Into the great wide open: How steppe pastoralist groups formed and transformed over time

Genetic study of the wider Caucasus region shows how movement of people and innovation transfer enabled pastoralists to exploit the steppe zones of Eurasia

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

 

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Burial mounds are the most emblematic archaeological monuments of Bronze Age Eurasia. In the Caucasus Mountains, they were built up to great heights and mark the communication networks through which knowledge and innovations were transmitted.

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Credit: © Sabine Reinhold, DAI Eurasia-Department

The wider Caucasus region, between the Black and the Caspian Seas, connects Europe, the Near East and Asia. It displays a huge geographic, ecological, economic, cultural, and linguistic range today, from the steppe zone in the north, the Caucasus mountains in the center, to the highlands of today’s Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran in the south. This diversity was no different in the past, where the archaeological record attests to many different influences from many surrounding regions.

“It is precisely this interface of different eco-geographic features and archaeological cultures that makes the region so interesting to study”, explains Dr. Wolfgang Haak, senior author and principal investigator of the study. “By establishing a time series across many consecutive archaeological periods, we wanted to capture the time periods when, for example, the first farmers arrived in the region, or when the combination of new innovations in e.g., herd management, dairying, and mobility, enabled an autonomous nomadic lifestyle adapted to exploit the vast Eurasian steppe zone”.

The team observes an alternating series of interaction and gene flow between inhabitants of the major eco-geographic zones of the mountainous upland regions and the steppes to the north of the Caucasus. “Initially, we find two distinct genetic ancestries among the hunter-gatherer groups north and south of the Greater Caucasus”, adds lead author Ayshin Ghalichi, PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

This picture changed with the arrival of early farmers from northern Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC, which led to two initial processes of mixture: one between these early farmers farmers and Caucasus/Iranian hunter-gatherers, which formed the predominant ancestry south of the Caucasus mountains, and a second one between the aforementioned hunter-gatherer groups, which resulted in the ancestry profile in the steppe zone north of the Caucasus. During the following 5th and 4th millennium BC, Eneolithic cultures emerged in the river valleys of the North-Pontic steppe and became archaeologically visible as they built characteristic earthen burial mounds, known as ‘kurgans’. New Eneolithic groups arriving from the south led to a period of contact and exchange between both groups and resulted in the emergence of the Maykop culture phenomenon in the 4th millennium BC, which represents a horizon of technical and social innovations in archaeology.

Into the great wide open

“This is a peak time of knowledge and technology transfer in the North Caucasus region, when we see very similar cultural elements in genetically different groups, but also many signs of mixing and mingling”, explains Dr. Sabine Reinhold, co-lead author and principal investigator at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. “We uncover the moments when groups began to adapt their lifestyle to a more mobile economy, more suitable to the seemingly endless grasslands of Eurasia.” Indeed, the archaeological record attest to critical innovations in herd management, dairying practices, and mobility such as wheels and wagons, of mobile architecture, and the incipient horse domestication, besides many more. “The global dairy industry today is built on the back of these Bronze Age innovations,” says Prof. Christina Warinner, co-author and professor of anthropology at Harvard University. “They turned a somewhat niche practice into a multicontinental phenomenon.”

Durable foodstuffs such as the early forms of cheese, together with innovations in transportation, made it possible to populate the Eurasian steppe permanently and establish continent-wide networks of communication. The combination of innovations paved the way for a fully nomadic pastoralist life-style at the turn the 3rd millennium BC, practiced for instance by groups associated the Yamnaya cultural complex, which soon after expanded across the entire western steppe zone, as far as Mongolia in the east, and the Carpathian Basin in the west. Interestingly, it was also a time when Caucasus groups expanded to the south, such as the Kura-Araxes culture of Georgia, which extended to regions in east Anatolia, the Levante, and Iran, albeit with little or no connections to the steppe zone in the north.

The team also explored the social structure of prehistoric groups by analysing patterns of biological relatedness and consanguinity and found differences between the steppe and the Caucasus groups. The more stationary Caucasus groups showed higher levels of consanguinity and close connections between individuals buried in the same and/or nearby kurgans, whereas the steppe groups revealed very few of such connections, hinting at a different form of social organization of mobile pastoralist groups.

Dissolution and transformation

However, the turn to the 2nd millennium BC represents another period of interaction between the steppe and Caucasus populations. Triggered by a period of aridification and possibly over-exploitation of the ecologically fragile steppe environment and unreliable levels of precipitation, the steppe zone became largely depopulated. The archaeogenetic study finds clear evidence of assimilation and mixture of Caucasus groups, while the resulting Middle and Late Bronze Age groups retreated further into the Caucasus highlands where they established a sedentary mountain economy. This transformation also formed the cultural and genetic basis for the present-day populations of the North Caucasus.

