Appellate judges revive Jewish couple's

lawsuit alleging adoption bias under

Tennessee law

JONATHAN MATTISE
Updated Fri, August 25, 2023 

Tennessee Sen. Paul Rose, R-Tipton, speaks on his bill allowing faith-based adoption 

agencies to decline to place children with same-sex couples because of their religious

 belief during a legislative session, Jan. 14, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. On Thursday, 

Aug. 24, 2023, appellate judges revived a couple's lawsuit that alleges a state-sponsored 

Christian adoption agency wouldn't help them because they are Jewish and argues

 that a Tennessee law protecting such denials is unconstitutional.

(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)Mor

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Appellate judges have revived a couple's lawsuit that alleges a state-sponsored Christian adoption agency wouldn't help them because they are Jewish and argues that a Tennessee law protecting such denials is unconstitutional.

On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals ruled that Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram have the right as taxpayers to sue in the case, as do six other taxpayer plaintiffs in the case. The ruling overturns a lower court's determination in June 2022 that none of them had legal standing. The case can now proceed in the trial court.

The lawsuit against the state challenges a 2020 law that installed legal protections for private adoption agencies to reject state-funded placement of children to parents based on religious beliefs.

Much of the criticism of the law focused on how it shielded adoption agencies that refuse to serve prospective LGBTQ parents. But the Rutan-Rams alleged they were discriminated against because they are Jewish, in violation of their state constitutional rights.

In their lawsuit, the married couple said the Holston United Methodist Home for Children in Greeneville barred them from taking Tennessee state-mandated foster-parent training and denied them a home-study certification when they attempted to adopt a child from Florida in 2021.

The state Department of Children's Services later provided the couple with the required training and home study, then approved them as foster parents in June 2021. The couple has been foster-parenting a teenage girl they hope to adopt. They also want to foster at least one more child, for whom they would likewise pursue adoption, the ruling states.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed the lawsuit on the couple's behalf, called this week's ruling an important victory.

“This loving couple wanted to help a child in need, only to be told that they couldn’t get services from a taxpayer-funded agency because they’re the wrong religion," said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “Liz and Gabe deserve their day in court, and Americans United intends to see that they get it.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee attorney general, Amy Wilhite, said their office is reviewing the court's decision.

A representative for Holston United Methodist Home for Children did not immediately return emailed requests for comment on the ruling. The home is not a defendant in the lawsuit.

During a 2-1 trial court ruling in 2022, the judges in the majority said the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue, and did not rule on the constitutional protections in the lawsuit.

The judges did, however, downplay some of the lawsuit's arguments against the law, writing that it “does not single out people of the Jewish faith as a disfavored, innately inferior group.” They also found that the services the couple sought would not have been state-funded, saying the scope of Holston’s contract with the state is for services for children “in the custody of the State of Tennessee.”

Before the adoption law change, some faith-based agencies had already not allowed gay couples to adopt. But the 2020 law provides legal protections to agencies that do so.

The Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church has said the Holston United Methodist Home for Children is a separate entity from the conference, a group of some 800-plus congregations based in Alcoa, Tennessee, after the two organizations in 2002 agreed to not “accept any legal or financial responsibility for the other.”

THIRD WORLD U$A

Schoolkids in 8 states can now eat free school meals, advocates urge Congress for nationwide policy

STEVE KARNOWSKI and SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Fri, August 25, 2023 







Students eating lunch in the cafeteria at Lowell Elementary School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Aug. 22, 2023. Several states are making school breakfasts and lunches permanently free to all students starting this academic year, regardless of family income, and congressional supporters of universal school meals have launched a fresh attempt to extend free meals for all kids nationwide. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — When classes resume after Labor Day, Amber Lightfeather won't have to worry about where her children's next meals will be coming from. They'll be free.

Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts will make school breakfasts and lunches permanently free to all students starting this academic year, regardless of family income, following in the footsteps of California and Maine. Several other states are considering similar changes and congressional supporters want to extend free meals to all kids nationwide.

Lightfeather, who has four kids who attend public schools in Duluth, Minnesota, said her family has sometimes qualified for free or reduced-price meals but would have had to pay in the upcoming school year if Minnesota had not made the change. Her earnings as a hospital worker and her husband's as a tribal employee would have put them over the limit. Last year, the family was paying over $260 a month for school meals for all four kids, who are at the hungry ages of 10, 13, 16 and 17.

She felt so strongly that she testified for Minnesota's school lunch bill when it came before the Legislature last winter. Students hugged Gov. Tim Walz, a former teacher, when he signed it into law at their Minneapolis elementary school in March.

“I was crying when I found out that they finally passed it. I didn't just go and testify for my own kids. I testified for every kid who could benefit,” Lightfeather said.

