The Tree of Life Is Losing Entire Limbs, Jeopardizing Evolution

Darren Orf
Mon, September 25, 2023 

Humans are Chopping Limbs Off the Tree of LifeMitchell Pettigrew - Getty Images

• Human-induced climate change and environmental degradation is causing entire genera to go extinct at rates 35 times higher than what’s been estimated to have occurred in the past one million years.

• A new study from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) estimates that 73 genera, each representing many species, have gone extinct since the 1500s.

• This is a devastating blow for biological diversity and only reinforces the need to protect natural spaces—especially tropical rainforests, where an estimate 80 percent of known species reside.

In Charles Darwin’s world-changing work On the Origin of Species, the naturalist make use of the millennia-old metaphor in which all life is represented by a tree. He writes that “the affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth.”

But in this era of climate change and a human-induced sixth mass extinction, that tree has seen better days. A new study by Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) shows that not only are individual species blinking out of existence at an alarming rate, entire genera—representing branches on the tree of life—are being completely obliterated at a rate that hasn’t been seen on Earth for at least a million years. The scientists behind the paper concluded that we are witnessing a “mutilation of the tree of life.” The findings were published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“In the long term, we’re putting a big dent in the evolution of life on the planet,” Gerardo Ceballos, UNAM and study co-author, said in a press statement. “But also, in this century, what we’re doing to the tree of life will cause a lot of suffering for humanity.”

Using improved data from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which tracks the conservation of status of all species, Ceballos and Stanford University’s Paul Ehrlich examined 34,600 species. These species represented a total of 5,400 genera of land-dwelling vertebrates.

Their findings show that 73 entire genera, each representing several species, have been completely wiped out since 1,500 CE. The hardest hit group was birds, with a total of 44 genera extinctions, followed by mammals, amphibians, and then reptiles. That’s a genus extinction rate 35 times higher than what’s been estimated to have occurred in the past one million years. The paper estimates that humans (sadly) managed to achieve in five centuries what would’ve taken nature 18,000 years.

While every species that goes extinct is an irreparable loss, losing entire genera can wreak havoc on ecosystems. Sticking with the tree analogy, a limb can lose a few twigs and still provide vital sustenance for the tree as a whole. But when entire limbs (or genera) are lost, holes start to form in the canopy, and other surviving species can’t fill those ecological gaps.

“As scientists, we have to be careful not to be alarmist,” Ceballos said in a statement. “We would be unethical not to explain the magnitude of the problem, since we and other scientists are alarmed.”

Although it’s vital to preserve threatened species wherever they’re found, Ceballos and Ehrlich recommend increased efforts to preserve tropical rainforests. The World Wildlife Foundation estimates that 80 percent of known species reside in these areas, so saving these environments would have the biggest impact on preserving precious ecosystems.

Climate change is an existential threat to humanity’s continued existence on Earth, but for the many species that share this planet with us, the situation is even more dire.

AOC Shuts Down Sen. Menendez for Claiming People Want Him to Resign Because He’s Latino

Susan Rinkunas
Mon, September 25, 2023

After Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife were indicted Friday on federal bribery charges—the second time Menendez has been charged!—some Democrats, including New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Sen. John Fetterman (PA), have begun calling on him to resign. But, not only is Bob choosing to persist, he’s choosing to not-so-subtly call his critics racist.

Menendez is up for re-election next year, the same time as the presidential election. His refusal to step down presents a massive optics problem at a time when his party is trying to drag the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump, through the mud for his multiple indictments. Since the charges against Menendez became public, it seems like he simply hopes to wave away his own indictment and ignore the dissonance of Democrats asking people to vote for Joe Biden over Trump...but then support Menendez over any challengers.

This is an absurd argument, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said as much to CBS on Sunday when she called on him to resign. “As a Latina, there are absolutely ways in which there is systemic bias, but I think what is here in this indictment is quite clear.” She said the legal standard in the U.S. is innocent until proven guilty, but “when it comes to the political and the standard of dignity that we want to maintain for the public in the United States Congress, I do believe it is in the best interest [for Menendez to resign].” She added: “Consistency matters. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat.”

Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a pathetic statement that ignores the political realities, saying that “Bob Menendez has been a dedicated public servant and is always fighting hard for the people of New Jersey. He has a right to due process and a fair trial.” Schumer added that Menendez had “rightly decided” to step down from his committee chair post as if that was some big gesture.

Chuck, sir, this is........no. It’s possible Schumer is waiting for a critical mass of his membership to call on Menendez to resign, but that feels cowardly, especially given the party’s messaging on Trump. So far, just one Senator has said the guy needs to go: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), though others have come pretty close, including Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).

“Senator Menendez should resign,” Fetterman said in a statement. “He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy, especially given the serious and specific nature of the allegations. I hope he chooses an honorable exit and focuses on his trial.”

Menendez announced at a press conference on Monday that he’s staying put. He was expected to announce that he’s running for re-election, but he didn’t say anything about 2024 during the news conference. (The New Jersey Globe reported that he wanted to have the presser at an elementary school in the town where he grew up and served as mayor, but the school declined.) Meanwhile, Menendez has hired the same lawyer he used in his 2015 corruption case, Abbe Lowell, who is currently also representing Hunter Biden on his federal tax and firearm charges.

For what it’s worth, Menendez already has a primary challenger, Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). Kim wrote on Twitter: “Not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity.”

I sure hope a bunch of Democratic Senators find their spines and do the right thing ASAP.

Jezebel

Next stop for Bennu asteroid sample? The NASA lab that specializes in extraterrestrial materials

Art Raymond
Mon, September 25, 2023 

In this image from video provided by NASA, technicians in a clean room examine the sample return capsule from NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission after it landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020. | NASA via Associated Press

A small but precious sample of material captured from the ancient Bennu asteroid was transported to one of the world’s most specialized labs on Monday after NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission successfully landed a capsule carrying the extraterrestrial dust and rubble in Utah’s west desert on Sunday.

The sample, believed to be about a cup or so of material harvested in deep space by a vacuum-enabled robotic arm deployed by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft that plunged into the surface of Bennu back in 2020, will allow scientists to look back some 4.5 billion years and could reveal new insight into the formation of the solar system and even the origins of water — and life — on Earth.

And the team tasked with the initial processing of the 9 ounces or so of asteroid material is part of a NASA division that’s been assessing extraterrestrial material going back to the early Apollo moon missions over five decades ago.

NASA’s Astromaterials Research & Science Exploration division has been in operation since 1969, the year the Apollo 11 mission, the first to land humans on the moon, brought back the first geologic samples from Earth’s sole satellite. The material included nearly 50 pounds of rocks, regolith (essentially, lunar soil) and core samples gathered by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin while on the surface of the moon.



On Monday, an Air Force C-17 airplane transported the Bennu sample, which remained inside a high-tech container extracted from the Osiris-Rex return capsule by gowned technicians Sunday working in a temporary clean room set up at Dugway Proving Ground, to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The sample was headed for a new laboratory designed by ARES scientists that is among more than 20 research labs used for the handling and research of ultra-rare materials samples gathered from the cosmos. In its September news letter, ARES noted its scientists were prepared and ready to begin the work of analyzing and cataloging the Bennu sample.

“The (Osiris-Rex) curation lab is ready to receive the samples, and we look forward to working closely with the Osiris-Rex Science team and our international partners (Canadian Space Agency and Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency) during preliminary examination of the samples,” the ARES newsletter read.

NASA reports plans to store about 70% of the Bennu material “for study by scientists not yet born, using technologies not yet invented, to answer fundamental questions about the solar system” with the remainder to be shared among over 200 researchers at 35 institutions around the world.

The ARES scientists will complete a cataloging of the Bennu material and publish results of those efforts in about six months, according to NASA. At that time, investigators outside the Osiris-Rex science team will be able to request samples for research.

