Americans respond more to 'climate change' than other terms

By Wändi Bruine de Bruin, USC Dornslife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

 & Gale Sinatra, University of Southern California

AUGUST 12, 2024

THE CONVERSATION


Americans are more familiar with -- and more concerned about -- climate change and global warming than they are about 'climate crisis,' 'climate emergency' or 'climate justice,' a new survey shows. Photo by Markus Spiske/Pexels

You probably have been hearing phrases like "climate crisis," "climate emergency" or "climate justice" more often lately as people try to get across the urgent risks and consequences of climate change. The danger is real, but is using this language actually persuasive?

It turns out that Americans are more familiar with -- and more concerned about -- climate change and global warming than they are about climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice, according to a recent survey we conducted with a nationally representative sample of 5,137 Americans.

Moreover, we found no evidence that the alternative terms increased people's sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act.

The familiar terms -- climate change and global warming -- did at least as well, and sometimes better, than climate crisis and climate emergency in eliciting concern, perceived urgency and willingness to act. Climate justice consistently tended to do worse, likely in part because it was the least familiar. The responses were similar among Republicans, Democrats and independents.
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Just keep it simple

In our work as research psychologists, we have explored how Americans respond to the ways climate change is communicated and have uncovered a need to use straightforward language.

For example, people we interviewed for a study published in 2021 felt that climate experts were talking over their heads with terms like "adaptation," "mitigation," "sustainability" and "carbon-dioxide removal." They wanted experts to use more familiar terms instead.




This inspired us to write a quick guide to climate jargon, published in The Conversation. Using everyday language makes information easier to understand, and even highly educated people tend to prefer it.

Yet, experts often use complex jargon because it is familiar to them, and they may not realize it is unfamiliar to others.

How the terms evolved

It has become common to talk about climate change and global warming as if they have the same meaning, but there are differences. Climate change refers to changes in the overall climate, while global warming refers specifically to rising temperatures.

A historical review found that, in the past, people were less likely to associate the term climate change with the idea that humans are actively warming the planet than they were with the term global warming. Perhaps this is why Democrats used to like the term global warming, while the popularization of the term climate change has been credited to Frank Luntz, an adviser to the George W. Bush administration.

Past surveys also found that Democrats used to think of global warming as being more serious than climate change, while Republicans thought of climate change as more serious than global warming. But according to a recent review, these partisan differences have now faded, and a majority of Republicans and Democrats tend to express concern about both terms.





Alternative terms such as climate crisis, climate emergency and climate justice have been used to emphasize other aspects of climate change and to try to raise concern. In 2019, the British newspaper The Guardian switched to using climate crisis and climate emergency because it wanted to convey urgency.

Activists use the term climate justice to draw attention to climate change as a human rights challenge: Low-income people around the world suffer the most from the effects of climate change, despite being the least responsible for causing it.

The takeaway: Avoid overheated language

Right now, the terms climate crisis, climate emergency or climate justice are less familiar and elicit less concern than climate change or global warming.

Even if these terms become more commonplace, there is no guarantee that they will heighten concern or inspire action. In fact, studies have suggested that phrases like climate crisis could backfire if they don't resonate with people.

Our advice: Don't make the mistake of using overheated language. Just stick with familiar terms that people understand -- use global warming when referring to rising temperatures and climate change for overall changes in the climate.

Wändi Bruine de Bruin is the director of behavioral science & policy initiative at Schaeffer Institute of Public Policy & Government Service at the USC Price School of Public Policy at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Gale Sinatra is a professor of education and psychology at University of Southern California.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

North Dakota voters to decide on legalizing recreational marijuana



If approved by a majority of North Dakota voters, a measure would allow the production, processing and sale of marijuana, in addition to the possession and use of various forms, by individuals 21 years and older. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 12 (UPI) -- North Dakota voters in November will be able to decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older.

On Monday, Secretary of State Michael Howe, a Republican, reviewed and accepted petitions submitted to his office to place the measure on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
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The 18,964 signatures were 3,382 over the required threshold of 15,582 needed to qualify for the ballot. On July 8, 3,420 submitted signatures were rejected due to incorrect or insufficient information, Howe said.

If approved by a majority of voters, the measure would allow the production, processing and sale of marijuana, in addition to the possession and use of various forms, by individuals 21 years and older.

Under the proposed law, those of legal age could possess an ounce of marijuana flower, four grams of concentrate and edible products up to 1,500 milligrams. Residents also could grow as many as three marijuana plants, with a limit of six per household.

Regulators would need to establish rules to implement the law by Oct. 1, 2025. Up to seven cannabis manufacturers and 18 retailers would be allowed.

The state's residents in 2018 and 2022 rejected passage of recreational marijuana.

The independent political action committee Brighter Future Alliance found that 57 percent of voters are against the cannabis reform measure, compared with 43 percent who are in favor.

Currently use by people under 21 is a low-level misdemeanor in North Dakota.

Voters in the state approved medical marijuana in 2016.

Recreational marijuana measures also are on the ballot this year in South Dakota, Florida and Nebraska.

Florida's amendment will require 60% for approval. Only three states have approved the measure with at least 60%: New Jersey and Arizona in 2020, and Maryland in 2022.

Twenty-four states have legalized recreational marijuana for adults, plus the District of Columbia. Last Tuesday, dispensary sales began in Ohio.

Last year, voters in Oklahoma rejected a legalization measure.

And 38 states and the District of Columbia have approved medical marijuana use.

The federal government in April began a process to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous substance. It has remained classified as a Schedule I controlled substance since 1970.

At least 8 dead in Uganda landfill landslide


 Rescue workers found at least 14 people still alive as recovery efforts continue Saturday at the Kiteezi landfill north of Kampala, Uganda.

 Photo by Isaac Kasamani/EPA-EFE

Aug. 10, 2024 

Aug. 10 (UPI) -- A structural failure after a heavy rainfall at Uganda's only landfill caused a landslide that killed at least eight, including at least two children, Saturday morning.