Schools nationwide offered free meals to all at the height of the pandemic, which sent participation soaring. But when federal aid ran out in spring 2022, most states reverted to free or discounted meals only for kids who qualified. That left out families that weren't poor enough, stigmatized those who were, and added to growing school meal debt.

“We know that students learn better when they are well nourished,” said Emily Honer, director of nutrition programs for the Minnesota Department of Education. “And we know that students a lot of time don’t know where their meal is going to come from. We’re taking that (fear) away."

In New Mexico, where educators and policymakers have long talked about the nexus of poverty and educational outcomes, most students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals even before the new law was signed in March.

Nevertheless, Albuquerque Public Schools saw an immediate increase in participation. And in the first seven days of the school year that started this month, the numbers increased by 1,000 per day for breakfast and lunch.

At Lowell Elementary in Albuquerque, the cafeteria was buzzing Tuesday as dozens of students lined the lunch tables with bright blue trays filled with veggies, rice and teriyaki beef.

Lorraine Martinez, the school secretary, said some children used to suffer stomach cramps or would feel dizzy because they didn’t have enough to eat.

“Now everybody has the food and water and milk — the nutrition — that they need,” she said.

Many families will still struggle to afford school meals in other states. Annette Nielsen, executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center in New York City, said breakfasts and lunches can cost parents $1,500 per student per year.

“Don’t we want kids to be able to perform well in school and get good, nutritious, healthful meals throughout their learning?" Nielsen asked. "I think it’s the least we can do.”

The Minnesota Legislature allocated over $440 million for first two years of the program despite Republican complaints about subsidizing families that can afford to pay. Honer, of the Minnesota Department of Education, said she was heartened by how many private and charter schools plan to participate.

Stacy Koppen, director of nutrition services for St. Paul Public Schools, said her district can offer universal meals at 60 schools this year, up from the 40 that qualified last year for a federal program that makes meals free to all students at schools with high populations from lower-income families.

“You can just come to school and focus on learning,” she said.

The new law is also a boon for Minnetonka in suburban Minneapolis, which is considered affluent. Superintendent David Law said about 8% to 10% of the district’s students qualified for free or reduced-priced lunches before the pandemic, and that plenty of families didn’t qualify but weren’t in a position to spend $20 a week per kid either.

Law said its also a benefit that serving breakfast is now mandatory. His schools had previously struggled to fill food-service openings for part-time, lunch-only positions, but his cafeterias are now almost fully staffed because the additional hours makes those jobs more attractive. More staff and the additional state money should help improve the quality and variety of the meals, he said.

“I think it's going to be a win all around,” Law said.

In New Mexico, education officials said the new law means more than 3,000 additional students now have access to no-cost meals, and because New Mexico also is requiring schools to upgrade their kitchens, more food can be made from scratch.

Alexis Bylander, senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center in Washington, D.C., said momentum is building. She noted that some states have at least taken incremental action to make meals more affordable. Connecticut is using federal stimulus money to extend free meals to more students this year. Pennsylvania is planning on free breakfasts. Illinois passed a free school meals for all policy this year, but didn't include funding to implement it. New York City and some other local communities offer universal free meals on their own.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar reintroduced a bill in May to extend universal free meals to every state. While it's unlikely to advance in this divided Congress, Bylander said it lays out a vision of what is possible.

“While the eight state policies are great, and we think that there’s going to be more passed in the near future, we’re really calling on Congress and highlighting the need for a nationwide policy so all kids get that benefit,” Bylander said.

___

Susan Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Fri, August 25, 2023 at 10:13 PM MDT·5 min read
218

Wild horses that roam Theodore Roosevelt National Park may be removed. Many oppose the plan

JACK DURA
Updated Sat, August 26, 2023 



National Park Wild Horses-North Dakota

Wild horses graze on a hillside by the boundary fence of Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Medora, N.D., on Saturday, May 20, 2023. About 200 horses roam the park's South Unit. The National Park Service has proposed removing the horses. The horses are popular with park visitors, and have found allies such as Gov. Doug Burgum and U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, who oppose their removal. 

(AP Photo/Jack Dura)

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The beloved wild horses that roam freely in North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park could be removed under a National Park Service proposal that worries advocates who say the horses are a cultural link to the past.

Visitors who drive the scenic park road can often see bands of horses, a symbol of the West and sight that delights tourists. Advocates want to see the horses continue to roam the Badlands, and disagree with park officials who have branded the horses as “livestock.”

The Park Service is revising its livestock plans and writing an environmental assessment to examine the impacts of taking no new action — or to remove the horses altogether.