The ARES team could be very busy in the coming years thanks to other NASA sample return plans currently under way. Those include additional lunar samples, thanks to the Artemis program which is aiming to land astronauts on the moon in this decade and an effort to bring samples gathered by the Mars Perseverance rover back to Terra Prime in or around 2033.

The Osiris-Rex mission launched from Earth in 2016 on a journey that brought it to an orbit around Bennu in 2018. Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid, meaning it is on a path that orbits the sun. Bennu’s trek around the sun takes 435 days, but every six years the asteroid passes relatively close — within about 186,000 miles — to Earth. For reference, that’s closer to Earth than the moon. Ahead of the opportunity to evaluate material from Bennu, scientists have a wealth of information gathered by Osiris-Rex over the two years it circled and observed the asteroid.

One of the huge advantages of the Bennu sample, from a research perspective, is that the material is “pristine” when compared to samples gathered from meteorites that have crashed to Earth and been contaminated by exposure to the planet’s atmosphere.

Beside its value to scientists as an accessible asteroid that contains material from the earliest days of the solar system, Bennu is also notable as one of the biggest known potential threats for a future collision with Earth.

Research from the Osiris-Rex scientific team estimates there is a 1 in 2,700 chance that Bennu could be on a course to impact earth exactly 159 years from this weekend’s expected landing of Osiris-Rex’s sample return capsule landing, on Sept. 24, 2182.

At the Dugway command center on Sunday, Anjani Polit, mission implementation systems engineer for the Osiris-Rex mission, said that Bennu’s status as a potential Earth-impactor elevates the importance of the information that’s already been gathered about the asteroid as well as what new insights the material sample will reveal.

“The planetary defense aspect is a really important aspect of this mission,” Polit said. “It’s really important to study Bennu ... to evaluate those risks. And also learning about its material properties. What it’s made of ... is information we could use to deflect an asteroid whether it’s Bennu or another asteroid in the future, if we need to.”


After NASA's epic OSIRIS-REx capsule landing success, spacecraft heads to asteroid Apophis on new mission

Andrew Jones
Mon, September 25, 2023 

After NASA's epic OSIRIS-REx capsule landing success, spacecraft heads to asteroid Apophis on new mission

The NASA probe that delivered precious samples of the space rock Bennu to Earth is now on an extended voyage to study an infamous near Earth asteroid.

OSIRIS-REx completed NASA's first asteroid sample return mission on Sunday (Sept. 24), when its reentry capsule landed in the western Utah desert. But now the main spacecraft has embarked on a side quest: to scope out and get up close with Apophis, an asteroid previously thought to potentially pose a threat to Earth.

The spacecraft used its return to Earth to fling itself on a course toward Apophis. It fired its engines about 20 minutes after releasing the reentry capsule containing pristine material from the early solar system, effecting a trajectory change and setting it on another long, looping voyage.

Related: Apophis: The infamous asteroid we thought might hit us

That complex journey will take OSIRIS-REx much closer to the sun than it was originally designed to get, passing within the orbit of Venus a number of times and revisiting Earth, eventually allowing it to finally rendezvous with Apophis. It is planned to reach the object, also known as asteroid 99942, on April 8, 2029.

OSIRIS-APEX will not collect samples from Apophis, but it will study the asteroid for 18 months. These proximity operations will include imaging and mapping the asteroid and a close-up rendezvous maneuver like the one used to obtain material from Bennu in October 2020. While we won't get to analyze parts of Apophis on Earth, this move will give unique insights into its subsurface, composition and properties.

Apophis is an intriguing and high-profile near Earth object (NEO). The roughly 1,100 feet (340 meters) object was once thought to have a chance of smashing into Earth in 2068. Apophis is no longer considered a threat, and the celestial dance of the solar system will instead offer a chance to get up close with this former nemesis.

Apophis' next close approach to Earth will see it get within around 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) of us on Friday, April 13, 2029. While an inauspicious date to some, it presents humanity with a great opportunity to study the space rock and learn more about not only asteroids but also the evolution of the solar system.

Apophis is a "typical" near-Earth asteroid, Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer working on NEOs at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), told Space.com.

