There is no one-size-fits-all road to sustainability on "Patchwork Earth"

Science and policy need to incorporate diversity and complexity of the world when thinking about a sustainable future

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS THAT LOCAL CHANGES COMBINE TO RESULT IN GLOBAL OUTCOMES: AGGREGATION, COMPENSATION, LEARNING, AND CONTAGION view more 

CREDIT: MCGILL UNIVERSITY

In a world as diverse as our own, the journey towards a sustainable future will look different depending on where in the world we live, according to a recent paper published in One Earth and led by McGill University, with researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

"There are many regional pathways to a more sustainable future, but our lack of understanding about how these complex and sometimes contradictory pathways interact (and in particular when they synergize or compete with one another) limits our ability to choose the 'best' ones," says Elena Bennett, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and the lead author on the paper."For this reason, we suggest that the global community needs to envision a diversity of desirable futures, nurture small seeds of sustainability, and work together to navigate the emerging pathways to sustainability."

Four different ways that local changes combine to result in global outcomes: aggregation, compensation, learning, and contagion

The researchers call for new approaches to exploring and creating a sustainable future that more fully account for regional complexity; provide space for local and regional actors to imagine how they might act to help create better futures; and that foster action towards those futures. More specifically, the paper argues that:

• Different regions of the world, with different contexts and values, will follow different pathways towards greater sustainability.

• This variety will produce tensions and opportunities as the outcomes of regional pathways interact.

• Navigating these changes requires understanding of how regional pathways interact with global processes to produce better outcomes for people and nature

A patchwork of approaches to imagining a sustainable future for "Patchwork Earth"

To increase capacity to navigate towards a more sustainable future on a so-called "patchwork earth", the authors propose that science and policy should do a better job of:

1. Envisioning diverse desirable futures. They call for a greater plurality in our understanding of what might constitute a desirable future for different people in different places, and a better understanding of the potential conflicts, opportunities, trade-offs and synergies between pursuing different visions in different places.
2. Nurturing seeds of sustainability. They point to the need to nurture the growth of seeds of desirable futures and deconstruct the institutions and organizations that impede their growth.
3. Navigating emerging pathways. They also argue that in order to avoid having local actions derailed by other local or global initiatives, scientists, policymakers and practitioners need to work together in ongoing processes of adaptive action, learning, and reflection to identify and engage with unexpected surprises, conflicts and trade-offs as they emerge.

But while these different local and regional pathways might on their own achieve the globally-agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals or other important local objectives, how they are influenced by each other and by global processes is difficult to predict.

Scenario planning that engages with multi-scale complexity

For example, a focus on global policies and a desire to use well-established global models means that current planning methods ignore national and local dissimilarities, questions, and challenges.

The authors point to methods that engage with multi-scale complexity, such as those pioneered by the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes project. Here, participants develop radical positive visions of the future based on existing real-world 'seeds' of a better future - innovations such as tribal parks, urban rewilding, and community land ownership that aim to address social-ecological challenges but are not yet mainstream.

"Incorporating more of the diversity and complexity of the world in our thinking about the future, and better understanding the opportunities and tensions that may arise can help increase our collective capacity to transform towards a more sustainable and just world for all," adds co-author Garry Peterson, who is part of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Scenarios and models task force and hopes such insights can be used to develop pluralistic and diverse nature-centered scenarios for IPBES.

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To read: "Patchwork Earth: navigating pathways to just, thriving, and sustainable futures" in One Earth by Elena Bennett et al https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.01.004

About McGill University Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada's top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. It is a world-renowned institution of higher learning with research activities spanning two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,200 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,800 international students making up 31% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 19% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.

Global survey finds nature sanitizes millions of tons of human waste a year


Untreated waste water is pictured flowing by settlements 

on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India. 

Photo by Dishaad Bundhoo

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- The majority of human waste is processed by wastewater treatment infrastructure, but according to a new global survey, the sanitization services of natural ecosystems still play a significant role in protecting water supplies.

When researchers in India and Britain analyzed sanitation services in 48 cities around the world, they found nature was responsible for cleaning 41.7 million tons of human waste annually -- approximately 18 percent of the cities' sanitization services.

Researchers published the results of their survey, the first to take a global perspective on natural sanitation, in the journal One Earth on Friday.

