Biden administration seeks to lower industrial greenhouse gas emissions — and that won't be easy

Ben Adler

·Senior Editor

Wed, September 14, 2022 

With the passage last month of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the federal government has taken its first major steps towards reducing greenhouse emissions from cars, houses and power plants by incentivizing the purchase of electric vehicles, solar panels, electric heat pumps and other existing technologies.

But after transportation and electricity generation, the next largest source of carbon dioxide emissions is the manufacture and refining of industrial products like iron and packaged foods. These processes all rely on the burning of fossil fuels in order to facilitate chemical reactions, emitting massive amounts of greenhouse gases as a result.

Collectively, industry accounts for 24% of annual U.S. emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, compared to 25% for electric power and 27% for transportation, and lowering those emissions will be especially hard. Cutting fossil fuels out of industry is a more complicated task than switching to electric cars or replacing coal-fired power plants with wind farms, as it requires changing the way everything from plastics to cement are made.

Last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a four-part “roadmap” that lays out the possible pathways to decarbonizing the industrial economy.

“America’s industrial sector is critical to our economy and daily lives, yet it currently accounts for an enormous portion of greenhouse gas emissions, and is particularly difficult to decarbonize,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

President Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act as congressional leaders look on, Aug. 16. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The roadmap tries to find ways that industry can reduce its carbon footprint, but it comes with no enforcement mechanism to make any companies adopt any of its suggestions. Many of the technologies it recommends are prohibitively expensive, so unless Congress passes big subsidies in the future, many of the ideas in the report may remain only ideas.

“The size of the transformation that we’re asking of industry is enormous,” Ed Rightor, director of the industrial program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and a co-author of the report, told Yahoo News. Rightor noted that some of the technologies recommended in the report would cost manufacturers billions of dollars to install.

These are the four major categories of industrial decarbonization put forth by the DOE and how each of them could work.

Increasing efficiency and employing new technologies

There are ways of reducing the amount of energy needed to make products. For example, steel manufacturers can reuse steel from a torn-down building, the DOE says.

There are also new technologies. “We’ve got new tools in the toolbox: We’ve got smart manufacturing, we’ve got artificial intelligence, we’ve got systems efficiency,” Rightor said.

“Smart manufacturing” refers to using computer modeling and automation to improve manufacturing efficiencies.

“Let’s say a chemical manufacturer has a large manufacturing site, and they have thousands of heat sources,” Rightor, who co-chaired the team that developed the DOE report, said. “If they were to try to optimize all of those at the same time, it would be a crazy puzzle. But artificial intelligence and machine learning can help with the optimization, to help the manufacturer say ‘where is the best place to put those industrial heat pumps that is gonna have the greatest return, to use that heat most effectively, that is the most cost effective?’ To have the smallest amount of piping, to move the smallest distance: That kind of high-level computing is something that folks haven’t really done before, and they’re starting to use that.”

A steel mill in Cleveland. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Electrification

Not every industrial process requires extremely high temperatures. Cooking foods, for example, can be done at temperatures easily attained through electricity. “If you look across all of industry, you can think about the fact that about a third of the process heat is below 250 to 300 degrees Centigrade, and there’s about a third that bumps it up to about 500 Centigrade or so, and then there’s about a third or that is really high temperature heat, above 600 degrees Centigrade,” Rightor said. “So the lower temperature, the stuff that’s under 300 degrees C, and typically under 200 degrees C, is readily electrifiable. So you can use heat pumps, for example, in the industrial space, or you can use microwaves, or infrared or induction heating. There’s a number of technologies that can be used in that low and moderate temperature range.”

The IRA contains $5.8 billion in tax credits for the investment in demonstration projects for industrial adoption of cleaner new technologies, and that can be used to show the private sector how switching to electricity is feasible for much of the sector.

Sawdust, shown here from a mill near Deer Lodge, Mont., can be turned into wood pellets used for heating. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Switching to lower-carbon fuels

For processes that require between 300 degrees C and 500 degrees C of heat, electrification may not be possible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean factories have to burn gas or coal. The DOE report argues for using lower-carbon fuels instead. For example, a lot of wood that is left over, often in the form of saw dust, when trees are cut down for paper or lumber could be gathered and turned into pellets that could be burned. That would, in theory, create no more emissions than letting the sawdust decompose in a landfill. (Some environmentalists, however, point out that once you create a market demand for the wood pellets, loggers may start cutting down virgin forest to create them, as has happened in the southern United States in response to Europe’s increased wood-burning for energy.)