"By studying it, we will learn more about these objects, most of which were formed at the same place as the Earth," Hainaut said. "In a way, you can look at Apophis and the NEOs as crumbs left over while making the Earth."

Bennu is a carbon-rich, B-type asteroid, but Apophis is an S-type, or "stony" asteroid composed mainly of silicate and nickel iron. These relics of that primordial era are common in the inner solar system and could yield untold secrets of the origins of the planets and the processes that led to their formation.

Because of its common properties, it will also be useful for planetary protection efforts. "It is super interesting scientifically and super-interesting for the protection of the Earth," Hainaut said. "While Apophis is not dangerous, we expect it to be very similar to other NEOs that could collide with the Earth."

But an asteroid may not be what it appears, as OSIRIS-REx found at Bennu: That space rock's surface behaved, surprisingly, like a ball pit. We won't know what Apophis is like until the probe gets up close and personal with it.

RELATED STORIES:

— Asteroid Apophis will visit Earth in 2029. Why do scientists want NASA to send a probe there first?

— Infamous asteroid Apophis 'rediscovered' as scientists test asteroid defense mechanisms

— Just how many threatening asteroids are there? It's complicated.

And OSIRIS-APEX may not be the only visit to Apophis, if scientists get their way.

NASA's Small Bodies Assessment Group recently called for the agency to find a way to fly by Apophis before its close encounter with Earth. This would "provide a complete investigation of this remarkable opportunity to quantify and understand in real time the consequences of planetary tides on the evolution of asteroids and glean important information on Apophis' interior structure, which is otherwise unobtainable," the group stated.

Elsewhere, a workshop is being organized for 2024 to explore international collaboration opportunities for both Earth-based observations and potential in situ investigations of Apophis.

Whether these extra missions happen or not, OSIRIS-APEX will provide more pieces of the puzzle, helping researchers understand the primordial objects in our neighborhood, our planet and how to protect it.

NASA's asteroid sample arrives in Houston where scientists have big plans for bits of Bennu

Emilee Speck
Tue, September 26, 2023 

HOUSTON – Pieces of ancient asteroid Bennu collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft have arrived in Houston after surviving the descent to Earth and landing in Utah over the weekend.

The arrival at Johnson Space Center in Houston marks the success of a seven-year mission for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer.

On Sunday, the spacecraft released a capsule containing about 9 ounces of rocks, dust and dirt collected from the asteroid Bennu in 2020. About four hours later, the sample landed inside the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range.

After traveling up to 27,000 mph and blasting through Earth's atmosphere, the sample still had more travel to complete.

The capsule was safely collected by the OSIRIS-REx team and taken to a temporary clean room at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles from Salt Lake City.

On Monday, the asteroid bits made the last leg of the journey onboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, landing at Ellington Field before being taken to Johnson Space Center, where a specialized clean room for Bennu was waiting.

The OSIRIS-REx science team will use glove boxes to handle the sample canister containing the end of the robotic arm used to collect dirt, rocks and dust from Bennu's surface. After removing the asteroid sample from the TAGSAM, or Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, each piece of hardware will be cataloged to preserve every bit of asteroid dust found outside of it.

The OSIRIS-REx science team, led by principal investigator Dante Lauretta with the University of Arizona, will analyze the ancient asteroid dust to understand the overall sample's chemical, mineralogical and physical makeup.

Bennu is believed to have broken off from a larger asteroid more than 4.5 billion years ago and is a fossil of our solar system. Scientists think it likely contains organic molecules from within 10 million years of our solar system's formation with clues to planet formation and how to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids like Bennu.

On Oct. 11, NASA will share its initial findings from the asteroid sample.

Eventually, more than 200 scientists worldwide will study the asteroid sample. Part of the sample will be given to the Japanese Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) in exchange for some of the asteroid samples collected from the Japanese Hayabusa missions.

Meanwhile, NASA's asteroid-sampling spacecraft is on a new mission called OSIRIS-APEX. In 2029, when asteroid Apophis flies by Earth, the spacecraft will use its thrusters to move around material on the asteroid to help scientists learn about its surface properties.

