Allen Fawcett named Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute

JGCRI provides scientific input on how human, energy and environmental systems interact to national and international governing and advising bodies

Business Announcement

DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

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ALLEN FAWCETT

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CREDIT: PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

By Greg Koller

COLLEGE PARK, Md.— Allen Fawcett — an energy expert and economist who has played a leading role in formulating and coordinating U.S. climate policy — is the new director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute.

Fawcett joined the Environmental Protection Agency in 2003 and, since 2012, served as the chief of EPA’s Climate Economics Branch, which advances the science of climate economics to inform policy. From 2010 to 2011, Fawcett took leave from EPA to serve as the deputy associate director for energy and climate at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Fawcett began his appointment Jan. 8, 2024.

JGCRI is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland in College Park. It brings together expertise in research, modeling and analysis to advance scientific understanding of the ways in which human, energy and environmental systems interact. Since its formation, JGCRI has provided input to the White House, Congress, United Nations and other national and international governing and advising bodies.

“Allen’s technical expertise in human-Earth systems modeling and his experience helping governments and communities draw on science and economics to make policy decisions make him the ideal person to lead JGCRI,” said Malin Young, PNNL’s associate laboratory director for Earth and Biological Sciences. “Allen sits at the intersection between science, economics and policy and is uniquely qualified to help see that JGCRI meets the needs of policy makers.”

Greg Ball, vice president for research at the University of Maryland, said, “We are extraordinarily fortunate to have such a strong, broad and collaborative research partnership between UMD and PNNL through JGCRI, and Dr. Fawcett’s policy and science expertise will accelerate JGCRI’s already remarkable success in responding to key grand challenges of our time.”

Nate Hultman, director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland and associate director for JGCRI, agreed. “Allen brings remarkable experience through his leadership in the scientific community and his long record of leading teams to support domestic and international policy,” he said. “These strengths are ideally suited to deliver research impact on issues of the utmost importance today as the world seeks to respond to our climate, energy, and sustainability challenges with science-informed strategies that can create new economic opportunities and broader societal benefits.”

While at EPA, Fawcett was responsible for the agency’s economic analyses of various cap-and-trade proposals, including the Waxman-Markey Bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009.

In 2015, Fawcett collaborated with the U.S. State Department and White House on analysis of the proposed international treaty on climate change that, once ratified, became known as the Paris Agreement. His work with JGCRI scientists, published in the journal Science during the Paris meeting in 2015, was the first assessment of the worldwide impact of that agreement.

“The 2020s are a critical decade when it comes to addressing climate change — one of the most important challenges of our time,” said Fawcett. “We’re just now beginning to take truly meaningful action. But as we consider what comes next, it will be critical for decision-makers to understand interactions between science, economics and policy. This is where JGCRI can make important contributions that will make a difference for our future.”

Fawcett earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the College of William & Mary and both a master’s degree and doctorate in economics from the University of Texas. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific and technical papers and journal articles.

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About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland, College Park is one of the nation's preeminent public research universities and Maryland's flagship university. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 41,000 students, 14,000 faculty and staff, and 280 academic programs. UMD’s faculty include two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, 60 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit www.umd.edu.

About Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory draws on its distinguishing strengths in chemistry, Earth sciences, biology and data science to advance scientific knowledge and address challenges in sustainable energy and national security. Founded in 1965, PNNL is operated by Battelle for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science. For more information on PNNL, visit PNNL's News Center. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

 

What if cows could talk?

By using acoustic data and machine learning to decipher cows' vocalizations, Virginia Tech researchers hope to shed new light on the animals' health, welfare, and environmental impact.

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

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VIRGINIA TECH RESEARCHERS PLAN TO USE AUDIO DATA FROM COWS TO UNCOVER PATTERNS IN THEIR VOCALIZATIONS THAT MAY SHED LIGHT ON THEIR WELL-BEING, EMOTIONS, AND “LANGUAGE.”

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY MADI HAHN FOR VIRGINIA TECH.

You may not know it, but cows share information every time they burp, moo, and chew that speaks volumes about their health and welfare. 

