Climate change belief not split along political divide

QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: PROFESSOR TAN YIGITCANLAR AND DR MD GOLAM MORTOJA. view more 

CREDIT: QUT

QUT researchers have found that climate change belief is not uniform in relation to political orientation.

Professor Tan Yigitcanlar from QUT’s School of Architecture and Built Environment and City 4.0 Lab  his former doctoral student  Dr Md Golam Mortoja - who now works for the Queensland Government’s Department of Resources - found that 64 per cent of climate change believing southeast Queensland peri-urban dwellers are made up of people of right and left-wing persuasion.

Professor Yigitcanlar said a survey for their research paper published in the Land Use Policy journal found that on the other hand, climate change deniers predominantly have right-wing political views and are more likely to be older and relatively less educated.

“Climate change deniers are highly rigid in their denial of ‘anthropogenic climate change’ which is environmental changes attributed to human activity,” Professor Yigitcanlar said.

“The survey - conducted in a region experiencing highly destructive impacts of climate change - also found that climate change deniers’ views do not generally moderate or change with exposure to climate risk events.

The results are drawn from 659 responses to an April 2021 survey of southeast Queensland peri-urban dwellers (those who live on the outskirts of, or close to major cities) for their study.

“Managers, manufacturers, and business owners are in fact more sceptical on climate risk beliefs,” Professor Yigitcanlar said.

“Climate risk concerns of the ‘least concerned/mostly disagreed group’ do not influence significantly in guiding their voting decisions.

“Public stances about climate risk knowledge in the case study area are rigid and simply distributed between the two groups - i.e., ‘least concerned/mostly disagreed group’ and ‘highly concerned/mostly disagreed group’,” Professor Yigitcanlar said.

The paper highlights climate change is here, and it is disrupting every country on every continent, and urgent, effective government action is needed to sustain our existence on the planet.

Despite the clear scientific evidence, the paper cites that there are still significant numbers of people who deny the climate change reality.

Dr Mortoja said it is assumable that concerns about climate change should be dependent upon the level of knowledge someone possesses on the issues that trigger climate risk impacts.

“Thus, a plethora of studies have investigated public perceptions on the climate risk issue,” Dr Mortoja said.

“Against this backdrop, this paper aims to identify distinct groups of respondents based on their level of knowledge concerning climate risk against their political orientation. This in return helps in understanding political bias in forming a climate change belief.”

“The findings generated from this study provide valuable insights to overcome the knowledge gaps between climate risk believers and deniers,” Dr Mortoja said.

The researchers found no significant gender differences in climate change perception.

“But the survey certainly found that climate change believers tend to be younger, highly educated people, who have limited self-motivation for behaviour change for climate change mitigation,” Dr Mortoja said.

Further these believers see government policy and action highly inadequate for climate change mitigation.

“The insights generated help in overcoming the knowledge gaps between climate risk believers and deniers, and thereby inform decision-makers in taking adequate measures to address climate risks and develop appropriate land use decisions.”

“The recent Federal election results gave hope for positive move towards climate action in Australia,” Dr Mortoja said

However, the political polarisation is still a significant issue in Australia, particularly in the context of urban vs. regional Australia according to Dr Mortoja.

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JOURNAL

Land Use Policy

DOI

10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106350 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Understanding political bias in climate change belief: A public perception study from South East Queensland

Drought encouraged Attila’s Huns to attack the Roman empire, tree rings suggest

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

University of Cambridge media release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire, a new study argues.

Hungary has just experienced its driest summer since meteorological measurements began, devastating the country’s usually productive farmland. Archaeologists now suggest that similar conditions in the 5th century may have encouraged animal herders to become raiders, with devastating consequences for the Roman empire.

The study, published today in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, argues that extreme drought spells from the 430s – 450s CE disrupted ways of life in the Danube frontier provinces of the eastern Roman empire, forcing Hunnic peoples to adopt new strategies to ‘buffer against severe economic challenges’.

[The research paper can be accessed here]

The authors, Associate Professor Susanne Hakenbeck from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Professor Ulf Büntgen from the University’s Department of Geography, came to their conclusions after assessing a new tree ring-based hydroclimate reconstruction, as well as archaeological and historical evidence.

The Hunnic incursions into eastern and central Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries CE have long been viewed as the initial crisis that triggered the so-called ‘Great Migrations’ of ‘Barbarian Tribes’, leading to the fall of the Roman empire. But where the Huns came from and what their impact on the late Roman provinces actually was unclear.

New climate data reconstructed from tree rings by Prof Büntgen and colleagues provides information about yearly changes in climate over the last 2000 years. It shows that Hungary experienced episodes of unusually dry summers in the 4th and 5th centuries. Hakenbeck and Büntgen point out that climatic fluctuations, in particular drought spells from 420 to 450 CE, would have reduced crop yields and pasture for animals beyond the floodplains of the Danube and Tisza.

