Noise pollution is killing whales, but this technology could help

Written by Nell Lewis; video by John Lewis, CNN
Published 4:27 AM EDT, Mon September 26, 2022


Carlos Echavarria / MERI Foundation
In the Gulf of Corcovado, off southern Chile, whales are abundant. Nine species can be found in these waters, and it's one of the largest feeding grounds in the southern hemisphere for the endangered blue whale (pictured).

CNN —

In the ocean, where light only penetrates a few hundred feet underwater, animals depend on sound to locate food, navigate and to communicate with each other.

But even well into the last century, humans were unaware of the soundscape beneath the waves. Unable to hear the low frequencies that travel furthest underwater, explorers and scientists believed the ocean was a “silent world,” according to French bioacoustics expert Michel André.

“We (humans) ignored this acoustic dimension,” he says. “We contaminated the ocean with sound, without even having the first idea that this could have damaged it.”

In recent decades, the ocean’s depths have become noisier, with the rumble of ship engines, the intense pings of military sonar and seismic blasts used to locate oil and gas deposits. This cacophony of human-made sound is drowning out marine life’s natural chatter, and the impact is life-threatening.

Mammals such as whales have become isolated from their mates, their migration routes have been disrupted, and in some cases noise pollution has caused permanent hearing loss, which can be fatal

.

The tail of a blue whale flicks above the water in the Gulf of Corcovado, Chile.

Alex Machuca / MERI Foundation

“Sound is life in the ocean,” says André. “If we pollute this channel of communication … we are condemning the ocean to irreversible change.”

André and other scientists believe that increased noise pollution has led to more collisions between ships and whales, as the ocean giants – which use echolocation or biological sonar to “see” objects – can struggle to locate a vessel over the constant din, while some individuals have become so deaf they cannot hear the approaching danger. Since 2007, the International Whaling Commission has logged at least 1,200 collisions between ships and whales globally, but many more are likely to have gone unnoticed.
Safe and quiet

Technology that uses acoustics to detect the presence of whales in shipping lanes could help to avert these collisions. André and his team at the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics in Barcelona have developed software called Listen to the Deep Ocean Environment (LIDO), which monitors acoustic sources in real time and uses artificial intelligence to identify them.

In October, a two-meter-long buoy equipped with this technology and other sensors will be dropped into the Gulf of Corcovado, off the coast of Chile, an area busy with both whales and ships. Using LIDO, it will be able to detect whales within at least a 10-kilometer radius and automatically send an alert to Chile’s navy, which will in turn send a message to nearby vessels, encouraging them to change course or reduce their speed. Ship engines make less noise at lower speeds, which makes it easier for whales to home in on their location.

The buoy will be the first of a wider network deployed as part of the Blue Boat Initiative, a program founded in 2020 by MERI Foundation, a scientific research organization based in Chile. The long-term goal is to have these kinds of buoys running along the coast of South America and beyond, providing a safe passage for migrating whales and other marine species, says Sonia Español-Jiménez, MERI’s executive director.

The Gulf of Corcovado was an obvious place to start. The body of water, which stretches more than 50 kilometers between Chiloé Island and the mainland of southern Chile, is a hotspot for whales – home to nine species – and the largest feeding ground in the southern hemisphere for the endangered blue whale.

But the area is also subject to intense marine traffic, with many vessels belonging to the salmon farming industry. However, research in the US has shown that reducing ship speed is a simple and cost-effective method for avoiding collisions with whales.

The noise from ship engines can disorientate whales, which rely on sound to navigate.

Daniel Casado / MERI Foundation

In May 2021, after a run of deadly collisions on Chile’s coastline, more than 60 Chilean scientists made a plea to the government to reroute ships from sensitive regions, set speed limits in certain shipping lanes and establish an alert system to warn vessel pilots.

Susannah Buchan, an associate researcher at the University of Concepción in Chile, was one of the signatories and is currently working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) on adapting a similar acoustic alert system for Chilean waters. WHOI technology has already deployed in the Santa Barbara Channel, off the coast of California, and off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.

While she sees “great potential in acoustic alert systems,” Buchan says it is important that they are fully validated in scientific literature and by a peer-review process. She also warns that acoustic alert systems are not a “silver bullet” that will end all ship strikes and must be complemented with other solutions such as slow-down zones.

Understanding the ocean

The acoustic buoys deployed as part of the Blue Boat Initiative will not only work as an early warning system for vessels but will also use sensors to gather data such as water temperature, pH, and oxygen levels, which can be used to study ocean health and the impact of climate change.

They could also be used to help monitor local whale populations. “Every whale has a unique sound,” explains Español-Jiménez, and the buoy’s LIDO technology can identify and classify four of the whale species found in the Corcovado Gulf from their song – humpbacks, blue whales, right whales and sei whales. She adds that as the buoys gather more data, LIDO can be trained to identify other marine species.

Together all this data can be used to inform government policy and action on marine conservation and climate change, she says.

Technology is transforming our understanding of the ocean, says André. “It has brought back this capacity to hear underwater and to listen to creatures underwater and understand the need for them to survive in this environment.”

A pioneer in bioacoustics, André’s work began in the 1990s, when he started investigating the cause of ship and whale collisions on a busy ferry route in the Canary Islands. His research found that whales’ exposure to noise was leading to “acoustic trauma,” with their inner ear receptors becoming severely damaged over time.

It was then that he had the idea to create an acoustic anti-collision system for whales, but the Blue Boat Initiative is the first time his technology will be implemented in the real world.