Through the work of researchers in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, we may soon know more about what cows are “telling” us and be able to use that information to improve their well-being.

James Chen, an animal data sciences researcher and assistant professor in the School of Animal Sciences is using a $650,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop an acoustic, data-driven tool to help enhance animal welfare and lower methane emissions in precision livestock farming. 

“Vocalization is a major way cows express their emotions, and it is about time to listen to what they’re telling us,” Chen said. 

Because sound data can be collected from cows individually and continuously, Chen said it’s better than video or other observation methods for monitoring cows’ emotions and health, including even subtle changes in breathing.

“The assessment of animal welfare has become a central discussion in society and is a controversial issue simply because the lack of objective tools leads to biased interpretations,” he said. “By matching audio data with biological and visual cues, we can be more objective in our approach to analyzing their behavior.”

Using artificial intelligence to interpret moos

Chen and his co-investigator, Virginia Cooperative Extension dairy scientist and Associate Professor Gonzalo Ferreira, plan to collect audio data from cows, their calves, and beef cattle in the pasture. They will then use machine learning to analyze and catalog thousands of points of acoustic data and interpret cow vocalizations such as mooing, chewing, and burping for signs of stress or illness.

“Let’s think about a baby crying inside a plane or in church,” Ferreira said. “As a father, I have an idea whether the baby is crying because it’s hungry or wants attention. Our research question then is: Can we use audio data to interpret animals’ needs?”

Chen and Ferreira are particularly interested in identifying vocal patterns for how cows’ communicate distress. By analyzing the frequency, amplitude, and duration of cow’s moos and vocalizations and correlating the sound data with saliva cortisol samples taken from the cow, they can classify whether cows are experiencing no stress, mild stress, or severe stress and begin to decode their “language.”

As part of the project, Chen is building a computational pipeline that integrates acoustic data management, pre-trained machine-learning models, and interactive visualization of animal sounds. The resulting data will be shared in an open-source, web-based application available to scientists, producers, and the public. Chen said his hope is that the information will help guide future protocols to improve animal welfare.  

“Anyone can directly plug in and use our model to run their own experiment,” he said. “This allows people to transform cows’ vocalizations into interpretable information that humans can recognize.”

 

Researchers plan to place small recording devices on the halters or collars of cows to capture their vocalizations for the study. Here, Dairy scientist and Associate Professor Gonzalo Ferreira fastens a halter outfitted with a tiny recorder to a dairy cow. Photo courtesy of Gonzalo Ferreira.

Decoding burps

Because cows’ burps can release small amounts of methane, the researchers also will try to identify cows that burp less through audio data. By comparing the sound data to DNA samples from the cows, they hope to understand whether a genetic variant causes some cows to burp more than others. They also plan to examine the impact of rumen modifiers — food additives that inhibit methane gas production — to gauge the effects. 

“Measuring methane emissions from cattle requires very expensive equipment, which would be prohibitive to farmers,” Ferreira said. “If burping sounds are indeed related to methane emissions, then we might have the potential for selecting low methane-emitting animals at the commercial farm level in an affordable manner.”

“Our eventual goal is to use this model on a larger scale,” Chen said. “We hope to build a public data set that can help inform policy and regulations.”

Lead researcher James Chen is developing an acoustic data-driven tool to help enhance animal welfare and lower methane emissions in precision livestock farming.

CAPTION

Researchers plan to place small recording devices on the halters or collars of cows to capture their vocalizations for the study. Here, Dairy scientist and Associate Professor Gonzalo Ferreira fastens a halter outfitted with a tiny recorder to a dairy cow.

 

Unpacking social equity from biodiversity data: an interdisciplinary policy perspective

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

 

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FIGURES 1 AND 2 SHOW HOW BIODIVERSITY DATA IS DISPROPROTIONATELY AND INCREASINGLY DERIVED FROM HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES

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CREDIT: MILLIE CHAPMAN

Biodiversity data collection is growing exponentially. The increase is driven in part by international commitments to conservation, market investments and technological advances, and the growing urgency of human impacts including climate change. Nations increasingly rely on biodiversity data in order to strategically meet global conservation targets for the coming decades. But not all data is collected equally. 

