Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Harris campaign s ays 75,000 people at Ellipse speech – 22,000 more than Trump’s Jan 6 crowd at same spot

Josh Marcus
Tue 29 October 2024



Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign claimed she drew a crowd of more than 75,000 people in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to hear her speech at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech exhorting supporters to “fight like hell” in the moments just before the January 6 Capitol riot.

If its own early estimate is to be believed, the Harris event drew about 22,000 more people than the Trump speech, whose crowd was estimated by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot to be about 53,000 people.

Trump routinely exaggerates his crowd, with January 6 2021 being no exception. He has claimed that he had as many people in attendance that day as Martin Luther King Jr attracted for his “I Have a Dream” speech near the Lincoln Memorial, on August 28 1968.

Estimates suggest King’s crowd was actually closer to 250,000 – about five times as big as Trump’s on January 6.

Speaking at the Ellipse, a park between the White House and the National Mall, Harris sought to paint a clear contrast between herself and her Republican opponent and offer a “closing argument” to voters.

“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote,” Harris told the crowd.

“And here is my pledge to you: I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your lives better,” she added. “I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.”

The message could not be more different than Trump’s speech at the site, where he made false claims about the election and railed against Republicans who would not go along with his plan to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win.


Kamala Harris addressed supporters on October 29 at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech just before the Capitol riot (Getty Images)

Though Trump told supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, the Republican also used the speech to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to suspend the certification and called on MAGA fans to “fight like hell” to preserve their country.

“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told the crowd, as he repeated false claims that the election had been stolen from him.

He told the crowd: “And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”


Trump has claimed speech telling supporters to fight to challenge election results in moments before Capitol riot was part of day of ‘love and peace’ (Getty Images)

According to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson during the January 6 hearings, Trump had reason to believe some of the crowd were armed. She said he wanted the magnetometers being used to check for weapons taken away so that the crowd would fill up more quickly.

“I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons,” Trump said according to Hutchinson. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away.”

Trump is facing federal criminal charges in Washington for his attempts to subvert his 2020 loss.

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has taken to describing the events surrounding January 6 as non-violent, refering to the day as a “peaceful transfer of power” and a day of “love and peace.”

The change agent v the tyrant: Harris’s big speech focuses on Trump

David Smith in Washington
THE GUARDIAN
Tue 29 October 2024 

Kamala Harris on the Ellipse on 29 October 2024 in Washington DC.Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images


Whither the politics of joy? Kamala Harris’s solid if unspectacular closing argument for why she should be elected US president was not about Kamala Harris. It was first and foremost about Donald Trump.

The Democratic nominee’s big speech in Washington mentioned Trump by name 24 times and Joe Biden only once. It confirmed that, even when Trump is not commander-in-chief, he still commands the American psyche.

A week before election day, Harris chose her venue carefully: the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House. Trump “stood at this very spot nearly four years ago”, she noted, adding that he sent an armed mob to the US Capitol to overturn his 2020 election defeat.


A very different, more diverse, larger crowd – some estimated 75,000 – gathered here on Tuesday, basking in unseasonal afternoon heat, wrapping against an evening chill. They waved “USA” signs and the stars and stripes and wore wristbands glowing blue or red. They chanted “Kamala! Kamala!” and “We’re not going back!” They were surrounded by great symbols of the republic: the Washington monument, the Jefferson memorial, the White House itself.

Speaking at a lectern behind protective glass, Harris went on to warn of Trump’s enemies list and intention to turn the military against those who disagree with him. “This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better,” she said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”

The vice-president went on to sketch out some of her own biography as a prosecutor and law enforcement officer fighting for the people. Yet somehow the argument again came back to the Republican nominee. “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she said. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

It was a far cry from the start of the Harris candidacy, which launched with joyous euphoria and her running mate Tim Walz branding Trump and his allies “weird”. That felt like a refreshing tonic after years of anxiety and misery in the Trump era. At the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia, speaker after speaker mocked Trump and made him seem small (Barack Obama even parodied his manhood).

Notably, even then, Harris began to adopt a more serious tone about the threat he poses, and in recent weeks she embraced former Trump officials’ use of “fascist” to underline his authoritarian ambitions, though she did not deploy that word here. His rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, and its echoes of a pro-Nazi rally that took place there in 1939, provided more fodder.

There is some political logic to this choice: make the election a referendum on Trump rather than Harris; make him seem like the incumbent and Harris the change agent. “It is time to turn the page on the drama and conflict, the fear and division,” she said. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in America.”

That would explain why she has sought to distance herself from Biden and is reportedly brushing off his offers to campaign for her. Although her Tuesday rally in Washington was Bidenesque in its dire warnings about the Trump threat, it used the president’s favoured word, “democracy”, only once. Instead, the word “freedom” was spelled out on three giant blue banners, along with “USA”.

Some Democrats are also eager for Harris to separate herself from Biden on the issue of the war in Gaza. A protester was led away shouting: “Stop arming Israel! Arms embargo now!” But Harris did not throw a bone to the peace movement during her remarks.

Whereas Biden used to tout job growth and economic good news, Harris again offered some practical promises: tax cuts for working people and the middle class, the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries, a cap on the price of insulin and help for first-time home buyers.

These were important things that ought to win votes. But they were not accompanied by a grand vision. Mario Cuomo’s old adage was campaign in poetry, govern in prose, but there was not a great deal of soaring rhetoric in Harris’s address. A decade of Trump had been bad for the soul.

The vice-president did deliver a memorable image towards the end, however, recalling how, nearly 250 years, America wrested itself free from a petty tyrant (British monarch George III) and how generations of Americans have preserved that freedom. “They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives, only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said. “The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

Then, from fear, a pivot to hope: “The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised. A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams. Strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.”

Doug Emhoff joined Harris on stage with a hug and a kiss as the crowd cheered. Next Tuesday, they will be back in Washington for the most nail-biting presidential election since George W Bush v Al Gore in 2000. They will be hoping this Democratic vice-president fares better than Gore did. A wafer-thin margin of a few thousand votes in a swing state or two may determine whether Harris’s closing argument looks like strategic genius or a catastrophic miscalculation.

She told the crowd: “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: that’s not who we are.”

The phrase “this is not who we are” has been used often in the Trump era. Sometimes the evidence says otherwise. Next week, the country will find out who we really ar



Kamala Harris calls for a ‘new generation of leadership’ in Washington speech

Lauren Gambino in Washington
THE GUARDIAN
Tue 29 October 2024 

Kamala Harris makes her ‘closing argument’ in Washington on Tuesday.