André would like to see it become more widespread, crossing countries and continents. “My hope is that we can replicate this effort along the Pacific coast so we can cover the tracks of these whales up to Alaska,” he says.

By providing tools to identify sources of sound and to monitor biodiversity, André believes that humans can reconnect with nature and help it recover: “If we find a way to monitor, to listen, and to understand the message from sound, then we have a way to understand the health status of the Earth.”

Technology that identifies whale species using sound is being deployed in the Pacific Ocean

Acoustic buoys will be moored in Chile as part of the Blue Boat Initiative and equipped with software that can identify and classify four species of whales. Press play to listen to their sounds.

Blue Whale

Humpback whale

Sei whale

Right whale

Source: MERI Foundation, Listen to the Deep

Graphic: Woojin Lee, CNN

Tasmania’s whale stranding: what caused it and can it be stopped in the future?

This part of the island is known as a ‘whale trap’ but using technology to prevent the events may interfere with the natural cycle

An arial view of some of almost 200 stranded whales that have died on

 Tasmania’s Ocean Beach near Macquarie Harbour. 

Photograph: Adam Reibel/AAP


Graham Readfearn
@readfearn

THE GUARDIAN, AUSTRALIA

Sat 24 Sep 2022 

A gruesome task remains for a rescue team responding to a mass stranding of pilot whales on Tasmania’s west coast – the gathering up and towing of about 200 huge carcasses out to the deep ocean.

That operation could take place on Sunday, after more than 30 of the whales – that are actually large oceanic dolphins – were successfully saved and taken back out to sea during three days of rescues this week.

The effort came almost two years to the day of Australia’s biggest cetacean stranding event involving 470 pilot whales at the same location.

So what might have caused this latest stranding, why is this place known as a “whale trap” and could anything be done about it – and should we even try?
Why is this part of Tasmania a whale-stranding hotspot?

Pilot whales are not well studied but are known to live in pods of 20 or 30 with females as leaders. Sometimes they form temporary “super pods” of up to 1,000 animals.

Tasmania is known to be a hotspot for strandings of cetaceans – whales and dolphins – and the area near Strahan’s Macquarie Harbour is particularly known for pilot whale strandings.

Prof Karen Stockin, an expert on cetacean strandings at Massey University in New Zealand, said nobody knows for sure why some become “whale traps” but it is likely to be a combination of prey, the shape of the coastline and the strength and speed of the tides.

“The tide comes in and out very quickly and you can get caught out,” she said. “If you’re a pilot whale foraging and are distracted, you can get caught. That’s why we refer to these places as whale traps.”


Whale strandings: what happens after they die and how do authorities safely dispose of them?

The deeper water where pilot whales live and feed – mostly on squid – is relatively close to the shore around Macquarie Harbour and the gradual sloping Ocean Beach could also be a natural hazard.

Dr Kris Carlyon, a wildlife biologist at the state’s marine conservation program, has been on the scene this week, as he was two years ago.

He said one theory was that the gentle sandy slope towards the shoreline could confuse the echolocation the pilot whales use to interpret their surroundings.

What caused this stranding?

Scientists have carried out necropsies of some animals on the beach, and tissue samples and stomach contents are also being analysed.

Carlyon said these tests were to rule out any possible unnatural causes, but so far results were suggesting a natural event.

“We may never know the exact cause, but we are starting to rule things out,” he said.

Previous research of the stomach contents of pilot whales stranded on Ocean Beach found they were eating a variety of squid.

Carlyon said it’s possible the prey may have been closer to the shore, drawing one or two members of the pod into the natural whale trap.

Stockin said it would be very difficult to know what drew the whales too close. But whether they were chasing prey or simply took a wrong turn, the social structure of the pod would likely have drawn even more animals in.

“What ties pilot whales together is that they have strong social bonds that last almost a lifetime with other whales in their group,” she said. “It’s an incredibly strong bond and if you have one lost or debilitated animal, there’s a risk others will try to help.”

Pilot whales can communicate through clicks and whistles, and Stockin said this can make rescuing them more difficult, as those still on shore can continually call to pod mates for help, forcing them to return.

At some mass strandings, Stockin said, if a female that is the pod’s matriarch is still alive but stranded, junior pod members could continually return.

She said the fact that this stranding took place two years to the day after the previous major event could suggest a link to a seasonal or cyclical marine heatwave “but there’s just not enough analysis of these events”.

“We need to remember: mass strandings are a natural phenomenon, but that is not to say there are not times when strandings occur that are human induced,” she said.
Could anything be done to stop this happening again?

Carlyon said the state’s marine conservation program had considered potential approaches to prevent strandings in the future, including using underwater sound or developing an early warning system.

“It’s the million-dollar question: what can we do to stop this happening in the future given we know this is a mass stranding hotspot?” he said. I don’t have a good answer, to be honest.”

So far, Carlyon said, “there’s nothing leaping out at us as a feasible option” but the program would “continue to look if emerging technology or ideas could help”.


Talking to whales: can AI bridge the chasm between our consciousness and other animals?


Stockin said acoustic pingers are sometimes used to deter some dolphins.

“But there’s a very fine line here,” she said. “We would not want to scare animals away from critical foraging habitat.”

She said in some places around the world, underwater acoustic monitoring is used to alert authorities to times when marine mammals are in coastal waters.

“Then you might have a higher chance of responding,” Stockin said. “But in our desire as humans to want to fix things, we have to remember that sometimes things are just part of the natural cycle.”

In some indigenous cultures, whale strandings have traditionally been seen as a blessing from the sea. Dead cetaceans are also a food source for coastal and ocean wildlife.