After Delivery to Earth, What's Next for NASA's Asteroid Sample?

Passant Rabie
Mon, September 25, 2023 

The sample return capsule after touching down at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on September 24, 2023.

Earth just got a special delivery: Pieces of an ancient asteroid that were snagged straight from the source and dropped off in the western Utah desert. After traveling through space for nearly three years, the journey is just beginning for the precious rock samples, which could help scientists figure out the story of life.

Bennu is a small, near-Earth asteroid that makes a close pass to Earth every six years or so. Scientists believe Bennu might have broken off from a much larger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years ago, and drifted much closer to Earth since then.

“Successfully delivering samples from Bennu to Earth is a triumph of collaborative ingenuity and a testament to what we can accomplish when we unite with a common purpose. But let’s not forget—while this may feel like the end of an incredible chapter, it’s truly just the beginning of another,” Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said in a statement. “We now have the unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the secrets of our solar system.”

The OSIRIS-REx mission launched in September 2016 and reached asteroid Bennu in December 2018. After nearly two years of observations, the spacecraft landed on Bennu and snagged a sample from its surface in October 2020. On May 10, 2021, OSIRIS-REx said goodbye to Bennu and began its journey back home to drop off its precious cargo.

The spacecraft was 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) away from Earth’s surface when it released its sample capsule toward Earth’s atmosphere at 6:42 a.m. ET, according to NASA. After dropping off its sample, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft began making its way towards its next mission of exploring asteroid Apophis. Accordingly, the mission will be renamed to OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer).

The sample capsule made its way down at speeds of 27,650 miles per hour (44,500 kilometer per hour), and it pierced the atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET off the coast of California at an altitude of about 83 miles (133 kilometers). Around 10 minutes later, the capsule landed in the Utah desert with the help of two parachutes to slow it down.

“The whole team had butterflies today, but that’s the focused anticipation of a critical event by a well-prepared team,” Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. “For us, this was the World Series, ninth inning, bases-loaded moment, and this team knocked it out of the park.”

This marks the first time that NASA has returned surface samples from an asteroid. Japan achieved the same feat in December 2020, returning samples of asteroid Ryugu as part of the Hayabusa2 mission.

 Gizmodo

Queen’s Brian May helped NASA return its first asteroid sample

Hafsa Khalil, CNN
Mon, September 25, 2023 at 1:54 PM MDT·1 min read
166



JMEnternational/Getty Images

Brian May has once again proven why he is rock royalty. Not only is he the Queen guitarist, but he is also an astrophysicist who recently helped NASA return its first ever asteroid sample to Earth.

May said he was “immensely proud” to be part of the team that collected the sample from the asteroid Bennu.

“Hello NASA folks, space fans, asteroid aficionados. This is Brian May of Queen as you know probably, but also immensely proud to be a team member of OSIRIS-REx,” the 76-year-old musician said in a clip aired on NASA TV Sunday.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sunday, seven years after it was launched to space to collect samples from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It collected the sample from the more than 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid in 2020 before setting off on its return journey to Earth, specifically Utah, in 2021.

May played a crucial role in the mission, creating stereoscopic images from the spacecraft’s data that allowed the leader of the mission, Dante Lauretta, and the team to locate a safe site to land and collect a sample.

In the clip, May apologized for not being with the team on the momentous occasion.

“I’m rehearsing for a Queen tour but my heart stays with you as this precious sample is recovered,” he explained.

“Happy sample return day, and congratulations to all who work so incredibly hard on this mission, especially my dear friend Dante.”

“God bless you all,” he added.

After dropping off the sample capsule in Utah, OSIRIS-REx is continuing its travels to study a different asteroid, named Apophis, the space agency said.

Nasa has gathered a large piece of a distant asteroid. What now?

Andrew Griffin
Mon, September 25, 2023


Scientists have gathered a significant chunk of a distant asteroid, which has made its way to Earth after a mission taking millions of miles. But the really useful work will begin now.