With the White House illuminated behind her, Kamala Harris asked the vanishing slice of undecided Americans to elect a “new generation of leadership”, likening Donald Trump to a “petty tyrant” who had stood in the very same spot nearly four years ago and, in a last-gasp effort to cling to power, helped incite the mob that stormed the US Capitol.

The choice between her and Trump in the deadlocked presidential contest was “about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division”, Harris said, from the Ellipse near the White House’s South Lawn, where tens of thousands of supporters gathered one week before the final votes of the 2024 election are cast.

“I ask for your vote,” she told the crowd, which spilled beyond the park, toward the Washington monument, and the many more watching at home.


In a speech her, campaign billed as the former prosecutor’s “closing argument” with the American people as her jury, Harris repeatedly gestured behind her as she described the progress she hoped to make as the 47th president of the United States on lowering prices, protecting abortion rights and addressing immigration.

“In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office,” she said as the crowd – which the campaign placed at 75,000 – erupted into chants of “Kamala! Kamala!” “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she continued. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

The oval-shaped park also served as reminder of Trump’s actions on January 6, when he exhorted his followers to “fight like hell” and walk to the Capitol where Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Aggrieved and “obsessed with revenge”, Trump was “out for unchecked power” , Harris warned, charging that he would spend the next four years focused on his problems, not the country’s.

Although Harris framed the stakes of the 2024 election as nothing less than the preservation of US democracy, she sought to offer an optimistic and hopeful tone, in stark contrast to the dark, racist themes that animated Trump’s grievance-fueled rally at Madison Square Garden. Harris called on Americans to “turn the page” on the Trump era and “start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told”. Americans had forgotten, she said, that “it doesn’t have to be this way”.

From his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida earlier on Tuesday, Trump waved off criticism of the rally, calling it an “absolute love fest”.

The daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris recalled attending civil rights marches with her parents as a toddler and the memory of her mother, “a cup of tea in hand”, poring over bills at the kitchen table.

“I’ve lived the promise of America,” Harris said, and without an explicit reference to the history-making nature of her candidacy, she grounded it in a fight for “freedom” that has propelled generations of “patriots” from Normandy to Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall.

“They did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said, her voice building as she declared: “The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

In recent days, Harris has amplified warnings of her opponent’s lurch toward authoritarianism and open xenophobia. Her campaign is running ads highlighting John Kelly, a marine general and Trump’s former chief of staff, saying that Trump met the definition of a fascist. Harris has said she agrees.

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In her remarks, Harris attempted to balance the existential and the economic – focusing on the threat Trump poses to US institutions while weaving in her plans to bring down prices and build up the middle class. She portrayed Trump as a tool of the billionaire class who would eliminate what is left of abortion access and stand in the way of bipartisan compromise when it does not suit him politically.

Responding to her Ellipse speech, a Trump campaign spokesperson accused the vice-president of “lying, name-calling, and clinging to the past”.

Polls show the contest between Trump and Harris virtually tied in the seven battleground states like to decide the presidential election.

Trump has sought to rewrite the history of January 6, the culmination of his attempt to cling to power that resulted in the first occupation of the US Capitol since British forces set it on fire during the war of 1812. Trump recently declared the attack a “day of love” and said he would pardon the January 6 rioters – whom he has called “patriots” and “hostages” – if he is elected president.

Hundreds of supporters have been convicted and imprisoned for their conduct at the Capitol, while federal prosecutors have accused Trump of coordinating an effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Trump maintains that he played no role in stoking the violence that unfolded, and still claims baselessly that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

In a press call on Tuesday morning, Harris’s campaigned expressed a bullishness about her prospects. “We know that there are still a lot of voters out there that are still trying to decide who to support or whether to vote at all,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign’s chair, told reporters before her remarks on Tuesday. She said many Americans were “exhausted” by the tribalism and polarization Trump has sharpened since his political rise in 2016.

In an abbreviated 100-day campaign that Harris inherited from Biden after he stepped aside in July, the Democratic nominee has unified her party, raised more than $1bn, blanketed the airwaves and blitzed the battleground states. And yet the race remains a dead heat nationally and in the seven swing states that will determine who wins the White House.

After her speech, Harris will return to the campaign trail, where she will keep a frenetic pace ahead of what her campaign has called a “margin-of-error election”.

“We see very good signs for us across the battleground states, in particular in the blue wall,” O’Malley Dillon said on the Tuesday morning call, referring to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Harris has barnstormed in recent weeks. “And we see that we’re on pace to win a very close election.”

A to-do list, size matters and a 'petty tyrant': Key moments from Kamala Harris' speech

COLLEEN LONG and DAN MERICA
Tue 29 October 2024




Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris on Tuesday sought to remind Americans what life was like under Donald Trump and then offered voters a different path forward if they send her to the White House, in a speech billed as her campaign's closing argument.

“I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me,” she said, speaking before a massive crowd that spilled from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to the Washington Monument.

Some key moments from her half-hour speech:

The location of the speech reinforced her message

Harris chose to speak from the Ellipse on purpose. It's the same spot in Washington where Republican Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the vice president didn't devote much of her speech to the violence of that day, instead using the field between Constitution Avenue and the White House more as a backdrop — a quiet reminder of the different choices Americans face.

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other," she said, adding that he wants back into the White House “not to focus on your problems, but to focus on his.”

Kamala Harris, the prosecutor, argued her case

Harris spent years working as a prosecutor. She was California's attorney general before she became a U.S. senator. And she often says on the campaign trail that she's only ever had one client — the people. In her speech, she talked about her past work taking on scammers, violent offenders who abused women and children, and cartels that trafficked in guns and human beings.

She said she'd bring with her to the White House an instinct to protect.

“There’s something about people being treated unfairly, or overlooked, that just gets to me," she said.

It's me, Hi. I'm the presidential nominee. It's me.

One week before the election, Harris allowed that “I know many of you are still getting to know who I am.”

The Democratic nominee has been running for only three months in a compressed campaign launched after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Harris still is confronting voters who say they want to learn more about her and how she will govern. So she spent some time Tuesday talking about her career, her goals and background.

“I’ll be honest with you: I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. But here’s what I promise you: I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me."

To-do list for Day One at the White House

Harris devoted a good chunk of her speech to talking about policies she'd enact if she were to win the White House, including helping first-time homeowners with down payments and aiding the so-called “sandwich generation" of adults who are caring for young children and older parents by allowing elder care to be funded by Medicare. She said she'd work to pass a bipartisan border security bill that tanked last year after Trump encouraged congressional Republicans to let it die.