Rescue workers are trying to dig out the people, animals and homes that were covered by the landslide at the Kiteezi district located north of Uganda's capital city of Kampala.

At least 14 people have been rescued and taken to a local hospital for treatment, but their medical conditions were not disclosed.

"The Kampala Capital City Authority Landfill in Kiteezi has had a structural failure in waste mass this morning resulting in a collapsed section of the landfill," KCCA officials posted on X early Saturday morning.

"We are closely monitoring the situation to ensure the safety and well-being of the community," the KCCA said.

The authority initially said there were no casualties but later announced at least eight had died, including two children as rescue operations continue.

The landfill is the only waste disposal site in Uganda, which reported a population of 47.25 million in 2022.

The landfill has been used for decades, causing a large hill of trash to form while raising concerns about environmental pollution and other potential dangers from nearby residents.
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Local media reported the KCCA's Erias Lukwago in January warned the overflowing landfill posed many dangers to those working or living near it.

Recent heavy rains have caused flooding and other related problems in recent weeks but no casualties until the landfill gave way.

Greek capital on high alert as forest fire flames as high as 80 feet approach Athens


A wildfire approaches houses at Penteli mount northeast of Athens on Monday, defying desperate efforts by firefighters to halt the flames. Authorities said it was headed toward Penteli fanned by strong winds and scorching temperatures having raced across the Penteli mountain range overnight. Photo by George Vitsaras/EPA-EFE

Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Greek authorities battling wildfires threatening the capital, Athens, ordered people in seven northern suburbs and a children's hospital to evacuate.

The fire service said it had issued instructions via phone and text for the residents of Nea Penteli, Palia Penteli, Drafi, Dioni, Damarasi, Daou Pentelis and Agios Spyridonas, along with staff and patients of the Penteli Children's and 414 Military hospitals, to be moved to safety.

People in Anthousa, 9 miles northeast of downtown Athens, were put on notice to prepare for possible evacuation with other branches of the fire threatening Nea Makri, a town of about 17,000 people further to the east on the other side of Penteli Mountain and Grammatiko, south of where the blaze started.

A third front was also said to be gathering strength at Kallitechnoupoli, 14 miles east of downtown Athens.

Two monasteries were also evacuated as hundreds of firefighters, more than 180 vehicles and 32 aircraft battled the flames. Television crews filmed flames getting dangerously close to houses as helicopters dumped fire retardants to try to arrest their advance.

The fire has been advancing rapidly southward toward Athens since breaking out at Varnavas early Sunday, 22 miles northeast of the city, fanned by strong winds and temperatures in the mid-30s Celsius that are forecast to edge close to 40 degrees Celsius in coming days.

Houses in Varnavas were reported to have been set alight by the blaze while Athens was reported to be very hot with the smell of burning in the air beneath a smoke-darkened sky.

Strong winds throughout Sunday night created dangerous conditions and with wind intensity expected to increase in the coming hours, Fire Services spokesman Vasilis Vathrakogiannis urged residents of areas where the fire is burning to heed instructions from authorities for their own safety and well-being.

However, the BBC reported that some local residents were refusing to leave their homes in order to try to protect their properties.

Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vasilis Kikilias said 670 fire-fighters, 27 forest commando units, 183 vehicles, 17 airplanes and 15 helicopters were deployed to fight the fires, while wind speeds remained high at 7 on the Beaufort Scale -- 32-38 mph -- and were forecast to remain at those levels for the next few hours.

Flames were reported to be as high as 80 feet.

"Since yesterday afternoon, the residents of northeastern Attica have been tested by an extremely dangerous fire, which we have been fighting for more than 20 hours in extremely difficult conditions due to the strong winds and extended drought and the very rough and inaccessible terrain in a dense, unburnt forest," said Kikilias.
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The fires around Athens are among 40 that have ignited across the country in the past 24 hours with firefighters battling some of the blazes after Greece saw its hottest June and July since modern record-keeping began in 1960.

Crews battle scattered fires in Athens suburbs, helped by calmer winds and reinforcements

BY ELENA BECATOROS
August 13, 2024

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Firefighters in Greece battled scattered fires as Tuesday broke, hoping to contain the remains of the major wildfire that burned into the northern suburbs of Athens, triggering evacuations and leaving at least one person dead.

With strong winds that had fanned the flames on Sunday and Monday dying down overnight, the fire department said the fire no longer had any active, advancing fronts and firefighters were concentrating their efforts on extinguishing the flames in hundreds of slow-burning areas.

Authorities were racing to extinguish as much of the blaze as possible ahead of Tuesday afternoon, when winds were predicted to pick up again, with a forecast of gusts reaching up to 60-70 kilometers (37-43 miles) per hour.

Reinforcements in the form of water-dropping aircraft, firefighters and vehicles were arriving from France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Serbia and Romania.

The blaze began Sunday afternoon near Lake Marathon, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) northeast of Athens, coursed across Mount Pendeli and descended onto the northern and northeastern suburbs of Athens.


Drop in winds offers hope as firefighters battle huge wildfire on fringes of Athens. 1 person dead

Firefighters found the burned body of a woman in an industrial building in the suburb of Vrilissia just after midnight. The woman was believed to have been an employee who became trapped inside the building in an area that had been under evacuation orders. More than a dozen people were treated by paramedics, mostly for smoke inhalation, while five firefighters suffered light burns and breathing problems, the fire department said.

Three hospitals, including a children’s hospital, two monasteries and a children’s home were evacuated on Monday afternoon. At least 30 push alerts were sent to cell phones in the area warning people in several Athens suburbs and settlements further from the city to flee.

The flames, which reached heights of about 25 meters (80 feet), were fanned by strong winds that hampered the efforts of more than 700 firefighters and nearly three dozen water-dropping planes and helicopters on Monday.