Millie Chapman, a postdoctoral scholar at the UC Santa Barbara-based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), studies the social and political context of biodiversity data collection. In a recent Science publication, Chapman and her colleagues demonstrate that biodiversity data is increasingly concentrated in wealthy countries. They argue that this context should be unearthed to prevent inequitable implementation of conservation projects. 

Biodiversity data gives us “unprecedented insight into ecological patterns at global scales,” Chapman explains, which can greatly inform nations’ priorities for future conservation. But applying these data sets to decision-making often reveals more about us humans as a species than about any other species. 

“Biodiversity data trace not only cities and roads but the rise of surveillance technology, shadows of colonial histories, and echoes of contemporary racial and economic disparities,” she said. “We can see everything from red-lining to armed conflict to macroeconomic patterns.” 

These human dimensions impact not only the actual diversity of non-human species, but also how that diversity is observed and quantified. For example, the extent of European colonialism is still evidenced by the distribution of European plant and animal species around the world. Areas most impacted by extractive industries are sometimes the most studied. In those cases, the data collection is dependent on continued resource extraction. The map and graph, pictured below, show how biodiversity data is disproportionately collected in high income countries, and how that inequitable trend has grown exponentially over time.

Chapman began this work as a graduate student of environmental science and policy at UC Berkeley. She started a reading group with peers in sociology and political ecology to dive further into questions of data justice and algorithmic equity. Her current interdisciplinary research stems from that serendipitous reading group. Today, she and her co-authors, including experts in computer science and ecology, ask, “are the best available data really a suitable standard?”

Better conservation isn’t just about more data collection or better statistical methods, Chapman argued. It’s also about better understanding of the social, cultural and political context behind environmental data.

“No one domain, I think, has the answer to this problem,” she said. “And that’s a cool reason to be at NCEAS.” For nearly 30 years, NCEAS has been a leading center of synthesis science, where interdisciplinary expert groups leverage existing data to answer complex questions.

Scientists have understood these contextual inequities of data for a long time, according to Chapman. But with a dramatic increase in global attention and application of biodiversity data for on-the-ground conservation, including a multi-billion-dollar market for biodiversity offsets, these inequities can be amplified and preserved through policy.

“The path forward will require more than technocratic fixes,” she and her colleagues argue. The research team hopes to see more interdisciplinary, inclusive science policy collaboration to ensure that biodiversity data, with all of its inherent limitations and inequities, will be applied as justly as possible.

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JOURNAL

Science

ARTICLE TITLE

Biodiversity monitoring for a just planetary future

 

The medical community should not stand silent on medicalized rape at CIA secret prisons, BU researchers argue in new commentary

In a new JAMA viewpoint, Boston University School of Public Health researchers Sondra Crosby and Leonard Glantz denounce rectal feeding practices that occurred at these prisons, and call for medical officers to be held accountable. 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 16, 2023                              

In a new JAMA viewpoint, Boston University School of Public Health researchers Sondra Crosby and Leonard Glantz denounce rectal feeding practices that occurred at these prisons, and call for medical officers who enabled this “medicalized rape” to be held accountable for violating ethical and legal standards.

Nearly 10 years ago, a US Senate Intelligence committee report detailed for the first time the horrors of forced rectal feeding inflicted upon detainees at CIA secret prisons. The victims of this abuse were later transferred to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for indefinite confinement.

Now, as the country marks the 22nd year of the opening of Guantánamo Bay, two Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers are calling for the medical officers involved in this unethical and discredited practice to be held accountable.

Published in the journal JAMA, Dr. Sondra Crosby, professor of health law, ethics & human rights at BUSPH and Leonard Glantz, emeritus professor of health law, policy & management at BUSPH, equate rectal feeding to torture and argue that medical officers who authorized, ordered, or participated in this nonconsensual and medically ineffective practice have committed acts that meet the legal definition of rape. These officials have never been identified or formally punished for their actions.