Büntgen said: “Tree ring data gives us an amazing opportunity to link climatic conditions to human activity on a year-by-year basis. We found that periods of drought recorded in biochemical signals in tree-rings coincided with an intensification of raiding activity in the region.”

Recent isotopic analysis of skeletons from the region, including by Dr Hakenbeck, suggests that Hunnic peoples responded to climate stress by migrating and by mixing agricultural and pastoral diets.

Hakenbeck said: “If resource scarcity became too extreme, settled populations may have been forced to move, diversify their subsistence practices and switch between farming and mobile animal herding. These could have been important insurance strategies during a climatic downturn.”

But the study also argues that some Hunnic peoples dramatically changed their social and political organization to become violent raiders.

From herders to raiders

Hunnic attacks on the Roman frontier intensified after Attila came to power in the late 430s. The Huns increasingly demanded gold payments and eventually a strip of Roman territory along the Danube. In 451 CE, the Huns invaded Gaul and a year later they invaded northern Italy.

Traditionally, the Huns have been cast as violent barbarians driven by an “infinite thirst for gold”. But, as this study points out, the historical sources documenting these events were primary written by elite Romans who had little direct experience of the peoples and events they described.

“Historical sources tell us that Roman and Hun diplomacy was extremely complex,” Dr Hakenbeck said. “Initially it involved mutually beneficial arrangements, resulting in Hun elites gaining access to vast amounts of gold. This system of collaboration broke down in the 440s, leading to regular raids of Roman lands and increasing demands for gold.”

The study argues that if current dating of events is correct, the most devastating Hunnic incursions of 447, 451 and 452 CE coincided with extremely dry summers in the Carpathian Basin.

Hakenbeck said: “Climate-induced economic disruption may have required Attila and others of high rank to extract gold from the Roman provinces to keep war bands and maintain inter-elite loyalties. Former horse-riding animal herders appear to have become raiders.”

Historical sources describe the Huns at this time as a highly stratified group with a military organization that was difficult to counter, even for the Roman armies.

The study suggests that one reason why the Huns attacked the provinces of Thrace and Illyricum in 422, 442, and 447 CE was to acquire food and livestock, rather than gold, but accepts that concrete evidence is needed to confirm this. The authors also suggest that Attila demanded a strip of land ‘five days’ journey wide’ along the Danube because this could have offered better grazing in a time of drought.

Hakenbeck said: “Climate alters what environments can provide and this can lead people to make decisions that affect their economy, and their social and political organization. Such decisions are not straightforwardly rational, nor are their consequences necessarily successful in the long term.”

“This example from history shows that people respond to climate stress in complex and unpredictable ways, and that short-term solutions can have negative consequences in the long term.”

By the 450s CE, just a few decades of their appearance in central Europe, the Huns had disappeared. Attila himself died in 453 CE.

 

Reference

S.E. Hakenbeck & U. Büntgen, ‘The role of drought during the Hunnic incursions into central-east Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries CE’, Journal of Roman Archaeology (2022). DOI: 10.1017/S1047759422000332

 

Media contact

Tom Almeroth-Williams, Communications Manager (Research), University of Cambridge: researchcommunications@admin.cam.ac.uk / tel: +44 (0) 7540 139 444

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JOURNAL

Journal of Roman Archaeology

DOI

10.1017/S1047759422000332 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The role of drought during the Hunnic incursions into central-east Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries CE’

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

14-Dec-2022

Japan turns back to nuclear power to tackle energy crisis

An aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following a strong earthquake, in Okuma town
1
Fri, December 16, 2022

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan confirmed a major nuclear power policy shift on Friday to tackle an energy crisis more than a decade after the 2011 Fukushima disaster prompted it to idle most of its reactors.

Public opinion has been hostile towards nuclear energy since a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, but the mood has shifted due to soaring energy costs amid the prolonged war in Ukraine and repeated power crunches in both summer and winter.

Quake-prone Japan, which previously said it had no plans to build new reactors, will now seek to replace decomissioned ones and extend the lifespan of others, the industry ministry said.

The stark policy turnaround comes after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in August that Japan would look at developing next-generation reactors, instructing the industry ministry to set up a policy plan to widen use of nuclear energy by the end of this year.

Governments across Europe and Asia are also extending the life of their aging nuclear fleets, restarting reactors and dusting off plans to resume projects shelved after the Fukushima disaster.

Under a strategic energy plan approved by the Cabinet last year, Japan aimed to reduce its dependence on nuclear power as much as possible.

But the new policy, which was approved by an expert panel under the industry ministry on Friday, would allow existing nuclear reactors to operate beyond the current limit of 60 years as well as support the development of new ones.

Further details will be discussed in parliament next year, an official at the industry ministry said.

In the financial year to March 2021, nuclear accounted for 3.9% of Japan's power mix, with the government aiming to boost it to as much as 22% by 2030.

