GOP presidential candidates avoid discussing climate change on campaign trail

PBS NewsHour

Aug 4, 2023

The 2024 Republican presidential campaign season is in full swing and candidates are stumping on a host of key issues. But one topic that’s missing from their agenda is climate change. Despite a summer of record-setting heat, new polling shows that Republican voters still don't see a warming planet as a concern. As William Brangham reports, neither do the GOP candidates who want to lead them.

'The people have spoken': Both expelled Tennessee Democrats win back their seats

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
August 4, 2023

Justin Pearson and Justin Jones (AFP)

Two Tennessee Democrats who were expelled by the GOP-controlled state House earlier this year for taking part in a gun control demonstration on the chamber floor won special elections for their seats on Thursday, handily fending off Republican opponents.

State Rep. Justin Jones, who represents Nashville, defeated GOP challenger Laura Nelson with nearly 80% of the vote. State Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis defeated his Republican opponent, Jeff Johnston, with more than 90% of the vote.

"The people have spoken," Jones wrote following his victory, directing his message at Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican who led the charge to expel Jones and Pearson.

"See you August 21st for special session," Jones added, referring to an upcoming session called by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to address gun violence.

The Tennessee House voted to expel Jones and Pearson in April after the pair and fellow state Rep. Gloria Johnson—who was not expelled—took to the chamber floor with a bullhorn to demand gun control legislation in the wake of a deadly mass shooting in Nashville.

Republicans decried the floor action as a breach of decorum rules and swiftly voted for Jones and Pearson's expulsion. A vote to expel Johnson, who is planning to challenge U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) next year, fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed.

The expulsion of Jones and Pearson sparked national outrage, with hundreds of state lawmakers and rights groups across the U.S. condemning Republicans' move as an anti-democratic effort to silence gun control supporters. Tennessee has the 12th-highest gun death rate in the U.S., according to the advocacy group Everytown.

Within days of the expulsion vote, county officials reappointed Jones and Pearson on an interim basis, setting the stage for Thursday's special election.

In a statement late Thursday, Pearson said that "this is only the beginning for this movement."


"We will organize, mobilize, and activate to work tirelessly for the day when there are no more calls to respond to mass shootings and gun violence," said Pearson. "I look forward to heading back to the Tennessee state capitol August 21 for the special session on gun legislation. We, the people, will march, rally and work to pass legislation."

CRYPTO CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

New York couple plead guilty to bitcoin laundering

Agence France-Presse
August 4, 2023,

Bitcoin Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe/TNS

A married couple from New York dubbed "Bitcoin Bonnie and Crypto Clyde" pleaded guilty on Thursday to laundering billions of dollars in stolen bitcoin, prosecutors announced.

Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, and Heather Morgan, 33, were arrested in February last year after the US government seized 95,000 bitcoin then valued at $3.6 billion.

Prosecutors said the pair stole the bitcoin in 2016 using "advanced hacking tools." Authorities recovered the funds from wallets controlled by the duo.

Since their arrests, the government has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the hack, the Southern District of New York said in a statement.

In total, the couple admitted to laundering conspiracies arising from the theft of approximately 120,000 bitcoin from Bitfinex, a global cryptocurrency exchange.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that Lichtenstein, at times with Morgan's help, "employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques."

That included using fictitious identities to set up online accounts and utilizing computer programs to automate transactions.

They deposited the stolen funds into accounts in a variety of darknet markets and cryptocurrency exchanges and then withdrew the money, which confuses the transaction history.

They couple also converted bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency and even exchanged a portion of the stolen funds into gold coins, which Morgan then concealed by burying them.

One of Morgan's aliases was "Razzlekhan" while Lichtenstein was known as "Dutch."

The couple were dubbed "Bitcoin Bonnie and Crypto Clyde" by financial newsletter Morning Brew.

Rail unions renew push for safety reforms 6 months after East Palestine disaster

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
August 4, 2023

Smoke rises from a derailed cargo train in East Palestine, Ohio on February 4, 2023.(Photo: Dustin Franz/AFP)

Six months after a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed and burned in East Palestine, Ohio, railroad workers on Thursday urged Congress to pass comprehensive safety legislation to stop their employers from "choosing Wall Street over Main Street."