But it was understandable, Stockin said, that humans felt an affinity to cetaceans and wanted to help them – regardless of what caused their stranding.

“They’re not just charismatic megafauna; they have a critical role to play in our oceans,” she said.

“They have dialects in the way we have accents. Some can even use tools – bottlenose dolphins use sponges on their [nose] to protect themselves when they’re foraging. They have strong social bonds. We know we are dealing with a female-led society here.

“They’re complex social mammals like us.”

Profiting from poison: how the US lead industry knowingly created a water crisis

Advertisements and documents pushing for lead pipes. 

Composite: National Geographic Society Internet Archives, Alamy, Toxic Docs

The lead water crisis facing Chicago and many other US cities today has roots in a nearly century-old campaign to boost the lead industry’s sales

Revealed: the ‘shocking’ levels of toxic lead in Chicago tap water

Erin McCormick and Aliya Uteuova

THE GUARDIAN

Thu 22 Sep 2022 

LONG  READ 

The year was 1933 and, to a group of industrialists gathered in a New York City lunch club, it seemed like the lead industry was doomed.

The women’s pages of newspapers were filled with stories about children being poisoned by the metal, which had been identified as dangerous as early as the mid-1800s. And cities around America had started banning the use of lead pipes for drinking water.

Lead companies were looking for a way to keep their revenues flowing, but, as the secretary of the Lead Industries Association would warn them in a later report, lead poisoning was “taking money out of your pockets every day”.

So the Lead Industries Association, made up of all the major lead companies of the time, launched a two-pronged plan to revive the industry’s sales of lead pipe – a plan that is still threatening the health of millions of residents around the United States today, including in Chicago, where the industry’s tactics paid off spectacularly.



First, the association mounted an “intensive drive” to get cities to add requirements to their building codes saying that only lead pipes could be used to connect people’s homes to the water system. Secondly, it worked to convince plumbers to become lead advocates as well, urging them to keep cities dependent on complex lead work or risk losing their plumbing jobs to simple handymen.

The association hired two staff members to visit hundreds of city water departments and send out letters to thousands more – pushing the idea of making lead pipes mandatory in city codes. In addition, the association sent illustrated promotional materials to a list of 4,357 water departments and water companies in the US to encourage use of lead pipes.

“They had a big interest in selling this stuff and creating markets that were basically permanent,” said historian David Rosner, who co-authored a book with Gerald Markowitz on the lead industry’s tactics. He added: “They were really interested in making sure no bad news tarnished their product: bad news like ‘It’s killing kids’ or ‘It’s poisoning us’.”

Vintage advertisements for the National Lead Company and the Lead Sheet and Pipe Development Council. 

Photograph: National Geographic Society Internet Archives/ Alamy

Around the same time, the association sponsored university research to mount competing studies to those showing lead had dire effects on children’s brains and developing bodies. The staffers also worked to recruit plumbers, giving classes in leadwork for apprentices and hosting an exhibit seen by 30,000 plumbers who attended the national convention of master plumbers in Chicago in 1935.

Within six years, according to historical documents reviewed by the Guardian, the industry boasted of having succeeded in getting lead pipes required in the codes of two states and 33 major cities – from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Buffalo, New York, to Austin, Texas. In the meantime, plumbers associations in 14 states had pledged their allegiance to using lead pipes.

“In city after city, where the continued use of lead was threatened by the encroachment of substitutes, we succeeded in protecting our interests by having lead introduced to plumbing codes where it had previously been omitted,” wrote Felix E Wormser, the lead industry association’s secretary, in a report to the organization’s board of directors in 1935.

The degree to which this plan still haunts American cities is chilling.

In Chicago, city officials are just beginning to figure out how to deal with the dangers to drinking water: lead pipes feed water to 400,000 homes there and will take at least $8bn to get rid of. In Buffalo, community groups are fighting to stop a lead poisoning epidemic that has taken a toll on several generations of the mostly black children in the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Meanwhile the Biden administration has secured $15bn in federal money to remove the menace that still lies under the ground in every state in the nation – but that is still only a third of what will be needed.

“A lot of public money is going to be spent to deal with the lead in water issue, but so much of this really goes back to the lead industry’s attempts to sell lead pipes,” said Rick Rabin, a health activist who was among the first to write about this in a journal article.

In Chicago, the industry’s strategy translated into decades of delay in banning lead pipes.

Excerpt of a 1938 activities report from the January 1939 Lead Industries Association board of directors meeting. Composite: Toxic Docs

Just ask Julius Ballanco, a longtime Chicago plumbing engineer. When he got his first taste of the plumbing industry, as a teenager working in his father’s New Jersey plumbing business in the 1960s, lead was everywhere.

He remembers spending cold, rainy mornings sitting in a trench, breathing in the fumes from a pot of melting lead, which the plumbers of the time used for the painstaking job of soldering together lead or cast iron pipe.

“You’d come home and your hands would be shining because the lead got into your skin, giving us lead poisoning,” said Ballanco. “I often wonder if I’d be a little smarter today if I hadn’t had to deal with lead.”

After going to university to become a plumbing engineer, Ballanco moved to Chicago and learned just how entrenched the toxic metal had become in the city. He joined a national engineering organization trying to get lead requirements out of city building codes.

By then, the lead industry’s sales campaign had ended and most cities had long since banned lead pipes, recognizing the danger of childhood lead poisoning. But Chicago’s plumbers, according to news articles and accounts from the time, were still championing lead for its durability and bendable nature.