“Our integrated study is a beautiful example of human resilience, adaptability and innovation in the light of ecological, economic and socio-political changes”, concludes Prof. Svend Hansen, director of the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute, and co-senior author of the study.

Sheep are essential to the prosperity of mobile livestock herders in the steppe. Secondary products such as milk and wool were already being used in the 4th millennium BC.

Credit

© Jana Eger, private

The first steps towards domesticating the horse were taken north of the Caucasus in the late 4th millennium BC. Using horses made it possible to roam greater areas and tend larger herds.

Credit

© Sabine Reinhold, DAI Eurasia-Department

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08113-5 

Article Title

The rise and transformation of Bronze Age pastoralists in the Caucasus

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2024

 

Ancient DNA brings to life history of the iconic aurochs, whose tale is intertwined with climate change and human culture

Trinity College Dublin

 

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An aurochs skull, from St Petersburg.

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Credit: Prof Dan Bradley, Trinity College Dublin.

Geneticists from Trinity College Dublin, together with an international team of researchers, have deciphered the prehistory of aurochs – the animals that were the focus of some of the most iconic early human art – by analysing 38 genomes harvested from bones dating across 50 millennia and stretching from Siberia to Britain. 

The aurochs roamed in Europe, Asia and Africa for hundreds of thousands of years. Adorned as paintings on many a cave wall, their domestication to create cattle gave us a harnessed source of muscle, meat and milk. Such was the influence of this domestication that today their descendants make up a third of the world’s mammalian biomass.

Dr Conor Rossi, Trinity, first author of the article that has just been published in leading international journal Nature Communications, said: “The aurochs went extinct approximately 400 years ago, which left much of their evolutionary history a mystery. However, through the sequencing of ancient DNA, we have gained detailed insight into the diversity that once thrived in the wild as well as enhanced our understanding of domestic cattle.” 

Although fossils of aurochs found in Europe date back 650,000 years ago, about the time archaic species of human appeared in the continent, animals from the east and west extremes of Eurasia share a much more recent common ancestry, pointing toward a replacement around 100,000 years ago, probably by migrations out of a southern Asian homeland. 

In an echo of human prehistory, this replacement was not complete, with traces of earlier ancestry surviving in European aurochs.

Dr Mikkel Sinding, co-author and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, said: “We normally think of the European aurochs as one common form or type, but our analyses suggest there were three distinct aurochs populations alone in Europe – a Western European, an Italian, and a Balkan. There was thus a greater diversity in the wild forms than we had ever imagined.”

Intriguingly, climate change also wrote its signature in aurochs genomes in two ways:

First, European and north Asian genomes separated and diverged at the beginning of the last ice age, around 100,000 years ago, and did not seem to mix until the world warmed up again at its end. And second, genome-estimated population sizes dropped in the glacial period, with a more pronounced hard time endured by European herds. These lost the most diversity when they retreated to separated refugia in southern parts of the continent before repopulating it again afterwards.

The most pronounced drop in genetic diversity occurs between the period when the aurochs of southwest Asia were domesticated in the north of the Fertile Crescent, just over 10,000 years ago, to give the first cattle.  Remarkably only a handful of maternal lineages (as seen via mitochondrial DNA which is handed down via mothers to their offspring) come through this process into the cattle gene pool.

“Although Caesar exaggerated when he said it was like an elephant, the wild ox must have been a highly dangerous beast and this hints that its first capture and taming must have happened with only a very few animals,” said Dan Bradley, Professor in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, who led the study.

“However, the narrow genetic base of the first cattle was augmented as they first travelled with their herders west, east and south. It is clear that there was early and pervasive mating with wild aurochs bulls, leaving a legacy of the four separate preglacial aurochs ancestries that persists among the domestic cattle of today.”

A Pleistocene aurochs from the Upper Rhine Valley, dated to around 50,000 years old.

Credit

Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08112-6 

Reversing environmental decline: Lessons from African communities

Stanford-led study analyzes how various African communities have attempted to reverse land degredation

Stanford University

 

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Collective potato harvesting in Senegal.

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Credit: Camille Jahel

In rural Africa, where livelihoods are often tied directly to the land, environmental degradation poses a critical threat to both ecosystems and people’s well-being. New research reveals ways to tackle the dual challenges of land degradation and poverty.

In rural Africa, where livelihoods are often tied directly to the land, environmental degradation poses a critical threat to both ecosystems and people’s well-being. A new study co-authored by researchers at Stanford University and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) analyzes how various African communities have attempted to reverse this trend and offers valuable insights into what works. The study, published Oct. 30  in Sustainability Science, emphasizes that long-term coalitions among local communities, governments, and organizations are essential to foster transitions to sustainability.