Six water-dropping plans and six helicopters took off at first light on Tuesday, the fire department said, to back up the hundreds of firefighters on the ground. Dozens of homes and businesses were reported to have burned, although authorities did not yet have an exact number.

The wildfire raced through pine forests left tinder-dry by repeated heat waves this summer. June and July were the hottest months ever recorded in Greece, which also recorded its warmest winter ever. An early start of the fire season this year has strained Greece’s firefighting force.

“Firefighters have been working at full tilt for months,” said Nikos Lavranos, head of Greece’s main firefighters’ union. “They are exhausted.”

On Monday, police said 380 police officers had assisted in evacuations, helping to move more than 250 people away from the path of the flames. It posted a video on social media showing officers carrying elderly people out of their homes to waiting vehicles against the backdrop of a flame-red nighttime sky

Authorities said some people who refused to leave their homes later became trapped and required rescuing, endangering the lives of firefighters. The affected areas — at the closest, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the heart of Athens — typically have thousands of residents. However, it was unclear how many were away on vacation at the height of the summer season, and how many had obeyed the evacuation orders or stayed on their own to fight the blaze.

Meteorologists warned of the increased danger of wildfires because of weather conditions from Sunday until Thursday. Dozens of other wildfires also broke out in several parts of Greece on Monday.

Wildfires are frequent in the Mediterranean country during its hot, dry summers, but authorities have said climate change is fueling bigger and more frequent blazes.

In 2018, a massive fire swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, trapping people in their homes and on the roads as they tried to flee in their cars. More than 100 people died, including some who drowned trying to swim away from the flames.

Last year, wildfires in Greece killed more than 20 people, including 18 migrants who became trapped by the flames as they trekked through a forest in northeastern Greece and were caught by a massive blaze that burned for more than two weeks.

A general view of Athens with the Acropolis hill is seen as fire burns the northern part of the city on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, Hundreds of firefighters are tackling a major wildfire raging out of control on the fringes of the Greek capital. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)


Two men try to extinguish the flames at a burning business during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)


Volunteers try to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


A volunteer tries to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


Volunteers try to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


A volunteer holds a hose amid smoke during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


The fire burns a vehicle during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


Volunteers try to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of the Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


A volunteer throws a bucket of water to the flames during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)


A volunteer tries to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

Volunteers try to extinguish the fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of the Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

A volunteer holds a hose amid smoke during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

Volunteers try to extinguish the flames near a house during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

Flames burn a vehicle at a business during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

A firefighter stands in front of a burning business during a fire in northern Athens, Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, as hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Aggelos Barai)

A general view of the of Athens with the Acropolis hill as fire burns the northern part of the city on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, while hundreds of firefighters tackle a major wildfire raging out of control on fringes of Greek capital. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

This satellite image shows smoke rising from wildfires in East Attica, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Athens, which burned into the northern suburbs of Athens, triggering evacuations and leaving at least one person dead, on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. 

(Planet Labs PBC via AP)

JASPER, ALBERTA

Evacuees from resort town in the Canadian Rockies can return Friday after wildfire, officials say

 Damage is seen after a wildfire in Jasper, Alberta, Friday July 26, 2024. (Amber Bracken/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

 The remains of restaurants and business’ in Jasper, Alberta,, on Friday July 26, 2024. A wildfire in the Canadian Rockies that had prompted about 5,000 residents to leave their homes three weeks ago can return on Friday, officials said Monday, Aug. 12. (Amber Bracken/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

 August 12, 2024


EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — About 5,000 residents of a resort town in the Canadian Rockies who fled their homes because of a wildfire can return on Friday, officials said Monday.

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said residents should prepare for “a new normal” but added that essential services have been restored to the point where they can allow a blanket re-entry.

About 25,000 people fled both the town of Jasper and its national park on the night of July 22 as wildfires inched closer to the area. Two days later, wind-whipped flames overwhelmed crews and destroyed one-third of the town’s buildings.

Key infrastructure, like schools and the water treatment plant, was spared in the picturesque resort town.

Jasper National Park is considered a national treasure. The United Nations designated the parks that make up the Canadian Rockies, including Jasper, a World Heritage Site in 1984 for its striking mountain landscape.

Officials said utility services could still be hit and miss. Some homes may look fine on the outside but will have sustained heavy smoke or water damage on the inside. Other homes may be fenced off as public safety hazards.

The main highway through Jasper National Park, Highway 16, reopened last week, but park trails, campgrounds and day-use areas remain closed pending safety checks.

Officials are still trying to figure out where to put students for the upcoming school year.

Hospital services are not fully back. Garbage collection plans are still being worked on. Parts of town are under a boil water advisory.

In Edmonton, Alberta Jasper resident Victoria Wilson said she was “itching to get back” home, but now feels a bit of trepidation.

A record number of wildfires in 2023 forced more than 235,000 people across Canada to evacuate and sent thick smoke into parts of the U.S., leading to hazy skies and health advisories in multiple U.S. cities.

How do we fight wildfires as temperatures rise?

Stuart Braun 

DW/AFP

Published August 5, 2022

As massive wildfires rage in countries as afar afield as Greece and Canada, DW looks at how strategic burning and adaptive planting can help protect the planet's forests

                     Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle/AP/picture alliance

Fire has burned through forests for hundreds of millions of years, but now unprecedented wildfires are burning hotter and longer, partly due to climate change.

Declining rainfall and longer droughts are making forests so dry that localized lightning can spark a small fire that transforms into an inferno before firefighters can limit the damage.

Firefighters are currently battling wildfires in Greece's high Mediterranean summer heat. Less than three weeks ago, major blazes also ripped through forests in western Canada and the United States, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.

The Canadian town of Jasper in the province of Alberta was devastated in late July, with fire destroying at least a third of the town's buildings. The neighboring Jasper National Park, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and known for its Rocky Mountain landscape, was also damaged, with critical routes in the park only opening in the past few days.

