It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, August 19, 2023
Study indicates agriculture adds more phosphorus to streams than to lakes
by Rachel Fritts, Eos
Quantifying the biggest sources of phosphorus to U.S. waterways, such as Hazel Creek in North Carolina, is important for informing effective policy aimed at restoring these waters. Credit: Jerry Ackerman, U.S. EPA
Phosphorus is an important nutrient, but too much of it in lakes and streams can diminish water quality and lead to eutrophication, resulting in harmful algal blooms and dead zones. To restore waterways degraded by excess phosphorus, decision-makers must understand which sources of the nutrient could be reduced to make the biggest impact on water quality.
Agricultural runoff from fertilizers and manure is a common source of phosphorus, but the impact of agriculture is not uniform across different bodies of water.
A research team applied several statistical approaches to analyze data from the U.S. EPA's National Lakes Assessment and the National Rivers and Streams Assessment to determine the most influential drivers of phosphorus levels in the country's lakes and streams and better understand how these systems differ in their responses to changing inputs from various phosphorus sources.
The study, titled "Comparing Drivers of Spatial Variability in U.S. Lake and Stream Phosphorus Concentrations," was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.
They found that phosphorus levels in streams were most strongly influenced by the amounts of fertilizer and manure introduced to nearby farmland, as well as by legacy sources of agricultural phosphorus released by erosion. Lake phosphorus levels, meanwhile, were determined by a more complex mix of variables—agricultural runoff played a role, as did historic inputs from erosion, internal recycling, and other factors.
The study indicates that in the short term, efforts to mitigate agricultural runoff would have the greatest impact on reducing phosphorus surpluses in U.S. streams. However, higher temperatures and more precipitation also correlated with increased phosphorus levels in the data set, and the authors note that these factors could contribute to greater phosphorus loading in surface waters in the future due to climate change.
More information: Robert D. Sabo et al, Comparing Drivers of Spatial Variability in U.S. Lake and Stream Phosphorus Concentrations, Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2022JG007227
Provided by Eos
This story is republished courtesy of Eos, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here.
The Whanganui River, New Zealand. Credit: Wirestock Creators/Shutterstock
As the scale and severity of environmental issues become more obvious, lawmakers are experimenting with new ways to protect nature. One approach that has gone from blue-sky debate to meaningful reality over the past 50 years is to give elements of the natural world—trees, rivers and mountains—legal rights and allow people to go to court on their behalf.
This idea can be traced back to the early 1970s, when American legal scholar Christopher Stone spontaneously threw it into a classroom discussion about the gradual expansion of rights, and was pleasantly surprised by the positive response it got.
He knew that the US Supreme Court was about to hear an important case on what lawyers call "standing" (whether or not one has the right to be heard by a court in a particular dispute), in which an environmental organization called the Sierra Club was seeking to prevent the development of a ski resort in the Sequoia National Forest. Stone also knew that one of the justices, William O. Douglas, who was well known for his environmental sympathies, would be writing a foreword to an issue of a legal journal.
Stone quickly wrote an article called Should Trees Have Standing?, elaborating on his initial thought just in time to get it into that issue. Douglas picked up the idea and endorsed it in his judgment, saying: "The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it. Those people who have a meaningful relation to that body of water—whether it be a fisherman, a canoeist, a zoologist or a logger—must be able to speak for the values which the river represents and which are threatened with destruction."
Though this did not sway the other members of the Supreme Court, it did spark a brief flurry of academic writing on the subject (the ski resort was never built anyway). Stone became a media celebrity for a short while before the idea of giving parts of nature legal rights faded from the public eye.
Fast forward to the 21st century and academics alongside environmental activists have given the idea a new lease of life. It has grown to include different schools of thought and these theories are now being put into practice worldwide.
So far, they have not been a quick fix for environmental problems. But they are leading to some successes.
More experiments may help identify how to make them work well effectively. But simply granting rights to nature is probably not a substitute for strong institutions and meaningful enforcement. This becomes clear when we explore the experiences of three different countries.