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Miho Uranaka; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Contested natural gas pipeline granted permanent certificate

Thu, December 15, 2022 

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Federal officials on Thursday granted Spire Inc. a permanent certificate to operate a natural gas pipeline in Missouri and Illinois, angering the environmental group that had sued over the project.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission first granted approval for the Spire STL Pipeline in 2018 and it became fully operational in 2019. It connects with another pipeline in western Illinois and carries natural gas to the St. Louis region, where Spire serves around 650,000 customers.

But the Environmental Defense Fund sued in 2020, raising concerns that the pipeline was approved without adequate review. Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that FERC had not adequately demonstrated a need for the project, vacating approval of the pipeline.

For the past year, the pipeline had been operating under a temporary certificate while FERC conducted a court-ordered review.

Scott Smith, president of the Spire STL Pipeline, said in a statement that he was pleased with the decision. He described the review the project underwent as “thorough."

But Ted Kelly, an Environmental Defense Fund attorney, disagreed, saying that FERC had “again failed to fulfill its obligation," alleging that some landowners, ratepayers and stakeholders were shut out of the review.

He said that FERC should reverse its decision to grant the permanent certificate and reopen the process with a temporary certificate in place so there is no disruption in service.

Common process by which people get pregnant is in legal jeopardy. Some Democrats want to legally protect IVF

Trevor Hughes and Christine Fernando, USA TODAY

Thu, December 15, 2022 

Democratic senators are trying to legally protect the right to use in vitro fertilization after the fall of Roe v. Wade not only ended the constitutional right to abortion but also threw into question the fate of IVF.

Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray, along with Rep. Susan Wild, are introducing the new legislation, called the Right to Build Families Act of 2022.

Murray told USA TODAY she hopes the legislation "absolutely makes it clear in this country that IVF is protected so everyone is able to have their family."

IVF has become a commonly-used process by which people get pregnant, and about 2% of all babies born in the U.S. are conceived through IVF or another form of assisted reproductive therapy.

PREVIOUSLY: Medication abortion may be the next focal point in the fight over abortion access. Here's what to know.

FACT CHECK: Planned Parenthood parody account shared tweet promoting 'white privilege' donations

What to know about IVF

• It's commonly used: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, IVF is responsible for about 84,000 babies annually, including those born to military families who wanted to delay pregnancy during deployments or people undergoing cancer treatments.

• It's in legal jeopardy: Some state-level abortion bans or proposals contain no exceptions for IVF, including the process by which eggs are harvested and then fertilized in a laboratory.

• Experts worried: Some IVF experts say strict bans on abortion could curtail the use of IVF through a variety of avenues, from the potential removal of a failed implanted embryo to the fate of unused embryos left over from the process.

• Many embryos in storage: The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in 2020 that there were at least 600,000 frozen embryos in storage nationally.

What is the Right to Build Families Act of 2022?

The Right to Build Families Act of 2022 bans any limits on seeking or receiving assisted reproductive therapy, according to a summary of the bill shared with USA TODAY by Duckworth and Murray's offices.

Assisted reproductive technology, also called ART, includes fertility treatments such as IVF.

The bill also protects health care providers who offer assisted reproductive technology and related counseling and allows the Department of Justice to pursue civil action against states that violate the bill by limiting access to it.

Supporters of Right to Build Families Act say it's necessary

Duckworth said abortion rights groups had been warning for years that anti-abortion activists would not stop at banning abortion and would also seek to limit access to contraception and restrict the use of assisted reproductive technology.

She said comments from leading anti-abortion groups in Texas demonstrate that agenda in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

"There is this outright push to basically get rid of IVF, just as there is a push to get rid of contraception," said Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois. "People thought that the Dobbs decision was about abortion. It's about your privacy rights to bodily autonomy."

Duckworth open about personal journey with IVF

Duckworth conceived two daughters via IVF and made history in 2018 when she became the first sitting U.S. senator to cast a vote while accompanied by a child, then-10-day-old Maile Pearl. Two years later, Duckworth opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the grounds that the judge had previously supported the work of an anti-abortion group that considered some aspects of IVF to be manslaughter.

Murray said many people may not be aware of the threats against IVF post-Roe. But in a hearing after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Murray said IVF providers "have serious concerns about whether parents and providers could be punished if an embryo doesn’t survive being thawed for implantation, or for disposing unused embryos."

MIDTERMS: Abortion rights were on midterm ballots in several states. Here's what voters decided.

WATCH: President Biden marks 100 days since Dobbs decision, calls out 'extremist' abortion laws

"This is such an important issue for so many families in our country who today, because of the medical care we can provide, have the ability to have a family when they may not have many years ago," she told USA TODAY on Tuesday. "That is now under threat because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and decisions in state courts across the country that may now impact their ability to have a child."

Why does IVF access matter?

