Thursday, July 13, 2023

Deadly flooding hits several countries at once. Expect more of the same

By Karen Graham
Published July 11, 2023

Landslide during the floods in Patan block, Satara, Maharashtra, India in 2021

. Credit - वर्षा देशपांडे, CC SA 4.0.

Destructive flooding is happening around the globe, and these events have one thing in common: Storms forming in a warmer atmosphere.

Although terrible flooding in India, Japan, China, Turkiye, and the United States may seem to be distant and isolated events – they are not isolated, say atmospheric scientists, according to CTV News Canada.

Simply put, a warmer atmosphere means more extreme rainfall has become a reality. And additional warming is leading scientists to predict that it will only get worse.

Pollutants, especially carbon dioxide, and methane, are heating the atmosphere. Instead of allowing heat to radiate away from Earth into space, they hold onto it. Storms are forming in an atmosphere that is becoming warmer and wetter.

“Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit can hold twice as much water as 50 degrees Fahrenheit,” said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay. “Warm air expands, and cool air contracts. You can think of it as a balloon – when it’s heated, the volume is going to get larger, so therefore it can hold more moisture.”

According to NASA, for every 1 degree Celsius, which equals 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the atmosphere warms, holding about seven percent more moisture. The average global temperature has increased by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1880.

“When a thunderstorm develops, water vapor gets condensed into rain droplets and falls back down to the surface. So as these storms form in warmer environments that have more moisture in them, the rainfall increases,” explained Brian Soden, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami.

Soden cites Turkiye’s mountainous and scenic Black Sea coast, where heavy rains swelled rivers and damaged cities with flooding and landslides. At least 15 people were killed by flooding in another mountainous region in southwestern China.

“As the climate gets warmer we expect intense rain events to become more common, it’s a very robust prediction of climate models,” Soden added. “It’s not surprising to see these events happening, it’s what models have been predicting ever since day one.”

Gavin Schmidt, climatologist, and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, also points out that the regions being hit the hardest by climate change are not the ones that emit the largest amount of planet-warming pollutants.

“The bulk of the emissions have come from the industrial Western nations and the bulk of the impacts are happening in places that don’t have good infrastructure, that are less prepared for weather extremes and have no real ways to manage this,” said Schmidt.

Japan experiences the ‘heaviest rain ever’

Six people died and three others were missing after the “heaviest rain ever” triggered floods and landslides in southwest Japan. Residents in Kyushu, one of the country’s four main islands, were warned to stay alert for landslides.

The chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, said up to six people were thought to have died as a result of heavy rain that caused rivers to burst their banks and disrupted to bullet train services, as well as cutting off roads and water supplies.

“This is the heaviest rain ever experienced” in the region, said Satoshi Sugimoto, a meteorological agency official, reports The Guardian. “The situation is such that lives are in danger and their safety must be secured.”

India hit with flooding and landslides

At least 49 people have died since the weekend amid unusually heavy downpours that have pummeled the northern part of the country and caused widespread damage.

The hardest hit was the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, which received more than 10 times its average rainfall for this time of year. The death toll there stood at 30 as of Monday evening, according to the local police.

Extreme weather patterns, including record heat waves and heavy floods in the monsoon season, have become more frequent, putting extra hardship on farmers who complain of the devastating effect on crops as the rains have become more unpredictable and damaging.

R.K. Jenamani, who works for the India Meteorological Department in New Delhi, said, “The rainfall is several times more than normal. For example, in Himachal Pradesh, the normal rainfall would have been around eight millimeters (less than half an inch), but it was 103.4 millimeters (about four inches) on Sunday.”

Some of the heaviest rainfall in decades also struck the Delhi region, according to the India Meteorological Department. The rains flooded homes and streets, killing at least three people, Delhi fire department officials said.

People around the world are dying in ‘unprecedented’ heavy rains this week

By Uday Rana Global News

Posted July 11, 2023

Click to play video: '‘Nowhere near over’: Ferocious flooding slams U.S. northeast'

States, India and Japan, and have also forced hundreds to evacuate in Quebec.

Click to play video: '‘Likely to get worse’: Climate change linked to increase in extreme weather events in U.S.'

1:55‘Likely to get worse’: Climate change linked to increase in extreme weather events in U.S.