Removal would entail capturing horses and giving some of them first to tribes, and later auctioning the animals or giving them to other entities. Another approach would include techniques to prevent future reproduction and would allow those horses to live out the rest of their lives in the park.

The horses have allies in government leaders and advocacy groups. One advocate says the horses' popularity won't stop park officials from removing them from the landscape of North Dakota's top tourist attraction.

“At the end of the day, that's our national park paid for by our tax dollars, and those are our horses. We have a right to say what happens in our park and to the animals that live there," Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates President Chris Kman told The Associated Press.

Last year, Park Superintendent Angie Richman told The Bismarck Tribune that the park has no law or requirement for the horses to be in the park. Regardless of what decision is ultimately made, the park will have to reduce its roughly 200 horses to 35-60 animals under a 1978 environmental assessment's population objective, she previously said.

Kman said she would like the park “to use science” to “properly manage the horses," including a minimum of 150-200 reproductive horses for genetic viability. Impacts of the park's use of a contraceptive on mares are unclear, she added.

Ousting the horse population “would have a detrimental impact on the park as an ecosystem,” Kman said. The horses are a historical fixture, while the park reintroduced bison and elk, she said.

A couple bands of wild horses were accidentally fenced into the park after it was established in 1947, said Castle McLaughlin, who in the 1980s researched the history and origins of the horses while working as a graduate student for the Park Service in North Dakota.

Park officials in the early years sought to eradicate the horses, shooting them on sight and hiring local cowboys to round them up and remove them, she said. The park even sold horses to a local zoo at one point to be food for large cats.

Around 1970, a new superintendent discovered Roosevelt had written about the presence of wild horses in the Badlands during his time there. Park officials decided to retain the horses as a historic demonstration herd to interpret the open-range ranching era. "However, the Park Service still wasn't thrilled about them," McLaughlin told the AP.

“Basically they're like cultural artifacts almost because they reflect several generations of western North Dakota ranchers and Native people. They were part of those communities," and might have ties to Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, she said.

In the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt hunted and ranched as a young man in the Badlands of what is now western North Dakota. The Western tourist town of Medora is at the gates of the national park that bears his name.

Roosevelt looms large in North Dakota, where a presidential library in his honor is under construction near the park — a legislative push in 2019 that was championed by Republican Gov. Doug Burgum.

Burgum has offered for the state to collaborate with the Park Service to manage the horses. Earlier this year, North Dakota's Republican-controlled Legislature passed a resolution in support of preserving the horses.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota has included legislation in the U.S. Interior Department's appropriations bill that he told the AP “would direct them to keep horses in the park in line with what was there at the time that Teddy Roosevelt was out in Medora.”

“Most all of the input we've got is that people want to retain horses. We've been clear we think (the park) should retain horses,” Hoeven said. He's pressing the park to keep more than 35-60 horses for genetics reasons.

The senator said he expects the environmental review to be completed soon, which will provide an opportunity for public comment. Richman told the AP the park plans to release the assessment this summer. A timeline for a final decision is unclear.

The environmental review will look at the impact of each of the three proposals in a variety of areas, Maureen McGee-Ballinger, the park’s deputy superintendent, told the AP.

There were thousands of responses during the previous public comment period on the park's proposals — the vast majority of which opposed “complete livestock removal.”

Kman's group has been active in gathering support for the horses, including drafting government resolutions and contacting congressional offices, tribal leaders, similar advocacy groups and “pretty much anyone that would listen to me,” she said.

McLaughlin said the park's effort carries “a stronger possibility that they'll succeed this time than has ever been the case in the past. I mean, they have never been this determined and publicly open about their intentions, but I've also never seen the state fight for the horses like they are now."

The park's North Unit, about 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) from Medora, has about nine longhorn cattle. The proposals would affect the longhorns, too, though the horses are the greater concern. Hoeven said his legislation doesn't address the longhorns. The cattle are managed under a 1970 plan.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park “is one of very few national parks that does have horses, and that sets it apart,” North Dakota Commerce Tourism and Marketing Director Sara Otte Coleman said in January at a press conference with Burgum and lawmakers.

Wild horses also roam in Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia.

The horses' economic impact on tourism is impossible to delineate, but their popularity is high among media, photographers, travel writers and social media influencers who tout them, Otte Coleman said.

“Removal of the horses really eliminates a feature that our park guests are accustomed to seeing,” she said.

ECON 101

Oil Industry Not Spending Enough To Balance Supply & Demand

SHARE BUY BACKS & DIVIDENDS

Editor OilPrice.com
Sat, August 26, 2023 

Oil, Gas Companies Still Spending Less than Needed on New SupplyFailure to Invest: Oil & Gas Companies Still Underspending on New SupplyOil Industry is in Upcycle and Spending More, but Not EnoughOil Industry Not Spending Enough to Balance Supply & Demand

After years of warnings of failure to invest in enough new exploration, the industry has begun spending more. Yet, it would still be less than is necessary to secure enough supply to respond to demand.