Without a federal mandate to protect IVF, states could be free to ban it using some of the same justifications as abortion.

Rebecca Parma, the senior legislative associate with the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, said anti-abortion advocates will eventually push for embryos to be considered human, regardless if they are inside a uterus or in cryo-storage.

“Ultimately, we believe that all human life is valuable and deserves our legal protection from that beginning moment of fertilization, whether that occurs through normal means or through IVF," Parma told Spectrum News 1 this summer. "And so certainly we want those embryos who are created through the IVF process protected."

Duckworth said many of her Republican colleagues have previously supported mandating the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for IVF and other assisted reproductive technology.

"It is one thing to say that you're anti-choice, and you're against abortion," she said. "But it's another thing to be on the record being against the right of people to start families."

Want to know more?

WITHOUT ROE, WHAT HAPPENS TO IVF?: People struggling to conceive worry embryos are at risk

'IT WAS REALLY HARD': Jennifer Aniston reveals journey with IVF, trying to get pregnant

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senate Democrats move to protect IVF with Right to Build Families Act

HUMAN RIGHTS TRUMP RELIGIOUS RITES

Yeshiva University must recognize LGBTQ club, New York appeals court rules

Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - A New York appeals court on Thursday ruled that Yeshiva University must formally recognize an LGBTQ student group, rejecting the Jewish school's claims that doing so would violate its religious rights and values.

The ruling by the Appellate Division in Manhattan marked the latest setback for the university in its fight to avoid recognizing Y.U. Pride Alliance in a case that conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices have signaled interest in reviewing.

The court upheld a judge's ruling that the school did not qualify as a "religious corporation," which would exempt it from prohibitions against discrimination by a place or provider of public accommodation under the New York City Human Rights Law.

That law bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, religion, race, gender, age, national origin and some other factors.

The unanimous four-judge panel also said requiring Yeshiva to recognize the club did not violate its rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment to the free exercise of religion, saying the law was "neutral and generally applicable."

Katie Rosenfeld, a lawyer for Y.U. Pride Alliance, in a statement said the ruling affirmed that the school "cannot discriminate against its LGBTQ+ students by continuing its refusal to recognize the YU Pride Alliance."

Yeshiva, a Modern Orthodox Jewish university based in Manhattan, in a statement said it would "continue on appeal to defend against the claim that we are not a religious institution."

YU Pride Alliance agreed in September to hold off on forcing Yeshiva to recognize it while the school pursued its appeals after the school briefly halted all student club activities.

It did so after the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision earlier that month declined to block the New York judge's June ruling requiring it to recognize the club.

Four conservative justices dissented including Justice Samuel Alito, who said Yeshiva's First Amendment rights appeared to be violated and that the court would likely take the case up if Yeshiva lost its lower-court appeals.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Stephen Coates)

B FOR BOONDOOGLE

Wild video shows F-35B jet crashing and skidding in botched vertical landing, forcing the pilot to eject

Sophia Ankel

Fri, December 16, 2022 

A Marine F-35B joint strike fighter hovers over the runway as it descends toward the ground during the first short take-off and vertical landing mission at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Oct. 25, 2013.U.S. Air Force photo/Samuel King Jr.

• A video showed a fighter jet crash landing at a military base in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday.

• The pilot was forced to eject from the F-35B aircraft after it spun out of control.

• The pilot landed without injury, CBS News reported.

Video showed a US pilot ejecting from an F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jet that crashed during the aircraft's trademark vertical landing at a naval base in Texas.

The plane was landing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth on Thursday when things went wrong.

The video, published by CBS reporter Doug Dunbar, shows the aircraft bouncing on the tarmac before its nose leans forward and its back wheels lift up unexpectedly. The jet then begins to spin around on its nose.

The jet continues to spin, then rights itself as the pilot is seen ejecting from the aircraft with a parachute trailing amid plumes of smoke.

The pilot landed without injury, CBS News reported.

The F-35B is a short take-off/vertical landing variant built for operations from aircraft carriers with ramps, amphibious assault ships, and airfields with limited runways.

It is built differently from the F-35A, armed with a cannon, and the F-35C, equipped with the tools for carrier launch and recovery.

The F-35B achieved initial operating capability in 2015 and first flew combat missions in 2018. It is unclear exactly what caused the problem with this particular vertical landing Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday that the jet was still under the ownership of its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and had not yet been handed over to the US military. The aircraft, however, was being flown by a "US government pilot" at the time of the crash, he said. This is not uncommon during testing.

In a statement provided to multiple outlets, Lockheed Martin said: "We are aware of the F-35B crash on the shared runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and understand that the pilot ejected successfully. Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol."

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The F-35 program is among the most expensive weapons programs in the world.

But the advanced fifth-generation fighter has faced setbacks over the course of its development, including crashes involving both the US military and foreign partners, though not all were caused by problems with the plane.