"Any firefighter will tell you there is little to nothing you can do when a wall of fire like that is coming at you," said Mike Ellis, Alberta's public safety minister. "Nobody anticipated the fire to come so fast, so large."

Climate-change fueled fire also ravaged Canada in 2023. Some 18.4 million hectares (45.5 million acres) were scorched, sending gigantic clouds of smoke over parts of the US. Summer 2023 also saw large fires break out in Italy, Greece and Spain.

On the other side of the world, so large was the scale of the Australian Black Summer mega fires of 2019-20 that burnt nearly 60 million acres (24 million hectares) that once fire-resistant wet forests also went up in flames.

And as we continue to heat the planet by burning fossil fuels, those fires are set to worsen, endangering more people and wildlife.

Australian firefighters have struggled to battle unprecedented forest fires in recent years

Evan Collis/DFES/AP/picture alliance

"We are not on track to reduce risk now," said Hamish Clarke, senior research fellow at the school of ecosystem and forest sciences at the University of Melbourne in Australia, speaking with DW in August 2022. "We need to change course urgently and seriously reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Clarke co-authored an article in January 2022 on bushfire risk in Australia that argued "climate change is exceeding the capacity of our ecological and social systems to adapt," and that fire management is now at a "crossroads."

Here are three key areas through which fire management is attempting to adapt to a new climate reality.

Fighting fire with fire

Controlled or "prescribed" burning of forest vegetation, most often in the cooler months of the year, helps lessen wildfire hazards in the summer by reducing the amount of kindling available to fuel fires. In fire-prone nations like the United States, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Canada, France and South Africa, it's been a tried and tested fire management strategy for decades.

Also known as hazard reduction, these back-burning strategies "are very effective at reducing the intensity and severity of fire," according to Victor Resco de Dios, an associate professor of forest science at Spain's University of Lleida.

But to be an effective antidote, controlled burning under cool conditions now needs to be done across a "very large spatial scale to become effective," said the forest engineer.

With Europe, and especially countries around the Mediterranean like Greece, experiencing more severe summer wildfires, Resco de Dios said "substantial hazard reduction" will demand prescribed burning across 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of land.

One problem with prescribed burning now, though, is that climate change has started to increase the risks.

Wildfires tear through Canadian mountain resort area  01:28

After a controlled burning operation in New Mexico in May 2022 transformed into one of the worst wildfires in the state's history, the US Forest Service announced a pause in planned burning operations in national forests across the country — even if this was a very rare case.

Low-intensity burning used by First Nations in US, Australia

First Nations people in the United States and Australia were using a form of controlled burning to reduce flammable vegetation for thousands of years before Europeans invaded.

They used "frequent low-intensity" burning in the cooler months to reduce the wildfire threat, creating a grassy, park-like wooded terrain that also maintained biodiversity.

That's according to the authors of a February 2022 report, who also describe "the catastrophic risk created by non-Indigenous bushfire management approaches" whereby fire is suppressed rather than managed.

The neglect of Indigenous fire management techniques means "Australia's forests now carry far more flammable fuel than before [the] British invasion," said the researchers.

Since regaining ownership of native lands in the 1990s, Indigenous people have successfully practiced traditional fire management in the Kimberly region of northern Australia during the cooler dry season.

Putting drones on the fire front line

While prevention is the best cure, technology has become increasingly important when trying to fight mega blazes.

Satellites managed by the likes of NASA are already helping firefighters keep track of moving fires across the planet. More recently, however, drones have become a more localized high-tech fire suppression gadget.

A project in Finland — where 75% of the land is covered in forest — is making it easier to track emerging forest fires with the help of drones.

"We're developing a new AI-based drone technology to quickly detect forest fires and provide situational awareness when extinguishing the fires," said Eija Honkavaara from the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute and a member of research group undertaking the project, the FireMan consortium.

Indigenous Australians, as seen here in West Arnhem Land, use 'cool' land burning techniques to remove the fuel that feeds bigger blazes

 Matthew Abbott/National Geographic/Panos Pictures

After 400,000 hectares of European forest burned in 2019, that number jumped by 25% the following year. Victor Resco de Dios told DW in August 2022 said that a hotter and drier Central Europe and even Scandinavia "will start experiencing mega fire in the next few decades."

"Drones can help us in providing real-time information on how the fire front is progressing, and how high and hot the flames are," said Honkavaara in a statement.

As the drones provide remote data in real time, they are also fitted with sensors that can see through smoke to detect the exact scale of the fire.

The only catch is the need for a strong mobile internet connection in remote areas.
How to climate-proof forests

"Wildfires have been on Earth for 420 million years and vegetation is adapted to them," said Resco de Dios.

Nonetheless, the regenerative properties of forests may no longer be sufficient. Newly vulnerable forest ecosystems need to be adapted to frequent wildfires through the planting of more climate and drought resilient plant species, say experts.

"We must consider future climates and plant with species from drier places," said Resco de Dios. "That is, we should not plant with native species, but with those growing elsewhere in warmer locations, so they will be adapted to the climate of the next decades."

Dangerous heat waves hit globe as wildfires rage (July 2023)  03:21

Following an inquiry into the Black Summer wildfires in Australia, researchers found that "effective regeneration" was becoming less likely for over 250 plant species due to the increasing frequency of fires across their habitat.

"We must consider that the climate will be unsuitable for many of the species currently growing by the turn of the century and start planning for that," Resco de Dios added.

This will require the close management of regenerating forests for decades after they burn.

"If we just plant trees and then forget about them, we are planting the future wildfires," he said.

Martin Kuebler contributed reporting.

Edited by: Jennifer Collins, Sarah Steffen

This article was first published in August 2022 and last updated on August 12, 2024 with information about recent wildfires.

Stuart Braun Berlin-based journalist with a focus on climate and culture.