That’s the take of Wood Mackenzie analysts, at least, who recently reported that the oil and gas industry is currently in the third year of an upcycle, with this year’s investments in new production at $490 billion. This would be significantly higher than the low reached in 2020, which stood at $370 billion.

Even though spending on its own is not enough to secure supply, the Wood Mac analysts noted in an interview for the firm that cost reductions will make up for the difference. They note the rise of U.S. shale and other non-OPEC sources, and forecast non-OPEC producers to maintain a constant market share in the coming years.

Indeed, this chimes in with what U.S. oil industry executives reported during the latest financial reporting season. What the said, basically, was that wells were yielding more oil than expected, boosting total production. The reason wells were yielding more: technological improvements.

Argus reported earlier this month, citing Pioneer Natural Resources, that well productivity since the start of the year has been trending significantly higher than the average for 2022. At the same time, however, Bloomberg recently cited research from Enverus suggesting that shale wells were draining faster than previously assumed, with few untapped reservoirs left as the shale patch gets mature.

Besides U.S. oil, there is also Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and smaller producers such as Guyana. These have contributed significantly to global supply, but OPEC remains the biggest fish in the oil pond because of its common supply control policies.

What’s more, with the expansion of the BRICS bloc, we get another grouping of some of the largest producers in the world, partly overlapping with OPEC but also including Brazil and Argentina.

Groupings aside, global investments in new oil and gas supplied are well and truly on a rise despite the transition push. Goldman Sachs reported last month that there were currently 70 large-scale oil and gas projects under development globally right now. That was up by a substantial 25% from 2020, although 2020 could hardly be seen as a normal year for investment decision-making in any industry except perhaps IT.

Per the investment bank, the seven-year-long underinvestment period led to a sharp decline in the resource life of future projects as well as the life of already producing fields. With a rebound in investment, this may yet change. Wood Mac, on the other hand, warns of peak demand and a fundamental change in the oil and gas industry driven by the prospect of that.

According to upstream analysts Fraser McKay and Ian Thom, the current cycle will not end with a bust as all previous cycles in the industry did. The reason: the prospect of peak oil demand caused by the transition to non-hydrocarbon energy sources. This prospect, they argued, would keep oil and gas producers on their toes and maintain their financial discipline over the longer term.

Still, despite the prospect of peak demand, even Wood Mac analysts are worried about the lack of a spare production capacity cushion, which could be viewed as a side effect of this newly found discipline with spending and focus on efficiency while adjusting to a world in transition.

“We expect companies to go for margin rather than market share; and upstream supply chain capacity to creep rather than leap, which has been the traditional response in an upcycle,” McKay and Thom said, adding “That restraint could lead to a tighter supply chain than the industry has been used to.”

While peak demand for oil is something that a lot of forecasters talk about and even call for openly, for now it remains on the horizon while actual demand for oil breaks record after record. Even the International Energy Agency, a vocal transition advocate and peak oil demand forecaster said that over the short-term demand is going to grow, hitting a record of over 102 million barrels daily this year.

This makes the global balance between supply and demand perhaps a bit more precarious than the Wood Mac analysis suggests. While it’s true that technological gains have played an important role in keeping production high while reducing costs, U.S. shale drillers have steered clear of their previous setting of “growth at all costs”.

Meanwhile, OPEC is keeping a lid on output with the novel option for individual members—Saudi Arabia—to cut additional volumes whenever they decide to, in order to push prices higher. And OPEC, in a sense, grew with the BRICS expansion.

The oil and gas industry is spending more on new production despite the transition push. This means expectations are that peak oil demand is a relatively distant prospect. It might even become more distant if the transition begins to show signs of exhaustion amid substantial cost inflation and the risks of raw material shortages.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

ECOLOGY IS INTERSECTIONALITY

Environmental groups recruit people of color into overwhelmingly white conservation world

TODD RICHMOND
Sat, August 26, 2023 









University of Wisconsin-Madison senior Arianna Barajas searches for signs of whooping cranes on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, near Baraboo, Wis. Barajas, who identifies as Mexican-American, is spending the summer working for the International Crane Foundation as part of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin's Diversity in Conservation Internships.

 (AP Photo/Todd Richmond)

BARABOO, Wis. (AP) — Arianna Barajas never thought of herself as the outdoors type. The daughter of Mexican immigrants who grew up in Chicago's suburbs, her forays into nature usually amounted to a bike ride to a community park.