“Every place is different and one should avoid a ‘one size fits all approach’ to environmental policy, but we should also learn from past experiences to identify conditions that lead to success in turning around environmental degradation,” said study co-author Eric Lambin, the George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Reversing degradation
For decades, many African communities have faced the dual challenge of addressing environmental degradation while improving people’s livelihoods. As land becomes less productive due to low soil fertilization, deforestation, or climate change, the pressure on these communities intensifies. Lambin and study co-author Camille Jahel of CIRAD point out that, in many cases, this situation is inextricably linked to a history of colonialism in which authorities denied people’s rights to natural resources and broadcasted a narrative of overexploitation of natural resources. This led to top-down restoration efforts with often limited success, according to the researchers.

More recently, in many areas, new efforts have been made to reverse these negative trends, often with support from governments, NGOs, or international organizations. However, results have been mixed, with some initiatives leading to significant improvements, while others fell short.

After examining 17 cases representing various initiatives to reverse land degradation across 13 African countries, the researchers found that successful interventions typically share a few key characteristics. First and foremost, they often involve strong social arrangements between actors, supported by well-functioning institutions. In cases like the Shinyanga region of Tanzania, where 90% of the population was involved in reforestation efforts, the results were impressive. The region saw the restoration of 300,000 to 500,000 hectares, or about 1,100 to 1,900 square miles, of woodland, which enhanced livelihoods through the provision of resources like wood for fuel.

Another critical factor is the alignment of incentives with environmental goals. In Burkina Faso, for example, farmers began planting cashew trees, driven by the opportunity to sell their produce in international markets. This not only provided a new income stream but also helped to combat desertification as more trees were planted. These cases highlight the importance of ensuring that environmental restoration efforts also address the economic and social needs of communities.

“Incentives were mostly economic in nature, but some also concerned security of access to land or improved provision of ecosystem services following restoration of natural resources,” said Jahel, a research fellow at CIRAD. Jahel was funded by the Stanford France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies for a collaborative research project with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment while doing the research.

Supporting restoration
In addition to local coalitions, the study emphasizes the importance of external support, particularly in the form of resources and technical assistance. In many successful cases, such as in Niger and Burkina Faso, NGOs and government agencies provided the necessary tools, knowledge, and financial backing to get projects off the ground. This external support was often vital in the early stages of interventions, reducing the risk associated with the adoption of new practices in a context of resource scarcity and climate variability.

However, the study also cautions that external support needs to be carefully managed. In some cases, top-down approaches that didn’t fully engage local communities led to limited success or even failure. For example, in Zambia’s Kafue Flats, an intervention aimed at restoring wildlife populations ultimately failed partly because the new governance structures imposed by external actors were not accepted by the local community. This underscores the need for external agencies to work closely with local stakeholders and respect existing social and governance systems.

Lambin and Jahel emphasize the need to maintain momentum over the long term. Some of the interventions they studied showed positive results initially, only to falter as external funding dried up or local interest waned. The researchers highlight the importance of building long-term resilience into these projects, ensuring that local communities can continue to manage and sustain the improvements without ongoing external support. In Namibia, for example, some community organizations for wildlife management, known as conservancies, are now generating enough profit to sustain their activity over time.

By providing general lessons drawn from past experiences in Africa, this study can help improve the design, management, and monitoring of projects aimed at reversing land degradation and adoption of sustainable land use practices.

“It is possible to turn the tide on environmental decline,” Lambin said. “The key lies in creating long-term interventions that are locally driven [and] integrate poverty-related concerns, supported by strong governance structures and based on coalitions of actors.”

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Journal

Sustainability Science

Article Title

Reversing degradation of social-ecological systems: explaining the outcomes of interventions in Africa

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2024

 

Some wildfire suppressants contain heavy metals and could contaminate the environment

American Chemical Society

In fire-prone areas, water isn’t the only thing used to quell blazes. Wildland firefighters also apply chemical or synthetic suppressants. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters explored whether these suppressants could be a source of elevated metal levels sometimes found in waterways after wildfires are extinguished. Several products they investigated contained high levels of at least one metal, including chromium and cadmium, and could contribute to post-fire increases in the environment.

“Wildfires are associated with the release of toxic heavy metals to the environment, but until now, it was assumed that these metals came from natural sources like soil,” says Daniel McCurry, principal investigator of the study. “We now know that fire retardants may contribute to these metal releases.”