The first F-35 crash involved a US Marine Corps F-35B that went down in 2018 outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina due to a problem with the fuel tube. The next year, a Japanese F-35A crashed into the sea; however, the crash was attributed to pilot error.

2020 saw a US Air Force F-35A crashed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida due to a mixture of pilot error and issues with the aircraft, and a Marine Corps F-35B crashed in Florida after colliding with a tanker plane.

The following year, a Marine F-35B damaged itself after a round fired from the jet's gun pod exploded close to the aircraft, throwing shrapnel into the plane, and then another F-35B operating off the British Royal Navy carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth crashed into the Mediterranean.

Following an emergency belly landing by a South Korean F-35 in early 2022, a US Navy F-35C crashed on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, caught fire, and slid into the South China Sea. This year also saw an Air Force F-35A crash on the runway at Hill Air Force Base, and then there was the latest crash in Texas.

German FM to personally return 20 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria


Benin bronzes are being packed for return to Nigeria at the Ethnological Museum Dahlem in Berlin on Dec. 6, 2022. Germany's foreign minister will personally take 20 artifacts looted by Europeans during colonial times back to Nigeria when she visits to Africa's most populous country next week, her spokesman said Friday. The symbolic gesture follows an agreement earlier this year between Berlin and Abuja that will see all 514 so-called Benin Bronzes held in German museums handed back to Nigeria. (Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP)

Fri, December 16, 2022 

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's foreign minister will personally take 20 artifacts looted by Europeans during colonial times back to Nigeria when she visits to Africa's most populous country next week, her spokesman said Friday.

The symbolic gesture follows an agreement earlier this year between Berlin and Abuja that will see all 514 so-called Benin Bronzes held in German museums handed back to Nigeria.

“With her trip Foreign Minister (Annalena) Baerbock is fulfilling this pledge," her spokesman Christofer Burger told reporters in Berlin.

Baerbock, who departs for Abuja on Sunday, will be accompanied by representatives from the German museums with the biggest collections of Benin Bronzes.

“It shows how serious Germany is about working through its colonial history,” Burger said.

The bronzes were among a vast trove of treasures stolen in 1897 by a British colonial expedition from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now southwestern Nigeria.

The objects, including numerous bas-reliefs and other sculptures, later found their way to collections around Europe, including the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. It has one of the world’s largest groups of historical objects from the Kingdom of Benin, many dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

As part of the agreement, Nigeria will regain ownership of the bronzes but loan scores of them to German museums, ensuring that some can remain on display in Berlin and elsewhere.

Museums in France and the United States have also begun a process of handing back items looted from Africa during colonial times.

Obesity was long considered a personal failing. Science shows it's not.

Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY
Fri, December 16, 2022 

More than 70% of Americans are now considered overweight

 and 42% meet the criteria for having obesity.

Editor’s note: Part 1 of a six-part USA TODAY series examining America’s obesity epidemic.

Barbara Hiebel carries 137 pounds on her 5-foot-11 frame. Most of her life she weighed 200 pounds more.

For decades she tried every diet that came along. With each failure to lose the extra weight or keep it off, her shame magnified.

In 2009, Hiebel opted for gastric bypass surgery because she had "nothing left in the gas tank" to keep fighting. She quickly dropped 200 pounds and felt better than she had in ages.

Over the next eight years though, 70 pounds crept back, and the shame returned.

"I knew everything to do to lose weight. I could teach the classes," said Hiebel, 65, a retired marketing professional from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She asked to be identified by her first and maiden name because of the sensitivity and judgment surrounding obesity. "I'm not a stupid person. I just couldn't do it."

Barbara Hiebel has tried every diet, surgery and now medication; she’s down 200 pounds from her heaviest.

The vast majority of people find it almost impossible to lose substantial weight and keep it off.

Medicine no longer sees this as a personal failing. In recent years, faced with reams of scientific evidence, the medical community has begun to stop blaming patients for not losing excess pounds.

Still, there's a lot at stake.

Rethinking Obesity

Despite decades fighting America's obesity epidemic, it's only gotten worse. To try to understand why, USA TODAY spoke with more than 50 experts for this six-part series, which explores emerging science and evolving attitudes toward excess weight.

Obesity increases the risk for about 200 diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, asthma, hypertension, arthritis, sleep apnea and many types of cancer. Obesity was a risk factor in nearly 12% of U.S. deaths in 2019.

Even for COVID-19, carrying substantial extra weight triples the likelihood of severe disease.

Early in the pandemic, pictures from intensive care units repeatedly showed large people fighting for their lives. At Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, the average age for ICU patients was 72 if their weight was in the "normal" range and just 58 if they fit the medical definition for having obesity, said Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity medicine specialist there.

As fat cells expand, the body produces inflammatory hormones. Combined with COVID-19, the inflammation creates a biological storm that damages people's organs and leads to uncontrolled blood clotting, Aronne said.

