SOLIDARITY FOREVER 

Fran Drescher Gives ‘Hot Labor Summer’ a Shout-Out

By Jennifer Zhan, 

a Vulture news blogger covering TV, movies and music

FEB. 24, 2024

Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

“You are the champions,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher told the crowd at the union’s most glamorous meeting of the year. During her nearly four-minute speech at the SAG Awards, Drescher criticized AI, reflected on the importance of women who can lead and “still rock a red lip,” and reminded everyone that we all “hold in our hearts the gentle whisper of true love.” But the majority of her remarks were devoted to praising the members who participated in the longest strike in SAG-AFTRA’s history. “Your collective dignity and perseverance to stand up and say we deserve better because we are better resulted in a historic billion-dollar deal,” she told the room. “Your solidarity ignited workers around the world, triggering what forever will be remembered as the hot labor summer.”

Throughout the night, several nominees and presenters also took time to acknowledge the impact of the Hollywood strikes. While opening the ceremony, Idris Elba took a moment to “honor and appreciate” everyone who “stood up for SAG-AFTRA.” In her acceptance speech, Lily Gladstone noted that it’s been a “hard year” and expressed her pride in having “gotten here in solidarity with all of our other unions.” Sorry, AMPTP, but it looks like the post-strike solidarity is going strong.

SAG Awards: Fran Drescher Says 2023 Strike “Set the Trajectory for Many Generations to Come”

The president of the actors' union also took a shot at AI in her remarks, saying it will "entrap us in a matrix where no one knows what's real."


BY KATIE KILKENNY

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

FEBRUARY 24, 2024

Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Fran Drescher 

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher resurfaced the union’s 118-day strike in remarks at the guild’s award ceremony on Saturday night, saying that union members “set the trajectory for many generations to come” during the work stoppage.

Drescher called the actors union’s approximately 160,000 members the “champions” of the night in a speech during the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards. “You survived the longest strike in our union’s history with courage and conviction. The journey was arduous, it came with great sacrifice and unrelenting stress,” she said. “Your solidarity ignited workers around the world, triggering what forever be remembered as the hot labor summer.” She added that “this was a seminal moment in our union’s history that has set the trajectory for many generations to come, not afraid but brave, not weak but powered, not peons but partners.”

She also took a shot at AI — which SAG-AFTRA’s 2023 TV/theatrical contract tackles — saying it will “entrap us in a matrix where no one knows what’s real.” Rather, she said, “We should tell stories that spark the human spirit, connect us to the natural world and awaken our capacity to love unconditionally.”

The 2023 actors’ strike was also fresh in the minds of contenders, presenters and union officials at Saturday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. Noting the past year had been a difficult one due to the strikes, Luther actor Idris Elba took a moment in his opening monologue to “honor and appreciate all of you both here and at home that stood up for SAG-AFTRA in solidarity and support.”

Accepting the best performance by a cast in a motion picture award for Oppenheimer, Kenneth Branagh noted that the SAG-AFTRA ceremony was a “full-circle moment” for the ensemble, because during the film’s London premiere on July 14, 2023 the cast walked out due to the then-upcoming strike. “Thank you, thank you, thank you SAG-AFTRA, thank you for this, thank you for fighting for us. Thank you for every SAG-AFTRA member whose support and whose sacrifice allows us to be standing here better than we were before,” he said.

On the red carpet, Lawmen: Bass Reeves star David Oyelowo emphasized the joy of getting back to work after his union’s strike ended on Nov. 9, 2023. “It’s that thing, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “So of course there’s a level of appreciation and gratitutde that we get to go back and do what we love.” He said he was reminded of the importance of solidarity from the strikes because as an actor it’s a “lonely journey” but “in a moment like this, where everyone was in this thing together as actors, I think that was very galvanizing and brought people together as a community again in a more broad way. I think hopefully we can hold on to a bit of that.”

Succession star Alan Ruck added that the biggest lesson he gleaned from the strike was to “just stand up for what you believe in. If something’s wrong, you need to say something about it.”

Abbott Elementary actor Chris Perfetti noted, “We had a wild year and here we are still celebrating, and we have a lot to celebrate. It’s kind of emotional that we’re all dressing up and carrying on as usual. It’s a good feeling.” He added that the strikes “solidified the fact that this business and any endeavor as an artist is a roller coaster.”

SAG-AFTRA executive vp Linda Powell had a ringside seat to the negotiations, as she served as vice chair of the 2023 TV/Theatrical negotiating committee. On the red carpet, Powell said of the energy in the room at the SAG Awards, “Everybody is ready to celebrate, everybody is looking forward to this year, taking advantage of the wins and the new sense of collective energy that we’ve got going into this.” She added, “One of the big things we talked about throughout the strike was the importance of the humanity that we bring into the room when we go to work, and tonight we celebrate the people who bring a human face to these films.”

The 2024 SAG Awards took place at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall, and streamed live on Netflix, a little over three months following the end of SAG-AFTRA’s strike

'Unspeakably Grim': Vice Latest Media Company to Announce Mass Layoffs


The news comes as more than 500 news workers were laid off in January, not counting the more than 300 who lost their jobs when The Messenger shut down on the last day of the month.


Vice Media offices display the Vice logo at dusk on February 1, 2019 in Venice, California.
(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

OLIVIA ROSANE
Feb 23, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Vice CEO Bruce Dixon sent a memo to employees on Thursday announcing that the company was laying off hundreds of workers and would no longer publish on its flagship Vice.com website, saying it was "no longer cost-effective" to do so.