Wildfire suppressant products, which are intended to inhibit fire activity before and after water evaporates, include fire retardants, water enhancers and foams. As wildfires have become more frequent and severe, larger volumes of water along with chemical and synthetic suppressants — sprayed from the ground and dropped from planes — have been required to extinguish them. Although manufacturers identify most of the active ingredients in suppressants, some components are proprietary. In addition, previous researchers have observed increased concentrations of potentially toxic metals in soil and streams after wildfires. So, McCurry and colleagues at the University of Southern California wondered if the suppressants contain metals and could contaminate the environment.

The researchers tested samples from 14 fire suppression products sold by commercial retailers. They analyzed samples for 10 metals that have known toxicity or are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Every product contained at least one metal with a concentration that exceeded the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level regulations for drinking water. In particular, the two suppression products classified as fire retardants contained eight metals (chromium, cadmium, arsenic, lead, vanadium, manganese, antimony and thallium) that greatly exceeded the EPA’s drinking water regulations. And one of the retardants exceeded California’s hazardous waste regulations for three of those metals. The researchers say these results indicate the potential for fire retardants to contaminate the aquatic environment and potentially drinking water, if these products enter bodies of waters.

From the volume of fire retardants dropped on wildfires in the U.S. between 2009 and 2021, the researchers determined that the total amount of metals applied was variable year to year but generally increased over time. And for one Southern California wildfire, they estimate that the increased concentration of cadmium in a nearby stream could be explained by 31% of the reported fire retardant used to contain the fire. They say these results show that fire suppression activities could contribute to elevated metal levels in the environment but that more work is needed to determine potential risks to human and environmental health.

The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and a University of Southern California Graduate School and Women in Science and Engineering Fellowship.

The paper’s abstract will be available on Oct. 30 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00727

###

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Article Title

Metals in Wildfire Suppressants

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2024

Toxic metals found in wildfire suppressants

New research estimates 850,000 pounds of heavy metals have been released into the environment in the Western US from 2009-2021

University of Southern California

A team of researchers from the USC Viterbi of School of Engineering’s Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have tested several wildfire suppressants, estimating in a paper in Environmental Science and Technology Letters, that these materials have released approximately 850,000 pounds of toxic metals into the environment in the Western United States from 2009-2021.

Previously, researchers in the field found increased concentrations of heavy metals in the local waterways following wildfires. The new paper by the researchers at USC Viterbi, might explain why.  The USC research team believes this to be the first paper to quantify environmental metal toxicity from fire suppression products.

Materials used to address wildfires including fire retardants, water enhancers and foams, all have to be approved by the U.S. Forest Service, says Daniel McCurry, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the corresponding author on the paper. McCurry explains that the Fire Service approves materials after they pass a series of evaluations including for effectiveness and corrosion potential (as the fire suppressant is held in metal tanks). However, says McCurry, the companies that produce the materials that extinguish fires are allowed to keep up to 20 percent of their product composition proprietary as long as the products pass Forest Service evaluation.

McCurry and co-authors PhD student Marella Schammel and undergraduate student Samantha Gold, purchased fire suppressant materials, and using an inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer quantified elements that are known contaminants:  vanadium, chromium, manganese, copper, arsenic, cadmium, antimony, barium, thallium and lead.  

They then, using their measured concentrations combined with publicly available data on suppressant application rates, estimated the quantity of heavy metals that have been dropped in the Western U.S. over the last decade.

The findings:

• In the fire suppressant products tested, at least 8 metals were present at concentrations above the USEPA drinking water maximum contaminant level
• Approximately 1 million gallons of retardant were dropped in intrusions that entered surface waters.
• Phos-Chek LC-95 W, a clear version of the pinkish-red material often seen in footage discharged from planes, was found to have the greatest concentrations of most heavy metals. (The researchers go so far to note that Phos-Chek LC-95W could even be classified as “hazardous waste according to federal and CA regulations”) “
• An estimated 380,000 kg or ~1 million pounds of heavy metals are believed to have been released into the environment in the Western U.S. from  2009-2021

The lead author of the study, Environmental Engineering  PhD student Marella Schammel said, “I think what surprised me most was the array of metals we found. Some of them make sense as they're used as corrosion inhibitors (chromium and cadmium) or are known contaminants in phosphate ores (arsenic, among others) used in the active ingredient of the retardant. But others, like vanadium - which there's a ton of in Phos-Chek - were definitely unexpected.”

Next steps:

The team plans to continue this research and to directly test soil and waterways prior to, and after wildfire season.