New Zealand
In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British crown and New Zealand's indigenous Māori people. The treaty aimed to protect the Māori people's right to their land and resources.
As part of a settlement to remedy past breaches of the treaty, both a former national park called Te Urewera and the Whanganui River have been recognized in New Zealand law as entities with their own rights (although not all the rights of a human person) since 2014 and 2017 respectively. This has involved the creation of two boards to manage the natural resources, featuring joint representation from the government and the local tribe.
Sequoia National Forest, California. Credit: Panpilas L/Shutterstock
Plans for rethinking Te Urewera are still being formulated, and representation for the Whanganui River has only recently been appointed (like many things, it was delayed by the COVID pandemic). However, a strategic plan will be developed in tandem with a NZ$30 million (£14 million) fund to support the river's health and well-being.
Time will tell if reframing this process so that nature itself has a voice will yield better outcomes.
Bangladesh
In 2019, the High Court of Bangladesh recognized the Turag River (and all other rivers in Bangladesh) as a living entity with legal rights and required that the government take significant action to protect it.
The Buriganga River, which flows south-west of Bangladesh's capital city of Dhaka, is now so polluted that its water appears black outside of the monsoon season.
Ecuador
In 2008, Ecuador adopted a new constitution that includes an article explicitly recognizing nature's right to "exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution". This development has enabled landowners and environmentalists to bring cases to court to protect the country's rivers and forests, slowly making this right a reality.
A striking example of this unfolded in 2021 when the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court revoked mining permits in Los Cedros—a cloud forest area of great biodiversity in the Andean mountains. It asserted that these permits not only violated the rights of local residents (such as the right to clean water and a healthy environment), but also the rights of the forest itself.
This is a significant step with ramifications for the future. However, it also highlights a common objection: that environmental matters frequently also include some form of human interest that can serve as a basis for legal standing. Consequently, granting nature rights may be unnecessary.
Whether they work or not, some form of rights for aspects of nature are likely to become part of most legal systems this century. Anyone with an interest in environmental protection should be aware of the idea and its development.
Characterizations of the catalyst microenvironment of the developed ImF-Mo3P electrocatalytic system studied in a flow electrolyser. a, Schematic of the catalyst microenvironment composed of Mo3P nanoparticles covered by an Im layer coated with an anion-exchange ionomer and deposited on a conductive carbon support. b, SEM image of the cathode electrode coated on the gas diffusion layer. c, TEM-EDS mapping image of the catalyst microenvironment. EDS mapping of Mo, P, N and C elements are shown with red, green, yellow and blue colors, respectively. d, TEM image of the dispersed nanoparticles in the catalyst microenvironment. e, False color EELS image of a single ImF-Mo3P nanoparticle. This image suggests an Im layer of about 1 nm. Credit: Nature Energy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-023-01314-8
Over the past three centuries, especially since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and 19th centuries, human activities have significantly increased greenhouse gas levels in the Earth's atmosphere. The main culprits are fossil fuel consumption, industrial processes, deforestation, and waste management.
In response, the United States aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030. This initiative aligns with a global effort to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. With electric power and industry sectors contributing to about half of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, finding solutions in these areas is imperative.
Now, in a paper published in Nature Energy, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a system that can convert CO2 emissions into propane (C3H8), a cleaner, more energy-dense fuel source.
"Electrochemical conversion of CO2 can serve future energy needs by storing renewable energy and closing the anthropogenic carbon cycle," says co-author Andrew Rappe of the School of Arts & Sciences at Penn. "This research paves the way to new solutions that will tackle energy storage challenges and meaningfully reduce CO2 levels."
"Making renewable chemical manufacturing is really important," says co-author Mohammad Asadi of Illinois Institute of Technology. "It's the best way to close the carbon cycle without losing the chemicals we currently use daily."