"On this somber occasion, rail labor unions once again renew our calls for safety reforms," the Transportation Trades Department (TTD) of the AFL-CIO, which represents 37 unions, said in a statement. "For years, workers have sounded the alarm about deadly safety conditions in the freight rail industry. The industry's safety failures contribute to more than 1,000 freight train derailments a year."

"There have been more than 60 high-profile derailments since East Palestine, including multiple [incidents] in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Montana," the labor group continued. "Through it all, freight rail companies have maintained their fundamental disregard for public safety. Safety is just a buzzword to the railroads."

TTD added:

Since the East Palestine disaster, rail companies have lobbied to evade or weaken safety provisions, such as the two-person crew minimum staffing standard in legislation pending before Congress. They have also sought to gut proposed safety requirements for rail inspections, defect detectors, and more. While fending off proposed safety measures, railroads have also repeatedly sought waivers from existing federal safety rules.

Shortly after the February 3 East Palestine derailment, chemical spill, and burnoff—which released toxins into the air and forced the evacuation of area residents—rail workers blamed what one member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen-Teamsters union called "greedy profiteers who externalize risks and reap profits at our expense."

In the wake of recent rail accidents, workers, politicians, and safety advocates pointed to the railroad industry's profit-maximizing scheduling system that forces fewer workers to manage longer trains in less time. Unions and progressive lawmakers contend that this makes the nation's rail system more dangerous and contributes to derailments.

Some critics also noted that rail industry operatives spent more than a half billion dollars lobbying against improved railroad safety rules at the federal and state levels over the past two decades, while others drew attention to the billions of dollars in stock buybacks and dividends issued by railroad companies—money advocates say would be better spent on ensuring better staffing and safety levels.

On Thursday, The Lever reported that Occidental Petroleum, the company that manufactured the toxic chemicals released during the East Palestine disaster, gave $2 million to the leading Senate Republican super PAC as "rail safety legislation stalled in Congress."

In March, U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023, legislation that would impose limits on freight train lengths—which in some cases currently exceed three miles.

While welcomed by some safety advocates, critics said the bill has "loopholes big enough to operate a 7,000-foot train through."

The Railway Safety Act was introduced a day after Democratic U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) put forth a billthat would require the U.S. Department of Transportation to impose stricter regulations on trains carrying hazardous materials.

Later in March, Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced the Railway Accountability Act, which would direct the Federal Railroad Administration to study wheel-related accidents and mechanical defects.

The legislation would also implement new brake safety measures, improve switchyard safety protocols, ensure rail companies provide adequate safety equipment to their workers, and compel large freight operators to report close calls and dangerous events.

Advocates lamented that none of the bills have passed in the six months since East Palestine.

"Congress must pass a comprehensive rail safety bill that addresses the issues rooted in the industry's current operating practices," TTD said. "Absent these federal actions, rail corporations will keep choosing Wall Street over Main Street and rail safety will further deteriorate."

"Above all, rail corporations must grapple with the moral bankruptcy of their current safety operations and come to their senses," TTD added. "If the moral calculation is not persuasive, perhaps the financial calculation will be."

Bravo stars and crew accuse network, parent NBC of sexual exploitation, provoking mental instability

2023/08/04

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images North America/TNS

Bravo stars are claiming they’ve been sexually and mentally exploited by the network and its parent company, NBC.

A letter sent to NBC, and obtained by TMZ, alleges the network has subjected current and former reality show cast and crew members to “grotesque and depraved mistreatment,” including provoking mental instability, exploiting minors, and distributing or condoning the distribution of revenge porn.

As part of magnifying employees’ wavering mental health, NBC is accused of “plying cast members with alcohol while depriving them of food and sleep,” as well as denying appropriate treatment to those “displaying obvious and alarming signs of mental deterioration,” according to the outlet.

The network is also accused of burying acts of sexual violence, of not permitting stars to leave their shows “even under dire circumstances” and of having “threatened” anyone who goes public with the treatment dished out.

The alleged exploitation of minors includes having them take part in “sometimes long-term appearances” on shows for which they are not paid.