Nasa’s Osiris-Rex mission flew to the distant Asteroid Bennu, scooped up a piece of the object into a canister, and then flew back to Earth to drop it off. On Sunday, Nasa picked up that canister in the Utah desert and is now working to secure it.

It will then send those samples to a variety of scientists around the world, with a chunk of it being sent to more than 200 people at 38 different institutions across the world. They hope that they can use them as a “time capsule” to peer into the early universe, telling us about where we came from.

“This box when it is opened of material from the surface of Bennu can tell us untold secrets of the origins of the universe, the origins of our planet and the origins of life itself,” said Queen musician Brian May, who helped with the research by mapping out the asteroid to find a landing spot. “What an incredibly exciting day.”

Sample return missions are particularly exciting to scientists because they offer a look at a pristine piece of a distant world that has been undisturbed by the environment on Earth. While some pieces of asteroids and other objects can fall down to Earth, they have to make their way through the atmosphere and can be damaged and changed in the process.

They also mean that researchers are able to use all of the Earth’s latest technology to study the sample. Other pieces of distant worlds have of course been studied by spacecraft and landers, but they are only able to do so with the limited instruments they take to those planets.

Another advantage of sample return missions over studying the objects at their home is that scientists can look back at those samples with new sensors and equipment invented long after the sample was actually taken. Many space missions continue for years – Curiosity is still examining Mars after arriving there in 2012, and the Voyager probes are still providing information almost 50 years after they were launched – but they are only able to do so with the technology that was available when they set off.

The analysis done in sample return missions really begins when the spacecraft arrives at its target: then, it starts looking at the context of the sample, gathering information about the world from which it came that should prove useful to scientists later. Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in 2018, and spent two years mapping the asteroid before it set off back home with its delivery.

All of that information in addition to the samples could help answer a variety of questions about our planet, scientists hope.

“The asteroids in our solar system contain the raw building blocks from which the Earth was made, so working out their composition will tell us a lot of how our planet formed,” said Boris Gansicke from the department of physics at the University of Warwick.

“There are many open questions, for instance, where did the water that we have on Earth come from? And where did the ingredients that made life possible to develop come from?

“To answer those questions, ie measure the composition of an asteroid, you need to get your ‘hands’ on them (or in this case the arm of a space mission), and this is what Osiris-Rex achieved.

“In a nutshell, it’s similar to sitting in front of a delicious dinner and wanting to have the list of ingredients.”

Sample return missions are almost as old as space travel itself, and the first of them were the early Apollo missions, which brought back pieces of the Moon. Those continue to be useful to scientists.

Since then, as human travel into space has declined, most of the work has been done by robots. In the early 1970s, the Soviet Union’s Luna missions gathered pieces of the Moon and brought them back, and in 2020 Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission brought back pieces of the asteroid Ryugu.

Scientists have high hopes for future missions: perhaps the most discussed is a mission to Mars, which would bring back the first ever pieces of that planet. Engineers have suggested that for decades, and a number of plans have been formed, but none are likely to launch any time soon.

Texas Attorney general blocks state counties from banning new solar farms: ‘We’re also seeing a lot of electricity being produced’

Leo Collis
Mon, September 25, 2023 

In a hugely positive move for sustainable energy production, the Texas attorney general has ruled that county governments cannot ban the development of solar farms.

Angela Colmenero, who is serving as the state’s interim attorney general while Ken Paxton awaits his impeachment trial, told residents of Franklin County that Texas law does not give county governments the authority to ban solar projects, the Texas Tribune reported.

The conflict arose when members of the community began fighting proposals for solar farms, arguing that such projects would lead to the destruction of trees and the scraping of grasslands.

While this can pose environmental issues, solar power has been proven to play a significant part in reducing pollution that contributes to our planet’s overheating, which protects our communities and the environment in the long term.

Furthermore, clean energy helps to provide employment opportunities. According to the U.S. government, over three million Americans are employed in this sector.

