is usually only a small hint on the surface of deep uranium deposits, stating, "Locating it is as challenging as finding a compact disc over an area of 10,000-sq km."

Meanwhile, a Beijing-based researcher studying nuclear fuel, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "The discovery will not fully eliminate China's dependence on imported uranium because of the numerous cost and engineering challenges of extracting the deposits."

"But in the long term, it will likely have a profound impact on China's position in the global market," Li added.

Ukraine signs deal with Westinghouse to end Russian nuclear fuel needs

Fri, June 3, 2022, 

KYIV, June 3 (Reuters) - Ukraine has signed a deal for the U.S. nuclear power company Westinghouse to supply fuel to all of its atomic power stations in an effort to end the country's reliance on Russian supplies, Ukraine's state nuclear company said on Friday.

The agreement also increases the number of new nuclear units Westinghouse will build to nine from an earlier five, and the company will establish an engineering centre in the country.

Ukraine has four working nuclear power stations, the largest of which, in Zaporizhzhia, fell under Russian control days after the Russian invasion began in February but is still operated by Ukrainian technicians.

Building on earlier agreements, the deal with Westinghouse stipulates that the company will supply fuel to all of Ukraine's atomic plants.

Nuclear power covers around a half of all Ukrainian electricity needs and the energy minister said that in future Ukraine could also be a supplier of electricity to western Europe.

"We will modernise our fleet of nuclear power units, which will produce clean, safe and reliable energy without any Russian influence," Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said, according to a statement by the state atomic energy company Energoatom.

Energoatom on Thursday denied a report that it might shut down the Zaporizhzhia plant if Kyiv loses control of operations at the site.

Ukraine has repeatedly raised safety concerns about the plant since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24. On Friday, it warned that it was running out of spare parts. (Reporting by Natalia Zinets; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Barbara Lewis)