Wildfires: Is Europe doing enough to prevent them?

Europe faces more intense wildfires due to climate change, prompting the EU to expand its response. Experts have stressed the need for preventive actions and sustainable forest management.

https://p.dw.com/p/4gUco

When higher temperatures dry out ground, wildfires can take hold and spread more easily


Holly Young

DW/AFP

AUGUST 12, 2024

Wildfires are buring again in Greece, a year after flames devoured homes and olive groves and engulfed an area bigger than New York City, leaving white ash and mourning in their wake.

Greece's 2023 fire was the biggest ever recorded in Europe.

While wildfires are a natural annual occurrence, rising temperatures and intensified drought periods are creating drier, fire-prone weather that makes them burn faster, longer and more ferociously.

In Europe, as around the globe, they are becoming more frequent, intense and widespread. In 2023 alone, they scorched an area around twice the size of Luxembourg, causing more than €4 billion ($4.3 billion) in damages and releasing 20 megatons of climate-heating CO2 emissions into the air — equivalent to nearly a third of all annual emissions from international aviation in the European Union.

But with rising temperatures expected to increase the risk of wildfires across Europe, is the continent prepared?
Europe is expanding fire response

"Forest fires are getting more and more significant," said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the European Commission. "More and more we find situations where member states are not able to cope."


The focus of the EU's fire response so far has been the expansion of firefighting capabilities through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and RescEU program, which lend support to countries dealing with extreme wildfires.

In 2023, its fleet of planes, helicopters and firefighters doubled in size, with the fire in Greece mobilizing the biggest EU aerial response operation to date.

Ahead of this year's fire season Ujvari said they have 28 planes, four helicopters and 556 firefighters stationed across four fire-prone countries. A further €600 million has been allocated to further expanding the fleet by the end of the decade.

Ujvari added that the EU can also provide images of affected areas from its Copernicus satellite system to help local authorities monitor and tackle blazes.

Central and northern European countries have experienced more wildfires in recent yearsImage: Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP

Firefighting alone isn't enough

Yet some scientists and policy experts argue the EU could do more to prevent fires starting in the first place.

Around 90% of EU funding for tackling wildfires goes into response, and only 10% into prevention, according to one estimate from German EU lawmaker Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg.

The occurrence of fires that are extremely difficult to bring under control — such as those during Portugal's 2017 wildfire season that burned a total of 500,000 hectares and claimed over 100 lives — highlight the limits of prioritizing fire response, said Alexander Held, senior expert at the European Forest Institute.


"Science and experience tell us that to prevent these disaster fires, it's no use investing in fire suppression because they can't be suppressed. The only thing you can do is avoid them happening or ensure that they don't burn with intensities beyond the threshold of control," said Held.

To do this, the EU needs to push more land-based fire prevention and nature-based solutions, he said. "The more climate change we observe, the more we should actually invest in making the landscape less burnable."
Forest management needs to be ramped up

There are many methods available to establish more sustainable land management and increase the resilience of forests, explained Julia Bognar, head of the land use and climate program at the sustainability think tank Institute for European Environmental Policy.

This includes thinning and spacing trees properly, and reducing floor vegetation through prescribed burning or introducing more grazing animals like cattle and goats that eat the dry shrubs, which act as fuel and help a fire to spread.

Forest fires can spread quickly across monocultures, such as eucalyptus plantations

 Laurent Guerinaud/UIG/IMAGO

Shifting away from monocultures, such as the eucalyptus plantations that ignited during Portugal's severe 2017 fires, would also make forests more resilient.

"With more diversity of trees and older growth trees, they have a better capacity for storing water and preventing drought," said Bognar.

Approaches need to be tailored to the climates of individual countries, said Held, explaining in hotter places like southern Spain it would involve prescribed burning while the weather is mild and establishing a mosaic of different land use, including grazed land that keeps the biomass — which turns into fuel when it is dry and hot — at a low level.

"Here [in Central Europe] resilience means promoting broad-leaved forest, mixed forest, shady and wet forests," said Held, adding that technical measures like fire breaks or fuel buffer zones with reduced fuel out along routes in the forest would also help. He added encouraging more people back into rural areas to manage the land — to engage in practices such as organic farming or continuous cover forestry — is also key.

More coordination and long-term solutions needed

There is an increasing amount of fire prevention best practice being shared in Europe, said Bognar. This includes guidelines for sustainable forest management published by the European Commission in 2023. "But there's not necessarily a concerted effort at the EU level to be pressing for these types of changes… so it's really inconsistent across the EU," she said.

Bognar said rethinking the EU approach to rising wildfire threats needs to include more long-term solutions, such as pushing through the proposed Forest Monitoring Framework — which would give a clearer picture of Europe's forests — and implementing the Nature Restoration Law which, despite being watered down and facing resistance from some member states, aims to support fire resilience by increasing forest biodiversity.

Increasing forest resilience could help prevent intense wildfires

Alexandros Avramidis/REUTERS

While wildfire experts have long lamented how much more financial support there is for firefighting, there are some funds that can be used for prevention, said Held. But he explained there is too little understanding and coordination in how to access this support, and a lack of solid wildfire prevention strategy at the national level.

One notable exception to this, he said, is Portugal.

Since its devastating 2017 fires, the country has shifted its approach to emphasize forest management, including promoting the plantation of native fire-adapted species as well as fuel breaks — artificial areas with less vegetation that act as barriers to stop or slow down fires — and buffer zones around new and existing buildings in risk areas. France has also made changes, introducing legislation last year cracking down on landowners that fail to clear their forests of undergrowth.

But Jesus San-Miguel, senior researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, said a key barrier on the continent is that the European Commission can only give advice and support. Ultimately, it's member states that are responsible for forest management and fire prevention.

"Prevention is a slow process, it is less visible than firefighting," said San-Miguel. "So, when you have many planes fighting, they seem to be really doing a lot but prevention should be prioritized. Because it is so much cheaper."