In Chicago, the city code still said in early 1986 that any pipe 2in or less in diameter connecting a home to the water system had to be lead – and plumbers fought to keep that rule in place for decades, news accounts suggest.

Back in the 1930s, the city had been the home base of the lead industry’s midwest campaign to promote lead pipe and its plumbers’ organizations became a forceful ally.

The Lead Industries Association had assigned field men to attend the national plumbing convention in Chicago with the goal of “arousing the master and journeyman plumbers to the danger to their own profession of turning away from lead”.

Excerpt from the October 1935 Lead Industries Association board of directors meeting. 

Composite: Toxic Docs

In return, Chicago plumbers enthusiastically promoted the industry – as was seen in an article written for the industry’s Lead magazine at the time.

“I am happy to say that the lead industry […] has cooperated fully with the plumber to strengthen and improve plumbing ordinances all over the country,” John J Calnan, a Chicago plumber, wrote in a piece for Lead magazine in 1934.

Within a few years, Lead magazine published an article commending Chicago city officials for allowing only lead service lines in the city’s code.

The support for lead lines was cemented in the 1950s, as the plumbers union became particularly powerful in the city, according to reporting by Chicago broadcaster WBEZ. The union’s leader, Stephen Bailey, marshaled hundreds of thousands of labor votes to help elect his boyhood friend, Mayor Richard J Daley, who remained in office until the mid-1970s.

This in turn was said to have given the plumbers sway over the city’s plumbing codes.

“As everybody in Chicago knows, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” John McHugh, a veteran Chicago journalist who authored a book on the Chicago plumbers, told reporter Monica Eng of WBEZ.

Legion of Honor members at the St Patrick’s Day Parade on State Street. Pictured, from left, are: Dan Ryan Jr, Robert Quinn, Mayor Richard J Daley, Stephen Bailey of the Plumbers Union and Monsignor Francis Byrne.

 Photograph: Courtesy of University of Illinois at Chicago. Library. Special Collections and University Archives Department (Richard J Daley Library)

Daley and Bailey could be seen marching arm in arm in Chicago’s St Patrick’s Day Parade, sponsored by the plumbers, who dye the city’s river shamrock green for the famous event every year.

In 1986, Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, tried to buck the union. He proposed taking the lead requirement out of the code, after hearing from the health department that 1,644 children in the city were suffering from high levels of lead in their blood.

By then every other major city in the nation had banned lead pipes and Ballanco’s engineering organization was urging Chicago to adopt a model city code that excluded lead as well.

But the plumbers’ union stood its ground and opposed the measure, and thus it failed to win approval from the city’s aldermen.

“Lead [pipes] have proven over a long time to do the job they were designed to do,” Jim McCarthy, the union’s business manager, told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “I’m hard-pressed to understand why people are talking about lead poisoning. We’ve had lead pipe in the water system here for 100 years.”

James Majerowicz, the current president of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers’ and Technical Engineers, local union 130, said he was involved with the plumbers back in 1986, but didn’t believe they opposed stopping the installation of lead pipes.

“I don’t remember the plumbers being opposed to it,” said Majerowicz. “I find that difficult to believe, because we’ve always been looking out for public safety and health.”

He said that today “we are 100% behind replacing lead services. It has been proven now that lead is not that good.”

But, according to Ballanco, until the federal government banned lead pipes in 1986, Chicago continued to install them. The city’s long delay in banning the pipes is why Chicago has more lead pipes than any other city in the nation.

“There’s still a lot of lead in Chicago,” said Ballanco, who has now founded his own engineering company and is still working to help Chicago get rid of the lead. “Does it hurt the children growing up? Sure, it does. Does it impact their mental capacity and decrease their ability? Yes, it does.”

Five hundred miles east in the rust belt city of Buffalo, community members are finally mobilizing to get rid of the lead pipes that the pitchmen of the Lead Industries Association once sold their city leaders.

An investigation by Reuters found the city has one of the worst lead poisoning problems in the nation – with more than 40% of children having elevated blood lead levels in some zip codes.

Not only did the Lead Industries Association boast to its membership about getting lead codified in Buffalo’s plumbing codes, it promoted the use of lead for federal public housing projects built in the city, too. The association’s Lead magazine published a 1939 article praising the federal government for using 20 tons of lead pipe and 40 tons of lead caulking in constructing two Buffalo housing projects, which were some of the first public housing in the nation where black residents were allowed.

“By the use of lead services for these projects, the authorities have taken a further judicious step toward assuring low maintenance cost,” said the article, which argued lead was the only material with all the characteristics to provide “adequate health protection” and urged more use of lead in constructing public housing.

Stephanie Simeon is fighting the effects of all that lead every day, not only as a community organizer in Buffalo, but as a mom.

As the executive director of the Buffalo non-profit Heart of the City Neighborhoods, Simeon is leading a campaign to help the city raise the funds and spur the community engagement needed to get rid of its buried lead pipes. Her adopted daughter, now 11, suffered lead poisoning as a baby and is now struggling to overcome a host of developmental delays.

“Our kids are having low educational attainment and our schools have high rates of suspension,” she said, noting that lead has been linked to learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children. “We can do better than this. This is one of the richest nations in the world.”

When the Guardian shared documents with her showing how the lead industry once pushed to get its product written into Buffalo’s city code, she was outraged.

“It’s disgusting,” said Simeon, who said industry should have to pay for the lasting damage to children done by its profiteering.

But legal efforts to hold the industry accountable for lead poisoning caused by paint and leaded gasoline, which were both promoted by the Lead Industries Association as well, have mostly faltered. The association itself went bankrupt in 2002, saying it could not afford insurance to fight off lawsuits.