"Nature can, and does, take the role of sanitation infrastructure," study co-author Alison Parker, senior lecturer in international water and sanitation at Cranfield University in Britain, said in a news release.

RELATED Study: About half of global wastewater is treated

"While we are not marginalizing the vital role of engineered infrastructure, we believe a better understanding of how engineered and natural infrastructure interact may allow adaptive design and management, reducing costs, and improving effectiveness and sustainability, and safeguard the continued existence of these areas of land."

More than a quarter of the world's population doesn't have access to simple sanitation facilities, and another 14 percent of the global population uses toilets in which waste is disposed on-site.

According to the latest survey, the wastewater treatment services provided by wetlands and mangroves regularly fill in when human-built sanitizing facilities are lacking.

RELATED Fast-growing India, Brazil key to curbing climate change post-COVID-19

In Uganda, for example, the Navikubo wetland processes the waste of more than 100,000 households, preventing the contamination of Murchison Bay and Lake Victoria, important sources of freshwater.

In the United States, coastal wetlands along the Gulf Coast help capture excess nitrogen carried downstream by the Mississippi River.

"We realized that nature must be providing sanitation services, because so many people in the world do not have access to engineered infrastructure like sewers," said co-author Simon Willcock, senior lecturer in environmental geography at Bangor University in Wales.

RELATED Water recycling can reduce pressure of urban usage on fresh water resources

"But the role for nature was largely unrecognized," Willcock said.

To complete the survey, scientists analyzed so-called Excreta Flow Diagrams, an international effort combing in-person interviews with field observations and direct measurements to map the ways human waste moves and flows through 48 cities and towns around the world.

More specifically, the authors of the latest study focused on diagrams identifying the use of pit latrines and below-ground septic tanks -- diagrams coded "fecal sludge contained not emptied."

Based on their analysis of the diagrams, researchers conservatively estimated natural ecosystems in the 48 cities clean 2.2 million cubic meters of human waste per year.

Because more than 892 million people around the world use pit latrines and below-ground septic tanks, researchers estimated nature cleans 41.7 million tons of human waste every year -- sanitation services worth at least $4.4 billion annually.

Researchers hope their work will help policy makers more accurately quantify the vital ecological services provided by wetlands and mangroves. Previously surveys have revealed the vital role similar ecosystems play in containing agricultural runoff and curbing the damaging effects of flooding and coastal storms.

"We would like to promote a better collaboration between ecologists, sanitation practitioners and city planners to help nature and infrastructure work better in harmony, and to protect nature where it is providing sanitation services," Parker

Urban pollinators get almost all their food from backyard gardens


Residential gardens produce most of the nectar that feeds urban pollinators. Photo by Nicholas Tew

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Which came first, the backyard garden or the backyard pollinator?

Strictly speaking, pollinators have been around a lot longer, but a new study suggests a lot fewer urban pollinators would be around without residential gardens.

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers in Britain determined just three home gardens can yield a teaspoon of nectar each day -- enough food to nourish thousands of bees.

For the study, scientists used a fine glass tube to extract and measure the amount of nectar produced by flowers in the residential gardens of four major cities: Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading.

RELATED Spots of shade may help butterflies cope with climate change

Using a refractometer, scientists measured the nectar concentration in the nectar extracted from more than 3,000 individual flowers.

"Although the quantity and diversity of nectar has been measured in the countryside, this wasn't the case in urban areas, so we decided to investigate," lead study author Nicholas Tew, an ecologist and doctoral student at the University of Bristol, said in a news release.

"We expected private gardens in towns and cities to be a plentiful source of nectar, but didn't anticipate the scale of production would be to such an overwhelming extent," Tew said.

RELATED Bumblebees nibble the leaves of flowers to trick them into flowering early

"Our findings highlight the pivotal role they play in supporting pollinators and promoting biodiversity in urban areas across the country."

Compared the nectar generated in the countryside, where just a few species produce most of the sugar liquid consumed by pollinators, the bounty of nectar found in the city and suburbs is produced by a wide variety of plant species.

"Gardens are so important because they produce the most nectar per unit area of land and they cover the largest area of land in the cities we studied," Tew said.