“Medical officers are not absolved of ethical and legal responsibility for their actions when they commit heinous acts on behalf of and with permission of the state,” Crosby and Glantz write. “We believe that any CIA physicians and all other medical officers who authorized or participated in the rectal feeding of these prisoners cannot be entrusted to protect the welfare of patients once they return to civilian positions.”

Modern medicine has long rejected rectal feeding, which was once thought to be an alternative method of providing nutrition. CIA officials alleged that this forced feeding was a necessary action to end detainees’ hunger strikes. But last August, a military judge ruled that it was an illegitimate medical practice.

“The sequelae of rape can persist for decades and even a lifetime,” the authors write, stating that anal rape survivors often experience both physical and psychological harms, from depression and posttraumatic stress disorder, to rectal perforation, infections, and chronic pain.

“Both ethical and legal standards require reasonable medical judgment and prohibit providing treatment that cannot benefit a patient,” Crosby and Glantz write. “…Furthermore, international human rights laws, and basic human decency, prohibit participation in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that can constitute torture. If any of the involved medical officers were physicians, they would have violated their fundamental ethical obligations by using their medical skills to intentionally inflict harm on individuals.”

Both Crosby and Glantz have studied health law and human rights issues extensively. Crosby, who is also a professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, serves as a court-approved medical expert on torture. In 2008, she and colleagues at Physicians for Human Rights led the first investigation of human rights violations associated with CIA interrogations of detained individuals. Last February, she testified in court to denounce the rectal feeding practices in the secret prisons, describing graphic details of the effects of torture, based on exclusive interviews she conducted with suspected terrorist Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Identifying the medical officers who enabled or participated in sexual assault by rectal feeding is crucial, the authors conclude, to determine whether legal or professional action against them is warranted.

“The medical profession should not stand silent when its members commit atrocities under the guise of medicine.”

**

About Boston University School of Public Health

Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top ten ranked schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations—especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable—locally and globally.

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA

DOI

10.1001/jama.2023.25866 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Commentary/editorial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

“Rectal Feeding”—Unethical Medical Officer Participation at CIA Secret Interrogation Facilities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Dec-2023

COI STATEMENT

Dr. Crosby reported being employed by the US Department of Defense Office of Military Commissions as a medical expert on torture and has provided testimony in the pretrial hearings on this topic.

AI model predicts death, complications for patients undergoing angioplasty, stents

It showed high levels of accuracy at predicting death, major bleeding events and the need for blood transfusion

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

When a person has one or more blocked arteries, providers may choose to conduct a minimally invasive procedure known as percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI. 

By inflating a balloon and potentially placing a stent, blood can flow more freely from the heart. 

Despite carrying less risk than open surgery, stenting and balloon angioplasty can result in complications like bleeding and kidney injury. 

Researchers at Michigan Medicine developed an AI-driven algorithm that accurately predicts death and complications after PCI — which could emerge as a tool for clinicians as they determine treatment for blocked heart arteries.

The results are published in European Heart Journal.

“The risks for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention vary greatly depending on the individual patient, and both patients and clinicians have historically both over and underestimated the harms associated with PCI,” said lead David E. Hamilton, M.D., a cardiology-critical care fellow at Michigan Medicine. 

“Precise risk prediction is critical to treatment selection and the shared decision-making process. Our tool can recognize a wide array of outcomes after PCI and can be used by care providers and patients together to decide the best course of treatment.”

While other risk stratification tools have been created to identify risk after PCI, researcher say, many have modest accuracy and were made without involving a key party: patients. 

The Michigan Medicine team collected data from all adult patients who underwent PCI between April 2018 and the end of 2021 using the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium, or BMC2, registry. 

The consortium is comprised of hospitals across the state of Michigan that use data they collect to inform quality projects, and improve care and patient outcomes.

Researchers used that data — including more than 20 pre-procedural characteristics, such as age, blood pressure and total cholesterol — to create a risk prediction model with the machine learning software “XGBoost”.