“It was profit over people,” said Simeon. “Now we’re paying for it.”

China declares water supply 'red alert' for biggest lake as long drought lingers

An aerial view shows a tributary stream running through the dried-up flats of Poyang Lake that stands at record-low water levels as the region experiences a drought, outside Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China on Aug 28, 2022.

23 Sep 2022

SHANGHAI: The central Chinese province of Jiangxi has declared a water supply "red alert" for the first time after the Poyang freshwater lake, the country's biggest, dwindled to a record low, the Jiangxi government said on Friday (Sep 23).

The Poyang Lake, normally a vital flood outlet for the Yangtze, China's longest river, has been suffering from drought since June, with water levels at a key monitoring spot falling from 19.43m to 7.1m over the last three months

The Jiangxi Water Monitoring Centre said Poyang's water levels would fall even further in coming days, with rainfall still minimal. Precipitation since July is 60 per cent lower than a year earlier, it said.

As many as 267 weather stations across China reported record temperatures in August, and a long dry spell across the Yangtze river basin severely curtailed hydropower output and damaged crop growth ahead of the autumn harvest.

An aerial view shows a dried up fish habitat experimentation farm at Poyang Lake that stands at record-low water levels as the region experiences a drought, outside Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China on Aug 26, 2022. 

Related:

Receding water levels of China's Yangtze reveal ancient Buddhist statues

In pictures: China hit by drought as record heatwave continues

Though heavy rain has relieved the drought in much of southwest China, central regions continue to suffer, with extremely dry conditions now stretching more than 70 days in Jiangxi.

A total of 10 reservoirs in neighbouring Anhui province have fallen below the "dead pool" level, meaning they are unable to discharge water downstream, the local water bureau said earlier this week.

State weather forecasters said this week that drought conditions still prevailed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, and efforts were required to seed clouds and divert water from elsewhere.

Pope calls for courage in halting use of fossil fuels to protect planet

Pontiff tells young people he is pinning his hopes on their efforts to safeguard environment and help the poor

Pope Francis delivering his address in Assisi, Italy. 

Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images

Associated Press in Assisi

Sat 24 Sep 2022 17.41 BST

Pope Francis has called for courage in abandoning fossil fuels and lamented that older generations did not know how to protect the planet and secure peace.

The pope, who was visiting Assisi, the birthplace of his namesake saint who was close to nature, told young people on Saturday that he was pinning his hopes on their efforts in working to save the planet and to make the world’s economy more attentive to the poor.

During his brief visit to the hill town in central Italy, Francis spoke to a gathering of 1,000 young people, some of them young economists. Others are involved in efforts, including start-ups, focused on helping the environment.

The participants came from all over the world. Among them was a woman who recounted to the pope how she and her husband were helped to flee Afghanistan after the takeover of the Taliban last year by an organisation called The Economy of Francis, which is inspired by the life of St Francis, with his attention to the poor and others in need.

The pope said a world economy is needed that expresses “a new vision of the environment and the Earth”.

“There are many people, businesses and institutions that are making an ecological conversion. We need to go forward on this road and do more,” Francis said.

The pontiff cited an urgent need to discuss models of development. “Now is the time for new courage in abandoning fossil fuels to accelerate the development of zero- or positive-impact sources of energy,” Francis said.

He told the young people: “Our generation has left you with a rich heritage, but we have not known how to protect the planet and are not securing peace.”

He lamented a lack of “creativity, optimism, enthusiasm”, and told young people that “we are grateful to God that you are here. Not only will you be there tomorrow, but you are here today.”

Pope Francis: Love for the poor and for the Earth must go hand in hand

Cindy Wooden - Catholic News Service

September 26, 2022

Pope Francis reacts as he attends a meeting in Assisi, Italy, Sept. 24, 2022. The pope led a meeting with young economists, entrepreneurs, financial advisers, scholars and scientists who have been working for two years on the Economy of Francesco project. 

(CNS photo/Remo Casilli, Reuters)

ROME (CNS) — Acknowledging how young people have been given a world marked by inequality, injustice, war and environmental degradation, Pope Francis urged those looking for solutions to be concrete, to involve the poor, to care for the Earth and to create jobs.

“Our generation has left you with a rich heritage, but we have not known how to protect the planet and are not securing peace,” Pope Francis told some 1,000 young adult economists, entrepreneurs, financial advisers, students, scholars and scientists from 120 countries at the closing session of the Economy of Francesco event in Assisi.

The gathering Sept. 22-24 originally was planned for March 2020 but was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the young people spent more than two years working online with older experts, studying agriculture and employment, peace and ecology and finance and development in the search for ways to make the economy better for more people and for the environment.

“Our generation has left you with a rich heritage, but we have not known how to protect the planet and are not securing peace.”

The project is named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, known for his love of the poor and of creation, and has been supported by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

At the end of the meeting, participants gave Pope Francis a pact, promising to work for “an economy of peace and not of war; an economy that counteracts the proliferation of weapons, especially the most destructive ones; an economy that cares for creation and does not plunder it; an economy at the service of the person, the family and life, respectful of every woman, man, child, the elderly and especially the frail and vulnerable.”

The pope encouraged the young people also to dedicate themselves to preserving and increasing their “spiritual capital,” the faith and values that will give meaning to their studies, their work and, especially, to their lives.

The pope encouraged the young people also to dedicate themselves to preserving and increasing their “spiritual capital.”