The letter comes on the heels of “Real Housewives of New York City” alum Bethenny Frankel advocating for the unionization of reality stars.

Streaming services and television networks are “going to get as much milk out of the cows as they (can) because it’s legal. We signed a contract. Does it mean we should be exploited?” asked Frankel, 52. “Just because you can exploit young, doe-eyed talent desperate for the platform TV gives them, it doesn’t mean you should.”

Frankel went on to call for a strike of those starring on reality shows currently in production.

Her statements came a week after SAG-AFTRA initiated a strike, joining that of the Writers Guild, as both unions’ negotiations broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and streamers.

_____

© New York Daily News

Iceland's president joins throng of metalheads at German festival

2023/08/05

Festival co-founder Thomas Jensen (L) and Gudni Johannesson, president of Iceland, pose at the Wacken Open-Air Festival (WOA). André Klohn/dpa

Iceland's President Gudni Jóhannesson spent the weekend at Wacken Open Air, the legendary heavy metal festival in northern Germany that operates under the motto "louder than hell."

Jóhannesson, who assumed office in 2016, told dpa that a big highlight was seeing the two-hour performance by hair-metal superstars Iron Maiden on Friday evening.

"And of course the four Icelandic metal bands that are here. They make me proud as an Icelander," he said on Saturday.

It is the 55-year-old's first time at the annual festival in Wacken, a village located about an hour north of Hamburg. He said that he loved the sincerity and passion with which the performers play.

The four-day festival featuring more than 200 bands and 60,000 metalheads from across the world is scheduled to end late on Saturday night.

People attend the Wacken Open-Air Festival (WOA). Axel Heimken/dpa

People celebrate in front of the stages in the so-called "infield" during the Wacken Open-Air Festival (WOA). Axel Heimken/dpa

© Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH

Amazon rainforest gold mining is poisoning scores of threatened species

By Gloria Dickie and Jake Spring

2023/08/05

LOS AMIGOS BIOLOGICAL STATION, Peru (Reuters) - In a camping tent in the Peruvian jungle, four scientists crowded around a tiny patient: An Amazonian rodent that could fit in the palm of a human hand.

The researchers placed the small-eared pygmy rice rat into a plastic chamber and piped in anesthetic gas until it rolled over, asleep. Removing the creature from the chamber, they fitted it with a miniature anesthetic mask and measured its body parts with a ruler before gently pulling hairs from its back with tweezers.

The hairs, bundled into a tiny plastic bag, would be carried to a nearby lab at the Los Amigos Biological Station for testing to determine whether the rat is yet another victim of mercury contamination.

Los Amigos lies in the rainforest of southeastern Peru's Madre de Dios region where some 46,000 miners are searching for gold along river banks in the country's epicenter of small-scale mining.

Tests like this are providing the first extensive indications that mercury from illegal and poorly regulated mining is affecting terrestrial mammals in the Amazon rainforest, according to preliminary findings from a world-first study shared with Reuters.

Absorbing or ingesting mercury-contaminated water or food has been found to cause neurological illness, immune diseases and reproductive failure in humans and some birds.

But scientists don't yet know its full effects on other forest animals in the Amazon, where more than 10,000 species of plants and animals are at a high risk of extinction due to destruction of the rainforest.

Reuters accompanied the researchers in Madre de Dios over three days in late May and reviewed their previously unreported findings. Their data showed mercury contamination from informal gold mining making its way into the biodiversity hotspot's mammals — from rodents to ocelots to titi monkeys.

Leaders from the eight countries around the Amazon meeting in Brazil next week will discuss how to end illegal gold mining.

The rapid expansion of mining in the rainforest over the past 15 years is seen by regional governments as an environmental and health threat. Colombia has proposed a regional pact to end illegal mining, although has not suggested a deadline to reach that goal, a government spokesperson told Reuters.

A research team from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the California nonprofit Field Projects International and Peruvian partner Conservación Amazônica have collected fur and feather samples from more than 2,600 animals representing at least 260 species, including emperor tamarins and brown capuchins, in the 4.5 square kilometer (1.7 square mile) area around the Los Amigos station.