She was interested in wild animals but had no idea she could make a living working with them until her older brother enrolled in veterinarian school. She took a leap of faith and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and became a wildlife ecology major.

This summer Barajas landed an internship designed for people of color at the International Crane Foundation's headquarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and stepped into a new world.

“I always knew growing up I had an interest in wildlife and animals but didn't know the options I had," Barajas, 21, said. “I really just have a passion for the outdoors. I can't just be in an office all day. I need to be outside and doing things I think are valuable.”

Environmental groups across the country have worked for the last two decades to introduce members of underrepresented populations like Barajas to the overwhelmingly white conservation world. The effort has gained momentum since George Floyd's death forced a national reckoning on race relations and challenged a variety of industries to focus on diversity and inclusion efforts.

As climate change reshapes the planet, leaders need to hear every perspective when determining conservation policies, minority advocates say. Multiple studies since the early 1980s have found communities of color feel the impact of pollution and climate change more acutely than wealthy areas.

“All the environmental issues we’re facing are really big and we simply can’t face them all unless we have a lot of ideas at the table,” said Soumi Gaddameedi, a 22-year-old Indian American who works as a donor coordinator for the nonprofit group Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. “No one solution fits all. People of color are in the communities facing the worst impact. It’s important that they have a voice.”

White men have largely controlled American conservation policy for more than a century. The modern conservation movement in the United States began around the turn of the 20th century, led by figures such as Sierra Club co-founder John Muir, who openly derided American Indians as savages, and President Theodore Roosevelt, who doubled the number of sites in the National Park System. Conservationists such as Aldo Leopold and Wisconsin Gov. Gaylord Nelson, who founded Earth Day, followed them.

More than 80% of National Park Service employees are white, according to service data. A 2022 survey of the 40 largest non-government environmental organizations and foundations by Green 2.0, an organization advocating for minority inclusion in the environmental sector, found 60% of staff and almost 70% of organization heads identified as white.

Sociologists offer a number of explanations for the lack of diversity in conservation ranks. For instance, people of color tend to live in urban settings with less exposure to the outdoors and may consider outdoor recreation a white man's domain, said Kristy Drutman, the Filipino and Jewish founder of the Green Jobs Board, an online listing of environmental jobs with companies promoting diversity. She also runs the Brown Girl Green podcast.

“I don't think BIPOC are choosing not to be in the outdoors, they're just not given the same opportunity,” Drutman said, using an acronym for Black people, Indigenous people and people of color.

“Urbanization, racial segregation, all these histories have separated BIPOC from neighbors with more green spaces," Drutman said. "It's become a white people's thing because of that.”

Relatively few people of color study biology and natural resources in college. Hispanic people made up only about 13.6% of graduate students and 12.8% of doctoral students in those fields in 2021, according to a National Science Foundation study. Black people made up about 9.5% of graduate students and only 6% of doctoral students. Native Americans made up less than 1% of graduate and doctoral students in both fields.

“There's a long-standing tradition of white men from rural areas dominating these roles,” said Caitlin Alba, who works to recruit minority students to the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's environmental programs. “(Minority) mentors and educators are unfamiliar with these opportunities.”

National environmental organization Conservation Legacy has been recruiting young people from underrepresented populations for teams across the country, including Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina and the Appalachian region.

The teams handle a wide array of conservation projects, such as river restoration, vegetation monitoring, disaster relief and conservation projects on Native American lands. The teams include a group for sign-language users and an all-female crew dubbed “the Trail Angels."

Northwest Youth Corps, based in Eugene, Oregon, has recruited LGBTQ students between 16 and 18 and LGBTQ adults to its so-called Rainbow Crews since 2017. The crews work on reforestation projects and are designed to provide hands-on training and experience for those interested in environmental jobs or other other outdoor careers. The program won the Corps Network's 2020 Project of the Year award.

This year the organization created two all-women crews that operate out of Idaho. The organization also recruits young American Indians for crews working on ancestral lands in hopes of encouraging them to find environmental jobs with their tribes.

The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin launched a paid internship program for BIPOC students in 2021. The program places interns with other conservation groups like the International Crane Foundation where Barajas is one of 10 interns. The internship program had three participants in 2021 and seven last summer.

After spending the summer tagging and tracking whooping cranes across south-central Wisconsin, Barajas has become even more aware of how minority perspectives are rarely considered in the conservation world.

“Sometimes I’ll hear about children’s programming on different natural things. I’m thinking, what opportunities do you have for people who don’t speak English?” she said. “Are you reaching out to diverse communities?”

Barajas used the example of a city imposing fines to ensure people recycle. “Well, there’s a financial obstacle now where certain communities can’t pay that fine,” she said.