After all, he said, “human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, are seekers of meaning before being seekers of material goods,” but the modern world is losing sight of “this essential kind of capital, accumulated over centuries by religions, wise traditions and popular piety.”

Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, he said, a new economic model must be “an economy of friendship with the earth and an economy of peace. It is a question of transforming an economy that kills into an economy of life, in all its aspects.”

Love for the poor and for the Earth must go hand in hand, he said. But it will require sacrifice and radical change.

“The earth is burning today,” he said. “If we speak of ecological transition but remain in the economic paradigm of the 20th century, which plundered the earth and its natural resources, then the strategies we adopt will always be insufficient.”

“We human beings, in these last two centuries, have grown at the expense of the earth. We have often plundered to increase our own well-being, and not even the well-being of all.”

“We human beings, in these last two centuries, have grown at the expense of the earth. We have often plundered to increase our own well-being, and not even the well-being of all,” Pope Francis told the young people. “Now is the time for new courage in abandoning fossil fuels to accelerate the development of zero- or positive-impact sources of energy.”

When the pope arrived at the gathering, young adults from Italy, Benin, Argentina, Thailand, Kenya, Afghanistan and Poland shared their stories and projects — from creating farms and educating farmers in regenerative agriculture to creating small businesses or rallying other young people to convince companies to stop producing single-use plastic bottles and bags.

Andrea, a young Italian in jail for murder but given permission to attend the Assisi event, spoke about his digital marketing work through a prison-based cooperative, which provides remote workers for companies as well as a workshop for repairing espresso machines for coffee bars.

“People coming out of prison must be changed and transformed from a ‘cost item’ to a ‘resource’ for society.”

“I am not an economist, but it seems quite logical to me to think that prison, in order to be a good investment for society, must achieve concrete results, and these are basically two: security and zero recidivism,” Andrea said. “People coming out of prison must be changed and transformed from a ‘cost item’ to a ‘resource’ for society.”

Concluding his speech with a prayer, Pope Francis asked God to forgive the older generation “for having damaged the earth, for not having respected Indigenous cultures, for not having valued and loved the poorest of the poor, for having created wealth without communion.”


He prayed that the Holy Spirit would continue to inspire the young people and that God would “bless them in their undertakings, studies and dreams.”

“Support their longing for the good and for life, lift them up when facing disappointments due to bad examples, do not let them become discouraged but instead may they continue on their path,” the pope prayed. “You, whose only begotten Son became a carpenter, grant them the joy of transforming the world with love, ingenuity and hands.”

Listen: A young American economist speaks about The Economy of Francesco

   

Pope Francis Wants Us To Give Up on Fossil Fuels, Says Now's the Time for Eco-Conversion

25 Sep 2022,  ·
by Florin Amariei 

Back in 2019, Pope Francis intended to give young people who are ready to transform the economy a place to speak their minds, meet others with similar interests, and discuss various opportunities for a fossil fuel-free future. To turn this into reality, the Pontiff supported the creation of the Economy of Francesco (EoF). The name given to this event isn’t related to the Pope but to the Saint Francis of Assisi – the spiritual patron of the Italian city with the same name.

At the 2022 edition of EoF, young minds from various parts of the globe met in Italy to discuss environmental-related issues, achievements, and proposals. After listening to everyone, the Pope took the microphone and said some interesting things.

The Pontiff argued that the economy should be taken back to its roots, “to the work done by human beings.” This remark comes in contradiction with the industrial trend that replaces people with robots. But it is a valid statement – the more fairly-paid employees there are, the more money individuals and families will have.A greener future
But the most interesting part of the Pope’s statement revolves around the need to ditch fossil fuels. His Holiness said that the world should abandon polluters and concentrate on making energy that has no impact on the environment.

He also argued in favor of moving forward with “an ecological conversion” that should make businesses and people cut down on their carbon footprint and recycle more.

The Pope also admitted that his generation created a rich heritage for today’s youth, but they did not know how “to protect the planet and secure peace.”

But is the Pope right? Should we ditch fossil fuels for good? Let’s find out.Fossil fuels are bad, but we must not forget their role
Our world has been powered by fossil fuels for over a century, but the first time someone used coal as a source of energy can be dated back to over 4,000 years ago. People living in the area that’s China today noticed the black like-rock thing that burned easily and started using it. Some archaeologists even claim that cavemen used coal for heating without knowing what exactly it was. But during the 1200s, coal usage spread to Europe and other parts of the world.

However, people kept using coal to ease the process of making things out of metals. That is until the industrial revolution came around and the steam engine was created by James Watt. After the 1700s, coal remained an important resource for the British and helped them develop into an enormous empire.

The U.S. used coal as well. Americans made steel manufacturing easier thanks to coal and powered steam engines with it. But the first time coal was used for electricity can be dated back to the 1880s, according to a study published by the Department of Energy.

Coal isn’t the only fossil fuel we continue to use even today. Gas, natural gas, crude oil, kerosene, petroleum derivatives, and others like them are what made some countries more powerful and transformed our world. But coal was always at the epicenter of many health issues for humans. Burning coal leads to severe air pollution and has been known to cause heart problems, brain damage, asthma, and even cancer.Giving up on gas won’t be easy
Similarly, oil and its byproducts have caused many global concerns. On the one hand, producers and refiners have one of the largest carbon footprints worldwide and have been involved in catastrophic natural accidents like Kolva River Spill or the Atlantic Empress Spill when millions of gallons of oil have been into oceans. Most recently, whistleblowers revealed that “bilge dumping” is often happening in the seafaring industry, and toxic liquids are released into the world’s oceans by virtually any diesel-powered vessel.