This article was originally published on June 26, 2024. It was updated on August 12, 2024 to reflect current events.

TO SEE CHARTS GRAPHS CLICK HERE

Wildfires: Is Europe doing enough to prevent them? – DW – 08/12/2024

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

Sources:

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/wildfires-2023-among-worst-eu-century-2024-04-10_en
EU Joint Research Centre information on 2023 wildfires

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_2943
European Commission information on rescEU

https://www.oecd.org/climate-change/wildfires/policy-highlights-taming-wildfires-in-the-context-of-climate-change.pdf
Taming Wildfires in the Context of Climate Change, OECD report

Holly Young Holly Young is a climate reporter on DW’s Environment desk based in Berlin, Germany.

Why do most tree planting campaigns fail?

Abubakar Said Saad

DW/AFP

August 11, 2024

Dozens of tree planting campaigns are launched in different countries every year to help suck CO2 out of the air. But often, there is no real climate benefit. What is going wrong?

Trees remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere

Image: Froi Rivera

Environmentalist Lucy Kagendo from NGO Green Dimensions Network planted 50 saplings in Kenya last year as part of a national campaign to plant 15 billion trees by 2032.

Today, most of those trees are dead.

The idea behind such tree planting initiatives is simple. Trees remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Through photosynthesis, their leaves pull in water and planet-heating carbon dioxide, convert them into food and release oxygen as a by-product.

However, Kagendo's tree planting endeavor isn't the only one with disappointing results. Just take northern India's restoration efforts over the last 50 years.

A study by environmental journal Nature Sustainability found that the "decades of expensive tree planting programs in the region have not proved effective," because they did not "increase forest canopy cover" and failed to contribute to climate change mitigation.

Launched in 2007, Africa's ambitious Great Green Wall project aimed to restore 100 million hectares (247.1 million acres) of degraded land in the Sahel with vegetation and trees. According to the latest UN figures, just a fifth of that area had been planted. Progress is stalled due to a lack of funding, and some of the trees have died because they didn't receive enough water or care.
What's the problem with tree planting campaigns?

Many tree planting campaigns falter because they plant the wrong trees at the wrong time in the wrong place.

In Turkey in 2019, for instance, the government set out to plant 11 million trees across the country. However, Sukru Durmus, the head of Turkey's agriculture and forestry union, told DW they found "about 98% of the trees planted died in less than three months." He attributed the failure to "wrong planting time, low rainfall and wrong tree species selected."

Africa's Great Green Wall struggles to halt desertification   03:11

According to Seyifunmi Adebote, an environmental management researcher from Nigeria, most campaigns fail because people are too focused on planting trees rather than "proper implementation planning."

"Most times when tree planting campaigns are made, they are made in the context of either local politics or global politics motivated to tick the boxes," Adebote told DW.

For Yusuf Idris Amoke, a government official for climate change in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, "many government tree campaigns have unrealistic ambitions." He believes previous campaigns were unsuccessful because they were "created to give a positive public image of the government's green credentials.

Focus on nurturing trees from sapling to maturity

Trees generally take around 20 to 30 years to grow to maturity, which means it can be a while before they have a big effect on the climate. So, it's important to track the trees and collect data after they've been planted, which frequently doesn't happen.

It's also important to select "appropriate native species" and to look after trees in the long term.

"Successful campaigns are those that not only plant trees but also ensure their survival through care and monitoring," Elsie Gabriel, the founder of India's Young Environmentalists Programme Trust, told DW.

Many countries are launching national tree planting initiatives, including Ethiopia

Image: Dr Adefires Worku

The Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project in China, for instance, was successful because the species used were native, drought-resistant and could thrive in local climate and soil conditions.

The project successfully planted 270,000 hectares of trees and shrubs — more than triple the land area of New York City.
Who looks after trees once they've been planted?

After Kagendo from the Green Dimensions Network planted her trees in Kenya during the government campaign, she began to wonder who would look after the trees once they were in the ground.

"The president went out and plant[ed] trees, but will he go out and water it afterwards?" Kagendo asked. She herself went to a national park far from where she lives to help out during the campaign. Now, Kagendo says she will "grow trees close to me so I can take care of them."

Restoring sacred forests in India  05:01

Local communities can help keep trees alive, and should be included in projects.

"Tree plantations in India should reach local indigenous communities," said Gabriel. "Schools and colleges should be offered these opportunities. Women should be given jobs in horticultural and tree plantations to bridge gender gaps."

Some successful local tree planting campaigns have used this approach. The US Green Seattle Partnership project involved young volunteers from schools and local communities. They've clocked over a million volunteer hours so far.

And sometimes less is more.

"It is better to grow healthier, fewer trees than to plant many that might all fail," said Kagendo.

Edited by: Anke Rasper and Sarah Steffen

Sources:

Kenyan national tree planting initiative: https://www.treasury.go.ke/national-tree-planting-intiative-launch/

Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India, Nature Sustainability, 2021: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00761-z.epdf

The Great Green Wall: Implementation Status and Way Ahead to 2030, UNDCC, 2020: https://www.unccd.int/resources/publications/great-green-wall-implementation-status-and-way-ahead-2030

Abubakar Said Saad

Sa’id Sa’ad is Nigerian writer and multimedia journalist currently based in Germany.

How Sweden balances emission cuts with economic growth

Sweden has cut 80% of its net emissions since 1990 and still managed an impressive economic growth. What's the secret?

Anne-Sophie Brändlin
 DW

AUGUST 12, 2024


Sweden seems to have found the recipe to growing its economy while protecting the climate.

"You don't need to reduce welfare to reduce your climate impact," said Mattias Goldmann, founder of the Swedish 2030-secretariat, who works towards Sweden reaching its climate target for the national transport sector.