The AI-driven model showed high levels of accuracy at predicting death, major bleeding events and the need for blood transfusion. It outperformed other models that used the same pre-procedural characteristics.

“We combined the predictive model with patient feedback from the PCI Patient Advisory Council to transform machine learning into this patient-centered, individualized risk prediction tool,” said senior author Hitinder Gurm, MBBS, interim chief medical officer at U-M Health.  

“In the age of widespread smartphones and electronic medical records, this computerized risk score could be integrated into electronic health systems  and made easy to use at the bedside. It would not only help relay complex information to the provider quickly, but it could also be used to enhance patient education on the risks related to PCI.”

The innovative technology has been harnessed into a computer and phone application to allow for free and widespread use.

Jeremy Albright Ph.D., Milan Seth, Devraj Sukul M.Sc., M.D., all of Michigan Medicine, Ian Painter Ph.D., of Washington State Department of Health and Foundations for Health Care Quality, Charles Maynard Ph.D., of Foundations for Health Care Quality and University of Washington, and Ravi S. Hira M.D., of University of Washington and Pulse Heart Institute and Multicare Health System. 

Support for BMC2 is provided by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network as part of the BCBSM Value Partnerships program. Although Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and BMC2 work collaboratively, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of BCBSM or any of its employees.

Paper cited: “Merging Machine Learning and Patient Preference: Patient-Centered Tool for Predicting Risk of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention,” European Heart Journal. DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehad836

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JOURNAL

European Heart Journal

DOI

10.1093/eurheartj/ehad836 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Merging Machine Learning and Patient Preference: Patient-Centered Tool for Predicting Risk of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jan-2024

COI STATEMENT

Support for BMC2 is provided by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network as part of the BCBSM Value Partnerships program. Although Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and BMC2 work collaboratively, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of BCBSM or any of its employees.

 

SDG-washing found among Canada's top companies

Canadian corporations that commit their operations and financial capital to SDG's found to have decreased their community investment

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO

Canada's biggest companies often speak of their plans to be more sustainable, but a new study found corporations aren't fully backing up those commitments.  

A team of University of Waterloo researchers concluded that corporate investing in communities fell despite an increase in companies committing to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the last decade.

Researchers investigated the community investment of Canada's 58 leading private-sector companies as a percentage of their net profit after tax to determine whether introducing SDGs created a material impact on how firms are supporting philanthropic endeavours.

The findings ran contrary to researchers' expectations, proving that despite commitments made, investment aimed at supporting economically disadvantaged communities declined.

The results provide evidence of SDG-washing, indicating that corporations' public commitments to global sustainability movements aren't translating into socially responsible investments for Canadians. 

"The companies studied in our research are accountable for roughly $1 billion in community investment every year," said David Benjamin Billedeau, PhD candidate in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. 

"This gap between promise and practice is not just a missed opportunity, it's a wake-up call. These companies have the potential to drive real change. Instead, we're observing a trend of 'SDG-washing,' where public pledges are not translating into increased investments in Canadian communities."

Among the companies studied, those that pledged to use their operations and resources to support the SDGs were found to have a lower average of community investment relative to their net profits after tax. Meanwhile, companies that had not formally committed to the SDGs were donating more of their overall profits. 

The researchers highlighted the need to help corporations deliver on their promises and offered several solutions to ensure that the ambitious targets set by the SDGs are not merely aspirational but attainable. These include policymakers mandating financial contributions, enforcing regulations, and encouraging transparent reporting practices.

"Greenwashing isn't just about emissions. We need to really check if companies are living up to their promises on sustainability and helping communities," Billedeau said. "Our study aims to show where Canada's leading private sector companies are falling short and to push for real change."

The study, Assessing the impact of the sustainable development goals on corporate philanthropy: A study of Canada's leading private sector companies, appears in the journal of Business Strategy and Development. Dr. Jeffrey Wilson, a professor in Waterloo's School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, co-authors this research. 