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Metals in Wildfire Suppressants

Article Publication Date

30-Oct-2024

UK

Northern slammed as 'unreliable' as bosses admit they use FAX MACHINES

9800 BAUD!

Paul Britton
Wed 30 October 2024 

-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Under-fire rail operator Northern was today accused of showing 'disregard to the travelling public' over its recent level of performance - as bosses admitted fax machines are still being used to communicate with staff.

Northern's chief operating officer, Matt Rice, said the 'tools' used to get messaging and information out to its train crews rely on fax machines.


The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said in response the north 'needs better than an unreliable, fax-driven railway in 2024'.

READ MORE: "You are frightened about coming out": The neighbours 'trapped' in their homes on a pitch black estate

The remarkable exchanges played out after Northern bosses were summoned to attend an emergency meeting of the Rail North Committee, which advises the board of Transport for the North on rail services, infrastructure improvements and all matters relating rail franchises and contract management.

Mr Burnham, who said 155 Northern trains were cancelled across Greater Manchester and the north on Wednesday morning, last week called Northern a 'part-time rail service' over its levels of recent cancellations.

The operator has been told to draw up a new improvement plan -Credit:IYA

Northern was issued with a 'breach notice' for unacceptable levels of performance in July 2024, the meeting heard. The 'contractual breach performance level' on cancellations by an operator is 7 per cent of services. But in Northern's case, from April 28 to July 20, levels of cancellations topped 10 per cent.

The notice required Northern to develop a formal action plan to drive-up its services, which was due to be presented to rail authorities this week. But after the meeting, Mr Burnham, who chairs the committee, told Northern to 'go back and interrogate every aspect of that plan' and draw up a new one.

Mr Burnham asked how it could 'possibly be the case in 2024' that fax machines were still being used.

"People will ask after decades of privatisation, where has the money gone?" he said.

"Where has the money gone in the rail industry given that we are still using 1980s technology to communicate. The north needs better better than an unreliable, fax-driven railway in 2024."

COO Mr Rice said: "It is our challenge to get rid of them - it's in our plans to get rid of them. The tools we use to get messaging and information to our crew rely on faxes, amazingly. We will get there before we are forced to because fax technology, in telecoms terms, turns off."

Andy Burnham -Credit:Getty Images

"People will say, how come we have had three decades of privatisation when money was being poured into the railway and you are still communicating by fax machines in 2024?" added the mayor.

Mr Rice responded: "I think it's a very fair question. Our job is to get rid of them. Our job is to unleash the full potential of emerging technology."

But Mr Burnham said it showed to him that Northern's modernisation plan, like its training plan, was moving 'nowhere near fast enough'. He said: "You could get rid of this stuff tomorrow and put in place IT to support means to communicate differently and I don't understand why you are not doing that - hence we get the late cancellations on a Friday evening.

"If you had speeded up the process, surely we should be able to get earlier notice to the public. So it just looks like a disregard to the travelling public. The railway industry will get round to it when it gets round to it - when the faxes arrive. That's how it will come over."

Managing director Tricia Williams said Northern wouldn't be able to get rid of the fax machines 'tomorrow' without agreement from trade unions - a claim queried by councillors on the committee.

She said: "We have to look at these issues with the depth and complexity they have and the historical issues that we absolutely are going to address. It isn't as simple as turning them off tomorrow because at the moment we have an agreement to use the processes that we have and in order to change that, we do have to change the agreement."

Both Northern bosses apologised for the recent levels of performance, admitting the 'service is not where we want it to be'. They said they were 'acutely aware' of the impact on commuters and pointed to 'historic and complex issues'.

There's a long-standing issue of Sundays not being in the working week in the region. As a result, Northern has been cancelling services in advance ahead of each Sunday. Northern also doesn't have a Rest Day Working (RDW) agreement in place, where train crew can volunteer to work their rest days.

Manchester Victoria -Credit:Adam Vaughan

Levels of staff sickness are also said to be 'significantly higher than pre-Covid levels' and some trains are being cancelled because of double the normal levels of outstanding training for train crew.

Northern, however, was also blasted for issuing 'do not travel' notices on Sundays without having replacement buses in place.

Mr Burnham proposed to make representations to the Government and the Treasury to get a rest day working agreement in place and get a plan for Sundays in place. He said it was of 'critical importance' in the run up to Christmas.

He said the patience of the public was 'wearing very thin or has gone altogether' - a fact he said has meant more people are opting to drive rather than try to take a train.

"In short, we need a new plan from you, and it needs to be much better than what we have seen so far," he told Northern.

"We do ask you to go back and interrogate every aspect of that plan and make sure that what you return to us is the very best that you can do for people who have struggled with an under-performing Northern railway for quite a series amount of time."

A further meeting will be held on November.