And she said she would work to bring back abortion protections. “I will fight to restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justice took away from the women of America,” Harris said. The Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed justices, overturned federal protections of abortion in 2022. Abortion has since become one of the most motivating issues for the Democratic base in the 2024 election.

“On Day One, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she said. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

Size matters on the campaign trail — especially to Trump

The Ellipse is a grassy expanse between the White House and the Washington Monument that has long played host to political events and national traditions like the annual holiday tree lighting. On Tuesday, the space was packed. Crowds spilled onto the National Mall back toward the Washington Monument, where giant screens and speakers were set up for people to hear and see from afar.

The cheers of the boisterous crowd could be heard from the White House driveway. Harris' campaign said it was her biggest rally to date. She's already packed stadiums and other venues with supporters during her rallies. Harris loves to needle Trump about crowd size — a particular preoccupation for the Republican leader, who claimed the campaign had to bus people in Tuesday to fill the space.

Harris has called Trump ‘unhinged’ and ‘unstable.’ Now she's adding ‘petty tyrant’

Harris boiled down criticism of Trump into two words: "petty tyrant."

She warned Trump is a man governed by grievances, one who would focus on himself and his “enemies list” when he got into the White House. She harked back to the nation's founding when Americans fought for freedom, then sped through decades of hard-fought civil rights battles.

“They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms. They didn't do that only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant," she said. "These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

Meanwhile, a Biden complication emerges

Just moments before Harris was to speak, Biden was on a campaign call reacting to a comic who called Puerto Rico garbage during a Trump rally last weekend. The president said, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

He’d joined a national call organized by the advocacy group Voto Latino. Biden urged those on the call to “vote to keep Donald Trump out of the White House," adding, “He’s a true danger to not just Latinos but to all people."

Biden's remarks were quicky seized on by Republicans who said he was denigrating Trump supporters, a distraction for Harris when she is trying to reach out to GOP voters.

Biden quickly sent out a social media post seeking to clarify his remarks.

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable," Biden said of Trump. “That’s all I meant to say.”

There's still plenty to come after what Harris called her ‘closing argument’

The event was framed as a campaign finale meant to lay out in stark terms the choice for voters next week. But it's far from Harris' last campaign event. She'll be hitting all the key battleground states as she makes her last pitch to voters.

She will headline events in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania on Wednesday, and on Thursday she will have rallies in Arizona and Nevada. More events are expected before Election Day.

The campaign is looking to pick up voters across many different demographics in the hope that a swing vote here and there may add up to a win in a razor's-edge race with Trump.

Kamala Harris Likens Trump to Mad ‘Petty Tyrant’ King George

Mini Racker
Tue 29 October 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech on the National Mall.


WASHINGTON—Kamala Harris made her presidential bid’s “closing argument” Tuesday night, warning an electrified crowd of tens of thousands that Donald Trump is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”

She alluded to Trump’s recent threats to use the U.S. military against Americans who disagree with him, implicitly comparing her GOP opponent to King George III, the British monarch who suffered from mental illness and spoke loquaciously until foam ran out of his mouth.

“Nearly 250 years ago America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant,” she said at the Ellipse, a location loaded with symbolism.

The Harris campaign estimated that 75,000 supporters flocked to the National Mall for Kamala Harris' final major campaign speech.

The Ellipse is where Trump, on Jan. 6, 2021, riled up his followers to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president. The expansive lawn on the National Mall sits just behind the White House, where Harris hopes to live come January.

“Americans died as a result of that attack,” Harris said, noting that as the violence unfolded on television that day, Trump’s response to his staff describing how protesters wanted to kill Mike Pence was reportedly, “So what?”

With the White House behind her, Harris said one of Trump’s “highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on January 6th.”

Douglas Emhoff, and potential future first gentleman, was front and center for his wife's speech.

The Metropolitan Police Department originally expected 20,000 attendees at the Ellipse, but that number ballooned to more than 52,000. More than 75,000 attended, a Harris campaign official told the Daily Beast, the largest crowd Harris has drawn this year.

“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power, trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other,” Harris warned Tuesday night. “That is who he is.”

Her aspirational speech was also laden with policy as she recapped her campaign promises to give tax cuts to middle-class families and entrepreneurs, protect and expand affordable health care, make housing affordable and—an issue paramount to her campaign—make abortion legal nationally and fight “Trump abortion bans” at the state level.


Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman, embrace on stage.

The speech marked the beginning of the end of a whirlwind three-month campaign. Harris’ entrance into the race after Biden stepped aside sparked wild enthusiasm among Democrats, and though she insisted she’s the “underdog,” her party was riding high for months.

But in the final weeks of the campaign, the Democratic candidate’s apparent lead over Trump has slipped, leaving them deadlocked in the polls just days away from Election Day.

A sense of deflation mingled with signs of hope in the shadows of the Washington Monument Tuesday night. Audience members who spoke to the Daily Beast said that they were hopeful Harris would defeat Trump, but few were confident, even though they streamed like a pilgrimage to the Ellipse to witness history.


Supporters wait for Kamala Harris to take the stage for her final major speech before Election Day.

Inside the security barriers, attendees waved American flags. Outside the fences, throngs of people looked on, with the crowd stretching past the Washington Monument and out of sight.

Harris urged everyone who came to vote on Tuesday.

“I’ve lived the Promise of America,” she said. “I see the Promise of America in all of you.”

Animals become less sociable as they age in similar way to humans, research shows


Nicola Davis Science correspondent
Mon 28 October 2024 

A decline in connections had one benefit to rhesus macaques, according to one study that showed it reduced the risk of diseases.Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP


While Victor Meldrew was a cantankerous caricature, humans are known to become less social as they get older. Now researchers say we are not alone with many animals behaving in the same way – and the trait is not always a bad thing.

Experts studying animals from wild deer to insects, monkeys and birds have revealed a host of insights into the relationship between age and social connections.

“Overall, it’s looking like there’s a very general pattern of individuals becoming less social with age,” said Dr Josh Firth from the University of Leeds, adding the research also explored possible causes and consequences, as well as showing that the trend not only has costs but benefits, too.

Firth said it was possible older individuals were less socially connected because they did not need to share information in the same way as younger individuals did, while the approach could also help them dodge infections – something that could be important if their immune responses become less robust with age.

“As such, while it is certainly [worth] still trying to mitigate the obvious disadvantages that might come with people reducing their social connections as they age, we should also consider the potential benefits,” Firth said, adding that new technologies – such as virtual interactions – could help humans get the best of both worlds.