With the United States aiming to reach 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, solar farms are vital to achieve this goal.

According to the Texas Tribune, the state produces more wind power than any other, while it is second in solar power.

Solar power also proved extremely useful during heat waves that scorched the state in June. With air conditioning units being used more frequently as residents remained inside to avoid the extreme heat, more pressure was put on the energy grid.

Thankfully, the state’s focus on renewable energy over the last few years helped to avoid blackouts, which would have put residents in danger of heat-related illnesses.

“The same sun that heats up buildings [and] triggers people to turn on their air conditioners, is the sun that can make electricity from solar panels,” University of Texas research scientist Joshua Rhodes told the Guardian. “So during this high amount of heat, we’re also seeing a lot of electricity being produced by solar panels.”

According to the Guardian, Texas has doubled its solar supply since 2022, and banning blocks on future solar developments will allow the state to further increase its capabilities.

Opinion

Palestinian Americans are now tourists in their own land

ISRAEL AN APARTHEID STATE

Sari Bashi, Opinion Contributor

THE HILL
Mon, September 25, 2023

The Israeli government, motivated by the plum prize of joining a coveted U.S. visa waiver program and desperate for a public relations win in light of mass protests, launched a pilot program in July. The program makes it easier for Palestinians holding U.S. citizenship to travel in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, thus giving a tiny number of Palestinians a small fraction of their right to freedom of movement.

As an Israeli and American Jew married to a Palestinian refugee and living in the occupied West Bank, I responded to this strange development with a mix of joy and outrage.

First, the joy. Three weeks ago, we loaded our car with towels and toys for a day at the beach in Jaffa.  To get there, we had to pass a checkpoint two miles inside the West Bank, at a gate in the barrier that keeps Palestinians out of Israel and the parts of the West Bank restricted to Israelis.

I dropped my husband off near a break in the dusty roadside fence that leads to the Palestinian crossing point and drove through the Israeli side of the checkpoint with our two children. The security guard racially profiled me with a smiley “good morning,” designed to check my Hebrew accent, and waved us through. Amazingly, they let my husband cross on foot — thanks to his newly acquired U.S. passport.

For most of the last 11 years, we have lived together in the occupied West Bank. In that time, my husband has been allowed to enter Israel on only a few occasions, even though his parents were born on Israel’s southern coast and fled as children in 1948 as the Israeli army neared their village. His parents have not been allowed to return home, as part of an Israeli policy to maintain Jewish demographic superiority.

My husband grew up in a refugee camp in Gaza, where his family still lives. He managed to move to the West Bank, but has not been allowed to join me in Israel — not even when our newborn daughter was hospitalized for a month in Tel Aviv. Nor has he been allowed to travel between Gaza and the West Bank, due to severe restrictions. Our children have never met their grandmother, who lives 60 miles away.

As part of the visa waiver deal, the Israeli government has said it will allow US citizens to visit first-degree relatives in Gaza once a year. As a result, my husband might be allowed to see his elderly mother for the first time in 11 years.

Now, the outrage I feel. Despite concessions to the relatively few Palestinians who hold U.S. citizenship, another 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are still denied their right to freedom of movement throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. And 5.9 million registered Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who live outside the areas where they or their families lived until 1948, are still denied their right to return to what is now Israel. Giving visas to a tiny number of Palestinian refugees is outrageous, because they should not be treated as tourists in their own land.

Successive Israeli governments have pursued the U.S. visa waiver, but it was out of reach until now for two main reasons. First, U.S. law requires nationals of countries in the program to have a visa rejection rate of no more than 3 percent, but the U.S. has on average denied 6 percent of Israeli applications. The denial rate dropped because of reduced travel during the pandemic, creating a unique eligibility window.

Second, the visa waiver program requires member countries to admit U.S. nationals without discrimination. But the Israeli authorities impose severe movement restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Palestinian Americans, while permitting visitor travel there for other U.S. nationals.