Trump’s mass deportation plan would be ‘economic disaster’ for US

Donald Trump plans to carry out ‘the largest deportation operation in American history’.

YOU NEVER SEE WHITE FOLKS IN THE FIELDS

Edward Helmore
Wed 30 October 2024

THE GUARDIAN

If elected, Donald Trump plans to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history”. After pushback on Joe Biden’s border policies, Kamala Harris has embraced border restrictions and the need to maintain limits on asylum seekers. But neither candidate captures the realities of US immigration.

US consumers are accustomed to cheap goods and services, and the economic rationale for large-scale immigration has been largely avoided. In a country that relies on a mobile, low-cost workforce, the loss of migrant workers would trigger productivity losses and a new round of inflationary pricing pressure.

“It would be an economic disaster for America and Americans,” says Zeke Hernandez, an economics professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, of Trump’s deportations threat. “It’s not just the immigrants would be harmed, but we, the people of America, would be economically harmed.”

Baby boomers are retiring, and with fewer immigrants, the workforce will struggle to sustain economic output: US employers will need to hire 240,000 people a month for the next five years just to replace those who are stepping out, according to one recent study.

Hernandez, author of a recent book, The Truth About Immigration, argues that immigrants contribute talent, investment, innovation, consumption and tax revenue. “If you lose those things, there are fewer jobs, the economy contracts and becomes less diversified.”

Of the undocumented migrants, between 8 and 9 million are in the workforce doing essential jobs that Americans disproportionately don’t want to do or work in sectors where there aren’t enough workers.

Typically, that’s farm work (one third of the labor force), construction work (about one quarter) and about half of the labor force in skilled work like drywalling, plumbing and insulation.

“Undocumented immigrants make up a huge proportion of household services, manufacturing work, kitchen staff in restaurants. Americans simply do not do those jobs, or there are not enough to go around. But if you lose those key ‘bottleneck’ workers, the native workforce also can’t do their jobs,” says Hernandez.

A study by the Center for Migration Studies estimates undocumented workers contribute $97bn in federal, state and local taxes, their removal from the workforce would have a substantial impact on local economies, including pushing nearly 10 million US citizens into economic hardship.

Families would also be profoundly impacted. About 5.8m US households are home to at least one undocumented resident and mass deportations would break up nearly 5m US families. The cost of bringing up US-born children whose caregivers are removed has been put at $116bn.

Taxpayers would have to foot the bill. Apprehending and deporting just 1 million of an estimated 11 million-12 million undocumented migrants in the US could cost taxpayers about $20bn, or $19,599 per person, according to a CBS News analysis of federal data – and take far longer than the term of a four-year Trump administration.

Business leaders have been fairly quiet on Trump’s plans – possibly fearing retribution – but some lobby groups have begun to tally the costs of mass deportation. The construction sector employs an estimated 1.5 million undocumented workers, or 13% of its total workforce – a larger share than any other, according to data the Pew Research Center.

Construction firms, already facing labor shortages, are warning that the loss of immigrant workers would push new home prices higher. The National Association of Home Builders considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor”.

The CEO of the NAHB, Jim Tobin, told NBC that their loss would be “detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems”.

The Business Roundtable notes that “immigrants have always been a key part of America’s innovative spirit. A vast majority of economists and business leaders agree that immigration is a net positive for the US economy” but says “the system for welcoming these highly valuable workers is broken”.

A 2023 study of previous efforts at mass deportation, such as President Barack Obama’s Secure Communities program from 2008 to 2014 that resulted in the deportation of almost half a million people, found that any benefits from reduced job competition that US-born workers face were counteracted by a decline in labor demand due to an increase in labor costs.

“Police-based enforcement policies aimed at reducing the number of undocumented immigrants should consider the potential negative spillover effects on the labor market outcomes of immigrants who remain in the US and on US-born workers,” a University of Denver study concluded.

The same effect was seen during the Trump and Biden administrations when the Covid pandemic caused about a million fewer immigrants to enter the US leading to labor shortages and reduced output, and contributing to inflationary pressure.

The post-pandemic spike in immigration contributed to inflation coming down, according to Hernandez. “Immigration allowed business to hire again and raise output to what the market demands, so prices normalized,” he says.

Nevertheless opponents of immigration have been “very effective at flooding the zone with false or dubious claims”, said Hernandez.

Biden’s policies, which Harris is now walking back, have created complications for the Latino communities in the US, resulting in declining support for Democrats and a frantic late-campaign effort to shore up their votes. In 2012, Latino support for Obama was at 71%. Eight years later Biden won 62%. A recent Times/Siena poll found Harris with 56%.