While the scientists began testing for mercury at Los Amigos in 2021, some of the samples were gathered as early as 2018.

Of the 330 primate samples tested so far, virtually all showed mercury contamination -- and in some cases the levels were "astounding," said biologist Mrinalini Erkenswick Watsa of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Erkenswick Watsa said they could not share specific readings before their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals.

But a study last year led by biogeochemist Jacqueline Gerson of the University of Colorado Boulder, drawing on the same data generated at Los Amigos, found that songbirds living around the station had mercury levels as much as 12 times higher than those in a forest farther away from gold mining.

During Reuters' visit to Los Amigos, scientists caught rodents in metal traps baited with peanut butter and snagged birds and a bat in mist nets floating through the forest.

A MINING BOOM

The vast majority of small-scale or artisanal miners in the Amazon are mining illegally in protected areas, or working informally - outside reserves but without explicit permission from the government.

Informal miners even in government-designated mining corridors, which includes much of the Madre de Dios region, operate with little regulatory oversight.

Some researchers say this means that many small-scale mining operations disregard environmental laws restricting deforestation and the use of toxic liquid mercury to separate precious metal from sediment.

Some of that mercury is then absorbed into the environment and, in some cases, into endangered species.

"When someone buys their gold engagement ring, they could be causing the Amazon to get a little bit sicker," said Erkenswick Watsa.

Peruvians have mined gold for centuries. Artisanal mining boomed in the Madre de Dios region during the 2008 Great Recession as gold prices spiked, driven up by investors fleeing financial markets and national currencies for a safe place to put their money.

Tracking artisanal miners is notoriously difficult. It is thought to make up about a fifth of worldwide gold production and is valued between $30 billion and $40 billion, according to nonprofit Artisanal Gold Council (AGC) which promotes the sustainable development of the sector.

That's around 500 metric tons annually as of 2023, up from about 330 metric tons in 2011, AGC data shows. Peru, the largest gold producer in Latin America, churns out around 150 metric tons of artisanal gold every year, according to the AGC.

In Madre de Dios, about 6,000 miners work with formal permission while roughly 40,000 operate informally or illegally, according to a 2022 USAID report.

The Peruvian government declared a state of emergency in Madre de Dios in 2019 and deployed 1,500 police and soldiers to the region to crack down on illegal mining.

The operation pushed many miners out of protected areas and into a government-designated mining corridor, according to satellite monitoring project MAAP.

Peru's environment ministry did not respond to questions about mercury contamination.

In 2021, mining arrived on Los Amigos' doorstep. The station sits on the edge of the mining corridor and overlooks a barren curve across the river where miners have stripped away the forest and replaced it with mining pits.

"This is a region in Peru where there's been an economic boom, and it's been associated with gold mining," said Gideon Erkenswick, a researcher and Mrinalini's husband, who has come to Los Amigos since 2009 to study wildlife diseases and primates. "This place is being transformed by it."

The Peruvian government estimates that illegal miners dump about 180 metric tons of mercury in Madre de Dios annually.

The miners mix mercury with fine river silt in oil drums. The mercury binds to the gold fragments, resulting in lumps known as amalgams. Burning the amalgams turns the mercury to vapor which floats into the atmosphere, leaving only gold behind.

This gaseous mercury has been found to infiltrate the forest through pores in plant leaves, according to research published in Nature Communications last year.

Mercury vapor sticks to dust and aerosol particles, floating down through the canopy and landing on leaves. When it rains, that mercury is washed to the forest floor.

MERCURY MENAGERIE

Shortly after dawn, biologist Jorge Luis Mendoza Silva gently untangled a brilliant red, yellow and orange band-tailed manakin bird from a fine-mesh net.

Back in the sampling tent, the scientists tweezed clumps of the manakin's breast feathers to be sent for analysis, before the bird is returned unharmed to the wild.

The machine incinerates the feathers at extremely high temperatures, measuring the emitted mercury.

Animals ingest mercury through their diet — plants, insects, or other animals. Those higher up the food chain generally have higher levels as they accumulate the mercury contained in their prey.