Other people of color are working to expand inclusion on their own.

Tykee James, who is Black, grew up in Philadelphia but became an avid birdwatcher after two white employees at a local environmental education center visited his high school environmental studies class and recruited him to serve as a guide at the facility. Like Barajas, the job opened his eyes to a new path.

James has since served as an environmental policy specialist for Pennsylvania state Rep. Donna Bullock and governmental affairs coordinator for the National Audubon Society. He currently works as government relations representative for The Wilderness Society, which seeks to protect wilderness acreage.

In 2019, James co-founded Amplify the Future, which provides college scholarships for Black and Latinx bird watchers from the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“When we’re making decisions about the use of finite resources ... it requires a diversity of vision to answer these types of important questions,” James said. “The same folks from the same background, money, same racial make-up, same wealth background, I wouldn't be too surprised that they all think the same about how things work."

Are We Watching the End of Russia’s Space Ambitions?

Tony Ho Tran
Sat, August 26, 2023 

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

FLAGS ARE NOT DAMAGED FLYING IN NO ATMOSPHERE

It was a tale of two space programs. On Sunday, Russia’s Luna-25 lander malfunctioned as it prepared to touch down on the moon’s south pole the following day—eventually crashing into the lunar surface. If it had landed, it would have been the country’s first return to the moon since 1976, when it was known as the Soviet Union. Instead, it ended up being another black eye for a beleaguered space program.

Then, a few days later, India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully touched down on the moon’s south pole—making India the fourth country to land on the lunar surface after the Soviet Union, the U.S., and China. There, researchers hope to deploy a rover to search for and study ice and soil in the region—which many suspect holds valuable and vital resources for future lunar missions.

While it was a resoundingly successful mission, the Chandrayaan-3 lander underscored the relatively decline of Russia’s civilian space agency, Roscosmos. It’s seen its stature on the world stage take a beating in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, and had already been suffering from a string of embarrassing news ranging from the bloviating smack talk of its former chief Dmitry Rogozin to the multiple life-threatening incidents it caused for astronauts on the International Space Station. The failure of Luna-25 calls into question the long term ambitions of Roscosmos—and whether or not we’re witnessing the death rattle of Russia’s space ambitions.

“The problems with Roscosmos existed certainly prior to the invasion of Ukraine,” John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told The Daily Beast. The issues that have plagued Russia’s space program, he said, mirror the very issues that have mired the country for decades including a downright Kafkaesque bureaucracy and financial malfeasance.

Russia’s First Moon Landing in Decades Ends in Failure After Crash

“They have not had adequate funding or adequate priority—but they have had a lot of corruption,” Logsdon explained.

Indeed, lack of funding has significantly crippled the once-proud space program. In 2015, the Russian government slashed spending on Roscosmos by more than a third due to a financial crisis caused by western economic sanctions in response to its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. This greatly delayed the agency’s plans to create its own space station by 2023—which has clearly not happened and hasn’t gained much development since its announcement.

In 2018, Roscosmos faced budget cuts yet again to the tune of roughly $2.4 billion. The cuts caused further delays to its spacefaring ambitions along with the construction of its spaceports. This is despite Russian president Vladimir Putin saying that same year: “It is necessary to drastically improve the quality and reliability of space and launch vehicles […] to preserve Russia’s increasingly threatened leadership in space.”

More recently, in 2021, Putin announced yet another cut in funding for the following three years to Roscosmos due to a financial crisis caused by western economic sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine (stop us if you’ve heard this one before). Also in the backdrop of all this was the space agency’s announcement that it had lost an eye-watering $262.4 million in revenue in 2020 due to a variety of issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite this, Putin still expressed his wishes that Roscosmos return the country’s space ambitions to its former dominance—expressing concern that it would be rapidly outstripped by western competition from the likes of SpaceX. However, much of this can likely be attributed to Putin’s wish that the country dominate space for geopolitical purposes rather than scientific ones.

America Is Risking Total Chaos in a Space War With China and Russia

Logsdon explained that this can be seen through Moscow’s focus on the Russian Space Forces, their answer to the U.S. Space Force. Not only has this branch received the majority of the focus when it comes to Russia’s space ambitions, but it also controls the necessary resources for space exploration.

“The Russian equivalent of the Space Force in the military has gotten priority funding over the last 10 years or so,” he said. “They’ve developed a wide range of military capabilities that are viewed by the U.S. as rather threatening.”

Logsdon added: “The military controls all the launch vehicles.” This means that Roscosmos lacks independence and autonomy to conduct missions when compared to the likes of NASA.

There’s also the rampant corruption that has occurred throughout Roscosmos—exacerbated by its former head Rogozin. While he has since left the role following the Ukraine invasion, many space experts blame Rogozin for the current state of the agency.