Another possibility is burning “green hydrogen.” Hydrogen is created by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen via a process called electrolysis, but electrolysis requires a lot of electricity. So hydrogen is only “green,” meaning low-carbon, if the electricity used to produce it comes from a clean source like wind or solar energy.

Green hydrogen is not yet a widely available technology. As the website Greentech Media explained in 2020, “The challenge right now is that big electrolyzers are in short supply, and plentiful supplies of renewable electricity still come at a significant price. Compared to more established production processes, electrolysis is very expensive, so the market for electrolyzers has been small.”

Industry leaders say that green hydrogen has potential, but note that they do not yet have access to it. “The possible approaches for a lower carbon steel industry include alternative iron and steelmaking, industrial electrification, hydrogen injection into blast furnaces, utilization of clean energy sources, increased use of ferrous scrap, and the integration of hydrogen into existing processes,” Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, told Yahoo News in an email. “Some of these options, such as hydrogen, will need both technological development as well as a robust infrastructure and distribution build out before they can be utilized by the steel industry on a large scale.”

A carbon dioxide warning is displayed near equipment installed as part of the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Carbon Capture and Storage

For the highest-temperature processes, the only way to eliminate emissions may be through capturing the carbon dioxide and reusing it or storing it underground. Carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, typically uses a liquid to chemically remove carbon dioxide before it is emitted. The CO2 is compressed and transported to a storage site where it is pumped several thousand feet down below ground through wells into gaps like already extracted oil and gas reservoirs.

As with green hydrogen, the problem is that carbon capture and storage technology and infrastructure are not yet readily accessible and affordable in many cases. (For example, not every factory is near an empty oil reservoir and connected to it by pipeline.) The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Biden last summer, included $2 billion for carbon capture demonstration projects and $2.5 billion for grants to develop commercial large-scale carbon capture projects and infrastructure for transporting the CO2.

The DOE report also advocates for more research into alternatives for high-heat industrial processes.

Of course, the problem with carbon sequestration, electrification and switching to low-carbon fuels is that industry will make none of these changes unless they are cost-effective. Making them cheaper through subsidies, or making the alternatives illegal or more expensive through regulations, would be the work of Congress and the Biden administration.

In its own Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality released last October, the Portland Cement Association, a national nonprofit organization serving cement manufacturers, called for not just for research and development for CCS but for federal policy changes that would help the industry pay for its adoption. “More diverse tax code options, including enhanced capital cost recovery, expanded deductibility of financing costs, and access to tax-free bonds,” the group wrote.

“There’s going to be a continued need for resources,” Sean O’Neill, senior vice president of government affairs for the Portland Cement Association, told Yahoo News.

“This is a big puzzle to solve, that’s going to take a lot of different tools,” O’Neill said. “Once carbon capture technology does become scalable for the industrial sector, it is something that will be expensive. And obviously it takes investment from companies, it takes incentives from, in this case, the federal government, to help offset some of those costs.”

But at least one chamber of Congress is likely to be taken over by Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections, making it unlikely that Congress will be appropriating more money for addressing climate change thereafter. Meanwhile, some environmental and energy policy experts say that the DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency should set emissions standards for low-temperature industrial boilers to force them to switch to electricity, a move that would be sure to trigger backlash from manufacturers. Whether that will happen, and whether industry will decarbonize without being forced to, remains to be seen.

Top U.S. officials cast fresh doubt on sensational 'Havana syndrome' claims

Michael Isikoff

·Chief Investigative Correspondent

Wed, September 14, 2022 

LONG READ

A top State Department official, countering claims that have circulated widely among members of Congress and the news media, says in a new interview there is no evidence that any external actors caused the "Havana syndrome" health incidents reported in recent years by over 1,100 U.S. diplomats and spies.

The comments by Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, are especially striking given they come at a time the CIA and the State Department have begun making arrangements to compensate — with payments of up to $189,000 — current and former U.S. officials suffering from unexplained brain injuries under a law, the HAVANA Act, passed by Congress last year and signed by President Biden.

President Biden signs the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act on Oct. 8, 2021. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

But even as those payments go out, a Yahoo News investigation has found there is mounting skepticism among senior officials about a key underlying premise of the new law: that the symptoms associated with Havana syndrome — which the government formally refers to as Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI) — can be linked in any way to hostile attacks by a foreign power.