Copper has traditionally been the go-to element for researchers investigating efficient ways to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals and fuels, both to curb its environmental impact and provide new energy storage solutions. However, the fuels produced have been low-energy density single-carbon compounds like methane.
"Getting energy-dense multi-carbon products like C3H8 has remained a challenge due to the many intermediates that form throughout the chemical conversion process," explains Zhen Jiang, co-first author of the paper and a former postdoctoral researcher in The Rappe Group. "Additionally, most strategies to increase a material's selectivity for multi-carbon molecules tend to be energetically costly."
Jiang says that the team sought ways to move beyond existing catalysts like copper—and their modest selectivity for multi-carbon products or their sluggish kinetics—and investigated ways to add ionic liquid (IL) into the catalytic system. This prompted the team to look at tri-molybdenum phosphide (Mo3P) as the catalytic material.
"Based on our theoretical simulations, we found that the IL layer can enhance the adherence of CO2 and subsequent groups during reaction on the Mo3P catalyst surface, thus stabilizing the intermediates at different sites along the surface to produce C3H8 with an unparalleled efficiency of 91%," says Jiang.
The team also notes that this key finding led to a new paradigm for exploring the relationship between materials in electrocatalytic systems.
"Conventionally, the solid-state catalyst, and the aqueous solution that bridges ion transfer throughout the reaction acted with less mutual promotion at the interface," says Jiang. "But now, we can apply a hybrid approach via techniques like IL coating on solid-state catalysts and re-examine previously tried systems with our novel understanding of the catalyst's microenvironment."
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to build on this research in two ways: one, to develop a catalog of ionic liquids and their effectiveness in fuel-generating catalysts and other electrochemical systems; and two, investigate new catalysts for the conversion of CO2 into more energy-dense fuel sources from fuel gas to light oil with more carbon atoms.
Rappe says, "Extending this research to higher-weight hydrocarbons could close the carbon cycle by creating natural gas, propane, gasoline, and even jet fuel directly from the CO2 made by previous fuel combustion. In this way, the same carbon atoms store energy over and over, and we don't release them into the atmosphere."
More information: Mohammadreza Esmaeilirad et al, Imidazolium-functionalized Mo3P nanoparticles with an ionomer coating for electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to propane, Nature Energy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-023-01314-8
Artist impression of the stem pinniped Potamotherium valletoni in his natural, freshwater environment. Credit: Gabriel Ugueto (@SerpenIllus).
An ancient relative of modern seals—known as Potamotherium valletoni—that had an otter-like appearance and lived over 23 million years ago likely used its whiskers to forage for food and explore underwater environments, according to a new study in Communications Biology. The findings provide further insight into how ancient seals transitioned from life on land to life underwater.
Although modern seals live in marine environments and use their whiskers to locate food by sensing vibrations in the water, ancient seal relatives mostly lived on land or in freshwater environments. Some species used their forelimbs to explore their surroundings. Prior to this study, it was unclear when seals and their relatives began using their whiskers to forage.
Alexandra van der Geer and colleagues investigated the evolution of whisker-foraging behaviors in seals by comparing the brain structures of Potamotherium with those of six extinct and 31 living meat-eating mammals, including mustelids, bears, and seal relatives. Brain structures were inferred from casts taken from the inside of skulls.
The authors compared the size and structure of a brain region known as the coronal gyrus, which previous research has suggested is involved in processing signals from whiskers.
They found that Potamotherium had a larger coronal gyrus than ancient and living land-based mammals that use their forelimbs to forage (such as the Asian small-clawed otter), but a similar sized coronal gyrus to other ancient seal relatives and semiaquatic mammals, such as the Eurasian otter, that use their whiskers to explore their surroundings. This indicates that Potamotherium may have used its whiskers when foraging, potentially in combination with its forelimbs.
The findings suggest that whisker-based foraging was already present in ancient seal relatives before they transitioned to a fully aquatic lifestyle. The authors propose that the use of whiskers may have helped them adapt to underwater foraging.