As an editor of a new series of 16 papers published as a special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, Firth said studying how animals changed their social behaviour as they aged had benefits as scientists can often follow animals over their entire life course and carry out experiments – both of which are difficult in humans.

In one study, researchers analysed data for more than 150 different species, finding that species that are more social live longer, have longer generation times and longer reproductive windows.

In another, researchers analysed six years of data for house sparrows, finding older birds had smaller social circles and were less well connected – apparently because peers of the same age die as they get older. By contrast, a study looking at common terns unpicked a genetic contribution to age-related social changes.

And while a decline in connections is often seen as negative, at least for humans, it can also bring benefits: a modelling study based on observed social interactions in rhesus macaques found older animals could reduce their risk from diseases that were particularly severe for their age group by being less connected in their social networks.

Another study, co-authored by Firth and looking at parasitic worm infections in wild adult female red deer, pointed to similar conclusions.

“We found that in general, you’re more likely to get infected by these nematodes as you’re growing older, but you can offset that by not interacting with as many individuals,” he said.

A Mountaintop Discovery is Changing Everything We Knew About the Silk Road


Michael Natale
Tue, October 29, 2024 

One Find is Changing Our Picture of the Silk RoadMarc Dozier - Getty Images

A new LiDAR survey of previously discovered Silk Road sites reveals a more sprawling urban history than first imagined.

An aerial survey of the Tashbulak and Tugunbulak sites in Uzbekistan uncovered more than 300 medieval archaeological features, suggesting a robust urban community.

The Silk Road—which existed from 114 B.C. to 1450 A.D.—was a vital and expansive trade route that connected the Eastern and Western worlds

new survey of two archaeological sites along the Silk Road has unveiled a stunning new discovery that rewrites our understanding of the famed Eurasian trade route that spanned continents and centuries.

As reported in Newsweek, a new aerial survey of Tashbulak and Tugunbulak—two archaeological sites roughly three miles apart in the Uzbekistan mountains—utilized LiDAR (a remote sensing technique that uses laser pulses to create 3D images of a landscape) to reveal more than 300 medieval archaeological features. The two sites, which were discovered in 2011 and 2015, are located 6,562 to 7,218 feet above sea level. At that elevation, the land was unlikely to have supported large-scale urban development at the time, given the difficulties posed to construction and agriculture.

But this new survey—the results of which were published in Nature—indicates that that’s exactly what occurred at Tashbulak and Tugunbulak.

“The LiDAR results indicate that the scale of urbanization in this area was much more expansive than previously known,” Brown University researcher Zachary Silvia told Newsweek. Silvia, while not involved directly in the study, has published a News & Views article for Nature about the results, and singled out the significance of this revelation. “This is the first—and probably only—ancient or medieval city located at this elevation in Central Asia, which forces us to reconsider what we know about urbanization in the area.”

Among the structures discovered by the study’s LiDAR flights were “watchtowers connected with walls along a ridgeline, evidence of terracing, and a central fortress surrounded by walls made of stone and mud brick.” But while this survey revealed what structures were once present at Tashbulak and Tugunbulak, there are still more questions to be answered.

“Typically, remote sensing techniques are one tool within the broader tool kit of the archaeologist,” Silvia noted to Newsweek. “The next step for the team would be to confirm their findings through geophysics—techniques that ‘see’ below the surface—and targeted excavations that can confirm whether or not this is indeed such an extensive settlement. I am optimistic that this is precisely what the team will find in the coming years.”

Lost Silk Road cities rediscovered by scientists in mountains of Uzbekistan

Amelia Neath
Mon 28 October 2024 

Researchers excavate medieval pottery at the newly rediscovered medieval Silk Road city Tugunbulak in 2022 (via REUTERS)


Two cities lost for centuries have been uncovered by archaeologists in Uzbekistan along the Silk Road in a discovery that could shift the perspective on what we know about the ancient trading route.

The cities were discovered in the rugged mountains only 3km apart using laser remote-sensing technology that can detect structures under vegetation.

Researchers sent out LiDAR scanning technology, used to measure topography, on drones to map the scale and layout of the cities, uncovering structures, plazas, roads and other urban features indicating city settlements.

Their placement among the mountains, around 2,000-2,200m (6,562-7217 feet) above sea level, is particularly interesting as an altitude this high would have delivered bittely cold winters – with temperature levels that only three per cent of the global population live at today.

Publishing their findings in the scientific journal Nature, the researchers also said the discovery of these cities, which appear to have been mysteriously abandoned hundreds of years ago, could shift the understanding of the economic and cultural landscape of historic Central Asia.

“The key finding of this study is the existence of large, fortified and planned cities at high elevation, which is still a rare occurrence but is much more exceptional in ancient times,” research leader Michael Frachetti from Washington University in Saint Louis, said, per Reuters.

A 2018 drone photograph of a part of the newly discovered medieval Silk Road city Tugunbulak, located in the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan (via REUTERS)

Tugunbulak, the larger of the two cities, existed from around the 6th to the 11th century CE, spanning across 300 acres. Researchers believe it once had a population of tens of thousands and is thought to be one of the largest cities of its time within the region.

The vast city had five watchtowers and a central fortress all protected by thick stone and mud-brick walls.

After excavating one of Tugunbulak’s fortified buildings, the researchers found the remains of kilns and furnaces, leading them to believe that it could have been a factory where metalsmiths were producing iron or steel.

"Tugunbulak in particular complicates much of the historical understanding of the early medieval political economy of the Silk Routes, placing both political power and industrial production far outside the regional ‘breadbaskets’ such as Samarkand," Frachetti said.

The other city, Tashbulak, was around ten times smaller than its neighbour, with a population reaching into the low thousands. It existed in a similar period from 730-750 to 1030-1050 AD.

Excavations of Tugunbulak being carried out in 2022 (via REUTERS)

While Tasbulak is not thought to be an industrial hub on the same scale as Tugunbulak, the smaller city has shown interesting cultural aspects reflecting the early spread of Islam.

Researchers unearthed 400 graves of men, women and children, including some of the oldest Muslim burials that have been discovered in the region.

"The cemetery is mismatched to the small size of the town. There’s definitely something ideologically oriented around Tashbulak that has people being buried there," Frachetti said.

The scientists first discovered Tasbulak in 2011, then found Tugunbulak a few years later.

With more research, they hope to unearth why these people chose to set up life in the mountains in a move that strayed away from the norm of the typical agricultural societies of the time.

“If we’re right, we’ve got a new kid on the block,” Frachetti told National Geographic, which funded the research.