According to Ana Valdez, president and CEO of the Latino Donor Collaborative, says the negative myths around Latino immigration are just “pure rhetoric … Trump knows that most of the workforce the US needs to continue growing comes from Latinos.”

Valdez cites labor department statistics that show Latino workers in the labor force have grown from 10.7 million in 1990 to 29 million in 2020, and are projected to reach 36 million in 2030. In 2030, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects they will account for one out of every five workers in the labor force, at 21.2%, or or 78% of net new workers by 2030.

Without those immigrant workers, the change in the standard of living for the middle class would be much more dramatic, Valdez says. “The reason we have avocados or chicken to choose from every day is because of immigration.”

Valdez, who worked in the Clinton administration, cites figure that show US Latinos generate $3.6tn in GDP and says the political discourse around the issue by both parties has equated all Latinos to undocumented immigrants and does not reflect the economic, data-backed reality.

“If Trump and Harris want to win the Latino vote, and if the winner wants to keep our support once they’re in office, they need to change their perspective and messaging to Latinos and recognize the full scope of our economic contributions,” she says. “Not doing so is reckless for their campaigns and the US economy.”

Cats basically are liquid after all – pet owners already know that

Vishwam Sankaran
Wed 30 October 2024 

Cats are able to utilise an unusual awareness of their own body shape and size to fit into the tightest of spaces, scientists say, after conducting a study into how felines are effectively able to behave like liquid.

Several animals are known to make decisions about their passability through spaces based on knowledge of their size and shape.

But the role played by this self-awareness in allowing cats to fit into spaces hasn’t been tested before, animal behaviour scientist Peter Pongracz from Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University said.

African black-footed cat (Cleveland Zoo)

Cats show a remarkable range of cognitive abilities. They follow human signals to find food, for example, respond to cues and act on cat-directed speech.

In his new study, published in the journal iScience, Dr Pongracz assessed how 30 cats fit into incrementally decreasing openings that had either the same height or the same width.

He used a similar setup to the one employed recently to test this behaviour in dogs.

“While dogs slowed down and hesitated before they attempted to use an uncomfortably small opening, in the case of cats we did not detect this change in their behaviour before their attempt to go through even the narrowest openings,” he said.

The cats “jumping over” was considered as their refusal to use the opening.

Girl carries kitten in a fishbowl (AFP via Getty)

The cats did, however, slow down before passing through the shortest of the narrow openings. The felines seemed to assess their own anatomical features, following a cautious strategy when navigating these spaces. They also readily opted for a trial-and-error method to negotiate narrow apertures.

“Cats probably did not make detectable a priori size-based decisions when they approached narrow but comfortably tall openings, even if these were narrower than the chest width of the cat,” Dr Pongracz said.

In the case of the smallest, uncomfortably short opening, the cats seemed to rely on their “body-size representing capacity” to go through, the ethologist noted.

As the openings became shorter than their height at the withers, the cats hesitated approaching them.

“This indicates that for cats, the vertical and horizontal dimensions of an aperture represent different importance,” Dr Pongracz said.

“Cats are almost liquid! Cats selectively rely on body size awareness when negotiating short openings.”

The study raises several questions, such as why cats choose a trial-and-error strategy for tall but narrow apertures. It’s also unknown why they hesitate and seemingly rely on their body-size awareness to navigate the shortest openings.

The research also puts in doubt the assumption that cats may slow down to use their whiskers to assess the suitability of the narrowest openings.

Dr Pongracz hopes to test further whether cats rely on other forms of body awareness like their weight in similar challenging spatial tasks.


Enjoy these pictures of black cats in honour of their national day

Alex Cooper
Mon 28 October 2024

Moon (Image: Debbie Harrison)

To celebrate National Black Cat Day, we asked for pictures of your feline friends.

National Black Cat Day took place on Sunday October 27, and we had hundreds of submissions to our Facebook post.

Scroll through the gallery above for a selection of the Island's black cats, laying on sofas, behind plants and in cardboard boxes!

To see more, go to our Facebook page!

CAPITALI$M IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

Greenhouse Gases hit New Record Highs in 2023: UN

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, locking in future temperature increases for years to come, the United Nations warned on Monday.

Publish Date: 28/10/24 13:33


Levels of the three main greenhouse gases, the climate-warming carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all increased yet again last year, the U.N.'s weather and climate agency said.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, up more than 10 percent in two decades.

The WMO's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin comes ahead of the Nov. 11-22 COP29 U.N. climate summit in Baku.

"Another year. Another record. This should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers," WMO chief Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

"We are clearly off track to meet the Paris Agreement goal."

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900, and 1.5C if possible.

As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.