The link between obesity and severe COVID-19 is surprisingly strong, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has dedicated his life to combating infectious diseases.

"The data were so strong," Fauci said of a recent government study. Even for children, every increase in body mass index led to a greater risk of infection with COVID-19 and for a dangerous case of the viral illness.

"The more you learn about the deleterious consequences of obesity, the more reason and impetus you have to seriously address the problem," Fauci said.

But despite more than 40 years of diets and workouts, billions of dollars spent on weight loss programs and medical care, and tens of millions of personal struggles like Hiebel's, the obesity epidemic has only gotten worse. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are now considered overweight, and more than 4 in 10 meet the criteria for having obesity.

To try to understand why, USA TODAY spoke with more than 50 nutrition and obesity experts, endocrinologists, pediatricians, social scientists, activists and people who have fought extra pounds. The reporting resulted in a six-part series, which explores emerging science and evolving attitudes toward excess weight.

The experts pointed to an array of compounding forces. Social stigma. Economics. Stress. Ultra-processed food. The biological challenges of losing weight.

They agree people need to take responsibility for eating as well as they can, for staying fit, for sleeping enough. But simply promoting individual change won't end the obesity epidemic – just as it hasn't for decades.

It's time to rethink obesity, they said.

Experts offered different ideas to change the trajectory.

Subsidize healthy food. Make ultra-processed foods healthier or scarcer. Teach kids to better care for their bodies. Provide insurance for prevention instead of just the consequences. Personalize weight loss programs to support, not stigmatize. Learn what makes fat unhealthy in some people and not in others.

Dr. Sarah Kim

For real progress to come, they agreed, society must stop blaming people for a medical condition that is beyond their control. And people must stop blaming themselves.

"There's a lot of misperception among patients that they can somehow 'behavior' their way out of this – if they just had enough willpower and they just decided they were finally going to change their ways, they could do it," said Dr. Sarah Kim, an endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco.

For the vast majority, trying to will or work themselves to thinness is just a prescription for misery, she said.

"There's so much suffering associated with weight that is just so unnecessary."
Origin story

Like many people who struggle with weight, Hiebel has a family tree that includes others with extra pounds. Her mother was heavy, as were other female relatives.

In childhood, Hiebel simply loved food. It gave her pleasure. A buzz.

In fourth grade, her mother brought up her weight with the pediatrician. He prescribed amphetamines.

"I was a fat kid who always wanted to be skinny," Hiebel said. "My whole life. I wanted to be healthy. Thinner."

She blamed herself. For not pushing away from the table sooner. For enjoying what she ate. For the thoughts about food that popped into her head every 30 seconds all day long. For not being able to throw away the plate of cake until she had devoured every bite.

Even though she was trained as a nurse, Hiebel, was petrified of getting medical care. "I spent 50 years largely avoiding doctors because they're going to weigh me," she said.

People who experience and internalize weight stigma are more likely to avoid health care and report lower quality of medical care, research shows.

Many fear the waiting room won't have chairs strong enough to support their weight. They won't fit on the examining table. The doctor will mock or criticize them for being overweight without offering realistic advice for how to lose their extra pounds.

Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford

"We treat them as if we obviously don't care because obesity must be their fault," said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. "We just tell them to eat less and exercise more, and when that fails, as it does 95% of the time, we don't do anything about it."

And people with obesity continue to punish themselves. Stanford tells a story about a patient whose weight kept climbing even after being prescribed medications that are usually effective.

The woman confessed she wasn't taking the prescription because she hadn't tried hard enough to lose weight on her own and didn't deserve it. "I only do 15,000 steps a day," the woman told Stanford. "I feel like I should be doing 20,000."

Stanford ended up persuading her to take the medication. She explained that if someone had a disability weakening their legs, it wouldn't be a failure for them to use a wheelchair.

Compassionate care

Hiebel had excellent insurance coverage, but she remembers overhearing her internist arguing with the insurance company to get her weight loss surgery covered. She was required to try Weight Watchers for at least six months and a second weight loss program for another six months, although data shows the vast majority of people can't lose substantial weight and keep it off.

It felt as if the whole insurance industry was telling her she was guilty for being fat.

Shame and embarrassment led Hiebel to avoid seeking help when she started regaining weight after the surgery. "People did all this work on you. You spent all this time and energy and you're failing yet again," she said.

But she didn't want to let all her progress fall apart. She eventually went back to her surgeon.

He told her to make an appointment with Dr. Katherine Saunders at Weill Cornell – and to wait as long as was necessary to see her.

When Hiebel eventually found herself in Saunders' office, she heard for the first time in her life the words: "This is not your fault."

"In my head, I'm going, 'Of course it's my fault. I'm weak. I've got no willpower,'" Hiebel said.

Saunders told her weight loss would take hard work. Her body was conspiring against her to keep on the pounds. The free snacks in her office break room would be a constant temptation.