But scientists at the Los Amigos station are unsure where the mercury contamination in monkeys comes from, given fish or other foods traditionally high in the heavy metal aren't typically on the menu.

Animals could be accumulating mercury from the water they drink, or the air they breathe, said Caroline Moore, a veterinary toxicologist with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance studying mercury at Los Amigos.

How this will affect their health is not clear. The effects of mercury could show up in population size, she said. If mercury levels are high enough, it could prevent animals from reproducing.

"Are we noticing any changes in the number of babies that, for example, the tamarins are having?" Moore asked.

Those kinds of questions cannot be answered without more data, she said. In the years to come, scientists hope to create a long-term dataset in Peru and other mining hotspots to understand how mercury could be affecting imperiled mammals globally.

"It is widespread throughout the Amazon Basin, it's widespread throughout the Congo Basin and Indonesia — this is a global tropics issue," said ecotoxicologist Chris Sayers at the University of California Los Angeles, who has studied the impact of mercury on birds in Madre de Dios.

(Reporting by Jake Spring in Los Amigos Biological Station, Peru, and Gloria Dickie in London; Additional reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima and Oliver Griffin in Bogota; Editing by Katy Daigle and Suzanne Goldenberg)

























© Reuters

COMPARATIVE RELIGONS

How exposure to differing religious beliefs can 'sharpen' students’ critical thinking': professor

Maya Boddie, Alternet
August 5, 2023

Silhouette of crosses held up at sunset (Shutterstock)

As conflict over K-12 curriculums rise across the country in states like Florida and Texas, conflict also pours into spaces outside of the classroom — including extra-curricular clubs like religious groups.

In an op-ed published Saturday by Kansas Reflector, Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer chair in education in the School of Education and Health Sciences, director of the Ph.D. program, and research professor of law in the School of Law at the University of Dayton, argues that children's exposure to differences in beliefs and ideas can potentially "sharpen their critical thinking."

In his argument, Russo points to the the fact that "conflict has trailed attempts to establish After School Satan Clubs sponsored by the Satanic Temple, which the U.S. government recognizes as a religious group.

READ MORE: School’s LGBTQ pride celebration destroyed by students chanting their pronouns are 'USA'

The education law professor emphasizes that, although a religious group, Satanic Temple "has a history of filing suits to try to gain the same rights afforded to Christian groups, in an attempt to highlight and critique religion's role in American society," which has led to "significant questions about freedom of speech in K-12 public schools, particularly around religious issues."

Russo writes:

Litigation around Satan Clubs arose in 2023 when a school board in Pennsylvania refused to allow a club to meet in an elementary school. In May, a federal trial court ruled that the school board could not ban the club, since it allowed other types of clubs. By allowing groups to use school facilities, the court explained, officials had created a public forum. Therefore, excluding any group because of its views would constitute discrimination, violating organizers’ First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

The lawyer also notes, "As a federal trial court judge in Missouri once observed, provocative speech 'is most in need of the protections of the First Amendment. … The First Amendment was designed for this very purpose.'"

He points to the Equal Access Act, adopted by Congress in 1984, which "applies to public secondary schools where educators create 'limited open fora,' meaning non-instructional time when clubs run by students, not school staff, are allowed to meet," and says that "Officials cannot deny clubs opportunities to gather due to 'the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the speech at such meetings."

READ MORE: 'May not be what you think': Jen Psaki exposes 'unapologetically extreme' Moms for Liberty group


Russo also notes:

The Equal Access Act specifies that voluntary, student-initiated clubs cannot 'materially or substantially interfere' with educational activities. Further, groups cannot be sponsored by school officials, and educators may only be present if they do not participate directly. Finally, the act forbids people who are not affiliated with the school, such as local residents or parents, from directing, conducting, controlling or regularly attending club activities.

"Following the Equal Access Act," the professor emphasizes, "some boards banned all non-curriculum-related clubs in attempts to avoid controversy. Perhaps the Pennsylvania board will go this route as well."


READ MORE: 'We are in the mind-changing business': Florida is using far-right videos to 'indoctrinate' schoolchildren

Charles J. Russo's full op-ed is available at this link.