"We have not identified any outside causality in any Anomalous Health Incidents," said Nichols in an exclusive interview for a new three-part series for Yahoo News' "Conspiracyland" podcast, "The Strange Story of Havana Syndrome." The series debuts today with an episode recounting how claims about Havana syndrome led to a breakdown in U.S. relations with Cuba.

The remarks by Nichols — who oversees Cuba policy at the State Department — echo, but in some respects go beyond, recent comments by CIA Director William Burns that the agency has not found any foreign actors, including Russia, to be responsible for a "sustained global campaign on the scale of what has been reported" to harm U.S. officials and that "a majority" of Havana syndrome cases could be attributed to alternative environmental and medical factors.

Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, on June 6. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Havana syndrome generally refers to a range of symptoms — hearing loud, piercing noises followed by dizziness, headaches, extreme fatigue, vertigo and, in some cases, brain injuries. In fact, a CIA task force found that many of the reported cases could be ascribed to random and completely pedestrian factors, such as proximity to faulty electrical wiring or, in one instance, exposure to an ultrasonic pest repellent designed to deter possums and rodents, sources familiar with the CIA task force's investigation told "Conspiracyland."

The agency acknowledges there are still about two dozen core cases with perplexing symptoms that are still under investigation. But a source familiar with the task force's work told Yahoo News the agency hasn't "found a foreign connection to anything yet."

Such findings, still preliminary, are viewed as highly sensitive within the Biden administration given the enormous publicity Havana syndrome reports have gotten in recent years and the natural sympathy those suffering from real and often serious health ailments have received.

But privately, senior officials say the lack of hard evidence has made them increasingly dubious about the existence of a supposed microwave superweapon or other exotic devices that might have caused the symptoms — an emerging view that suggests the entire Havana syndrome narrative, as has been reported by much of the media for the past five years, may end up being a conspiracy theory that simply never panned out.

"I was initially very convinced that this was some type of offensive operation by a foreign military or intelligence organization," said John Cohen, who served as acting undersecretary for intelligence and an analyst at the Department of Homeland Security between July 2021 and April 2022, told "Conspiracyland." "In my mind, there were just too many people who were experiencing these symptoms."

The U.S. embassy in Havana is closed off due to the 'Havana syndrome' investigation in 2017. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

But Cohen, speaking publicly about this for the first time, added: "As I began to read the data, read the intelligence, read the results of the investigations and the assessment work that was being done around the world, it just became harder and harder to explain these instances as an attack. I never saw anything that was clear-cut that provided even an identification of who was doing it … or a definitive source for what was causing these symptoms."

Instead of any hard evidence that Havana syndrome was the result of foreign attacks, Cohen added, he found little more than "a lot of conjecture, a lot of speculation — a lot of knowledgeable speculation.

"I'm a law enforcement person. ... I grew up in the 'Dragnet' era. You know, it's like Joe Friday said, 'Just the facts. Show me the facts.' And in this case, they never were able to."

Disputes over the issue grew intense and led to sharp debates within the Biden administration. The reported health symptoms were genuine and often serious if unexplained — and senior officials, including CIA chief Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeatedly emphasized the need for thorough investigations and medical help for those affected.

But behind the scenes, there were repeated clashes between intelligence officers convinced they were victims of hostile actions from a foreign adversary and senior officials who were skeptical, according to Cohen. "It almost became, on one side of the issue, 'Hey, you don't believe me. I'm telling you I was attacked.'"

CIA Director William Burns testifies during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing about worldwide threats, including the Havana syndrome, in April 2021. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)

The issue became so disruptive, Cohen says, that U.S. intelligence officials even began pursuing a theory that the entire Havana syndrome controversy was being stoked by a foreign intelligence "disinformation" campaign designed to play up health incidents in order to create chaos within the U.S. intelligence community and to undermine internal "cohesion." But no evidence of that alternative theory about Havana syndrome was found either, Cohen added.

The "Conspiracyland" podcast traces the origins of the Havana syndrome story to initial reports out of Cuba in 2017 that CIA officers and U.S. diplomats were suffering unexplained health problems, including dizziness, vertigo and extreme fatigue, often after hearing strange sounds that resembled the chirpings of cicadas or crickets — some of which were purportedly recorded by those who thought they had been attacked.

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President Trump immediately blamed the Cuban government. "They did some bad things in Cuba," Trump told reporters in 2017 after the State Department announced it would be pulling many of its staffers out of Havana. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the health incidents "targeted attacks," citing them as grounds to pull most of the newly reopened U.S. Embassy staff out of the country.