She offered Hiebel some new tools, including medication to address metabolic issues and her mental state.

With other weight loss doctors, Hiebel felt embarrassed to return for another appointment until she had lost 10 pounds. That often meant never going back. But Saunders told Hiebel to call immediately if she started to struggle.

"She was inoculating me against that from the beginning," Hiebel said. "'This isn't your fault. I can help. And if you get into trouble, don't do what you would normally do and actually call me.'"

The medication gave Hiebel some stomach problems. Saunders warned her that might happen and told her to tough it out for a few weeks. They would adjust the dosage or prescription if it got too bad.

Hiebel's pounds started melting off. She felt great.

Then, for two days, Hiebel found herself repeatedly standing in front of her pantry. "Just looking," she said. "I'd grab a cracker or shut the door. But you keep going back."

Without noticing, she had missed two daily doses of Contrave, a prescription weight loss pill that also helps with mood disorders. Hiebel resumed taking the pills, and her pantry-gazing ended. "I went back to my normal habits almost overnight. Literally."

That's when she realized the power of the medications – and of the drive she carried within her.

"I always felt controlled by food," she said. "Everything was about not eating."

But the metabolic changes from the surgery and the boost from the medications finally changed that dynamic. Raw cookie dough, once her "fifth major food group," lost its grip on her mind. "I kind of don't really want it," she said.

She can throw away a piece of cake after just a few bites, even leaving behind the icing. "Now I'm that person," Hiebel said, "not because I somehow have the willpower, but because I don't really want it.

"I feel liberated around food."

Easy to gain, hard to lose

Weight gain may be as simple as consuming more calories than you burn, but weight loss isn't as simple as burning more calories than you eat.

The human body evolved over tens of thousands of years to hold on to excess calories through fat.

"The default is to promote eating. It's very simple, very logical. If it were not this way, you would die after you're born," said Tamas Horvath, a neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine. "When you live out in the wild, you need to be driven to find food, otherwise you're going to miss out on life."

Severe calorie restriction is dangerous, said Horvath, who, with his colleague Joseph Schlessinger, has been studying the brain wiring that drives hunger.

In a study of mice whose calories were severely restricted, one-third lost weight and lived longer, as the experiment set out to prove, Horvath said. But nothing happened to another third. The remainder died young.

"When you engage in such behavior, you are basically playing Russian roulette," he said.

Restricting calories seems to slow metabolism, meaning the body needs less fuel. "You have to keep restricting more and more to keep losing weight," said Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children's Hospital. "This is a battle between mind and metabolism that most people don't win."

Genetics play a role, too. Some people seem destined from birth to be thin, like everyone else in their family.

Only about a quarter of the population, those with a genetic gift for thinness, seem to escape extra pounds in today's food climate. Even these lucky few can develop the same metabolic problems seen with obesity, becoming "thin outside, fat inside," according to Jose Ordovas, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.

And everybody doesn't gain the same amount of weight from overeating.

A 1990 study showed that a group of identical twin men fed an additional 1,000 calories a day for three months led some to gain roughly 10 pounds and others to gain 30. The twin pairs varied substantially from each other in how much weight they gained and where, but each twin responded nearly the same as his brother.

Overeating can distort the nerves in the brain that receive signals from hormones, said Aronne, at Weill Cornell.

"As you get more damage there, fewer hormonal signals are able to get through and tell your brain how much you've eaten and how much fat is stored," he said. "As a result, your body keeps expanding your fat mass."

Exercise doesn't lead to weight loss either. "You can't easily exercise off obesity," said Marion Nestle, an emerita professor of nutrition and food science at New York University.

Still, experts agree that regular exercise is crucial to health at any size. And it may help prevent weight gain and regain.

"The Biggest Loser" TV show ran on NBC for 17 seasons, following participants as they lost weight through diet and exercise. In 2016, Kevin Hall, a National Institutes of Health researcher, examined what had happened to 14 of the 16 contestants from the 2009 season.

All but one regained some or all of their lost weight, Hall found. But the contestants who remained the most physically active kept off the most weight, he reported in a 2017 analysis of the results.

"The benefits of exercise when it comes to weight don't seem to show up so much while people are actively losing weight," he said, "but in keeping weight off over the long term."

Adequate sleep also is essential for maintaining a healthy body weight and can help with weight loss, studies show.

To accomplish everything she wanted to do in a day, Hiebel often limited her sleep to five to six hours a night. Her solution to the resulting exhaustion was to snack. She remembers frequent coffee and cookie breaks, "as self-defeating as that is."

Many people make the same decision to sleep less – and end up eating more.

In a study published earlier this year, people who had extra weight but not obesity were encouraged to sleep 1.2 hours more a night for two weeks. They ended up consuming 270 calories less a day than the volunteers who slept their typical 6½ hours or less a night.