Here’s a look at how people around the world have been grappling with the latest bout of extreme wet weather.

day, July 2, 2023. A major landslide caused by heavy rain cut highway 170 between Saguenay, Que., and Saint-Simeon. — Crews begin repairs to a washed-out section of Highway 170 in Riviere-Eternite, Que., Sunday, July 2, 2023. A major landslide caused by heavy rain cut Highway 170 between Saguenay, Que., and Saint-Simeon. Two people are missing after they were swept from the road by floodwaters. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot.

On July 10, officials said that 220 homes were evacuated in Ste-Brigitte-de-Laval, Que., near Quebec City after more than 70 millimetres of rain fell just north of the town, which caused water levels to rise.

And the threat isn’t over yet as Environment Canada predicts another 80-120 millimetres of rain in the area by the end of Tuesday.

Officials said several areas in southern and central Quebec were being monitored for flood risks and also for potential landslides.

“The precipitation that falls on waterways, we see the water level rise in real time, but landslides are more insidious, sometimes enough water falls to impact the ground so that it becomes susceptible to a landslide that finally takes place a few days after,” said Joshua Menard-Suarez, a Public Safety Department spokesman.

Cars sit stranded in standing flood water along Thayer Road on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Monday, July 10, 2023, in West Point, N.Y. Heavy rain washed out roads and forced evacuations Sunday in the northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day Monday. (Courtesy of the USMA via AP).

Heavy rains also lashed several parts of the northeastern United States over recent days.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Female physicists aren’t represented in the media – and this lack of representation hurts the physics field

The Conversation
July 12, 2023,

Lise Meitner, in the front row, sits alongside many male colleagues at the Seventh Solvay Physics Conference in 1933. Corbin Historical via Getty Images

Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated movie “Oppenheimer,” set for release July 21, 2023, depicts J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. But while the Manhattan Project wouldn’t have been possible without the work of many accomplished female scientists, the only women seen in the movie’s trailer are either hanging laundry, crying or cheering the men on.

The only women featured in the official trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ are crying, hanging laundry or supporting the men.

As a physics professor who studies ways to support women in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – fields and a film studies professor who worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, we believe the trailer’s depiction of women reinforces stereotypes about who can succeed in science. It also represents a larger trend of women’s contributions in science going unrecognized in modern media.

Lise Meitner: A pioneering role model in physics

The Manhattan Project would not have been possible without the work of physicist Lise Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission. Meitner used Einstein’s E=MC² to calculate how much energy would be released by splitting uranium atoms, and it was that development that would prompt Einstein to sign a letter urging President Franklin Roosevelt to begin the United States’ atomic research program.

Einstein called Meitner the “Madame Curie of Germany” and was one of a pantheon of physicists, from Max Planck to Niels Bohr, who nominated Meitner for a Nobel Prize 48 times during her lifetime.

Lise Meitner, the accomplished physicist who discovered nuclear fission.

MaterialScientist/Wikimedia Commons

Meitner never won. Instead, the prize for fission went to Otto Hahn, her male lab partner of 30 years in Berlin. Hahn received the news of his nomination under house arrest in England, where he and other German scientists were being held to determine how far the Third Reich had advanced with its atomic program.

Of Jewish descent, Meitner had been forced to flee the Nazis in 1938 and refused to use this scientific discovery to develop a bomb. Rather, she spent the rest of her life working to promote nuclear disarmament and advocating for the responsible use of nuclear energy.

Meitner was not the only woman who made a significant contribution during this time. But the lack of physics role models like Meitner in popular media leads to real-life consequences. Meitner doesn’t appear as a character in the film, as she was not part of the Manhattan Project, but we hope the script alludes to her groundbreaking work.

A lack of representation

Only around 20% of the undergraduate majors and Ph.D. students in physics are women. The societal stereotypes and biases, expectation of brilliance, lack of role models and chilly culture of physics discourage many talented students from historically marginalized backgrounds, like women, from pursuing physics and related disciplines.

Societal stereotypes and biases influence students even before they enter the classroom. One common stereotype is the idea that genius and brilliance are important factors to succeed in physics. However, genius is often associated with boys, and girls from a young age tend to shy away from fields associated with innate brilliance.