More information: George A. Lyras et al, Fossil brains provide evidence of underwater feeding in early seals, Communications Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05135-z
An anaerobic digestion unit. Credit: GrandBout, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A low-tech solution to help farmers make more money from their muck could also help reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance from sewage and manure, according to scientists at The James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen and Center for Environmental Health and Engineering (CEHE) in Surrey.
Adding conductive materials, such as biochar, to anaerobic digestors when processing sewage sludge and manure on farms has been proven to help boost biomethane production, which can then be sold.
But now it's also been found that adding relatively low-cost additive materials like biochar to the process could also help reduce the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) by more than 90%.
Mac-Anthony Nnorom, an environmental health researcher at CEHE and Ph.D. student at the Hutton, who led the review, says, "As these materials have already been shown to also help increase biomethane production from anaerobic digestion, it's a win–win, especially as there isn't any other financial incentive to reduce ARGs in their muck. However, this approach should not be seen as a panacea and more research is required."
Antimicrobial resistance develops when germs like bacteria and fungi develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them. ARGs can pass between microorganisms, spreading resistance, and it's known that sewage sludge and animal manure contain significant levels of them and that these can then get into the wider environment.
According to the researchers' review, which has been published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, pig and chicken manure tended to have both more and more diverse ARGs compared with that of cattle and sheep.
Review co-author and Hutton senior environmental microbiologist Dr. Lisa Avery adds, "While it's generally accepted that ARGs have been around since before antibiotics were discovered and arise naturally, their evolution has been exacerbated by the extent to which antibiotics are now used. As antibiotics are not fully digested by humans or animals, 30%–90% of any one dose enters the environment through sewage and slurry."
Treatment of sewage sludge and slurry to remove ARGs is not mandated, but use of sustainable and easy to use conductive materials for this purpose has gained popularity recently and this new review now provides some evidence of its effectiveness.
More information: Mac-Anthony Nnorom et al, A review of the impact of conductive materials on antibiotic resistance genes during the anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge and animal manure, Journal of Hazardous Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130628
Earth is overheating due to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. This is "the biggest market failure the world has seen" according to economist Nicholas Stern. The rational behavior of companies that pollute by making profitable commodities, and consequences of most people's desire to drive everywhere are creating irrational outcomes for everyone: an increase in the average global temperature which threatens to make the planet uninhabitable.
But our recent research indicates that this pollution will have a direct financial cost. We used artificial intelligence to combine Standard and Poor's (S&P) credit ratings formula (which captures the ability of those who borrow money to pay it back) with climate-economic models to simulate the effects of climate change on sovereign ratings for 109 countries over the next ten, 30 and 50 years, and by the end of the century.
We found that by 2030, 59 countries will see a deterioration in their ability to pay back their debts and an increased cost of borrowing as a result of climate change. Our predictions to 2100 entail the number of countries rising to 81.
Financial markets and businesses need credible information on how climate change translates into material risks to be able to factor them into all decisions they make. Although it is important to design economic tools and policies that can mitigate the effects of climate change, the field of economics responsible for doing so is relatively young.
New financial products have emerged to help countries and investors take better account of the climate and environment being degraded as a result of debt markets, but several problems remain.
Credit ratings or environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings (which assess how well a company manages these kinds of risks) are not based on scientific information, and are often charged with greenwashing. For example, some investment funds branded as green according to these ratings, have been linked to fossil fuel companies.
Financial institutions such as banks frequently misunderstand models for predicting the economic costs of climate change and underestimate risks such as temperature rises, according to a recent report by actuaries—people who use mathematics to measure and manage risk and uncertainty.
Their research found "a clear disconnect" between climate scientists, economists, the people building these economic models and the financial institutions using them.
In our study, we tried to integrate climate science into financial indicators widely used and understood by investors, such as credit ratings. Without such science-based indicators, financial decision making will reflect risk calculations which are incorrect and misrepresent the economic consequences of climate change.