Russia Might Just Plunge the World Into a Dark Era for Space

Under his wing, Roscosmos had a series of failed and embarrassing launches and suffered from widespread corruption. Funds meant for the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome in eastern Russia—the same space port from which the ill-fated Luna-25 was launched—were embezzled, resulting in prison terms for four former construction company executives in 2021.

That brings us to today, where Roscosmos’ latest space-faring plan came crashing down to the lunar surface. This failure represents a massive setback for the agency’s hopes to establish a foothold on the moon, which has become a shining prize for the world’s spacefaring nations.

This is due to the fact that the moon—and, in particular, its south pole—is thought to abound in resources and materials that future lunar colonies can rely on, like water and minerals. It’s why China and India have recently sent rovers to the moon. It’s also why the U.S. and NASA have poured billions of dollars into the Artemis program to return American astronauts to the moon and establish a permanent base.

“There’s pretty firm speculation that there are resources in the craters of the [lunar] south pole that have technical and economic values in addition to scientific interest,” Logsdon said. “There is a ‘race’ to be the first to the south pole region.”

Whoever Controls the Moon Controls the Solar System

However, with Roscosmos now performing with seemingly both hands tied behind its back, it’s now well behind the competition, whatever Putin might say. The Russian space industry is not nearly as advanced or well-funded as it is in the West, which boasts such private-sector heavy hitters as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Logsdon cautioned that this doesn’t mean that Roscosmos should be written off quite yet. “It depends on how the Russian leadership reacts to this failure,” he said. “They could say—as the U.S. has after shuttle failures, or the Apollo 1 fire, or some of our Mars failures—that it’s not acceptable and we gotta get back to where we want to be. Or they could say, ‘Let’s not throw good money after bad,’ and de-emphasize the civilian program.”

For now, though, things look bleak for Roscosmos. The storied Soviet-Russian space program once projected near-total dominance when it came to space. It produced heroes like Yuri Gagarin, and groundbreaking events like the first satellite into orbit and interplanetary probes to Venus and Mars.

Now, despite its sky-high ambition, it’s a shadow of its former self—the victim of its own corruption, incompetence, and greed.

 The Daily Beast.

Put ‘pest’ animal species on the pill, don’t cull them, says scientist


Robin McKie
Sun, 27 August 2023 

Photograph: Scott-Cartwright-Photography/Getty Images

Conflicts between humans and wildlife are triggering growing numbers of disease outbreaks, road accidents and crop damage. And the problem is likely to get worse unless new, humane measures to curtail animal numbers are developed in the near future, say scientists.

It is a critical environmental issue that will be debated this week at a major conference in Italy where experts will discuss how best to limit numbers of grey squirrels, wild boar, deer, feral goats, pigeons, parakeets and other creatures that are causing widespread ecological damage in many countries.

A key approach to be highlighted at the meeting will be the need to develop contraceptives for animals. These would provide conservationists and farmers with a means to curtail animal numbers in a humane way, say researchers.


Wild boar provide an illustration of the issues involved. Their numbers are rising across Europe, and UK breeding populations have been established in areas such as the Forest of Dean. With their large snouts and muscular necks, boar are good at rooting up fungi and seeds and can destroy crops, vulnerable habitats, ground-nesting animals and fragile root systems. Wild boar have also been linked to the spread of African swine fever to domestic pigs.

“Controlling numbers of animals like wild boar used to be achieved by shooting them, but hunting is not as popular as it used to be and is also more expensive, requiring expensive licences,” said Dr Giovanna Massei, Europe director of the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control at York University.

She added: “Numbers of individuals who hunt animals are declining in many parts of Europe. As a result, controls of boar populations have weakened.”

One solution is to develop boar contraceptives. “Preventing these animals from breeding is a humane way to limit numbers,” added Massei, who will be speaking at the European vertebrate pest management conference in Florence.

In the US and Europe, scientists have launched projects aimed at developing contraceptive chemicals that could be mixed with food and would drastically limit boar fertility. “It is not easy to develop contraceptives but the good news is that once we get one, we have a way to deliver it,” said Messai.

The delivery method is known as the Boar-Operated System and it uses metal cones placed over dishes of food that only wild pigs can lift with their snouts. Other animals cannot access the plates. “That means we can get contraceptives into boar and only boar,” said Massei.

A similar approach has already been implemented to tackle grey squirrels. After the rodent was introduced to the UK from the US in the 19th century, its numbers have reached 2.7 million and it threatens to replace native red squirrels. Grey quirrels also cause considerable damage to UK woodlands by stripping bark from trees.