Studies have found that by the age of 6, girls are less likely than boys to believe they are “really, really smart.” As these students get older, often the norms in science classes and curricula tend not to represent the interests and values of girls. All of these stereotypes and factors can influence women’s perception of their ability to do physics.

Research shows that at the end of a yearlong college physics course sequence, women with an “A” have the same physics self-efficacy as men with a “C”. A person’s physics self-efficacy is their belief about how good they are at solving physics problems – and one’s self-efficacy can shape their career trajectory.

Women drop out of college science and engineering majors with significantly higher grade-point averages than men who drop out. In some cases, women who drop out have the same GPA as men who complete those majors. Compared to men, women in physics courses feel significantly less recognized for their accomplishments. Recognition from others as a person who can excel in physics is the strongest predictor of a student’s physics identity, or whether they see themselves as someone who can excel in physics.

More frequent media recognition of female scientists, such as Meitner, could vicariously influence young women, who may see them as role models. This recognition alone can boost young women’s physics self-efficacy and identity.

When Meitner started her career at the beginning of the 20th century, male physicists made excuses about why women had no place in a lab – their long hair might catch fire on Bunsen burners, for instance. We like to believe we have made progress in the past century, but the underrepresentation of women in physics is still concerning.

A number of barriers keep young women out of the physics field, but having role models to look up to can lead them toward success.

Hill Street Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Diversity as an asset to science

If diverse groups of scientists are involved in brainstorming challenging problems, not only can they devise better, future-oriented solutions, but those solutions will also benefit a wider range of people.

Individuals’ lived experiences affect their perspectives – for example, over two centuries ago, mathematician Ada Lovelace imagined applications far beyond what the original inventors of the computer intended. Similarly, women today are more likely to focus on applications of quantum computers that will benefit their communities. Additionally, physicists from Global South countries are more likely to develop improved stoves, solar cells, water purification systems or solar-powered lamps. The perspectives that diverse groups bring to science problems can lead to new innovations.

Our intention is not to disparage the “Oppenheimer” movie, but to point out that by not centering media attention on diverse voices – including those of women in physics like Meitner – filmmakers perpetuate the status quo and stereotypes about who belongs in physics. Additionally, young women continue to be deprived of exposure to role models who could inspire their academic and professional journeys

Carl Kurlander, Senior Lecturer, Film and Media Studies, University of Pittsburgh and Chandralekha Singh, Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of Pittsburgh

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The atomic age was born 78 years ago — government secrecy and 'cover-ups' have held sway ever since

Greg Mitchell
July 12, 2023

While many people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6, 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. This forms the dramatic center of Christopher Nolan’s new "Oppenheimer" epic, coming to theaters on July 21. That has been true, in fact, about every movie about the making and use of the first atomic bomb, going back to the very first film in 1947.

The successful detonation put President Truman on the path to using the horrendous new weapon, twice, against Japanese cities, killing at least 170,000 civilians and others. Much less attention has been directed at how the aftermath of the test lay the groundwork for the age that would follow: the cover-up of radiation effects on Americans (workers, soldiers and others) and government obsession with secrecy, soon extending to all military and foreign affairs in the Cold War era, with many negative effects.

One value of focusing on the New Mexico bomb test and not Hiroshima and Nagasaki in popular accounts: No one died that day at Trinity, a far cry from what would happen in Japan. In finalizing work on the revolutionary new weapon, Manhattan Project scientists knew it would produce deadly radiation but weren’t sure exactly how much. One Los Alamos scientist had already died from radiation exposure. The military planners were mainly concerned about pilots ion the bombers carrying the payload catching a dose, but Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, worried, with good cause (as it turned out) that radioactive particles could drift for miles and fall to earth, especially with the rain.

Scientists warned of dangers to those living downwind from the Trinity site but, in a pattern-setting decision, the director of the bomb project, General Leslie R. Groves, ruled that residents should not be evacuated and kept completely in the dark (even after they were sure to spot a blast brighter than any sun before dawn on July 16). Nothing was to interfere with the test. When two doctors on Oppenheimer’s staff proposed an evacuation, Groves replied, “What are you, Hearst propagandists?”

There is no record of Oppenheimer himself trying to intervene. Most movie and book portrayals of him — we don’t know yet about Christopher Nolan’s — focus on him leading the drive to make the bomb but downplay his role in advocating its use against Japan. In fact, he was militant on getting the bomb used against Japan, even taking part in targeting decisions.