“These people weren’t the barbarian horse-riding hordes that history has often painted them as. They were mountain populations, probably with nomadic political systems, but they were also investing in major urban infrastructure. This changes everything we thought we knew about Central Asian history.”
Scientists decode when and how kissing evolved in humans

Vishwam Sankaran
Mon 28 October 2024

Babylonian clay model showing couple on couch engaged in sex and kissing (The Trustees of the British Museum)

Kissing in humans evolved as a symbolic expression of love from grooming behaviours seen in ancestral great apes, a comprehensive new study says.

The kiss has been a versatile way by which humans across civilisations and societies have shown affection, intimacy, or social bonding, most often in a way that is regulated by cultural conventions.

A study published last year points to Mesopotamia around 4,500 years ago as one of the earliest known places where kissing was a “well-established practice”.

Thousands of clay tablets recovered from early human cultures that lived between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in modern-day Iraq and Syria reveal that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy during these times.

However, how exactly our species began communicating affection this way remains a topic of debate.

One theory suggests kissing evolved from nurturing care behaviors like premastication in which caregivers feed infants with pre-chewed food.

Another relates the act to have evolved as a kind of compatibility test in which potential mates tasted and sampled each other orally to determine health.

In the new study, published in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology, scientists conducted a comprehensive review of such existing hypotheses to explore the roots of this intimate behaviour in humans.

The analysis also looked at parallels in the animal world of behaviour similar in form and function to human kissing.

Chimpanzees and bonobos use gestures to initiate and change positions during grooming (University of St Andrews)

Researchers noticed that the final act of grooming in our hairy ape ancestors involves protruding lips and slight suction to remove debris or parasites.

While humans evolved to have less body hair, this final act that scientists call the “groomer’s final kiss” may have remained without its hygienic relevance as a “vestigial action”, scientists say.

This act involving protruding lips and suction mirrors the context and function of modern human kissing, they say.

Orangutan baby “Changi” kisses his mother “Lea” on 24 January 2012 (DPA/AFP via Getty Images)

“Great ape social behaviour suggests that kissing is likely the conserved final mouth-contact stage of a grooming bout when the groomer sucks with protruded lips the fur or skin of the groomed to latch on debris or a parasite,” researchers write.

“What was once a time- and labour-intensive ritual to cement and strengthen close social ties became gradually compressed until a groomer’s final kiss turned into a crystalised symbol of trust and affiliation,” they say.

With this theory, scientists speculate kissing was established among human ape ancestors as they started spending considerable time on the ground away from trees.

This could have come “only after” ancient climate change shifted ecology from forested habitats toward drier and more open landscapes, researchers say.
Experiencing intense emotions with others makes people feel more connected, study finds

Nicola Davis Science correspondent
THE GUARDIAN
Tue 29 October 2024 

Pairs that could see each other while watching the films rated their emotions as more intense.Photograph: Blue Planet Studio/Getty Images/iStockphoto


Whether it is laughing at a classic comedy or watching a horror film from behind a cushion, movies can generate myriad feelings. Now researchers say experiencing intense emotions alongside others makes people feel more connected – provided you can see them.

It has long been known that experiencing emotional events together can strengthen bonds between people, with a previous study finding that watching emotional films with another person makes people feel more connected.

But it has been unclear whether individuals needed to experience intense emotions, similar emotions or both to produce a greater bond. It has also been unclear whether the effect is seen when people watch both joyful and sad films, and whether it occurs only when individuals can see each other.


Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Victor Chung of the École Normale Supérieure in France and colleagues report how they probed the matter by inviting strangers to watch videos together in same sex pairs.

Related: Can you solve it? The enigma of Randall Munroe

The pairs were each shown three five-minute videos in a random order while wearing a face mask and headset. These videos were either positive (a comedy), negative (a film showing the suffering of captive animals) or neutral (footage of a university library). While half the pairs watched the films with a curtain open between them, the other half had the curtain closed.

For each participant the team also recorded an electrocardiogram as well as respiratory activity and skin conductance, to track physical metrics that indicated how the strength of their emotions changed.

At the start of the experiment the researchers asked each participant whether they’d like to meet the other member of their pair again, and whether they identified with them.

After watching each video, participants reported their emotions and feelings of connectedness, and after seeing all three videos they were asked once again about their feelings towards the other participant.

The results from 39 pairs revealed participants’ own reports and their measures of heart rate, respiratory rate and skin conductance showed the emotional films generated stronger responses than the neutral film. In addition, pairs that could see each other while watching the films rated their emotions as more intense.

Related: Ten children drew their favourite sea creatures. Then Australia’s leading artists responded – in pictures

Crucially, the team say participants’ feelings of connectedness within the pairs was boosted when they experienced more intense emotions, as recorded by skin conductance measures which, Chung noted, is the physiological measure of emotional arousal that is easiest to interpret. However, this was only the case when participants watched the films with the curtain between them open.

The researchers said that whether or not the pairs could see each other had no impact on how positively or negatively they felt about the films.

“We found that silently watching emotional films together with another individual is associated with social bonding, even when this person is a stranger and without any verbal communication,” said Chung.

However, Chung noted the study cannot prove social bonding results from intense emotions, and does not rule out the possibility that having similar emotions increases social bonding in other contexts.

“Our findings suggest that experiencing intense emotions with others, even during brief interactions with strangers, plays a role in the emergence of social relationships and the formation of social groups,” he said.


Sharing a cry over a sad film ‘can strengthen connections between people’

Nilima Marshall, PA Science Reporter
Tue 29 October 2024



Sharing a cry over a sad film can strengthen connections between people – even if they are strangers, research has suggested.

Previous studies have shown reaching for the tissues while watching tragic films can boost levels of feelgood chemicals produced in the brain known as endorphins.

A new study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, suggests sharing emotions with others – while watching a comedy or a sad film – can also foster social bonds.

The team, led by Victor Chung of PSL University in Paris, recruited 112 people aged between 18 and 35 and split them into pairs.

The pairs, who did not know each other, were invited to watch emotional videos together as well as separately.

The researchers monitored their physiological and emotional responses, as well as how they felt towards each other after watching the videos together.

Results showed people felt more connected when they could see each other while watching the videos, and when they were both experiencing strong emotions, regardless of whether they were positive or negative.

In a follow-up online experiment involving 50 people, those taking part were asked to watch excerpts of French comedy Intouchables, the documentary Earthlings, which depicts the suffering of captive animals, and a YouTube video designed not to evoke strong emotions.

The team wrote: “Our results supported the hypothesis that emotion has a bonding function, as it could explain how brief one-shot interactions with strangers can contribute to satisfying the need to belong to social groups.