Dozens evacuated as wildfire spreads on Spain-France border

Agence France-Presse
August 5, 2023

Catalonia Fires (© RAYMOND ROIG / AFP)

Firefighters from Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia teamed up with French colleagues as the blaze ravaged some 435 hectares (1,100 acres) of land, with an estimated 2,500 hectares threatened.

Local people were evacuated overnight from several villages as a precaution hours after the fire was declared to the south of Portbou, whose railway station connects Spain with France.

Catalan forest rangers said on Twitter, rebranded X, that an investigation was under way into the cause of the fire.

In a statement on the Catalan regional government website, they added the blaze "remains active" and that their priority was to prevent it encroaching on the nearby tourist resort of Llanca to the south.

Strong winds had helped the fire to spread overnight and prevented water-bombing planes from taking off to aid a firefighting operation complicated by the hilly terrain affected.

The Catalan fire service said it expected airborne operations to be able to start Saturday afternoon following helicopter reconnaissance beforehand.

They added that as well as evacuating around 135 local people, several hundred more had had to spend the night confined in their villages or at campsites which at this time of year typically welcome thousands of tourists.

Catalan Red Cross volunteers were aiding the rescue operation.

Catalan civil protection officials said some 4,000 people were without electricity and that rail traffic had been suspended between Portbou and Figueres, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) to the south. The main road into Portbou and to the French border was also closed.

Joining some 80 Catalan firefighting units were a dozen fire engines from the French side of the border.

Last year, some 500 blazes laid waste to more than 300,000 hectares in Spain, a record for Europe, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).

To date this year has seen some 70,000 hectares destroyed, according to Effis.

© 2023 AFP

‘City killers’ and half-giraffes: how many scary asteroids really go past Earth every year?

The Conversation
August 5, 2023

NASA/Eyes on Asteroids

Asteroids are chunks of rock left over from the formation of our Solar System. Approximately half a billion asteroids with sizes greater than four meters in diameter orbit the Sun, traveling through our Solar System at speeds up to about 30 kilometres per second – about the same speed as Earth.

Asteroids are certainly good at capturing the public imagination. This follows many Hollywood movies imagining the destruction they could cause if a big one hits Earth.

Almost every week we see online headlines describing asteroids the size of a “bus”, “truck”, “vending machine”, “half the size of a giraffe”, or indeed a whole giraffe. We have also had headlines warning of “city killer”, “planet killer” and “God of Chaos” asteroids.

Of course, the threats asteroids pose are real. Famously, about 65 million years ago, life on Earth was brought to its knees by what was likely the impact of a big asteroid, killing off most dinosaurs. Even a four-meter object (half a giraffe, say) traveling at a relative speed of up to 60 kilometers per second is going to pack a punch.

But beyond the media labels, what are the risks, by the numbers? How many asteroids hit Earth and how many can we expect to zip past us?
What is the threat of a direct hit?

In terms of asteroids hitting Earth, and their impact, the graphic below from NASA summarizes the general risks.
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There are far more small asteroids than large asteroids, and small asteroids cause much less damage than large asteroids.



Asteroid statistics and the threats posed by asteroids of different sizes. NEOs are near-Earth objects, any small body in the Solar System whose orbit brings it close to our planet. NASA

So, Earth experiences frequent but low-impact collisions with small asteroids, and rare but high-impact collisions with big asteroids. In most cases, the smallest asteroids largely break up when they hit Earth’s atmosphere, and don’t even make it down to the surface.

When a small asteroid (or meteoroid, an object smaller than an asteroid) hits Earth’s atmosphere, it produces a spectacular “fireball” – a very long-lasting and bright version of a shooting star, or meteor. If any surviving bits of the object hit the ground, they are called meteorites. Most of the object burns up in the atmosphere.
How many asteroids fly right past Earth?


A very simplified calculation gives you a sense for how many asteroids you might expect to come close to our planet.

The numbers in the graphic above estimate how many asteroids could hit Earth every year. Now, let’s take the case of four-meter asteroids. Once per year, on average, a four-meter asteroid will intersect the surface of Earth.