Rating downgrades under a high-emissions scenario (20-notch scale). Credit: Patrycja Klusak and Matt Burke
Debt servicing to rise almost everywhere
Credit ratings express a country's ability and willingness to pay back debt and affect the cost of borrowing to nations as well as other entities, such as corporations and banks. Inevitably, these costs are passed on to the public.
When interest rates rise for banks, businesses find it more expensive to fund their operations and so raise prices for consumers. Higher costs to banks also mean higher mortgage interest rates for residential borrowers. When banks invest savings such as pensions in bonds offered by countries hit by climate disasters, their worth is affected too, meaning that pensions may fall in value.
Our paper has three key findings. First, in contrast to much of the economics literature, we found that climate change could have material effects on economies and credit ratings as early as 2030.
Credit ratings are categorized in a 20-notch ladder scale, with default being the lowest rating, equivalent to one notch, and AAA being the highest rating at 20 notches. The highest rating signifies the lowest risk of an entity not paying back its debts and vice versa.
Under a high-emissions scenario in which recent emissions continue on an upwards trajectory, 59 countries would suffer downgrades of just under a notch by 2030, rising to 81 countries facing an average downgrade of two notches by 2100.
The nations which would be most affected include Canada, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Slovakia and the US. More importantly, our results show that virtually all countries, whether rich or poor, hot or cold, will suffer downgrades if the current trajectory of carbon emissions is maintained.
Second, if countries honored the Paris Agreement and limited warming to below 2°C, the impact on ratings would be minimal.
Third, we calculated the additional costs of servicing debt for countries (best interpreted as increases in annual interest payments) to be between US$45–67 billion (£35-53 billion) under a low-emissions scenario, and US$135–203 billion under a high-emissions one. These translate to additional annual costs of servicing corporate debt, ranging from US$9.9–17.3 billion to US$35–61 billion in each case.
As climate change batters national economies, debt will become harder and more expensive to service. By connecting climate science with indicators that are already baked into the financial system, we've shown that climate risk can be assessed without compromising the integrity of scientific assessments, the economic validity of the modeling and the timeliness necessary for making effective policies.
Bees helped make San Diego one of the country's most biodiverse places: The city plans to return the favor.
by David Garrick, The San Diego Union-Tribune
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
San Diego may soon have more rooftop green spaces and community gardens as part of a new campaign to boost the shrinking population of local bees, which serve as crucial pollinators needed to sustain agriculture and ecotourism.
The city is the largest in the nation to become a Bee City U.S., a designation that requires creating new habitats for pollinators, adopting policies that prevent habitat destruction and revising pest management plans to use pesticides only as a last resort.
"Bee City U.S. is not just a designation, it's a commitment to biodiversity, pollinators and reducing harmful pesticide use," said City Councilmember Joe LaCava, who spearheaded efforts that culminated with council approval Aug. 1.
San Diego is among more than 150 cities that have made such commitments since an environmental conservation nonprofit called the Xerces Society created the Bee City program 10 years ago. The only other local city to have adopted the designation is Encinitas.
It's a major boon for bees, which are declining in population worldwide, to have San Diego added to the list of places committed to conservation and community awareness, said UC San Diego ecology professor James Nieh.
"This is a biodiversity hot spot containing a greater diversity of life than any other county in the continental U.S.," said Nieh, noting that San Diego County also has the greatest number of plant and animal species threatened by extinction.
Nieh said the loss of pollinators can kill off many native species of plant, allowing invasive species that increase wildfire risk to flourish in the city's canyons and on its hillsides.
The recent loss of pollinators, which also includes some bird species, threatens the region's agriculture industry, city officials said. Bees are crucial pollinators for avocados, pomegranates, limes and many other local crops, they said.
The county's avocado industry is estimated to generate more than $150 million in annual revenue, officials said.
The decline in pollinators also threatens the region's strong economy of ecotourism—people coming to San Diego to hike, bird or otherwise enjoy the natural environment.