“The current study could also explain why people seek out group activities that induce intense and arousing emotions, even participating in sad commemorations or attending dramatic narrative fictions that induce negative emotions.”


AI being used to detect heart murmurs in dogs

Alice Cunningham
BBC News, Cambridgeshire
University of Cambridge
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed an AI algorithm that can detect heart murmurs in dogs

Researchers have said they are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accurately detect heart murmurs in dogs.

A team at the University of Cambridge has developed an algorithm - a set of coded instructions - that was originally designed for humans, but can also detect and grade murmurs in dogs.

Heart murmurs are one of the main indicators of heart disease, which can affect a large number of smaller breeds like King Charles Spaniels.

Dr Andrew McDonald, the first author of the research, said: "Heart disease in humans is a huge health issue, but in dogs it’s an even bigger problem."



He added: "As far as we’re aware, there are no existing databases of heart sounds in dogs, which is why we started out with a database of heart sounds in humans.

"Mammalian hearts are fairly similar, and when things go wrong, they tend to go wrong in similar ways."
University of Cambridge
Heart murmurs are a key indicator of heart disease in dogs

Researchers started with a database of heart sounds from about 1,000 human patients and developed a machine-learning algorithm to replicate whether a heart murmur had been detected by a cardiologist.

This algorithm was then adapted, so it could be used with heart sounds from dogs.

Almost 800 dogs undergoing routine heart examinations at four specialist vet centres across the UK were used for the research.

They received a full physical examination, as well as a heart scan by a cardiologist to grade any heart murmurs and identify cardiac disease.

Their heart rhythms were recorded using an electronic stethoscope.

It is believed this was the largest dataset of dog heart sounds ever created.

Co-author Prof Jose Novo Matos said the team wanted to get data "from dogs of all shapes, sizes and ages".

He added: "The more data we have to train it, the more useful our algorithm will be, both for vets and for dog owners."

Analysis of the algorithm found it agreed with the cardiologist's assessment in over half of cases.

In 90% of cases, it was within in a single grade of the cardiologist's assessment which researchers said was a promising result.

People missing as flash floods sweep across Spain sending cars floating down street amid 'historic' weather event


James Holt
Tue 29 October 2024 

-Credit: (Image: Getty Images)

Several people have been reported missing after flash floods swept cars through village streets and trapped people inside their homes amid a 'historic' weather event in large areas of eastern and southern Spain.

Rushing mud-coloured waters caused havoc in a huge arc of the European country, running from the provinces of Malaga in the south to Valencia in the east. The country was under severe weather alert for Storm Dana, which warned of flash flooding and landslides.


Images shot by people with smartphones reproduced on Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE showed frighteningly swift waters carrying away cars and rising several feet into the lower level of homes.

READ MORE UK tourists warned of ‘extreme’ weather in Spain as new red alert issued

A high-speed train with nearly 300 people on board derailed near Malaga, although rail authorities said no-one was hurt. The high-speed train service between Valencia city and Madrid was interrupted as were several commuter lines.

The national government office for the Castilla La Mancha region told radio channel Cadena Ser that six people in the region were missing. Spanish news agency EFE said that one truck driver was missing in L’Alcudia, a town in Valencia.

Also in Valencia, the mayor of Utiel, Ricardo Gabaldon, told RTVE that several people were trapped in their homes. Police and rescue services used helicopters to lift people from homes and cars.

Footage posted on social media appeared to show a police car being swept away by flood waters in Valencia. Spanish authorities in the worst-hit areas urged citizens to remain in their homes and avoid all non-essential travel.

AEMET, the country's state weather agency, issued a red alert for the eastern Valencia region with the second-highest level of alert put in place for parts of Andalusia in the south.

Cars submerged in floodwater in Valencia -Credit:Getty Images

Footage captured in the Valencian town of Alzira showed firefighters rescuing trapped drivers and flooded streets as heavy rain pummelled the area.

Nick Finnis, a Netweather forecaster, shared a clip on X showing flood waters barrelling through Albacete in central Spain. He wrote: "Scary fast-flowing flash floods through streets of Albacete, Spain today, these aren't rare incidents anymore, this is one of several Spanish communities quite far apart seeing streets turn into raging rivers yesterday, today and likely tomorrow too".

An emergency rescue brigade of Spain’s army deployed to help rescue efforts. Storms were forecast to continue until Thursday (October 31), according to Spain’s national weather service.

AEMET had anticipated that Valencia would bear the brunt of the storm, with more than 3.5 inches (90mm) forecast in less than an hour, or 180 mm in less than 12 hours.

Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years. The country has recovered somewhat from a severe drought this year thanks to rainfall. Scientists say that increased episodes of extreme weather are probably linked to climate change.

You can find the latest AEMET forecasts and weather advice in here.

Severe flash flooding hits southern and eastern Spain

Taylor Ward, CNN and Mauricio Torres, CNN en Español
Tue 29 October 2024 

Parts of southern and eastern Spain were hit by severe flash flooding on Tuesday, as some locations received up to 12 inches of rain in just a few hours.

Footage from the city of Valencia showed mud-colored water flooding through the streets, tearing down walls, and sweeping away parked cars.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said an unspecified number of people are missing due to the flooding, and asked citizens to act with “great caution” and avoid moving around if it is not necessary.

The Spanish government set up a crisis committee on Tuesday, according to the Palace of La Moncloa. It will be chaired by Sánchez and, from Wednesday, will coordinate the work of the Civil Guard, the National Police, the General Directorate of Civil Protection, and the Military Emergency Unit.

Extreme rain warnings were in effect on Tuesday for some areas including around Valencia, according to Spain’s Meteorological Agency, AEMET. These warnings called for the potential of 200 mm (4 inches) of rain in less than 12 hours.

In some locations, the rainfall estimates were exceeded in even shorter periods of time. Chiva, which is east of Valencia, received 320 mm of rain in just over four hours, according to the European Severe Weather Database.

The Valencia area averages 77 mm (3.03 inches) for the entire month of October.

A person reacts to heavy flooding on a street in Valencia, Spain, October 29, 2024. - Eva Manez/Reuters

Flooding was also reported in and around Murcia and Malaga with over 100 mm (4 inches) of rain falling in some of these areas.

A strong upper level low pressure is moving northward into the region from Africa. The strong system is bringing a significant amount of atmospheric instability to the region. Extreme amounts of rainfall are also being enhanced with moisture from the Mediterranean Sea and upslope flow into higher terrain which acts to squeeze out additional moisture.