The issue was seized on as new evidence of Cuban untrustworthiness by two Cuban American U.S. senators who have been highly critical of that country's Communist government: Republican Marco Rubio of Florida and Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

"Would it not be fair to say that in Cuba, either it is the regime who conducted these attacks, or they have full knowledge of who conducted these attacks?" Menendez asked a State Department witness at a 2018 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

Sen. Bob Menendez speaks during a foreign relations hearing in 2018 about the alleged attacks on U.S. diplomats in Cuba. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

But from the outset, some Havana embassy officials privately expressed concerns to members of Congress that the matter was being exaggerated by a small group of CIA officers who were experiencing symptoms and opposed better relations with Cuba.

The Embassy officials "didn't believe that this was a deliberate attack by the Cuban government against diplomats," said Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts and now chair of the House Rules Committee, describing private briefings he received in 2017. "In fact, they were raising the issue that it might be something other than an attack. It could be a virus, or some sort of other factor that may have impacted some of the embassy personnel."

"And then ... as the word got out about that, the mere suggestion that you may have been exposed to something had some people at the embassy saying, 'Well, you know, maybe I have it. You know, I haven't been as sharp. I haven't, you know ... I felt dizzy, you know. I wasn't feeling well at some point. Maybe I too was a victim.'"

Still, some of those cases appeared compelling, even if ultimately inexplicable. Speaking on the issue for the first time publicly, Karen Coates — who served as a human resources officer at the Havana embassy — told "Conspiracyland" that she was walking down a hallway in Havana when she was bowled over by loud, piercing sounds that resembled cicada chirping.

"It was like a teapot on steroids," Coates said. "It, literally, it was so incapacitating that I ducked down with my head, my hands over my ears. … All of a sudden I had this massive pressure in my face, where it felt like my face was literally gonna blow out." That night, Coates said, she became "very discombobulated" and "started having headaches. I couldn't walk."

A security guard stands next to the U.S. Embassy in Havana. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

She was ultimately medevaced off the island and has spent years being evaluated and treated by government doctors — with no clear diagnosis — while suffering a significant cognitive decline. "I was a highly functioning individual," she said. "Now, like, I really have a hard time trying to talk and think."

The prevailing view, at least at first, among some U.S. intelligence officials, was that the incidents were caused by attacks from a microwave weapon deployed by Russian intelligence services. It was a theory that was influenced by years of controversy during the Cold War over claims that the Soviets were targeting U.S. diplomatic sites with microwave attacks. (The Cold War clashes over suspected Russian microwave attacks is detailed in the second episode in the "Conspiracyland" series, entitled "The Moscow Signal," which will be released Sept. 20.)

The idea of a global Russian campaign appeared to get traction as reports of attacks multiplied among U.S. diplomats and spies all over the world, including reported incidents in Austria, China, Uzbekistan, Germany and Colombia. Last August, Vice President Kamala Harris's trip to Vietnam was reportedly disrupted by an attack against an unidentified U.S. official in that country. (Curiously, U.S. officials say they are unaware of any reports of such attacks in the one country Moscow cares about the most: Ukraine.)

The continuous steam of such reports prompted Congress last year to pass a law to compensate U.S. government officials who experienced brain or neurological injuries from their overseas service, calling it the "Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks Act," dubbed the HAVANA Act, even though by then only a small fraction of the incidents had taken place in Cuba. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the lead sponsor of the law in the Senate, said the administration needed to step up its efforts to "identify and stop the heartless adversary who is harming U.S. personnel."

Sen. Susan Collins during the confirmation hearing for William Burns, nominee for director of the CIA in February 2021. (Tom Brenner-Pool/Getty Images)

(In the interview with "Conspiracyland," Nichols noted the lack of any evidence tying the Cubans, in particular, to the incidents and said using the phrase "Havana syndrome" to describe the health incidents was "not appropriate.")

At the same time, media reporting of the incidents became ever more sensational. Last February, CBS News' "60 Minutes" broadcast a 27-minute report, including interviews with several former U.S. officials who described being hit by what they thought were attacks inside the United States.

One of them was Olivia Troye, former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, who recounted an incident in 2019 while she was walking down the steps of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds and felt "this piercing feeling on the side of my head" that gave her vertigo and made her "nauseous." She compared the experience to "a paralyzing panic attack."

The "60 Minutes" episode ended by suggesting that the gates of the White House "may have been breached by an invisible threat."