Sweden outperforms all other European countries when it comes to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions, according to the European Environment Agency.

The country already emitted five times less carbon dioxide, or CO2, per capita than the European average back in 1990. Since then, Sweden has reduced its net greenhouse gas emissions by another 80%, while the average reduction in the EU has only been 30%.

What's most stunning, though, is that Sweden, a heavily industrialized country which produces steel, cement and cars, managed to clean up its act — while also growing its economy twofold.

So how do you successfully decarbonize an economy while still growing it?
Investing in clean energy sources

The Scandinavian country has some natural advantages. 70% of Sweden is forest land. And forests are very useful when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

The country is also blessed with a great deal of wind, as well as mountains, streams and lakes — perfect for renewable energy.

Sweden hardly burns any fossil fuels for electricity anymore

Image: Dalibor Brlek/picture alliance

But it wasn't just hitting the natural resources jackpot that got the country to where it is now. Sweden realized its natural potential early on and started investing in renewable energy sources much earlier than many other countries.

"Sweden has had hydropower for more than a century," according to Goldmann.

They also cut out fossil fuels from their energy mix back in the 1970s, when the global oil crisis hit. When countries were looking for other sources of energy, Sweden substantially built out nuclear energy.

Today, almost 70% of Sweden's electricity comes from renewables, especially hydropower and wind. The rest of its electricity demand is met by nuclear power. This means their greenhouse gas emissions for electricity production are almost zero right now.

"So, they are almost not using any fossil fuels for producing electricity. If you compare it with other countries, that's a whole other world," said Jorre De Schrijver, an energy expert from the European Environment Agency.
Decarbonizing heat production

And it's not just electricity that's now produced without fossil fuels in Sweden — that also goes for heating and energy-intense industrial processes.

So, what was the trick there?

Sweden invested in district heating systems early onImage: Stockholm Exergi

The first step was that Sweden invested in district heating systems early on, which are more efficient. This means that instead of having a heater in each home, you build big, centralized heaters that are connected to many houses and industrial areas through insulated pipes and underground infrastructure.

"You need the government and the private sector to work together to provide this infrastructure," said Asa Persson, who advises the Swedish government on climate policy and rates its performance.

It's also quite expensive — just think of all the piping you need to lay across entire neighborhoods. Nonetheless, the government decided to go for this approach early on and stuck with it.

"They saw the benefits of having these bigger system solutions. Sweden as a cold country had a real incentive to have a sort of energy efficient and sort of rational heating system in place to serve inhabitants," said Persson.

How clean is biomass?  08:21

The good thing about district heating is that you can shift the fuels that such a system uses. In the past, Sweden relied on fossil fuels like oil and coal. But since the 1990s, the country attached particular importance to the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency, investing in the use of energy, especially wood fuels. Today, 97% of the heating in Sweden comes from biofuels and burning waste.

"Sweden managed to reduce emissions from electricity and heating by 70% in the last 30 years. So that also shows that big, bold changes are possible," said Persson.
Strong policies: giving people and businesses incentives

And these big, bold changes didn't come out of thin air. Sweden has implemented clear climate policies since the 1990s, such as introducing one of the world's first — and by now one of the world's highest — carbon taxes, charging individuals for the carbon dioxide they emit.

"There's a clear message for us: either we do something that's bad for the environment and we have to pay the tax, or do we do something that's better and we're not taxed," said Goldmann.

A 2019 empirical case study found that the Swedish carbon tax had a significant impact on CO2 emissions: it was responsible for a 6% decline of emissions from transport in an average year.

And it sped up the changes in the energy and heating sector by giving people and businesses the incentive to invest in renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

While people many other countries would revolt against any new tax, acceptance in Sweden has been high.

"There has been support for environmental and climate policy for a long time in Sweden, and the country has also prided itself for being a leader in that regard," said Persson.

This is true across the political spectrum. In Sweden, seven out of eight parties agreed back in 2017 on the world's most stringent climate target: to be net zero by 2045.

"It's a world leading target that gave business and citizens a strong belief that this is actually going to continue happening and that I can invest in it knowing that even with the change of government, it will still stand," said Goldmann.

Sweden aims to become the world's first in producing large quantities of fossil free steel

Image: Hybrit Development AB

Setbacks due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

While Sweden has taken some major steps to slash emissions, not all sectors have been successfully decarbonized yet. Transport and agriculture are currently Sweden's largest sources of emissions.

And it's especially the transport sector that's currently Sweden's biggest problem child.

Following the energy crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweden's conservative government rolled back some important policies. It lowered petrol and diesel taxes by a quarter, which means Sweden now has among the lowest prices on diesel and gasoline in Europe.

It also introduced other measures that make it less expensive to drive a car to support struggling households, while abolishing incentives that were previously offered to buy electric vehicles.

"We are increasing emissions by roughly 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. In fact, this is the biggest increase in transport emissions in the history of Sweden," said Goldmann.

For years, Sweden had been introducing incentives to reduce transport emissions, but those have now been rolled back

Image: Adam Ihse/TT/picture alliance

But he believes it's just a momentary setback as the government promised that these new measures will only be short-term, and that Sweden is still on track to meet its targets for the transport sector again: a reduction of 70% of emissions between 2010 and 2030.

Lessons learned

So what lessons can other countries learn from the Swedish success story?

"Sweden, I think, illustrates that yes, it's indeed possible to produce electricity without any greenhouse gas emissions at all, and that's an example for other countries in the world," said energy expert De Schrijver from the European Environment Agency.

Can Sweden's approach serve as a blueprint for other countries?

"Find where your main climate impact is and where you can make the biggest difference. Find what is your sort of unique selling point as a country, where is your entry point, and build on that," said Goldmann.

"That will give you the green businesses, the green jobs, the billions in export income that you can use for other things that you want, better welfare, better schooling, and so forth," he added.

He says that while the situation was different in each country, it was very important to include everyone in the transition. Persson agrees.