Admiral William Leahy, President Truman’s chief of staff — who opposed dropping the bomb on Japan — placed the weapon in the same category as “poison gas.” Sure enough, soon after the shot went off, scientists monitored alarming evidence. Radiation was quickly settling to earth in a band thirty miles wide by 100 miles long. A paralyzed mule was discovered twenty-five miles from ground zero.

Still, it could have been worse. The cloud had drifted over loosely-populated settlements. “We were just damn lucky,” the head of radiological safety for the test later affirmed. The local press knew nothing about any of this. When the shock wave had hit the trenches in the desert, Groves’ first words were: “We must keep the whole thing quiet.” These seven words set the tone for the decades that followed.

Naturally, reporters from nearby newspapers were curious about the big blast, however, so Groves released a statement written by W.L. Laurence (who was on leave from the New York Times and playing the role of chief atomic propagandist) announcing that an “ammunition dump” had exploded. Nobody questioned and the bomb project and preparations for using the weapon in war accelerated.

In the weeks that followed, ranchers discovered dozens of cattle had odd burns or were losing hair. Oppenheimer ordered post-test health reports held in the strictest secrecy. When Laurence’s famous report for The Times on the Trinity test was published after the Hiroshima bombing he made no mention of radiation.

Even as the scientists celebrated their success at Alamogordo on July 16, the first radioactive cloud was drifting eastward over America, depositing fallout along its path. When Americans found out about this, three months later, the word came not from the government but from the president of the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, who wondered why some of his film was fogging and suspected radioactivity as the cause.

Fallout was absent in early press accounts of the Hiroshima bombing as the media joined in the triumphalist backing of The Bomb and the bombings. It was pictured as just a Big Bang. When reports of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki afflicted with a strange and horrible new disease emerged, General Groves called it all a “hoax” and “propaganda” and speculated that the Japanese had different “blood.” He told a congressional committee that he had heard that expiring from radiation disease was a rather "pleasant way to die."

None of this made an appearance in 1947 when Hollywood produced its first movie on the atomic bomb, MGM's "The Beginning or the End." In one scene before the Trinity test, General Groves even cracks a joke when someone wonders what would happen if the bomb created a radioactive cloud. "I don't know about you," Groves (Brian Donlevy) comments, "but I am running."

The movie also stayed clear of the famous line uttered by Oppenheimer after the blast, from the Baghavad Gita, "I am become death, destroyer of worlds," and the claim by a fellow scientist that morning: "Now we are all sons of bitches." Instead we see Oppenheimer, Groves and others striding across the desert, chatting about how President Franklin Roosevelt would be so proud if he had lived to see this day.

My recent book, "The Beginning or the End," also explores how Oppenheimer signed a release for MGM allowing himself to be depicted in the movie (and serve as narrator) even after reading a script and considering it awful and full of falsehoods. Truman and the Pentagon forced the filmmakers to introduce pro-bomb revisions, even if many were inaccurate.

We’ll soon see if Nolan includes any of this in his new movie. When some of the truth about radiation and radiation disease started to surface in the U.S. media, a full-scale official effort to downplay the death toll from that really enveloped the issue, so as not to alarm Americans now facing their own nuclearized future. Oppenheimer even led a misleading press tour of the Trinity site a month after the atomic attacks to “give lie to”(as the Pentagon put it) Japanese claims of radiation dangers. Of course, Geiger counters found only low levels of radiation lingering at the test site, which hardly disputed the initial dangers.

Yet few could escape the threatening, sometimes tragic effects, for decades: millions of workers in the nuclear industry, “downwinders” near the test sites (and others exposed to fallout across the country), and “atomic soldiers and sailors” asked to witness tests at close hand, among others (not to mention the American patients subjected to medical tests). The mindset of "secrecy first" took hold throughout the government, with obvious ramifications for us today.

Trinity was the beginning, but we are not yet at its end.

Greg Mitchell's latest book is "The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood--and America--Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"(
(The New Press). He has written a dozen books and has directed three documentary since 2021, including Atomic Cover-up, and two for PBS.

US EPA proposes tighter rules for lead exposure in residential buildings
2023/07/12

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed stricter regulations for lead exposure in residential buildings and childcare facilities.