Rainfall warnings continue through Wednesday for portions of eastern and southern Spain, according to AEMET. The warnings north of Valencia are for rainfall totals in excess of 100 mm (4 inches) and rainfall rates of 30 mm per hour (1.18 inches per hour).

Areas of southwestern Spain will see the threat of heavy rain continue through the end of the week

Several bodies found as heavy rains, flash floods slam Spain

NEWS WIRES
Tue 29 October 2024

A car is pictured on a flooded street in Alora, near Malaga, on October 29, 2024, after a heavy rain hit southern Spain.


Emergency service workers recovered multiple bodies in the eastern Spanish region of Valencia after heavy rains battered the country's eastern and southern areas, causing flash floods and disrupting air and rail travel.

Several bodies have been recovered by emergency service workers in Spain's eastern region of Valencia after torrential rains triggered flash floods, the head of the regional government said Wednesday.

"We can confirm that some bodies have already been found," Carlos Mazon told reporters, without saying how many.

Authorities could not give further details until relatives had been informed, he added.

Heavy rain lashed much of eastern and southern Spain on Tuesday, flooding streets with muddy water and disrupting rail and air travel.

Images shot by residents with smartphones and broadcast on Spanish TV showed raging waters washing away cars and flooding buildings.

In some areas, more than a month's rain fell in a single day, Spanish media reported.

"We are facing an unprecedented situation, which nobody remembers," Mazon said.

Officials said on Tuesday that at least seven people were missing -- a truck driver in the Valencia region and six people in the town of Letur in the eastern province of Albacete.

Emergency services workers backed by drones would work through the night to look for the missing in Letur, the central government's representative in Castilla-La Mancha, Milagros Tolon, told Spanish public television station TVE.

"The priority is to find these people," she added.

(AFP)

Several missing in Spain after heavy rain causes flooding

Christina Thykjaer
Tue 29 October 2024 at 2:41 pm GMT-6·1-min read


Several missing in Spain after heavy rain causes flooding

Several people were reported missing by Spanish authorities after flash floods swept cars through village streets and disrupted rail service in large areas of eastern and southern Spain on Tuesday.

A high-speed train with nearly 300 people on board derailed near Malaga, although rail authorities said no one was hurt. The flooding also disrupted high-speed train services between Valencia and Madrid, as well as other commuter lines across the affected regions.

The State Meteorological Agency has issued a red alert for heavy rainfall in the Valencian Community, where flooding caused a bridge to collapse in Picanya.

Municipalities such as Turís and Utiel received around 200 litres of rain per square metre, with many localities in the south and east seeing over 100 litres on Tuesday alone, according to official reports.

Authorities has warned that the adverse weather conditions are expected to persist, and urged locals to remain cautious. “This Tuesday is the most adverse day of the episode, but very heavy showers will continue during the following days,” the agency said on social media platform X.

Spain has faced similar autumn storms in recent years. The country has recovered somewhat from a severe drought this year thanks to rainfall. Scientists say that the increase in extreme weather events is likely linked to climate change.

Spain issues rare weather alert

Liv Clarke
Mon 28 October 2024 

-Credit: (Image: aemet.es)


A rare weather alert has been issued for Spain as storms and heavy rain are set to batter the country in the coming days. Aemet, the country’s national weather agency, has released a special advisory notice covering mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands.


It’s due to a DANA (isolated depression at high levels), which is slowly moving across the country, “producing widespread rainfall in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.” It’s set to last until Thursday, October 31.

Several weather warnings have been put in force across the country this week, with rare amber alerts in place for storms and heavy rainfall in Almeria, Ceuta and the Castellon region from 6pm tonight until midnight. Coastal alerts warning of waves of up to 4, and winds of up to 60km/h have been issued along the coast of Almeria, while waves of up to 3m could occur off the coast of Barcelona. The region of Girona could see possible hail.

READ MORE: UK tourists warned of ‘transport disruption’ across Spain, Canary Islands and Balearics

Forecasting for Monday, Aemet warns of “locally strong and/or persistent showers and thunderstorms in in the Balearic Islands, Girona, Albacete and coastal and pre-coastal areas of Tarragona, Castellón, Murcia, Almería, Málaga and the Strait of Gibraltar.”


Heavy rain and storms are set to batter Spain and the Balearic Islands including Majorca -Credit:Getty Images

On Tuesday yellow warnings for heavy rain and storms are in place for large swathes of eastern Spain and the Balearic Islands. Amber warnings for rain and storms have been issued for the Valencia region, while coastal warnings for waves of up to 4m and winds of 60km/h cover the east coast.

Ibiza is expected to experience winds of up to 70km/h and waves of up to 4m, while Majorca and Menorca are set to be battered by winds of up to 60km/h in coastal regions. Forecasting for Tuesday, Aemet said: “The Peninsula and the Balearic Islands are likely to continue with unstable weather under the influence of low pressure. With a margin of uncertainty, precipitation and storms are likely in the southern half, areas of the northeast, the Strait, the Alboran and the Balearic Islands, without ruling out neighbouring areas.”

By Wednesday the majority of warnings had been removed, but precipitation remains “probable” across mainland Spain and the Balearics. Storms could occur in Catalenona, the Valencian Community, Aragon and the Strait of Gibraltar.

World's first green energy island sails into cost storm


Umberto Bacchi
Tue 29 October 2024

Belgium's energy island will host transformers and other high-voltage equipment (Nicolas TUCAT) (Nicolas TUCAT/AFP/AFP)


At a shipyard on the North Sea, workers in luminiscent vests are building dozens of massive, hollow concrete boulders, each the size of an apartment block.

These are to be floated out to sea and sunk to become the foundations of a giant Belgian green energy development -- a world first -- which is itself, however, in choppy waters amid surging costs.

Named after Belgium's Princess Elisabeth, the "energy island" was launched in 2021 to support a huge expansion in wind energy production that would drastically reduce the country's dependence on planet-warming fossil fuels.

But supply chain snags have made costs more than triple to more than seven billion euros ($7.56 billion), according to some estimates, sparking calls for construction to be stopped at a time of growing political pushback against ambitious green targets across Europe.

"This cost increase is a huge worry," Belgium's energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten told AFP.

Just over 10 percent of Belgium's energy supply comes from renewable sources, the government says.

Nuclear, gas and oil provide the bulk of its needs, according to the International Energy Agency.

But Belgium will have to lower its dependence on fossil fuels as a European Union target requires 42.5 percent of the bloc's energy to be renewable by 2030.

"That's why we need transformative projects, huge projects like this," said Van der Straeten, sporting a yellow construction helmet during a visit to the shipyard in Vlissingen, a Dutch port near the Belgian coast.