Such reports were viewed with more than a little skepticism among the officials working on the issue. Cohen, the former Homeland Security official, says that the entire issue of domestic attacks was still being investigated at the time he left the government. But, he said, he never saw any hard evidence that such attacks inside the U.S. were real.

He also noted, given the extensive security cameras and sensors that surround the White House, the improbability that a foreign adversary could track the minute-by-minute movements of a mid-level U.S. official on White House grounds, let alone zap one with a microwave gun without leaving a trace.

A senior Biden White House official asked about the "60 Minutes" report told "Conspiracyland": "We have no indication that the White House was under threat."

(There is no reason to assume that Troye, like most of the other victims, was not accurately recounting what she believed she experienced. The former Pence aide, who acknowledged to "60 Minutes" that she did not report the incident at the time because she was embarrassed about it, declined to talk on the record to "Conspiracyland.")

Olivia Troye on "60 minutes." (CBS)

But even while media reporting about Havana syndrome continued to play up reports of alleged incidents, a CIA task force called the Global Health Incidents Cell, appointed by Burns and headed by a veteran of the agency's search for Osama bin Laden, dug into the issue and found increasing reasons for skepticism.

The task force "left no stone unturned," said a source familiar with the group's ongoing work. CIA officers on the task force went into the field all over the world where the purported attacks took place, tearing up walls and floorboards, looking for evidence of what might have taken place. Their findings repeatedly seemed to undercut the idea that Havana syndrome was the result of hostile attacks.

In one case, in a Latin American country where an official reported hearing vibrating sound that caused pain in the ears, task force investigators found that there had been blasting musical speakers that were bouncing off walls in the building where the official was located. In another incident, the task force discovered a faulty component in a high-volume air conditioning system; in yet another, a power-charger plugged into malfunctioning wiring that resulted in electrical disturbances, which caused officials to feel pressure in the head and dizziness.

One U.S. official had reported walking down the street in an overseas country and being hit by what was described as a beam of energy that caused pain in the ears. The task force identified the likely cause: the use nearby of an ultrasonic pest repellent to target possums and rodents. Perhaps more importantly, one of the sources noted, "There is nothing that links these cases."

No pattern to the incidents or the targets was identified. As for the bottom-line conclusion, all of the task force's analysts were in agreement: There was no sign of any foreign government involvement in any of the more than 1,100 cases the agency task force investigated, including the remaining two dozen that are still under investigation. The task force "found no evidence of a foreign actor in any cases," a source familiar with the matter told Yahoo News.

To be sure, the senior White House official who dismissed the idea of an attack on White House grounds also said that some of the remaining cases are "highly compelling." And a study by scientists commissioned by the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the brain or neurological injuries suffered by some people who reported Havana syndrome symptoms could theoretically have been caused by exposure to a "pulsed electromagnetic" or microwave device, although no such device or weapon has ever been identified, and, as one official put it, "significant information gaps exist."

But in the meantime, Rep. McGovern is frustrated that the emerging reasons for skepticism aren't getting more attention. "Maybe part of the problem is that people don't want to admit that they got it wrong at the beginning," he told "Conspiracyland."

"But we have to be honest. There has been so many conspiracy theories out there, and all those conspiracy theories have been proven to be wrong. And so, like, OK, I think we all seem to have concluded — according to the CIA director, you know — that it’s not what we thought it was originally. OK, good. Move on."

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP, Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters, Getty Images

Climate change tipping points will be passed sooner than thought: Study

Ben Adler

·Senior Editor

Mon, September 12, 2022 

A new study in the journal Science finds that even the most aggressive goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions aren’t sufficient to avoid several major climate change tipping points, in which rising temperatures cause irreversible damages that in turn cause more global warming.

One of the most worrisome risks of climate change, for example, is that permafrost — a layer of frozen soil in the polar regions — will continue to thaw, releasing planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that are currently embedded in the soil. Arctic permafrost alone contains roughly 51 times as much carbon as the entirety of 2019’s global emissions, according to NASA, and if it thaws would speed up global warming at an alarming rate. The last two global climate change agreements brokered by the United Nations have set an aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, with a fallback goal of 2°C (3.6°F), in order to stave off that kind of catastrophe.

But the new study finds that the permafrost may permanently thaw even if warming stays between the current 1.1°C of warming and 1.5°C, and becomes “likely” if warming falls between 1.5°C and 2°C.