RELATED Flowers get better pollination services in the city

Almost of a third of the land in the four surveyed cities is residential green space, six times the amount provided by city parks.

"The research illustrates the huge role gardeners play in pollinator conservation, as without gardens there would be far less food for pollinators, which include bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and beetles in towns and cities," Tew said.

"It is vital that new housing developments include gardens and also important for gardeners to try to make sure their gardens are as good as possible for pollinators."

To further boost pollinator abundance and diversity, researchers suggest home gardeners plant a diversity of nectar-rich flowers -- species and varieties that bloom at different times during the growing season.

Coral reef predators get 70% of their energy from the open ocean

Many reef fish rely on coral for shelter but get their nutrients from plankton. 

Photo by Christina Skinner

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Food webs anchored by coral reefs extend much farther into open waters than scientists previously thought.

According to a new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, more than 70% of the caloric energy consumed by reef predators is sourced from the open ocean.

Open surface waters in the tropics are low in nutrients and typically thought to be relatively unproductive, but the latest research these environments are more ecologically valuable than scientists previously estimated.

For the study, scientists used isotopic analysis to examine the diets of four grouper species captured near coral reefs in the Maldives, an island chain a few hundred miles southwest of India.

RELATED Open ocean 'surface slicks' serve as nurseries for dozens of fish species

The analysis showed all four predatory fish rely on open ocean resources. Scientists found evidence of offshore resource consumption among groupers captured both outside of an atoll, a ring-shaped reef, as well as grouper found in the lagoon within.

Scientists suspect grouper are feeding on plankton-eating fish that rely on coral reef for shelter instead of food.

Researchers estimate upwelling from the deep ocean is responsible for the delivering of nutrient-dense water to the surface, fueling the plankton that feed many reef fish -- fish that often end up in the stomachs of grouper."The study provides key insights into the nutrition of coral reef ecosystems, especially their dependence on offshore production," ecologist and study lead author Christina Skinner said in a news release.

"Detailed knowledge of food web dynamics is crucial to understand the impacts of anthropogenic and climate-induced change in marine ecosystems."

Skinner led the research while working at Newcastle University, but now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

RELATED World's coral reefs could be lost by century's end, U.N. report says

"The results force us to reconsider how we view coral reefs, and they highlight the extent of the connectivity with the surrounding ocean," she said.

"If these groupers are mostly reliant on offshore energy to support their feeding, then maybe they won't be so impacted by the loss of live coral, as many fishery studies have predicted; they may be more resilient."

But coral reefs aren't the only ecosystems affected by climate change. Studies suggest global warming is already altering the makeup of plankton communities and other groups of microorganisms in the open ocean, and some models predict open ocean productivity will decline as the planet heats up.

"If that is the case, and these groupers are reliant on that open ocean energy, they will be impacted by those changes," Skinner said.

Researchers suggest their study's biggest takeaway is that open water and coral reef ecosystems are inextricably linked.

The effects of warming trends and coastal pollution on coral reef health has been well documented, and the latest findings suggests are a reminder that what's bad for reefs may also be bad for neighboring ecosystems.

"Coral reefs are really suffering across the tropics from climate-related disturbances, particularly oceanic warming," said co-author Nick Polunin, professor of environmental sciences at Newcastle.

"In spite of its tiny area, this ecosystem is a massive contributor to marine biodiversity and this study highlights how little we know about the food web sources sustaining that exceptional wealth of species it sustains."

PRATT&WHITNEY 4000 ENGINES
Boeing 777 planes grounded by airlines in US and Japan after engine failure


Issued on: 22/02/2021 - 04:41

FILE PHOTO: A United Airlines Boeing 777-200ER plane is towed as an American Airlines Boeing 737 plane departs from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Nov. 30, 2018. © Kamil Krzaczynski, Reuters

Boeing Co said it recommended suspending the use of 777 jets with the same type of engine that shed debris over Denver at the weekend after U.S. regulators announced extra inspections and Japan suspended their use while considering further action.

The moves involving Pratt & Whitney 4000 engines came after a United Airlines 777 landed safely at Denver International Airport on Saturday local time after its right engine failed.

United said the next day it would voluntarily and temporarily remove its 24 active planes, hours before Boeing's announcement.