Last year, global temperatures on land and sea were "the highest in records dating as far back as 1850," it said.

Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.

In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.

That marks hikes of 151 percent, 265 percent and 125 percent of the pre-industrial levels before 1750.

"These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet," said Saulo.

Carbon cuts 'miles short' of 2030 goal: UN
Robin MILLARD
Mon 28 October 2024 at 9:47 am GMT-6·3-min read


Emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, have continued a relentless rise in recent years 

(GEORGE FREY/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/Getty Images via AFP)

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, the UN warned on Monday, with countries falling "miles short" of what is needed to curb devastating global warming.

Levels of the three main greenhouse gases -- heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide -- all increased yet again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nation's weather and climate agency.

Emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, have continued a relentless rise in recent years, even as rising temperatures unleash increasingly damaging and costly extreme weather across the globe.

A separate report by UN climate change found that barely a dent is being made in the 43 percent emissions cut needed by 2030 to avert the worst of global warming.

Action as it stands would only lead to a 2.6 percent reduction this decade from 2019 levels.

"Current national climate plans fall miles short of what's needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country," said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.

The two reports come just weeks before the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, and as nations prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.

"Bolder" plans to slash the pollution that drives warming will now have to be drawn up, Stiell said, calling for the end of "the era of inadequacy".

- 'Trainwreck' -

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.

But so far their actions have failed to meet that challenge.

Existing national commitments would see 51.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases emitted in 2030 -- levels that would "guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception," Stiell said.

Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere "faster than at any time during human existence", up more than 10 percent in two decades, the WMO said. The current atmospheric CO2 level was 51 percent above that of the pre-industrial era.

As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.

Last year temperatures on land and sea were the highest in records dating as far back as 1850, it added.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world was "clearly off track" to meet the Paris Agreement goal, adding that record greenhouse gas concentrations "should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers".

- Climate 'feedbacks' -

The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10 to 20 metres (65 feet) higher than now, it said.

Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.

Just under half of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest are absorbed by the ocean and land ecosystems.

Climate change itself could soon "cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases", WMO deputy chief Ko Barrett warned.

"Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.

"These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society."

In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.

CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the warming effect on the climate.

Barret said much of the world's warming trajectory hinges on how fast the world can transition to a low fossil fuel economy.

"The question is to what degree will we see that manifest at COP29 in action," Barrett added.


UN warns carbon cuts fall ‘miles short’ of what is needed to avoid devastating global warming

Rosie Frost
Mon 28 October 2024 


UN warns carbon cuts fall ‘miles short’ of what is needed to avoid devastating global warming

Greenhouse gas levels surged to record highs in 2023, committing the planet to rising temperatures for years to come, the UN’s weather monitoring body said on Monday.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO’s) greenhouse gas bulletin, carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence. Concentrations have risen by 11.4 per cent in just two decades.

The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in 2023 was higher than that seen in 2022 though lower than the three years before that. It was the second-largest annual rise of the last decade. Large forest fires and a possible reduction in the carbon absorbed by forests combined with stubbornly high CO2 emissions from human activity fueled the increase.

The WMO says globally averaged surface concentrations of the greenhouse gasses CO2, methane and nitrous oxide all increased in 2023. CO2 concentrations reached 151 per cent of pre-industrial levels, methane 265 per cent and nitrous oxide 125 per cent.

The news comes ahead of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan next month. WMO secretary-general Celest Saulo says it should “set alarm bells ringing” for decision-makers.

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“We are clearly off track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

“These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet.”
National climate plans fall ‘far short’ of necessary emissions cuts

On Monday, the UN also published a separate report taking stock of countries’ current nationally determined contributions or NDCs.

It found that national policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions fall significantly short of what is needed to limit catastrophic global warming.

To stay within the Paris Agreement target to limit warming to 1.5C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says emissions need to be cut by 43 per cent by 2030.

Current policies would see global emissions cut by 51.5 gigatonnes of CO2 by the end of the decade - just 2.6 per cent lower than what they were in 2019.


Current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.

As counties work on new, stronger NDCs, which are due in February next year, the report shows marginal progress has been made from last year with pledges falling far short of what is needed. It puts increasing pressure on world leaders to make ambitious progress at COP29 in Baku this November.

“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising - current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” says Simon Stiell, UNFCCC executive secretary.

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“By contrast, much bolder new national climate plans can not only avert climate chaos - done well, they can be transformational for people and prosperity in every nation.”

Stiell added that the report’s findings should mark a “turning point”, serving as a “blunt reminder of why COP29 must stand and deliver”.

It comes after a stark warning last week from the UN Environment Programme, which said the chances of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels were "virtually zero".