"It's about sufficient sleep making you feel less hungry, making you want to consume fewer calories," said Dr. Esra Tasali, who led the study and directs the UChicago Sleep Center. "Basically not eating the extra chocolate bar."
Growing hope

Even though she knows how to work the system from her years in the insurance industry, Hiebel is struggling again to get her medication covered by insurance.

She may have to switch to two low-cost generics, provided at the wrong dose. "I'm going to have to cut a pill into fourths with a razor blade," she said. "It's ridiculous."

But Heibel will do what she must to keep off the extra weight.

She feels healthier without those pounds. She used to dread the hills she faced on hikes with her husband. After losing weight, she barely notices them.

Barbara Hiebel wants to share her story of weight loss, so others know there's hope.

"We're not talking about Everest," she said. "I'm not running marathons, but I can do this stuff and I don't huff and puff."

Before she started weight loss medications, she was heading into pre-diabetes. She had borderline high cholesterol and was managing hypertension. Now, her LDL and HDL hover around 70; 60 to 100 is considered optimal.

Just knowing it was possible to break food's grip on her life, that there was hope, was transformative.

Hiebel wants to talk publicly about her story, about the shame she endured for decades, because she wants others to know it's not their fault and help is out there.

The incident with the Contrave made her realize she'll probably need to take a constellation of medications forever. And they still give her a rumbly tummy sometimes.

It's a small price to pay, she said, "to do something that for 50 years I wasn't able to do."

"I'm happy as a clam, and I'm not looking back."

Contact Karen Weintraub at kweintraub@usatoday.com.

Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Obesity rate in America: Overweight people are blamed despite research

Texas Republicans Want Even More Fossil Fuels on the Grid

Molly Taft
Fri, December 16, 2022 


Texas Republicans are messing with the state’s grid to fulfill their political ambitions. Again.

Ahead of the 2023 legislative session, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has made it clear that one of his priorities for the upcoming year is increasing natural gas production to, supposedly, stabilize the grid. Patrick has told multiple media outlets in recent weeks that he will push this spring for the legislature to form a plan to build more natural gas plants—potentially forcing renewables providers to help foot the bill.

“We still need more power. We just have to do that. We have plenty of cheap, natural gas under the ground,” he said in an interview with KXXV this week as he discussed the reforms to the Texas grid . “Renewables are fine. They help the environment, help lower the cost of energy, but we don’t have enough dispatchable power. That means when we turn on the light switch, the lights come on. When you turn on your AC or furnace, it comes on because it’s reliable.”

There are some real conversations to be had around making sure the grid is reliable and has enough baseload power for when wind and solar aren’t available. Unfortunately, legislation that simply mandates more production—especially any legislation proposed by those with a vested interest in promoting oil and gas interests—far oversimplifies the issues that are facing the state’s grid.

Texas’s grid failed during a winter storm in February 2021 that caused widespread blackouts and hundreds of deaths. The cause of the blackouts was multifold and included equipment unprepared for freezing temperatures and the failure of natural gas infrastructure. However, in the nearly two years since the storm, Governor Greg Abbott’s leadership has taken every opportunity to blame renewables for the grid’s failure—including helping to spread false rumors that frozen wind turbines were responsible for the blackouts. (Some of these efforts were encouraged by fossil fuel interests.)

Patrick, in particular, has a history of trying to use the legislature to tie the hands of renewables and promote fossil fuels. After the storm, during the last legislative session (the Texas Legislature meets once every other year) he backed a bill that would have imposed new fees on wind and solar energy. While that bill failed to pass, Patrick also (successfully) pitched a bill that prohibits Texas from doing business with companies that “boycott” the oil and gas industry, which inspired a series of similar bills in other states.

At the same time that Patrick is pitching this yes-more-gas approach, the folks actually in charge of the grid are trying to make some major decisions to avoid future disasters. The state’s Public Utility Commission suggested a new proposal to make serious changes to the grid that would mandate power providers buy credits as a way to ensure power during peak demand; this plan, as E&E News reported this week, “would favor thermal plants fueled by natural gas, coal and nuclear energy.” But there are lots of questions around the feasibility of this plan: A bipartisan set of lawmakers sent a letter to the PUC expressing concerns around the proposal.

And all of this is happening as renewables are, for lack of a better word, thriving in Texas. The International Energy Agency this month predicted that wind and solar will make up the largest share of electricity in the state next year, pushing natural gas use down. Legislation or policies that actively punish renewables generation could do serious damage to cheap and clean sources of energy.

The challenges facing Texas’s grid are complex and don’t boil down to some sort of battle between fossil fuels and renewables; it will take careful considerations and major policy decisions to tackle its problems. Unfortunately, Republican lawmakers like Patrick have proven time and again that they are determined to politicize these conversations—to paint fossil fuels as good and renewables as bad—and gloss over the details in favor of helping out their fossil fuel funders.