Boeing said 69 of the planes were in service and 59 were in storage, at a time when airlines have grounded planes due to a plunge in demand associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The manufacturer recommended airlines suspend operations until U.S. regulators identified the appropriate inspection protocol.

The 777-200s and 777-300s affected are older and less fuel efficient than newer models and most operators are phasing them out of their fleets.

Images posted by police in Broomfield, Colorado showed significant plane debris on the ground, including an engine cowling scattered outside a home and what appeared to be other parts in a field.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said its initial examination of the plane indicated most of the damage was confined to the right engine, with only minor damage to the airplane.

It said the inlet and casing separated from the engine and two fan blades were fractured, while the remainder of the fan blades exhibited damage.

Japan's transport ministry ordered Japan Airlines Co Ltd (JAL) and ANA Holdings Inc to suspend the use of 777s with P&W4000 engines while it considered whether to take additional measures.

The ministry said that on Dec. 4, 2020, a JAL flight from Naha Airport to Tokyo International Airport returned to the airport due to a malfunction in the left engine about 100 kilometres north of Naha Airport.

That plane was the same age as the 26-year-old United Airlines plane involved in the latest incident.

United is the only U.S. operator of the planes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The other airlines using them are in Japan and South Korea, the U.S. agency said.

"We reviewed all available safety data," the FAA said in a statement. "Based on the initial information, we concluded that the inspection interval should be stepped up for the hollow fan blades that are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes."

Japan said ANA operated 19 of the type and JAL operated 13 of them, though the airlines said their use had been reduced during the pandemic. JAL said its fleet was due for retirement by March 2022.

Pratt & Whitney, owned by Raytheon Technologies Corp , was not available immediately for comment.

A spokeswoman for South Korea's transport ministry, speaking before Boeing recommended suspending operations, said it was monitoring the situation but had not yet taken any action.

Korean Air Lines Co Ltd said it had 12 of the planes, half of them stored, and it would consult with the manufacturer and regulators and stop flying them to Japan for now.

In Feb. 2018, a 777 of the same age operated by United and bound for Honolulu suffered an engine failure when a cowling fell off about 30 minutes before the plane landed safely. The NTSB determined that incident was the result of a full-length fan blade fracture.

Because of that 2018 incident, Pratt & Whitney reviewed inspection records for all previously inspected PW4000 fan blades, the NTSB said. The FAA in March 2019 issued a directive requiring initial and recurring inspections of the fan blades on the PW4000 engines.

United pulls 24 Boeing 777s; FAA orders inspections after engine failure


The Broomfield Police Department said Sunday that they have been "inundated" with calls concerning debris found throughout the city after a Boeing 777 plane had to make an emergency landing in Denver after suffering engine failure on Saturday. Photo courtesy of the Broomfield Police Department/Facebook


Feb. 21 (UPI) -- United Airlines said Sunday it was temporarily removing 24 of its Boeing 777 aircraft from service a day after one of its flights had to make an emergency landing due to engine failure.

The announcement from United came about an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration said it was increasing inspections of Boeing 777 aircraft, which would "likely mean that some airplanes will be removed from service."

United said via Twitter the planes "voluntarily & temporarily" pulled from service were powered by the same Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 series engine used in the Denver-to-Honolulu Flight 328 on Saturday when engine failure shortly after takeoff caused it to litter debris over the town of Broomfield, Colo., about 32 miles from the Denver airport.

The two-engine plane was forced to return to the Denver airport where no injuries were reported among the 229 passengers and 10 crew members on board.

The Broomfield Police Department said Sunday that it has been "inundated with debris calls" and instructed the public "to only contact us now if they find a large piece of the plane."

United said they are working closely with regulators to determine steps that need to be taken, which should only inconvenience "a small number of customers."

Steve Dickson, the FAA administrator, said the stepped-up inspections should focus on the hollow fan blades unique to the Pratt & Whitney 4000 series engine that is solely used on Boeing 777 aircraft.

Iraq's ancient Christian community, decimated by violence, fear

Issued on: 22/02/2021 - 

Two decades of violence have decimated Iraq's historic Christian community

 AHMAD AL-RUBAYE AFP/File


Baghdad (AFP)

Some fled after the US-led invasion, others during sectarian bloodshed and more following jihadist attacks. Iraq's last two violent decades have hollowed out its Christian community which dates back two millennia.