Any amount of lead found in a building will be regarded as hazardous, according to the proposed rule from the EPA that would lower its lead dust hazard level to any level greater than zero.

The rule will, therefore, require disclosures for home buyers, and in certain cases for the paint or source of the lead to be removed.

Although the federal government banned lead-based paint for residential use in 1978, it is estimated that 31 million pre-1978 houses still contain lead-based paint, and 3.8 million of them have one or more children under the age of six living there, creating health and developmental risks for children, the EPA said in a statement.

The proposed rule is estimated to reduce the lead exposures of about 250,000 to 500,000 children under age six per year, the EPA said on Wednesday.

"This proposal to safely remove lead paint along with our other efforts to deliver clean drinking water and replace lead pipes will go a long way toward protecting the health of our next generation of leaders," said EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe.

Lead exposure can damage the brain and kidneys and interfere with red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body. It poses a particular danger to children, whose nervous systems are still developing.

"There is no safe level of lead. Even low levels are detrimental to children’s health, and this proposal would bring us closer to eradicating lead-based paint hazards from homes and child care facilities across the U.S once and for all," said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the office of chemical safety and pollution prevention.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)

© Reuters

Police say at least six killed and 50 children tear-gassed in Kenyan protests

Protests have broken out across the country against the rising cost of living.

WED, 12 JUL, 2023 - 15:58

CARA ANNA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Six people were killed by police during protests across Kenya, a police official has said.

A health worker also said that more than 50 schoolchildren in the capital, Nairobi, were tear-gassed.

Protests have broken out across the country against the rising cost of living.

The opposition leader behind the demonstrations vowed that they would continue until a new law imposing taxes is repealed.

Anti-government protesters are demonstrating against newly imposed taxes and the cost of living (Samson Otieno/AP)

The police official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said three people were killed in Mlolongo city in Machakos county, two in Kitengela town near Nairobi, and one in the town of Emali on the highway to the port city of Mombasa.

The officer said more than 10 people were taken to hospitals.

According to the official, the six who were killed were shot for disrupting businesses, but did not elaborate any further.

The police have been criticised by human rights watchdogs for their sometimes deadly response to such protests.

A health records worker at the Eagle Nursing Home clinic in Nairobi’s Kangemi neighbourhood said 53 children were treated after tear gas was thrown into their school.

The children, aged 10 to 15 had been in shock, said Alvin Sikuku.

Mr Sikuku said: “At this point they are OK, with their parents. Right now, things are cool.”

Dozens of protesters in Nairobi burned tires and dismantled part of an entrance to a recently built expressway.

Protesters carry a placard in Swahili that reads ‘Ruto, what is wrong with your thinking, we are fed up’ (Samson Otieno/AP)

Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost last year’s election to President William Ruto, has repeatedly called on Kenyans to protest as the country struggles with debt and rising prices.

Mr Odinga said that such protests will continue and he accused police of blocking access to the site where he had planned to make a speech.

He also accused police of using excessive force against protesters.

Mr Odinga said: “All our engagements are peaceful until the police show up.”

New taxes have added to frustration in East Africa’s economic hub, with inflation at around 8%.

Taxes on petroleum products, including gasoline, have doubled from 8% to 16%, which is expected to have a ripple effect.

Mr Odinga called on Mr Ruto to repeal the act imposing the new tax measures.

“People are tired of going to bed hungry, facing the new day hungry and returning to bed hungry,” he said.

Protesters and the police clashed in the Mathare neighbourhood of Nairobi (AP)

Most Kenyans either get on with their day or stay home during such demonstrations, but the economic toll of the demonstrations is yet another challenge for Mr Ruto, who won the election after appealing to Kenyans as a fellow “hustler” of modest background and vowing to lessen their everyday financial pain.

Lilian Anyango, a Nairobi resident, said: “Our children are not going to school, we are not affording food. Now we cannot go to work due to the protest.

“We do not have options. We do not know what we will do with the current government.”

Police have been criticised by human rights watchdogs for their assertion that any demonstration needs advance notification “in the interest of national security”.

Kenya’s constitution includes the right to peacefully demonstrate.

In a letter calling the protests “illegal”, Japhet Koome, the national police inspector general said: “All lawful means will be used to disperse such demonstrations.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Police say at least six killed and 50 children tear-gassed in Kenyan protests

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