The Duvanny Yar site near the town of Chersky, Russia, gives a side-on view of the permafrost thaw taking place underground. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

In addition to thawing permafrost, other potential risks include “collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets” and “die-off of low-latitude coral reefs.” If the Greenland ice sheet melts entirely, it could result in 20 feet of sea level rise. Last year a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany found that 3 to 6 feet of sea level rise from partial melting of the Greenland ice sheet is already likely to occur, though at its current rate it would take centuries. A full-scale collapse of the ice sheet could have a wide array of dramatic consequences, including the disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation current, a warm band of water that flows to the northeast across the Atlantic Ocean, which would cause much colder winter temperatures in Europe.

Coral reefs — underwater structures in the ocean made from the skeletons of marine invertebrates called coral — create an ecosystem that supports robust plant and animal life, and the mass death of coral reefs would deprive marine life of their habitat, destroying ocean biodiversity.

Another emerging tipping point is the dieback of the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon covers more than 2 million square miles and acts as an enormous carbon sink that helps keep temperature rise in check. Its destruction could release the equivalent of several years’ worth of global carbon emissions. “Dieback” refers to the risk that after logging and wildfires, the Amazon will no longer grow back as rainforest due to warmer temperatures increasing water evaporation and drying out vegetation. A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in March found that the Amazon may be reaching a tipping point in which dieback begins.

Dead coral on the ocean floor near Key Largo, Fla., in September 2021. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

“Since I first assessed climate tipping points in 2008 the list has grown and our assessment of the risk they pose has increased dramatically,” Tim Lenton, a professor of climate change at the University of Exeter in England, who co-authored the new study in Science, said in a statement.

“We can see signs of destabilization already in parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, in permafrost regions, the Amazon rainforest, and potentially the Atlantic overturning circulation as well,” the Science study’s lead author, David Armstrong McKay, who is affiliated with the Stockholm Resilience Centre and the University of Exeter, said. “The world is already at risk of some tipping points. As global temperatures rise further, more tipping points become possible.”

The study’s publication was timed to coincide with a three-day conference, beginning Monday, to analyze climate tipping points.

The Kuskokwim River in Napakiak, Alaska, in December 2019. Climate change is a contributing factor in the erosion caused by the Kuskokwim. (Mark Thiessen/AP)

Currently, the world is on a course to blow past 1.5°C of warming. Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent scientific analysis, studied the national plans to reduce emissions released at the last U.N. Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow, Scotland, and found the world is on course for between 1.7°C and 2.6°C of warming. (The lower number takes lofty promises of far-off emissions reductions at face value, while the higher number is based on the policies nations have actually adopted.) In May the World Meteorological Organization put the world’s chances of breaching 1.5°C of warming at fifty-fifty.

But now it seems that even stronger action might be needed to avert catastrophic climate change. The Science study’s authors argue that their research on tipping points demonstrates just that.

“The chance of crossing tipping points can be reduced by rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, starting immediately,” McKay said.

Nebraska judge: Birth certificates can't name 2 mothers

Erin Porterfield, back left, and Kristin Williams, back right, along with their children, Cameron Porter Williams, 16, front left, and Kadin Porter Williams, 18, pose for a photograph at Omaha family law firm Koenig | Dunne in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021 in Omaha, Neb. A Nebraska judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by the two Omaha women who sought to have both their names listed as parents on their children’s birth certificates.

 (Photo by Rebecca S. Gratz for ACLU of Nebraska via AP). (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More

MARGERY A. BECK
Fri, September 16, 2022

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by two Omaha women who sought to have both their names listed as parents on their children’s birth certificates, saying the request conflicts with state law.

Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post said in his ruling last month dismissing the lawsuit that state law requires birth certificates to acknowledge paternity. Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services policy also requires that parents listed on birth certificates be the biological parents of the child, he said.

The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state last year on behalf of Erin Porterfield and Kristin Williams. They said the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services repeatedly denied their request to amend one son's birth certificate in their effort to get full legal recognition as parents of both their sons — one born to each woman conceived through a sperm donor.

Porterfield and Williams were in a romantic partnership from 2000 to 2013 — two years before same-sex marriage was legalized in Nebraska. Porterfield gave birth to their first son in 2002, and Williams gave birth to their second son in 2005 before their romantic relationship ended in 2013. But both women continue to share parenting duties.

In their lawsuit, the women said that state officials treat unmarried, same-sex couples differently than unmarried, opposite-sex couples, violating their due process and equal protection rights.