- 'Multiple sockets' -

Belgium plans to install 3.5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in coming years -- enough to cover 30 percent of the country's needs, according to the government.

Building an artificial island is what Belgian grid operator Elia believes is the most efficient way of bringing that energy to shore.

Located 45 kilometres (28 miles) off the coast, the island will host transformers and bundle together undersea cables to bring electricity to land.

It will also connect the Belgian grid with wind-power-producing North Sea neighbours, such as Britain and Denmark, allowing for a more stable energy supply.

The island is like "an extension cord with multiple sockets", said Joannes Laveyne, a researcher at Ghent University.

Proponents say placing it at sea avoids Nimbyism -- "not in my backyard" -- complaints from locals in a densely populated nation, and shortens international connections. Proximity to wind farms reduces energy losses.

The project won the blessing of environmental groups appeased by its green purpose and nature-friendly design. The island will have ledges for seabirds to breed and an artificial reef to boost marine life.

But Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 threw a spanner in the works.

It triggered a European push to wean off Russian gas, which further accelerated the continent's rush to build more renewable plants.

The cost of related works and equipment has since skyrocketed, Elia said.

"In all countries people want to buy the same equipment, and supply can't meet demand," Frederic Dunon, CEO of Elia Transmission Belgium, told AFP.

- 'Throwing away the baby' -

From an initial 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion), the island's cost has soared to more than seven billion euros, according to an estimate cited in parliament last week that Elia would not confirm.

That is partly because the EU's green drive has not seen adequate investment in the capacity of firms tasked with building the infrastructure, said Laveyne.

As Elia can pass the cost onto consumers via their utility bills, some have called for a rethink.

A group representing industrial energy consumers said the project should be put on hold.

The controversy comes as far-right gains in several countries have resulted in growing calls for the EU to tame its climate ambitions.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to reconcile "climate protection with a prosperous economy" in her second term.

Van der Straeten said she would like to see the bloc make more money available for projects like the energy island -- which secured a 650-million-euro credit facility from the European Investment Bank last week.

Meanwhile, a cost-benefit assessment has started and the government was seeking additional financing, she added.

But environmentalists are worried that an incoming new government might have different ideas -- and delaying the project would keep the door open for dirtier energy.

Halting wind-power plans because of associated costs was like "throwing away the baby with the bathwater", said Almut Bonhage of environmental organisation Bond Beter Leefmilieu.

ub/raz/sco/tw
Earth is becoming ‘increasingly uninhabitable,’ scientists warn

Julia Musto
Tue 29 October 2024


Earth is becoming “increasingly uninhabitable” as the planet continues to warm due to climate change.

A group of 80 researchers from 45 countries is warning this week of global challenges driven by human-made emissions.

Those challenges include surging methane emission levels, continued air pollution, intense heat and humidity, increasing health risks exacerbated by climate extremes, concerns about global climate patterns, threats to biodiversity and the Amazon, impacts to infrastructure, and more.


“This report confirms that the world faces planetary scale challenges ... yet it also provides clear pathways and solutions, demonstrating that with urgent, decisive action, we still can avoid unmanageable outcomes,” the researchers wrote.

These findings, the 10 New Insights in Climate Change, are released annually by scientists at Future Earth, The Earth League, and the World Climate Research Programme. The group aims to provide timely insights to help policymakers and negotiators in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP.

The authors said that climate-warming is increasing natural methane emissions, making cuts to human emissions more urgent. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is emitted during the production of coal, natural, gas, and oil, and by the agriculture industry and landfills, is the second-largest contributor to climate warming after carbon dioxide. Methane levels are surging, driven primarily by human activities.

“We have enough information about our methane emissions to take action, but more enforceable policies to drive reductions are vital. While reductions in the fossil fuel and waste sectors are most feasible, addressing agricultural emissions is also critical,” the report noted.

The report said that reductions in air pollution have aided public health in several regions. But, at the same time, changes in the amount of airborne particles in the atmosphere have reduced the cooling effect these particles have on the climate. Some particles can reflect sunlight, helping to cool the atmosphere.

“Further reduction of anthropogenic aerosol emissions will reduce health impacts and directly save lives, and is beneficial for climate and the environment,” the report said. “It will, however, amplify climate warming, and can also strengthen precipitation change and extreme events in many regions.”

This could be Earth’s hottest year and increasingly warm and humid weather is making more of the planet unlivable, with 600 million people living outside habitable climatic conditions. With each degree of warming in the future, an estimated 10 percent of Earth’s population will join them. Those in the Global South are more exposed than others.


Three men inspect damage caused by flooding in Malaga, Spain, where heavy rain ripped through the region, sweeping away cars. Scientists say that increased episodes of extreme weather are likely tied to climate change ((AP Photo/Gregorio Marrero))

And, pregnant women, infants, and unborn children are also facing increased risks from climate extremes, like heat and flooding. Those living in high levels of poverty and “entrenched” gender norms that prevent women from changing practices that could expose them to those conditions are disproportionately affected.

In the Amazon, which has felt multiple climate extremes this year, biodiversity and the ecosystem have also suffered. The scientists note some areas are shifting “from carbon sinks to carbon sources,” with “far-reaching consequences” for both regional and global climate.

“Due to climate change, Amazon forests are approaching multiple thresholds (related to temperature, rainfall, and seasonality), beyond which significant ecological changes can be triggered, potentially leading to a large-scale forest collapse,” the report said.

A drone image shows a deforested plot of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest last August. Hundreds of millions of trees have been cut down in the country. Climate change could lead to a ‘large-scale forest collapse,’ scientists said (REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo)

The Amazon, which is home to billions of trees that absorb carbon dioxide, produces 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen. However, hundreds of millions have been cut down down to make room for cattle ranchers. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List said Monday that more than a third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction and the United Nations says species are disappearing 10 to 100 times faster than in the past 10 million years, with three-quarters of Earth’s land altered by humans.

The scientists say critical human infrastructure is also increasingly exposed and vulnerable to hazards, suggesting artificial intelligence could help enhance resilience.

Perhaps most worryingly, the scientists highlighted “heightened concerns” about large-scale ocean and atmosphere interactions, including concerns about more extreme and costly climate patterns and the collapse of a critical system of currents that circulates water within the Atlantic Ocean, bringing warm water north and cold water south.

Recently, scientists alerted that the circulation’s collapse could be much sooner than previously estimated, with “potentially catastrophic consequences” like widespread droughts, floods, and plummeting temperatures in Europe.

“The consequences for global climate, weather patterns, and human well-being would be severe,” the report said.