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JOURNAL

Business Strategy & Development

DOI

10.1002/bsd2.315 

Opinion: Can the Sierra Nevada bighorn dodge extinction? It may mean reining in another wild animal

John D. Wehausen
Tue, January 16, 2024 

Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep in Mono County. (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)

The high peaks of the southern and central Sierra Nevada are home to a unique and endangered animal, the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. John Muir called them “the bravest of all the Sierra mountaineers,” and indeed they have weathered both ancient and modern climate extremes, human-introduced disease and other existential threats across the centuries. But the greatest danger they face today may be from another native species.

Having been involved in research and conservation of these sheep for half a century, I’ve found that the Sierra Nevada bighorn — a subspecies related to desert and Rocky Mountain bighorn — have survived six ice ages. But these rugged icons of the wilderness narrowly escaped extinction from disease after their mountains were flooded with domestic sheep every summer starting around 1860. Their native 180-mile-long range was reduced to three surviving populations in the southern Owens Valley.

Fortunately, pneumonia from domestic sheep has not been seen in the Sierra bighorn during the past 50 years. Populations wiped out by this disease have been undergoing restoration in the West for decades. The efforts have depended largely on catching wild sheep from surviving populations and releasing them in vacant historical habitat, known as translocation.

I worked closely with government agencies to initiate such a program for the Sierra bighorn in the late 1970s. By 1985, the number of Sierra bighorn had grown from 250 to 300. By 2016, they numbered close to 700 and looked like an endangered species success story. But the story has since turned out to be considerably more complex.

Read more: As species recover, some threaten others in more dire shape

Domestic sheep diseases aren’t the only modern threat to the Sierra bighorn. Another has been avalanches and starvation during extreme winters, particularly among populations that can’t descend to lower elevations with less snow and more vegetation.

While a lot of Sierra bighorn died during the unusually snowy winters of 2016-17 and 2018-19, their numbers increased during the milder intervening winters. It seemed as if these remarkably tough animals might be able to survive anything thrown at them.

Last winter shattered that picture along with snowfall records. Not only did we lose considerably more sheep than in previous extreme winters, but five of the 14 populations became local extinctions, with no surviving females. It in effect set the recovery program back to 2010.

Read more: Op-Ed: Elegy for a big, beautiful L.A. cat

Despite this catastrophe, extreme winters aren’t the top killer of the Sierra bighorn. That distinction belongs to a fellow wild animal: the mountain lion.

While severe winters occur about once every six years on average, lion predation happens every year. During the snowy winter of 2016-17, one large Sierra bighorn population lost about half its members, mostly to lions. This predation largely occurs in lower-elevation winter ranges where the sheep can nibble on nutritious early forage, but where they also overlap with winter concentrations of mule deer that attract mountain lions.

Mountain lions have also been shown to significantly depress bighorn sheep populations beyond the Sierra Nevada, from New Mexico and Texas to southern Alberta province in Canada. What these otherwise varied ecosystems have in common is an absence of wolves.

Wolves aren’t good bighorn sheep hunters, but they compete with mountain lions for prey and steal and eat what they kill. Lion populations shrink substantially in the presence of wolves, which greatly benefits bighorn sheep.

In my earliest years of research, there was no evident lion predation of Sierra bighorn for a simple reason: mountain lions had not yet recovered from a decades-long campaign to eliminate them from the state, with bounties offered for them starting in 1906. A recent analysis found a steady decline in lion numbers under relentless persecution until about 1,000 remained in 1963, when bounties ended. The state’s mountain lion population was recently estimated to be between 3,200 and 4,500, probably more than when wolves were present.

During rapidly accelerating lion predation in the 1980s, Sierra bighorn began avoiding lower-elevation winter ranges full of nutritious forage, a behavioral shift ultimately associated with substantial population declines, especially in extreme winters. By the mid-1990s, the population barely exceeded 100, about a third of what it had been a decade earlier, and the effort to repopulate vacant habitat entered a quarter-century hiatus. Mountain lions had all but defeated our efforts to restore Sierra bighorn.

After a 1990 voter initiative made mountain lions specially protected mammals in California despite their substantial recovery, taking away wildlife officials’ authority to kill them to protect Sierra bighorn, I and others worked to obtain federal endangered status for the sheep to supersede state law.