"Without an abundance of pollinators, San Diego would not be the major avocado producer or beautiful tourist attraction for which it's famous," said Mary Jarvis, educational outreach coordinator for the San Diego Beekeeping Society.
An Ohio State University study in 2020 found that bees, which are responsible for pollinating roughly one-third of the nation's food supply, have been declining in population at roughly 30 percent a year nationwide in recent years.
Because so many of San Diego's natural bee habitats and nesting sites have been destroyed by development in recent decades, the city could explore encouraging more "stepping stone" locations to help pollinators move around, said Laura Rost, a national Bee City coordinator.
Those could include green roofs, community gardens and trees on streets. City officials said such efforts could be particularly helpful in urban neighborhoods, including many communities of color that lack parks and have fewer trees and foliage.
The program also requires cities to focus on educational outreach to the public to encourage individual property owners to make their yards more pollinator-friendly.
The program also encourages people to buy organic fruits and vegetables, which are grown without pesticides that threaten bees, and to avoid using pesticides in their own yards.
Another crucial element is that designated bee cities must revise their pest management plans to integrate pollinators more aggressively and to make pesticide use allowable only as a last resort.
But Rost stressed that cities have a lot of leeway once those basic requirements are met.
"Every city looks different and special," she said. "We want you to be as unique as your native plants. We really encourage our affiliates to think outside the box."
The city must complete an annual report each February summarizing its bee-related accomplishments. It also must pay a $500 annual fee to Xerces for access to the organization's consultants, opportunities to apply for federal grants and promotional materials for public outreach.
Mayor Todd Gloria expressed support for San Diego's new designation, saying it builds on his pledge in 2021 to help preserve and boost habitats for monarch butterflies, another crucial but threatened pollinator.
The local chapter of the Audubon Society also praised the move, contending the designation will give the pollinators a fighting chance against significant adversity.
"We have a huge biodiversity crisis on our hands," said Andrew Meyer, the chapter's conservation director.
Councilmember Marni von Wilpert said she was grateful to LaCava's staff for pursuing the designation and helping other city leaders become more aware of what humans are doing to make the lives of bees harder.
"It's nice to have a different view of bees and not necessarily just be afraid and to become more aware of the work they're doing in our world," she said.
Other large cities that have joined the program include San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Ore. Other cities in California include Santa Barbara and Redding.
Xerces says 1,625 pollinator habitat projects totaling 12,900 acres have been completed since the program was launched.
95% of Yellowknife has now been evacuated due to N.W.T. wildfires
Story by CBC/Radio-Canada •
Northwest Territories officials said on Friday evening that more than 19,000 people have fled from Yellowknife due to wildfires and urged those who remain to also leave as soon as possible.
The N.W.T. government on Wednesday ordered Yellowknife's 20,000 or so residents to leave the capital city — and urged people who couldn't leave by road to register for flights out of Yellowknife — as a nearby wildfire threatened to reach the city within days.
Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty on Friday evening again urged the roughly five per cent of residents who haven't left yet to urgently do so.
"Everyone should leave tonight," Alty said in news conference.
Shane Thompson, N.W.T.'s minister of municipal and community affairs, echoed Alty's sentiment.
"You endanger yourself and others by staying," Thompson said. Weather helps slow spread
On the firefighting front, Mike Westwick, a territorial fire information officer, said the blazes have not grown much in the last couple of days due to good weather conditions and suppression efforts.
"It was a little cooler today than forecasted and with some cloud cover, along with high level of moisture in the air, [the weather] did put a bit of a damper on fire activity for much of the day," Westwick said Friday evening.
He said the fire near Yellowknife was still 15 kilometres northwest of the city, having not moved much closer through Friday.
However, he was cautious to note that the threat has not yet passed and the next few days are expected to be dry.
Crews from the Canadian Armed Forces and firefighters from South Africa and Saskatchewan are assisting efforts to battle the more than 200 wildfires across N.W.T.