After first settling in the fertile plains of Nineveh province before heading for the busy boulevards of Baghdad, more than one million Christians have in more modern times been uprooted by Iraq's consecutive conflicts.

"By the age of 24, I had already lived through and survived three wars," said Sally Fawzi, an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic, who left her country more than a decade ago and is now living in the US state of Texas.

Some members of Iraq's historic Christian community escaped to the nearby autonomous Kurdish region, others waited in neighbouring Jordan to emigrate and then resettled in countries as far away as Australia.

Many lost hope in their homeland long ago, but see next month's scheduled visit by Pope Francis -- the first-ever papal trip to Iraq -- as an important opportunity for him to use his voice to garner international support for Iraqis of their faith.

Iraq's Christian community is one of the oldest and most diverse in the world, featuring Chaldean, Armenian Orthodox, Protestant as well as other branches of Christianity.

By 2003, when then-dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled, there were 1.5 million Christians in a country of 25 million people, or around six percent of the population.

But as Iraq's population mushroomed, the percentage of the minorities shrank.

Today, only 400,000 Christians remain in a predominantly Muslim country of 40 million people, said William Warda, co-founder of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation.

Among those who left, nearly half a million resettled in the United States. Others ended up dispersed in Canada, Australia, Norway and other parts of Europe.

- The first wave -

Rana Said, 40, had tried her hardest to stay.

Her aunt and uncle were killed in 2007, when US soldiers blindly opened fire on the streets of Mosul after an attack in the regional capital of the northern province of Nineveh.

Still, she remained in the city with her husband Ammar al-Kass, 41, a veterinarian.

The following year, with Iraq gripped by sectarian bloodletting, a string of assassinations, including of Christians, pushed the Kass family to move to the relative safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.

But by 2013, the region was growing increasingly unstable.

The couple finally left their ancestral Iraq and were resettled on the Gold Coast of Australia where they found jobs in their respective professions and have raised three daughters: Sara, 10, Liza, six, and three-year-old Rose.

The young girls have never visited Iraq, although they speak Arabic and a modern dialect of Assyrian -- the ancient language of Christ -- at home.

A year after they resettled, jihadists from the so-called Islamic State group swept through their city. The family watched in horror from halfway around the world.

"The fall of Mosul wasn't easy for us," Ammar recounted, particularly IS's destruction of the city's Church of the Virgin Mary, a 1,200-year-old piece of treasured heritage.

"That's where my father was married. It was razed and obliterated to the ground," he said.

He tried to keep his wife -- pregnant with Liza at the time -- away from computers and phones, afraid the added stress would harm the baby.

"I used to have nightmares about IS entering and killing and raping my family. It was a repetitive, horrible dream," Rana said emotionally, of the jihadists who forced women of the Yazidi religious minority and those of other minorities into sexual slavery.

- Lingering in limbo -

Saad Hormuz lived the IS nightmare in person.

On August 6, 2014, IS fighters swept into Bartalla, the diverse town on the edges of Mosul where Hormuz had worked as a taxi driver.

"First, we fled towards Al-Qosh," another Christian town further north, he told AFP.

But as the jihadists kept up their pillaging of Nineveh, they escaped to Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish region.

With his wife Afnan, 48, and their four children -- Natalie, 7, Nores, 15, Franz, 16, and Fadi, 19 -- they lived in a church for a month before renting an apartment at $150 per month for nearly three years.

That severely strained their finances.

Three years later, Iraq's military declared it had freed Bartalla from IS's grip. The Hormuz family was elated and rushed back to resume life in their hometown.

But they found their home had been torched and ransacked, and that members of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a powerful state-sponsored paramilitary network formed from mostly-Shiite armed groups and volunteers to fight IS, now controlled Bartalla.

"We lived in fear. There were checkpoints and militias everywhere. Once, they even asked my wife to wear a veil," said Hormuz.

"So I decided to sell everything, even my car, and move to Jordan," he told AFP.

They have lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Amman since February 2018, hoping to be resettled permanently in Canada, where he and his wife have family connections.

With Covid-19 slowing down all international travel, the immigration process has been indefinitely frozen as their savings dwindle further.