The women argued in their lawsuit that listing them both is critical because it could affect their children’s eligibility for government benefits, should something happen to one of them. They also accused the state of sexual discrimination because it allows men to voluntarily acknowledge that they are parents to get onto a birth certificate, but doesn’t allow women to do so.

“Our sons are our entire world and we want to make sure we’re doing right by them,” Porterfield said when the lawsuit was filed. “Our boys have a right to the security of having both parents on their birth certificates, a required document in so many life changes and decisions. That’s why this matters to us.”

But Judge Post said the women failed to identify “a single court that has adopted their constitutional arguments.”

“The court certainly understands why plaintiffs seek a policy change,” Post wrote. “But that policy decision is for the Legislature, not this court.”

New Jersey church cancels event with ‘divisive’ Hindu supremacist after backlash

New Jersey church cancels event with ‘divisive’ Hindu supremacist after backlash

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Mon, September 12, 2022 

A church in New Jersey has cancelled a fundraising event featuring Hindu supremacist Sadhvi Rithambara following protests over her anti-minority stance in India.

The firebrand Hindu supremacist, who has been accused of repeated incidents of hate speech, was scheduled to speak on Saturday at the Old Paramus Reformed church in an event hosted by Param Shakti Peeth of America – an organisation associated with the far-right religious leader.

The event at the church building was cancelled by Reverend Robert Miller on Friday night after hearing from both critics and organisers, who described the event to be a "spiritual gathering".

Advocacy groups, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Hindus for Human Rights had called for the event to be cancelled and warned they would conduct protests if it went ahead.

Mr Miller said he had received over 600 letters to the church via an online action alert titled “reject hate, say no to Hindu nationalism in New Jersey" calling for the event to be called off.

The cancellation comes at a time when critics have accused India’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of a crackdown on minorities.

“To invite such a divisive person to the country where people live in harmony is kind of sad, really,” said Shaheen Khateeb, one of the founding members of IAMC.

Known as Didi Maa to her followers, Ms Rithambara is the founder of the women's wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), an umbrella group of Hindu outfits, and is an ally of prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.

The VHP was classified as a “religious militant organisation” by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2018.

She was one of the main suspects accused over the demolition of the 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 1992, which triggered an outbreak of communal violence across the country killing nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

Ms Rithambara was one of the 32 people to be cleared of the charges by India's Supreme Court in 2020 due to a lack of evidence.

The organisers of Saturday's event described her as a “social reformer who helps underprivileged children and champions women’s rights".

Narsinh Desai, a sponsor of the event, dismissed allegations of Ms Rithamabara being a religious extremist as “misinformation". She talks about protecting the Hindu religion but not violence, he said, according to local daily North Jersey.

“I don’t hear any kind of hate."

Critics, however, point to a history of speeches made by the religious leader that include statements targeting minority communities.

In 1995, India Today quoted Ms Rithambara threatening: “If a single choti (ponytail) or janeu (thread worn by upper-caste Hindus) is cut, Christians will be wiped out from the face of India.”

The Hindus for Human Rights group claimed that Ms Ritambhara’s hate speeches have been described as “the single most powerful instrument for whipping up anti-Muslim violence” in India.

Following the cancellation of the event, the IAMC announced they are calling off their protest. “Hindu extremist leaders like Ritambhara threaten peace in our communities,” said Mohammed Jawad, the group's New Jersey president.

“New Jersey should never provide space to people who peddle the hateful ideology of Hindutva (Hindu supremacy) that is completely antithetical to the democratic values of the US.”

In August, over 100 people staged a protest outside a venue in Georgia, where the religious leader’s programmes were listed.

Earlier in 2010, New Jersey residents reportedly protested when she was scheduled to appear at a Hindu temple in Mahwah. Her event was moved to a different location.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism 

AMERIKA
If you care about your country and your rights, don't vote for any Republicans in 2022

Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
Sun, September 18, 2022

Now that primary season is over there is a simple test for voters, especially Republicans and independents: If you care about the future of America, democracy and your own rights, don’t vote for Republicans. Any of them. Even the officeholders who have stood up to Donald Trump and the newcomers who pitch themselves as reality-based and results-oriented.

I feel terrible thinking this, much less writing it. I’ve covered many Republicans whom I admired. I spent months reporting on political negotiations and how deals get made in Congress. I believe policy debates and compromises are healthy, and the Democratic-led Congress has produced solid bipartisan results this year in gun safety, infrastructure, industrial policy and other areas.

Even so, the Republican Party is on a dark path and should not hold power anywhere until it comes back into the light. That’s especially true on Capitol Hill.