The resulting recovery plan emphasized the need to protect them from excessive losses to lions while ensuring the viability of the lion population. The plan was approved by an array of interests, including the Mountain Lion Foundation, all of which accepted that some lions would have to be killed to save bighorn.

Aided by declines in the local deer and consequently the mountain lion population along with federal protection and focused removal of predators, Sierra bighorn populations grew rapidly at the beginning of this century. By 2013, we finally had four large populations that could be tapped for translocation, a goal set nearly three decades earlier.

In recent years, however, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife adopted a policy under which lions must be moved rather than killed to protect Sierra bighorn. That means getting permission to relocate lions and then spending time catching and moving them. This can take months, during which the lions continue to kill sheep. This has led to substantial declines in the bighorn populations used for translocation and thereby crippled the recovery program.

With this policy, California has in effect permitted an animal-rights agenda to override science-based conservation, which focuses on the health of populations and ecosystems, not the fate of individuals. The lives of a small number of mountain lions are being saved at the cost of many Sierra bighorn, favoring an animal with wide distribution and a large population over one that — at least so far — has barely escaped extinction.

John D. Wehausen is an applied population ecologist and the president of the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Foundation.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

ALBERTA NDP 

NOTLEY RETIRES

 Rachel Notley led our movement to heights that many people thought were impossible to reach.

First elected as our Leader in 2014, Rachel led the Alberta NDP to defeat a 44-year conservative dynasty and become the first ever NDP premier of Alberta.

She delivered the first $15-per-hour minimum wage in North America, created affordable child care for families, and delivered critical protections for working people across Alberta. As premier, she led a government that cut Alberta’s child poverty in half.

Rachel stayed in the fight and worked tirelessly to defend Alberta families as leader of the opposition. She built a team that formed the largest official opposition in Alberta’s history, receiving more votes for the Alberta NDP than any election in history.

Now, she’s decided it’s time for a new leader with a renewed vision to take on the UCP’s extremist agenda. Rachel Notley has asked our party to prepare for a leadership contest, and announced that she will step aside when a new leader is chosen.

Take a moment to hear it directly from Rachel:

Watch Rachel’s announcement now.

Rachel’s impact on our movement cannot be understated. Her name has become practically synonymous with the Alberta NDP, and her leadership has been the core of our historic achievements over the past decade. It’s fair to say the political landscape in Alberta will never be the same.

As is the case for many of you, it's going to take time for us to process this announcement. Still, we have a big year ahead of us. On Rachel’s watch, we’ve built an incredible team filled with voices who are ready to lead and take on Danielle Smith’s extremism. We’re prepared to deliver leadership that once again works for the people of this province.

With your support, we’re excited to build a renewed vision with a new leader and continue fighting for a better Alberta. Stay tuned for more updates!

Sincerely,

Your Alberta NDP Team

China's European brandy import probe could dampen enthusiasm for once-coveted liquor, 'far-reaching impact' on alcohol market

South China Morning Post
Mon, January 15, 2024

For the past few decades, French cognac symbolised wealth, power and refinement for China's business elite.

But the liquor's prospects as the go-to luxury item for China's growing middle class have taken a turn following China's anti-dumping investigation into brandy imports from the European Union (EU), as well as changing consumer preferences.

On January 5, China's Ministry of Commerce launched an anti-dumping investigation following a request from the China Alcoholic Drinks Association, who said the prices of the imported products had been reduced by an estimated 15.88 per cent.

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The move will mainly affect French cognac, which makes up most of China's brandy imports, casting a shadow over the already tense trade relations between Beijing and Brussels.

"When China announces an investigation, it is the start of the ban on French cognac, an effective ban. It signals to society in China that cognac is no longer in favour," said Ian Ford, the Shanghai-based founder and chief executive of Nimbility, a brand and sales management company for alcohol sold in Asia.

"Therefore, if you're at a big banquet, entertaining a government official, it's taboo now to be drinking or gifting cognac."