Registered as a refugee in Jordan, Hormuz does not have the right to work legally and relies on soup kitchens at Amman's few churches to keep his family fed.

"I hope that through his visit to Iraq, the pope will ask countries receiving Christian refugees to help us," he said.

"Going back to Iraq is out of the question."

- Exile and rebirth -

Many in Chaldean Bishop Saad Sirop Hanna's parishes in Sweden feel the same way.

Born in Baghdad, Hanna, 40, was sent in 2017 to lead Europe's largest Chaldean congregation of around 25,000 people, who had arrived in Sweden in waves over the past four decades.

He lived through much of the violence they had fled, describing it as "great chaos."

In 2006, he was kidnapped after presiding over mass in the Iraqi capital.

"I was held and went through lots of experiences -- including torture and isolation," Hanna told AFP.

"This experience also gave me strength, truth be told. I was born again. I look at life again with a great blessing and a great love," he said.

There are more than 140,000 Iraqi-born residents in Sweden, including Raghid Benna, a native of Mosul who resettled in the eastern town of Sodertalje in 2007.

"There are so many Chaldeans here that I don't even feel like I'm in exile," said Benna, a father of two.

For Sally Fawzi, 38, who was resettled in the US as a refugee in 2008, memories of home can be painful.

"My family was devastated in 2007 when we learned that my two great aunts in Kirkuk had been stabbed to death at night in their home just because they were Christians," she told AFP.

"Today, I have a house, a beautiful family of my own, a job, and my immediate family live in the same city, but I miss my Baghdad house and friends the most," Fawzi said.

"It will never be the same."

- From bloodshed to bankruptcy -

As young families escape Iraq, they often leave their older relatives behind, said Warda of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organisation.

"A Christian family was typically five members. Now it's down to three," he said.

In Baghdad, the once-thriving community of 750,000 Christians has shrunk by 90 percent.

Among them is Younan al-Farid, a priest who has stayed on in the capital even after his brother emigrated to Canada and his sister to the United States.

With fewer worshippers, "up to 30 percent of Iraq's churches closed," Farid told AFP.

After nearly two decades of bloodshed and bombings, Iraq entered a period of relative calm following IS's territorial defeat in late 2017.

But that hasn't stopped the flight of minorities.

"People are still leaving. Christians are just trying to save up enough money, and then as soon as they can, they emigrate," said Farid.

The country's parlous economy is the main driver of emigration now, Christians across the country told AFP.

The pandemic triggered a worldwide recession, and Iraq faced the additional challenge of collapsing oil prices, which slashed state revenues from crude sales.

That has led to delays or cuts in public sector salaries in federal Iraq as well as the autonomous Kurdish region, where many Christians still live.

"I only receive one salary every two months, and sometimes not even the full salary," lamented Haval Emmanuel, a Chaldean government worker originally from northern Iraq.

"As soon as I get paid, I have to pay debts from the preceding weeks and then I have nothing left."

- An 'angel', meeting 'demons' -

Emmanuel grew up in Iraq's southernmost city of Basra, then married and lived in Baghdad until 2004, when a bomb detonated outside the school his children attended.

Now grown, one of his daughters has emigrated to Norway with her husband, and his brother and sister have each moved their families to Lebanon.

Emmanuel, his wife and their three other children are eking out a living in Arbil as they await a response for their own resettlement requests.

"We're suffocating: there's no social care, no health services, no public schools, no work," he told AFP at his modest home near Arbil's Chaldean Archdiocese.

It irked him to see the lack of public services in oil-rich Basra, piles of rubbish disfiguring Baghdad's historic Rasheed Street, or posters of late Iranian supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini in squares and streets in southern Iraq.

"It's supposed to be a public place, but it makes me feel like I have no place here," said Emmanuel.

"If they open everything up, I guarantee that by tomorrow, there won't be any Christians left. At least abroad, we will finally feel respected as humans."

The economic downturn, the poor quality of life, the shrinking space for minorities -- Emmanuel blamed it all on an entrenched political class seen as deeply corrupt.

And there's little the pope can do to change that.

"The pope is like an angel coming down on Iraq, but how many demons will he find here? A man of peace visiting a group of warlords -- how could he change them?" he said.

"We're expecting the pope. But we're not expecting much from his visit."