"The biggest lesson is that you need close cooperation between government, private sector, and the local government as well to really develop these system solutions together and take risks, make these big long-term investments. That has been a success factor behind Sweden's decarbonization," she said.

Edited by: Sarah Steffen

AI meets colonialism: Germany develops new research tool

Elizabeth Grenier

AUGUST 12, 2024

DW/AFP

Germany's Federal Archives own an important collection of documents from the colonial era. To untrained eyes, they are undecipherable. Now, artificial intelligence can help researchers.

A postcard from Cameroon, which was an African colony of the German Empire in the region of today's Cameroon

 akg-images/picture alliance


Anyone aiming to do serious research into Germany's pre-WWII archives needs a particular skill: They should be able to read forms of handwriting that have since completely disappeared from everyday use in the German language.

There is Kurrent, a form of cursive writing that developed in the late medieval era, as well as different variant forms, most notably the short-lived Sütterlin. This cursive script was developed in 1911 and taught in German schools from 1915 to 1941, until it was banned by the Nazis. Afterwards, schoolchildren rather learned a handwriting similar to present-day English cursive.

Even though German speakers who grew up with Sütterlin continued to use it well into the post-war period, most Germans cannot read the letters written by their grandparents.

But now, an AI program can do just that.

A new tool has been developed by the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv) to help decode the different types of writing that can be found in documents from the colonial era.

It would be difficult for most Germans to decode the Kurrent handwriting on this postcard from 1903

akg-images/picture alliance

Important collection that must still be worked through

Documents from this era in particular were interesting for such a project, since the German Federal Archives own a collection of around 10,000 files from the Reich Colonial Office, which was the central authority for the German Empire's colonial policy.

They "were selected because a major part of them were handwritten," the archives' press spokesperson, Elmar Kramer, told DW. This collection was also selected for the pilot program because the files from the Reich Colonial Office have already been fully digitized and are no longer subject to any user restrictions, explains project manager Inger Banse.

But most importantly, as she points out, "coming to terms with the colonial era is a focus of our entire society, and we can make a good contribution to this with this collection."

"For too long, the crimes of the German colonial era have been a blind spot in our culture of remembrance," said German Commissioner for Culture and Media, Claudia Roth, welcoming the Federal Archives' project of using specially developed AI technology "to help strengthen knowledge about this dark chapter of German history. In doing so, it is making an important contribution to coming to terms with the past."

The local population being forced to work for colonialists in German East Africa (present-day Burundi, Rwanda and mainland Tanzania)

Image: akg-images/picture alliance

First genocide of the 20th century

Colonization by the German Empire began at the end of the 19th century and focused mainly on taking possession of territories and establishing colonies in Africa, the South Seas and China.

Germany's colonial empire only lasted 30 years — from 1884 until the end of the First World War — but shortly after it was established, it became the third-largest colonial empire after the United Kingdom and France. And its colonial rule was particularly brutal.

Documented in the Federal Archives' collectionare dark chapters that include the Sokehs rebellion from 1910/1911 that started on Sokehs Island off the main island of Pohnpei in the Eastern Caroline Islands, presently the Federated States of Micronesia. As a consequence, the German colonial rulers applied a scorched-earth policy to hunt down the rebels and had the tribe deported from their own island in the South Seas.

Another prominent case of colonial injustice is how King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and Adolf Ngoso Din were executed in 1914 for peacefully campaigning against the German colonial administration's measures to remove and relocate the Douala people from their homes in the littoral and southwest region of Cameroon.

Most infamously, it was responsible for the Herero and Nama genocide, known as the first genocide of the 20th century. It took place from 1904 to 1908, after the Herero and the Nama people rebelled against their German colonial rulers.

It was only in 2021 that Germany officially acknowledged committing genocide during its colonial occupation of present-day Namibia.

This image shows the skulls of the Hereros being packed and sent to the Pathological Institute in Berlin

Image: akg-images/picture alliance

Early adopters of AI

That same year, the Federal Archives started developing an AI tool to make their colonial-era records more accessible. That was before the so-called new AI era began, when ChatGPT and other large language models were publicly released, turning artificial intelligence into an omnipresent topic of discussion.

"We find it important to always be part of the latest developments," explains Elmar Kramer, about the Federal Archives' pioneering role in the domain. "That's why AI has been a topic of interest for us for a few years already. In this case, we can say that we are now bringing together one of our oldest holdings and one of the newest technologies, if you will: AI meets colonialism."

One needs to keep in mind that the AI not only needs to be able to decode Sütterlin, but also sometimes "quite sloppy, scribbled writing," points out Kramer. And beyond "the different handwriting in general, we also have printed and typewritten material. There is a lot of crossing out, but there are also very clean pages," adds Inger Banse, which is why they separated the documents in three different categories, according to the complexity of the material on the page.

An example of a document written in Sütterlin and transcribed by the AI tool developed by the Federal Archives

Image: BArch/R 1001/5573/Image165/Bundesarchiv

"We looked at how the model behaves in these different categories," explains Banse. They trained the model by manually checking and improving, line by line, the AI's transcription results of about 170 pages of varied material.

Banse says that they have now reached a point where the AI model provides an acceptable rate of accuracy in its transcriptions of even the most complex material.

Achieving perfection in the transcriptions would have required a disproportional time investment, says Banse, quoting the Pareto principle according to which the hardest 20% of the optimization process requires 80% of the efforts. "So at some point, we had to draw the line," she explains. Instead, they rather developed a more lenient search engine that allows a broader range of results to be obtained.

And now that the Federal Archives' AI model has been trained to decode Kurrent, it opens a whole field of possibilities for other German-language archives. At the moment, however, it is still a pilot project specifically designed for this collection. It can be consulted on site, in the archives' research hall in Berlin-Lichterfelde, and it will soon be made available online.

Edited by: Brenda Haas