On the other hand, gas, diesel, kerosene, and other oil byproducts keep us moving and our economies going. We rely heavily on having enough gallons of refined oil, and the best proof comes from this year’s problems – the current U.S. administration was forced to release millions of barrels from the strategic reserve to keep inflation from spiraling out of control.

Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk called twice on the governments to make sure oil prices aren’t going to be artificially increased by decreasing output.

And, on top of all this, automakers like Porsche or Mazda have been noticed on multiple occasions saying that internal combustion engine bans aren’t the right way to move forward. Now, with the price of electricity going up and an unstable international landscape, we can understand why the transition to greener sources of energy can’t happen at once. It’s impossible to do it without hurting many people in the process.

But we must move forward. Battery and fuel cell electric vehicles are the future. Transportation will have to be revamped and it must be among the first things that change because it accounts for 27% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In the EU, the European Environment Agency says road transport is responsible for 72% of the total transport greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, the Pope wants us to slowly give up on them all while the young build a new and healthy economy. Will EVs and renewable energy play a major role in this transition? We’ll see. What’s certain now is that a major change awaits us. If it’s going to be for the better, well… That’s up to everyone!

At the end of the day, Pope Francis is right – we must focus on a new, more sustainable, and fossil fuel-free economy. But in doing so, we must not forget who will be hurt by these changes.

Canada’s animal-welfare push is gathering steam. Here’s what’s on the agenda

A parliamentary bill named after Jane Goodall is just the tip of the iceberg; activists have a lot of changes they’d like to see come to Canada, from an end to chickens in cages to a new home for Kiska, the orca at Marineland.

By Elisa Birnbaum

Special to the Star
Sat., Sept. 24, 2022

Jane Goodall requires no introduction. And you need not be a heart-on-your-sleeve animal-rights activist to feel tremendous respect for the pioneering animal-behaviour expert and conservationist who gave us a firsthand look into the world of chimpanzees more than 60 years ago.

But for those working in animal welfare, the hope is her name will soon be associated with a groundbreaking law furthering animal rights in Canada.

Senate Bill S-241, also known as the Jane Goodall Act, is intended to protect a host of wild animals from suffering in captivity. Its passing into law could also serve as a testament to the burgeoning animal-rights movement in this country.

The bill was one of many legal developments on the agenda at the annual Canadian Animal Law Conference, which saw more than 200 attendees converge upon the University of Toronto last weekend. “We thought it was important for the community to share its wisdom,” said lawyer Camille Labchuk, executive director of event co-sponsor Animal Justice.

While the U.S. has been running a similar conference for 30 years, animal protection wasn’t even on the radar for the average person in Canada 15 years ago, added Labchuk. But today there’s palpable momentum, with animal welfare a concern for many.

Some believe climate change and the pursuit of a more sustainable lifestyle are encouraging greater compassion for animals. The surge in pet ownership may be a factor, too. Then there’s the growing call for transparency and ethical standards in the products we purchase, including the treatment of animals for consumption.

“Improving the rights and protection of animals is one of the new social justice challenges of our time,” Labchuk said. “We’re already seeing tremendous shifts in people’s attitudes, politicians taking issues more seriously, and people and consumers rising up, demanding better.”

Canada is starting to catch up, possibly even taking the lead in a couple of areas. The passing of Bill S-203 in 2019, for example, saw the end to the captivity of whales and dolphins (animals in concrete tanks don’t thrive as they do in the wild and live half as long, advocates say) and banning performances for entertainment.

In 2015, Ontario passed a law making it illegal to breed, purchase or sell orcas, a law that made it to the news again when Kiska — the last surviving orca at Ontario’s Marineland — was deemed to be suffering in isolation. The laws let Marineland keep the animals it already own, but many were calling for Kiska to be rehomed.

That’s where the proposed Whale Sanctuary Project in Nova Scotia may come in.

Expected to be the first permanent seaside sanctuary in the world for beluga whales and orcas, the sanctuary will offer a home to once-captive animals who are incapable of being released into the ocean for their own safety. With a space 300 times larger than the largest tank at SeaWorld, it will not only be “a place to live but a place to thrive,” according to Lori Marino, president of the project.

The hope is for the sanctuary to welcome its first residents in late 2023. As for who they expect to greet first, Marino is unequivocal. “We want Kiska there and we will fight hard to get her.”

Other legal developments in Canada include a bill to ban fur farming and the proposed Goodall Act mentioned above. If passed, it has the capacity to restrict the ownership of more than 800 species of wild animals in Canada who don’t do well in captivity, while effectively ending roadside zoos.

“It would go a long way to harmonizing national standards of animals in captivity,” said Labchuk.

The bill was first introduced in the Senate in 2020 by Murray Sinclair, formerly both a senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. He said he believed it would help rebalance the relationship with nature, integral to advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. A more comprehensive iteration of the bill — with the same mandate — was put forward by Sen. Marty Klyne this March.

Canada’s zoo industry has come under intense scrutiny. Many argue that confining certain animals in cages is both physically and psychologically harmful. Brittany Semeniuk, a veterinary nurse who specializes in emergency and exotic animal medicine, questioned whether accredited zoos are doing enough to care for their animals. The moose, for instance, is not meant to live in captivity, said Semeniuk, who has seen many suffer out of their natural ecosystem.