Congressional math is unforgiving. If there is just one more Republican than Democrat in the House or Senate, a power-obsessed party in thrall to election deniers and conspiracists will control committees, agendas, investigations and leadership positions.

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The Trump-MAGA threat is real

Republican voters are key to the outcome. About 8% of them voted for Democrats in 2018, TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier, a Democratic data and polling expert, told me in an email. If that rises to 15% this year, he added, “the GOP has no chance of taking back either the Senate or the House.”

That’s not an unrealistic goal given the percentage of Republicans who voted for abortion rights last month in Kansas (roughly 30%, Bonier said Wednesday at a New Democrat Network webinar) and the chunk of GOP voters alarmed by Trump and his "Make America Great Again" loyalists. A new poll found a quarter of Republicans agree that Trump's MAGA movement threatens democracy.

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President Joe Biden accurately summarized that threat in a recent speech: “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

As national security expert Tom Nichols wrote afterward in The Atlantic, “We should be deeply troubled that Joe Biden had to give this speech at all.” And he had to. Because even now, after the Trump mob’s insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, two impeachments, years of election lies, escalating legal problems and the FBI recovery of top secret government documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump is not a spent force.

Former President Donald Trump and ally Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor, at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Sept. 3, 2022.

Hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on their deadly quest to block Congress from finalizing Biden’s win, 147 Republican lawmakers went ahead and objected to certified election results from Arizona, Pennsylvania or both. Over 18 months later, the party is still with Trump. Polls show roughly 70% of Republicans don’t view Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and most Republicans want Trump as their 2024 nominee.

In fact, Maggie Haberman reports in her upcoming book, “Confidence Man,” Trump never intended to leave the White House – though he lost to Biden by more than 7 million votes.

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Believers of Trump’s Big Lie that he was the true winner have elevated so many delusional Republicans that 60% of voters will find election deniers on their 2022 ballots, according to FiveThirtyEight. Its analysis of GOP nominees for House, Senate, governor, secretary of state and attorney general found at least 200 of 552 say the 2020 election was illegitimate. If they win, they could influence and possibly even overturn elections in 40 states.

Some of these races are out of reach for Democrats. In U.S. House contests, FiveThirtyEight found that “118 election deniers and eight election doubters have at least a 95 percent chance of winning.”

At the same time, Real Clear Politics counts eight toss-up Senate races, 11 toss-ups for governor and 34 in the House. Concerned conservatives and moderates could make the difference in these contests – particularly if they vote Democratic no matter what kind of Republican is running.

This seems unfair to Republicans who have shown principled independence. By my count, 20 in the House made it to the fall ballot despite voting for an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the violent Capitol riot. Two of them, California's Rep. David Valadao and Washington state’s Rep. Dan Newhouse, also voted to impeach Trump for inciting the rioters.

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Valadao’s tight race could be one of the few that determine House control. Does he deserve to be reelected? Maybe. But could America survive a GOP-controlled House unscathed? Also maybe, and that’s not good enough.

The same argument holds for candidates like Senate nominee Joe O’Dea in Colorado, who says he'd be an "independent-minded" senator, and House nominee Allan Fung in Rhode Island, who says he’d work with Democrats to solve problems. That’s commendable, but voting for them could produce a Republican House or Senate.

I wouldn’t even bet on fact-based Republican governors. Some could face veto-proof legislatures dominated by MAGA fantasists. And some could fold. Look at New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who a month ago declared that “Trump won the election. … I'm not switchin' horses baby. This is it." Sununu called Bolduc a “conspiracy theorist-type” and “not a serious candidate” for the GOP Senate nomination. But right before Tuesday's primary, Sununu said he'd endorse Bolduc if he won.

The upshot: Bolduc won, he and Sununu shared a public hug at a post-primary GOP unity breakfast, and then – in a shocking plot twist – Bolduc went on Fox News and said he had concluded that “the election was not stolen.”

A MAGA-driven America is a grim prospect. Would future Republican candidates admit defeat if they lost, or would they make sure, through legislation and manipulation, that they'd win? Would they cement minority rule and further restrict fundamental rights like voting and abortion?

Biden has correctly distinguished between “mainstream Republicans” and Trump’s extreme “MAGA Republicans.” They are different, and mainstream GOP politicians holding the line deserve credit. Nevertheless, when it comes to who controls Congress and the levers of power in states across the country, all that counts right now is the “R” after their names.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence

More from Jill Lawrence:

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