Westwick said Friday evening that wildfires are 10 kilometres south of Hay River, nine kilometres south of Jean-Marie River and 14 kilometres east of Kakisa. More regions regain telecommunications
Additionally on Friday, NorthwesTel said internet, phone and cell service has been restored to the following communities: Enterprise. Fort Resolution. Fort Smith. Hay River. High Level, Alta.
Outages remain in Jean-Marie River and Kakisa, N.W.T.
Hawaii wildfires stoke climate denial, conspiracy theories
by Bill MCCARTHY
An aerial image shows destroyed homes and vehicles in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii on August 17, 2023.
Climate change-denying social media accounts are exploiting the deadly wildfires in Hawaii to push conspiracy theories that high-energy lasers were used to spark the flames.
Posts invoking such technologies or claiming the blazes were set intentionally to create climate-friendly cities have generated millions of engagements on platforms such as X.
"Only a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) can cause this kind of destruction," far-right radio host Stew Peters said in one post on the site, formerly known as Twitter.
The narrative's surge highlights what disinformation experts say is a trend in which conspiracy theorists deny the science of climate change in response to extreme weather events.
"Any time there is a climate-related event and advocates call for accelerated climate action, there usually is a corresponding attempt to discredit climate science, disconnect the event from climate change and blame it on something else," said Arunima Krishna, a Boston University professor who studies climate disinformation. "In this case, directed energy weapons."
X and other sites are littered with posts falsely claiming to show photos and videos of Hawaii being targeted by such systems, which use concentrated electromagnetic energy and are being developed in the United States for drone and missile defense.
But the visuals spreading online are unrelated to the fires that killed at least 111 people and leveled the seaside town of Lahaina on Maui.
AFP's fact-checkers have debunked posts that misrepresent shots of a SpaceX rocket launch in California, a flare at an Ohio oil refinery, power lines sparking in Louisiana, a Chinese satellite and a transformer exploding in Chile, among other outdated images circulating in multiple languages.
Some posts shared a photo that was doctored to add a beam of light to the sky, while others claimed natural phenomena—such as the fires' failure to burn some trees—were evidence of lasers.
"The theory is especially adaptable to social media because it fits with pictures taken of fires that show beams of light supposedly coming from space," said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory expert and author of the book "Jewish Space Lasers."
"It works on the lack of basic understanding that conspiracy believers have of how fire and wind work."
'Conspiratorial universe'
Iain Boyd, an expert on directed energy weapons at the University of Colorado, told AFP the conspiracy theory defies reality in part because a laser with enough power to spark the Hawaii blazes would require an "enormous" air or spacecraft that could not go unnoticed.
Authorities are still probing what started the inferno, but the National Weather Service issued warnings about dangerous fire conditions as a hurricane brought strong winds to an area with dry vegetation. US media have cited fallen power lines as a possible source.
"With winds this severe and a large amount of dry grass surrounding the community, there is no need for an ignition from 'space,'" said Michael Gollner, who researches fire dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley. "Obviously these are really crazy allegations."
Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said wildfire disinformation has evolved over the years.
In a 2018 Facebook post, US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested a beam shot from space could have caused blazes that year in California.
Most of the disinformation King observed around global wildfires in 2019 sought to blame arsonists rather than climate change. Within a few years, specific groups such as Black Lives Matter had become a common scapegoat.
More recent claims about the government using lasers to usher in climate-friendly cities advance the same central idea that global warming is insignificant, King said—but they also invoke a broader worldview harbored by supporters of QAnon and other conspiracy theories.
"They fit into this conspiratorial universe around a globalist cabal, a New World Order or a shadowy group of elites that are trying to implement their agenda," King said.
The dramatic, out-of-context visuals shared online capitalize on these fears, Rothschild said.
"It's easy to use those pictures as 'proof' of what 'they' are doing to us to further their climate change agenda or societal control, and people desperate for answers would rather believe in space weapons than the reality of the climate crisis."