And then there are issues with roadside zoos. In May 2019, following a criminal investigation, animal protection officers from the Montreal SPCA seized over 200 animals from the Saint-Édouard Zoo in Quebec (after a protracted legal battle and pandemic delays, the number rose to 300-plus due to multiple births). In what was a first in Canadian history, the zoo owner was arrested and charged with animal cruelty and neglect.

“The current system in Quebec is broken,” said SPCA director of animal advocacy and legal affairs Sophie Gaillard. “Despite documenting years of offences, the government had grounds to act and power to seize, but they didn’t.” Instead, the zoo was reissued its licence. “It fell to us to intervene under the Criminal Code.”

When it comes to companion animals (i.e. pets), progressive legal developments include Ontario’s Animal Welfare Services Act of 2019 and the 2015 Quebec ruling that changed the status of animals to sentient beings from their prior status of property (a viewpoint shared by the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2021). That ruling can have real impact, as sentient beings are embodied with rights and standing that a kitchen table does not.

While family pets have their share of legal challenges, farm animals held court at the conference. For one thing, companion animals have better protections overall. For another, farm animals represent the largest group of animals used in Canadian society, with 851 million killed in 2021 alone. Most significantly, farm animals suffer the worst abuses, making their welfare front and centre.

On this front, our country is lagging behind. Case in point: Canada has the longest transport time in the developed world that animals can be on a truck without food, water, or rest. And while 10 U.S. states have adopted confinement bans (banning animals in cages), Canada has no such law.

In fact, there’s not one single law that regulates animals on farms. “We let the farming industry set its own standards for animal welfare,” said Labchuk. “We don’t oversee companies in industries that use animals, so they are left to their own devices and without government oversight.”

“It’s really regressive and, quite frankly, a national embarrassment,” said Jodi Lazare, assistant professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University who teaches animal law, among other courses. The animal agriculture industry is a huge force in Canada, she added, and despite “horrendous” farm conditions, “the industry has managed to convince the government to subsidize it in significant ways and immunize it from public scrutiny.”

To be sure, there have been slow, incremental commitments on the part of industry to improve conditions. Phasing out gestational crates for sows is one. Also, 100 food companies in Canada have committed to phasing out cages for egg-laying hens (more than 2,300 companies have cage-free commitments across the world).


But Canada needs to do more, said PJ Nyman of Mercy for Animals, an international non-profit with a mission of ending industrial animal agriculture through sustainable food systems. In 2021, the organization launched the first Canadian report to rank food companies on their animal-welfare progress. It found that 83 per cent of laying hens in Canada were still in cages in 2021, compared to 35 per cent in the U.K. and 71 per cent in the U.S.

“I used to think that laws are just a reflection of attitudes and, as attitudes change, laws will catch up,” said Labchuk. She now sees a massive disparity between the two, with profit motive the underlying cause. There’s a lot of money to be made exploiting animals, after all.

Still, animal welfare seems to be winning the hearts and courts of public opinion, and advocates are lining up for their chance to make a difference. “The enrolment in my course this year is the highest it’s ever been,” said Lazare. “Canadians should cautiously celebrate the changes that have come but also acknowledge that there is a lot of work to do.”

Labchuk would agree. “Our challenge is to encourage more people to be active and make clear that it’s no longer acceptable for animals to have so few protections in 2022,” she said. “I feel very confident we’ll get there.”

REST IN POWER

‘Eco-warrior’ and Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman dies
September 25, 2022

 Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First! poses for a portrait in Juneau, Alaska, on March 10, 1988. Foreman, a self-proclaimed eco-warrior who was a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement and a co-founder of Earth First!, has died Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, according to New Mexico-based Rewilding Institute. He was 74

. (AP Photo/Suzanne Vlamis, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Dave Foreman, a self-proclaimed eco-warrior who was a prominent member of the radical environmentalism movement and a co-founder of Earth First!, has died. He was 74.

The New Mexico-based Rewilding Institute, which Foreman founded as a think tank to develop long-term land conservation plans, said on its website that he died peacefully at his home in Albuquerque on Monday.

A cause of death wasn’t immediately released, but friends of Foreman said he had battled a lung illness for several months.

“There will never be another like him. One of the greatest conservationists ever,” the institute said. “He is sorely missed by so many as a dear friend, leader, and mentor.”

John Davis, the institute’s director and an associate of Foreman’s for 37 years, told the Arizona Daily Star that Foreman had remained involved in conservation issues up until his death.

Foreman, who used to live in Tucson, Arizona, helped launch two groundbreaking environmental movements. One is Earth First!, which was launched in 1979 and uses a direct-action approach to draw “attention to the crises facing the natural world,” according to the movement’s website. The other is the “rewilding” movement, which for decades has sought to protect huge expanses of nature for wildlife.

In the 1980s, Foreman was repeatedly accused of engaging in eco-terrorism — including from some mainstream environmentalists — for his advocacy of environmental direct action, going beyond civil disobedience and tree-sitting protests to tree-spiking, cutting down billboards and pouring sand into gas tanks of bulldozers, the Star reported.

Former Earth First! member Kieran Suckling, who now is the director of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, told the newspaper that Foreman “was deadly serious about the essential importance of wilderness and wildlife to the planet, and to human society, and calling people to defend them as the highest calling in life.”

Born in Albuquerque in 1947, Foreman worked for the Wilderness Society from 1973-1980. Dissatisfactions with environmental groups led him and other activist friends to form Earth First!.

In 1991, Foreman co-founded the Wildlands Network, which seeks to establish a network of protected wilderness areas across North America. He founded the Rewilding Institute in 2003.

Foreman wrote at least five books from 1991-2014, starting with “Confessions of an Eco-Warrior.”