They have also routinely discriminated against U.S. citizens of Arab or Muslim origin seeking entry to Israel or Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza and those who are outspoken about Palestinian human rights. Anticipating U.S. approval for the visa waiver as soon as next week, the Israeli government is rolling back a small part of those restrictions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly thanked President Joe Biden for the coveted gesture in their meeting Wednesday in New York, as opponents of Netanyahu’s policies demonstrated outside their hotel.

That Israel’s current far-right government is willing to bend on heretofore intransigent policies in return for visa-free travel for Israeli citizens shows the power of U.S. leverage over the conduct of Israeli authorities. So I feel hope, too.

Imagine what positive changes could be possible if the U.S. government were to heed calls to suspend its $3.8 billion annual military support to Israel, so long as the Israeli authorities continue discriminatory policies and practices that human rights organizations, legal experts and even some mainstream Israeli scholars have concluded amount to apartheid.

The U.S. has all this leverage. It should use that leverage to pressure Israeli authorities to respect the right of Palestinians like my children’s grandmother to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank, and to enter Israel not as tourists, but as refugees returning home.

Sari Bashi is program director at Human Rights Watch.

Opinion

Transgender fight at Rocklin school district just the start of far-right’s efforts 

Michelle Sutherland
Tue, September 26, 2023 

Xavier Mascareñas/xmascarenas@sacbee.com

Recently, I cast the lone ‘no’ vote when the Rocklin Unified School District Board of Trustees passed a policy to out the identity of transgender students to their parents. I listened to the hundreds of community members on this issue as well as the warning from California Attorney General Rob Bonta that such a policy was illegal and subject to court challenge.

The trustees who support this policy are not listening. And school board members in other communities who agree with them are not done. If this topic comes to a school board meeting near you, chances are there’s not a whole lot you can do to prevent your board from jeopardizing your district’s money. They will try nonetheless.

How do I know this? Because this recent action is part of a coordinated, far-right political effort across our state, being packaged as “Parents Bill of Rights.” I expect that this is only the first of several ideological issues that boards intend to bring to their school communities.

Opinion

School boards like mine should be focusing on education-related issues, helping to improve our schools and our students’ learning. Instead, these trustees are actively using network news talking points and lies by omission to sow mistrust between parents and teachers.

My board was not looking for solutions, for a way to help kids, empower parents, or address teacher/administrator concerns. This was evident in that a two-person board subcommittee did not seek the input of students, teachers, counselors, principals, or even parents. When I suggested that we look for solutions that improve parent-child relationships while respecting concerns on both sides of the issue, my colleagues were not willing to engage in any meaningful dialogue. After the concerned public spoke, none of the concerns were acknowledged, let alone entertained.

My colleagues know that solutions made with collaboration and consideration don’t bring lawsuits. Peace and unity in a community do not make headlines. Without a legal fight, there’s no political advancement of their agenda. They seem to want this fight to go all the way to the Supreme Court, using our tax dollars to fund it. Would these board members feel so emboldened on this issue if the legal fees were coming out of their own pockets?

These inevitable legal costs to our school districts are sure to result in cost reductions elsewhere: meaning money that could have been spent on educational programs or additional staff will now be funneled toward fighting lawsuits.

Look over your school district’s most recent budget vote. If you see that cuts were made to valuable programs (learning supports, school nurses, librarians, etc.) or if you see that repairs and maintenance issues are being put off you can reasonably assume that money is being spent on political issues that have no relevance to the quality of our students’ education.

Our school boards have no business spending taxpayer money in this way.

Advancing a misguided and costly social agenda through a school district is a dereliction of duty. California students will end up paying the price, not only as a result of mismanagement of resources but in regard to their individual rights under the law. Regardless of how many times my fellow board members may claim that this stripping away of student rights is legal, remember that there is a reason that California Attorney General Rob Bonta has already filed a suit against this same policy elsewhere in the state.

Our laws do, indeed, entitle students to privacy, freedom of expression and equal protection and access to publicly funded programs.

Politics belong in political forums like the California Legislature. The local school board should concern itself solely with education.

Michelle Sutherland is a board member at the Rocklin Unified School District.