Massei and other scientists are now carrying out research on an oral contraceptive in the form of a vaccine that prompts the squirrel’s immune system to reduce the production of sex hormones, leaving both males and females infertile.

Mixed with hazelnut spread – a top squirrel treat – the drug is placed in pots in feeding boxes that only they can access. The environment minister, Richard Benyon, recently argued that the project could help eradicate the grey squirrel in the UK – without killing them.

Deer cause widespread crop destruction and are involved in road accidents that injure an estimated 700 people each year. Photograph: Z Fiedler/Alamy

Other contraceptive targets include deer. Apart from the widespread crop and woodland destruction they cause, deer are involved in car accidents that injure an estimated 700 people a year: some due to collisions with vehicles, others because drivers swerved to avoid hitting the animals.

Deer vaccines have been developed but problems remain about delivering them to their targets.

The development of animal oral contraceptives will not be sufficient on their own to remove the problems posed by wildlife and human conflicts, admitted Massei: “However, they will certainly be an important asset in dealing with the problem. The crucial point is that we have too many people and too many animals, and that is causing conflict.

“We need to control numbers in ways that are publicly supported, and that means relying on non-lethal methods which are popular with the public.”

Russian teen eco-activists fight for future as risks mount


Romain COLAS
Sun, 27 August 2023 

Alexei Zetkin testing water released by a paper factory on the bank of the Sura river in Penza (Olesya KURPYAYEVA)

Egor Chastukhin, an 18-year-old environmental activist, holds a flask to a drain spurting out warm, putrid water near the historic city of Penza in western Russia.

"It smells like herbal tea," he jokes after taking a waft of the sample while Sonia, his wife, jots down notes.

She records the odour and its yellowish colour as two other teenage activists, Alexei Zetkin and Yakov Demidov, look on.

The water's source is a nearby paper factory previously fined for pollution. Its destination is a tributary of the Sura river, around 600 kilometres (372 miles) from Russia's capital Moscow.

The group carries out a spot test on the liquid, which shows excess levels of chlorine, iron and organic matter.

"People who drink this water, fish in it and bathe in it need to understand the danger," Egor told AFP.

The chances of that happening are slim.

Environmental groups in Russia not linked to the government -- those like Egor's -- have long faced pressure from authorities.

And since an unprecedented crackdown on dissent launched after Russia's full-scale military intervention in Ukraine, their future is in doubt.

Russia has outlawed the work of Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature, branding them and dozens of other Western-linked groups "undesirable".

The exiled coordinator of the climate action nonprofit Bellona, Ksenia Vakhrusheva, told AFP there were no longer any Russian environmental organisations powerful enough to bring about "systemic change".

- 'Threat to the state' -

What remains of ecological advocacy in Russia rests on the shoulders of under-resourced activists like Egor, who are still trying to raise awareness in spite of the risks.

"What we're doing is legal and harmless. But tomorrow they could link it to extremism or terrorism. The slightest transmission of information could become an alleged threat to the state," Egor says.

Suddenly, a press officer and factory employee holding a camera arrive on the scene, with the rag-tag group taking off after a security guard appears -- a move that is sometimes followed by a police visit.

Several metres away, men under some trees continue to fish the polluted water.

The group regularly inspects rivers and dumps. Together with a more experienced activist with a legal background, they report violations to local prosecutors or the environmental protection agency.

Sometimes with surprising success.

In November 2021, Egor and his friend Alexei, then high school students, tested the water discharged by the paper factory.

- 'Small victories' -

Alexei sent the results to the authorities, who fined the factory manager about $5,000 after confirming the violations.

The factory is run by a local politician from the Kremlin-loyal United Russia party, and says it has since invested in modernising its equipment.

Following the probe, Alexei, then a member of a pro-government environmental group, was accused of carrying out the inspection without the approval of his superiors and kicked out.

In February last year, he set up Eko-Start, and he and Egor campaign together.

After the factory, activists and AFP journalists visited a landfill outside Penza, a jumble of rotting vegetables, batteries and medical waste emitting toxic fumes.

"The owners of the dump are high-ups in the region. They save money by not sorting the waste and not respecting the rules on storage," Alexei said.

Alexei met Egor in the Komsomol, the youth wing of the Russian Communist Party, which, though subservient to the Kremlin at the national level, sometimes represents opposition locally.

Both have since left the group.

Egor describes himself as a "Trotskyite-internationalist", saying he is against "Stalinists" and political repression.

While many young Russians are apolitical or support President Vladimir Putin, Alexei thinks the conflict in Ukraine has politicised many, and pushed some to take a stand in opposing -- or supporting -- the government.

"If you don't do politics today, politics will come for you tomorrow," he says.

bur/cw