If you doubled that surface area, you’d get two per year. Earth’s radius is 6,400km. A sphere with twice the surface area has a radius of 9,000km. So, approximately once per year, a four-meter asteroid will come within 2,600km of the surface of Earth – the difference between 9,000km and 6,400km.

Double the surface area again and you could expect two per year within 6,400km of Earth’s surface, and so on. This tallies pretty well with recent records of close approaches.

A few thousand kilometers is a pretty big distance for objects a handful of meters in size, but most of the asteroids covered in the media are passing at much, much larger distances.

Astronomers consider anything passing closer than the Moon – approximately 300,000km – to be a “close approach”. “Close” for an astronomer is not generally what a member of the public would call “close”.

MISSING: summary MISSING: current-rows.

No Hazard (White Zone)	0	The likelihood of a collision is zero, or is so low as to be effectively zero. Also applies to small objects such as meteors and bodies that burn up in the atmosphere as well as infrequent meteorite falls that rarely cause damage.
Normal (Green Zone)	1	A routine discovery in which a pass near the Earth is predicted that poses no unusual level of danger. Current calculations show the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern. New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to Level 0.
Meriting Attention By Astronomers (Yellow Zone)	2	A discovery, which may become routine with expanded searches, of an object making a somewhat close but not highly unusual pass near the Earth.
Meriting Attention By Astronomers (Yellow Zone)	3	A close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers. Current calculations give a 1% or greater chance of collision capable of localised destruction.
Meriting Attention By Astronomers (Yellow Zone)	4	A close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers. Current calculations give a 1% or greater chance of collision capable of regional devastation.
Threatening (Orange Zone)	5	A close encounter posing a serious, but still uncertain threat of regional devastation. Critical attention by astronomers is needed to determine conclusively whether or not a collision will occur.
Threatening (Orange Zone)	6	A close encounter by a large object posing a serious but still uncertain threat of a global catastrophe. Critical attention by astronomers is needed to determine conclusively whether or not a collision will occur.
Threatening (Orange Zone)	7	A very close encounter by a large object, which if occurring this century, poses an unprecedented but still uncertain threat of a global catastrophe. For such a threat in this century, international contingency planning is warranted.
Certain Collisions (Red Zone)	8	A collision is certain, capable of causing localized destruction for an impact over land or possibly a tsunami if close offshore. Such events occur on average between once per 50 years and once per several 1000 years.
Certain Collisions (Red Zone)	9	A collision is certain, capable of causing unprecedented regional devastation for a land impact or the threat of a major tsunami for an ocean impact. Such events occur on average between once per 10,000 years and once per 100,000 years.
Certain Collisions (Red Zone)	10	A collision is certain, capable of causing global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilization as we know it, whether impacting land or ocean. Such events occur on average once per 100,000 years, or less often.

Source: NASAEmbedDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper

In 2022 there were 126 close approaches, and in 2023 we’ve had 50 so far.

Now, consider really big asteroids, bigger than one kilometer in diameter. The same highly simplified logic as above can be applied. For every such impact that could threaten civilization, occurring once every half a million years or so, we could expect thousands of near misses (closer than the Moon) in the same period of time.

Such an event will occur in 2029, when asteroid 153814 (2001 WN5) will pass 248,700km from Earth.

How do we assess threats and what can we do about it?

Approximately 95% of asteroids of size greater than one kilometer are estimated to have already been discovered, and the skies are constantly being searched for the remaining 5%. When a new one is found, astronomers take extensive observations to assess any threat to Earth.

The Torino Scale categorizes predicted threats up to 100 years into the future, the scale being from 0 (no hazard) to 10 (certain collision with big object).

Currently, all known objects have a rating of zero. No known object to date has had a rating above 4 (a close encounter, meriting attention by astronomers).

So, rather than hearing about giraffes, vending machines, or trucks, what we really want to know from the media is the rating an asteroid has on the Torino Scale.

Finally, technology has advanced to the point we have a chance to do something if we ever do face a big number on the Torino Scale. Recently, the DART mission collided a spacecraft into an asteroid, changing its trajectory. In the future, it is plausible that such an action, with enough lead time, could help to protect Earth from collision.

Steven Tingay, John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University

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