© 2021 AFP

Dozens of whales strand at notorious New Zealand bay

Issued on: 22/02/2021 - 

AFP 



Wellington (AFP)

Rescuers were racing Monday to save dozens of pilot whales that beached on a stretch of New Zealand coast notorious for mass strandings, wildlife officials said.

The Department of Conservation (DOC) said the pod of 49 long-finned pilot whales was found early Monday at Farewell Spit, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of the South Island tourist town of Nelson.

By mid-afternoon, nine of the whales had died and more than 60 people were working to keep the survivors alive for an attempt to refloat them at high tide, the DOC said.

"Marine mammal medics will assist with refloating the whales and caring for them on the beach, keeping them cool and wet until they can be refloated," a DOC spokeswoman said.

Farewell Spit is a 26-kilometre hook of sand that protrudes into the sea at Golden Bay.

It has been the scene of at least 10 pilot whale strandings in the past 15 years, the most recent in February 2017, when almost 700 of the marine mammals beached, resulting in 250 deaths.

Scientists are unclear as to why the beach is so deadly, although one theory is that the spit creates a shallow seabed in the bay that interferes with the whales' sonar navigation systems.

Ted Cruz buried under avalanche of scorn for 'sad' photo-op to prove he cares about storm-ravaged Texans

Tom Boggioni



In what can only be described as a desperate attempt at damage control after being busted for flying off to sunny Cancun while his constituents were freezing in storm-ravaged Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) posted pictures of himself loading water into cars on Twitter Saturday night with the hashtag #TexasStrong.

Cruz has taken a beating from both sides of the aisle for accompanying his family for a quickie vacation as Texans statewide were trying to survive without water and heat in the freezing cold, and has since apologized. Cruz has also been shown up by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who raised millions for struggling Texans and then flew down to the state to help with relief efforts.

Needless to say, few on Twitter were buying what Cruz was selling and they let him know it -- as you can see below:

00:2202:03

Houston mayor says Texas should pay some consumers’ massive utility bills

Published: Feb. 21, 2021

By Mike Murphy


Sen. Ted 'CANCUN' Cruz calls for regulation, governor forces halt to utility bills


Icicles hang off the a sign on State Highway 195 Killeen, Texas, on Thursday. GETTY IMAGES


Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Sunday that the state of Texas should pay the massive utility bills some Texas consumers are facing following last week’s historic winter storm that knocked out power and sent energy prices skyrocketing.

“For people getting these exorbitant electricity bills and having to pay to repair their homes, they should not have to bear the responsibility,” Turner said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Those exorbitant costs should be borne by the state of Texas and not the individual customers who did not cause this catastrophe this week.”

Some customers in Texas’ deregulated energy market were shocked to see they had been charged thousands — even tens of thousands — of dollars for energy use over the past week. One man was charged $16,752 on his electricity bill, the New York Times reported, about 70 times the amount of his usual bill.

Utility companies were able to charge more because of massive demand during the cold weather as supplies were severely constrained due to closed roads and downed power lines, sending wholesale energy prices through the roof.

Last week, CFO Roland Burns of Texas natural-gas company Comstock Resources Inc. CRK, +3.50% drew ire during an earnings call, saying “This week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices.”

Houston’s mayor is not the only politician saying consumers should not be on the hook for the massive bills.

“This is WRONG,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted Sunday. “No power company should get a windfall because of a natural disaster, and Texans shouldn’t get hammered by ridiculous rate increases for last week’s energy debacle. State and local regulators should act swiftly to prevent this injustice.” Cruz had previously been an outspoken advocate of Texas’ energy system.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot on Sunday barred utility companies from billing customers or cutting off power for non-payment following an emergency meeting with state lawmakers, the Texas Tribune reported.

“Texans who have suffered through days of freezing cold without power should not be subjected to skyrocketing energy bills,” Abbott said Sunday in San Antonio, adding that the billing moratorium will give the state time to figure out a way to protect consumers.

President Joe Biden declared Texas a major disaster area Saturday, opening a spigot of federal emergency funds. Biden may visit Texas later this week.

While the cold snap has broken — Houston hit a high of 69 on Sunday — some areas of Texas were still without power, and water shortages persist across the state after ice ruptured water mains. At least 76 deaths across multiple states have been blamed on the winter storm.