Frank Lin, a Guangdong-based dealer specialising in spirits, said there are few brandy producers in China that could substitute the cognac produced by the likes of Hennessy, Martell and Remy Martin.

"Although European brandy has a relatively small market share in Chinese alcohol consumption, the recent anti-dumping investigation is expected to have a far-reaching impact on the market," Lin said.

"Industry insiders are concerned that this investigation could escalate to other European red wine brands, thus triggering a full-scale confrontation between China and Europe in the alcoholic beverage sector."

Ministry of Commerce spokeswoman Shu Jueting said that the anti-dumping investigation was "in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and relevant Chinese laws and regulations", during a press conference on Thursday.

"It is alleged that the quantity of related brandy products imported from the EU has increased rapidly and the price has been on a downward trend, causing difficulties in the operation of the domestic industry," Shu added.

In October, the EU launched an anti-subsidy investigation into the imports of battery-powered cars from China.

Beijing said there was "a lack of sufficient evidence to support" the claims, and that the inquiry was "inconsistent with relevant WTO rules".

China's imports of brandy rose significantly between 2017 and 2021. The total value of brandy imports declined by 16.5 per cent from 2021 to US$1.42 billion in 2022, according to data from the liquor importers and exporters branch of the China Chamber of Commerce of Import and Export of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products.

The latest data, from January to September last year, showed the total imported value of brandy rose by 36.38 per cent over the same period in 2022 to US$1.12 billion.

While Chinese consumers have traditionally favoured baijiu, a strong liquor distilled from fermented sorghum, China has been a major export market for French cognac, a barrel-aged grape brandy produced in France under strict legal conditions.

However, the trend for French cognac consumption in China has changed over the years, according to Mike Mai, a director of the government relations and marketing department at a Guangdong-based new energy technology company.

"Although from a cost perspective, [businesspeople] preferred cognac, for example, a three-litre bottle of XO sells for about 2,000 yuan (US$281), equivalent to a one-litre bottle of premium domestic liquor," said Mai.

"However, the trend has changed in recent years, with officials and state firm executives favouring domestic baijiu liquor since seven or eight years ago."

Mai said brandy has almost disappeared at banquets, with baijiu becoming the top choice for the business community.

In the 1980s, as Hong Kong businessmen brought capital and export orders to China's southern Guangdong province, they also introduced French cognac to the region, according to Zhu Rui, a veteran exporter in his 60s.

"Overseas Chinese often brought brandy as gifts when they returned to China to visit their relatives, and French brandy became a symbol of luxury gifts," Zhu said.

"However, today's younger Chinese generation prefers red wine and whisky from other countries, and are no longer as enthusiastic about European-branded brandy as they once were."

In September, Moet Hennessy, the wines and spirits division of French luxury group LVMH, opened its flagship shop on Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book, which is one of the most popular social media and e-commerce platforms among young people in China.

The shop offers wine, champagne, as well as cognac, at a range of prices, with the most expensive a Hennessy XO, launched last year in collaboration with fashion designer Kim Jones, and priced at over 2,500 yuan.

Amid China's anti-dumping inquiry, the three French cognac makers are offering discounts of between 30 and 50 per cent on several products on Chinese online shopping platform Taobao.

The Lunar New Year, which begins on February 10, is traditionally a peak season for gifting in China.

The "year of dragon" edition cognac celebrating the upcoming holiday by Remy Martin has been reduced from 1,019 yuan to 710 yuan, although it is listed as sold out.

Mariana Lam, the Hong Kong-based founder of import and retail firm WineWorld, believes the trend for Chinese consumers to buy domestic brands is set to continue.

"The foreign companies have been making an effort to localise their products to increase their appeal to Chinese consumers," said Lam.

"But the consumption trend is also changing, with customers taking into account the cost as well, whether it's gifting or it's for themselves."

Nimbility's Ford said premium baijiu and high-end Burgundy and Bordeaux wines may replace some of the cognac sales in China, while Chinese made brandy by Shandong-based Changyu could also capture some of the market share.

"[Changyu] has a very solid brandy business," Ford said. "In the early days I wouldn't go near it, but I think it's come a long way."

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