This marks the latest round of layoffs in what is shaping up to be a brutal start to 2024 for the news industry. A total of 528 news workers were laid off in January, not counting the more than 300 who lost their jobs when The Messenger shut down on the last day of the month. A day after the Vice news, Washington, D.C.'s NPR affiliate WAMU announced it was closing down its DCist website and laying off 15 staffers, as Axiosreported, though it said it would add new positions in audio.

"Is it 'ethical' to be teaching journalism right now?" Scientific American senior media editor Tulika Bose asked on social media Thursday.

"People lay all the blame on the vulture funds that buy up these news sites to try and turn a profit, and yes they're bad and culpable, but the damage Google and Facebook have done to the news industry is far worse."

Vice in particular has faced numerous business difficulties in the last few years. At its height, the company employed around 3,000 people and was worth $5.7 billion, according to Variety. Yet, in May 2023, the parent company filed for bankruptcy and its news division laid off dozens of employees, Hell Gatereported. Immediately before the bankruptcy, reporting revealed that executives had awarded themselves massive bonuses.

Vice was then purchased by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group. In the fall, it combined its five divisions into two, Variety said, and laid off even more people, leaving it with a staff of more than 900.

"As we navigate the ever-evolving business landscape, we need to adapt and best align our strategies to be more competitive in the long term," Dixon said in Thursday's memo.

These changes include shuttering the website and instead partnering "with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model."

"As part of this shift, we will no longer publish content on Vice.com, instead putting more emphasis on our social channels as we accelerate our discussions with partners to take our content to where it will be viewed most broadly," he continued.

Dixon also confirmed that Vice was in talks to sell Refinery 29, a women's publication that it acquired in 2019 for $400 million.

"A few years ago, Vice was valued at $5.7 billion. They published some of the smartest, most interesting, and fearless journalism of the last decade," Jeff Weiss, edito-in-chief at POW Mag and theLAnd, posted on social media. "And now private equity is going to strip it for parts to make a bunch of outdated nostalgia meme pages. Unspeakably grim shit."



Current and former Vice staffers blamed its woes on mismanagement.

"The journalism has been exceedingly sound; the durable upper management has just been the most embarrassing collection of doofuses on Zoom calls showing off their scarves or whatever," one anonymous senior newsroom staffer told Hell Gate.

Former Vice worker and union member Paul Blest recalled on social media that the company had appeared to spend "90% of the snack budget on milk."

Aaron Gordon, another former employee and union steward, told Hell Gate: "The company raised $1.6 billion in venture funding, according to Crunchbase. It launched a TV channel in 2016 just as cord-cutting and streaming was rattling the industry. It went bankrupt in 2023. And now the website is dead. Management's work speaks for itself."

Yet the news from Vice comes amid an accelerating decline in news work: Between 2005 and 2023, the U.S. lost nearly one-third of its newspapers, at a rate of more than two each week. It also lost nearly two-thirds of its newspaper reporters. A total of 2,681 news media jobs were axed in 2023 alone, the highest number since 2020.



Some have blamed takeovers by private equity groups like Fortress Investment Group.

"I think it'd be good for more people to know that the exact same private equity executives responsible for destroying hundreds of jobs at Vice—Fortress Investment Group—are also responsible for destroying thousands of jobs at Gannett newspapers," journalist Megan Greenwell, who is currently writing a book about private equity, posted on social media.

Freelance labor reporter Kim Kelly bemoaned the "hundreds of jobs lost" because of more "shithead media executives who wouldn't know value or journalism or basic humanity if it bit them in the ass."

Author and Labor Institute executive director Les Leopold wrote for Common Dreams in January about how private equity takeovers can harm media outlets:
Leveraged buyouts, which have negatively affected so many journalists, are another form of financial pillage. When private equity firms and hedge funds buy up companies the deals are financed largely with borrowed money, debt that is then put on the books of the company that was purchased. Servicing that debt becomes a major corporate expense, most often paid for by cutting costs through mass layoffs.

Yet there is another factor as well, which is how large social media and tech platforms have cut into the revenue news outlets would otherwise make from advertising, as Columbia Journalism Review(CJR)explained:
Publications that used to rely on advertisements now have to compete with tech giants. The Columbia report argued that Google and Meta should pay news outlets $14 billion annually in revenue for their search traffic and content. As technology companies incorporate AI-enhanced search experiences, which create answers to the user's question in the sidebar, some fear that users will opt for these short answers. This would further damage the news business model: News consumed on platforms means no traffic to news sites, which means no ad revenue, no brand affiliation, and no chance to convert paying subscribers.

Also on Thursday, NiemanLabreported that Google has experimented with removing the "News" tab from its search results.

"People lay all the blame on the vulture funds that buy up these news sites to try and turn a profit, and yes they're bad and culpable, but the damage Google and Facebook have done to the news industry is far worse, and they seem to be escaping a lot of the blame," Laura Bassett, executive vice president at Big Lou Holdings, wrote on social media in response to the news.

Victor Pickard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, told CJR that years of media layoffs prove that the for-profit model is not working for journalism, and that the U.S. should move toward a public-funding model.

"We should think of journalism, not as a commodity whose worth is determined by its profitability in the market, but as a public service," Pickard said.

Overexploitation, Habitat Loss Threaten Migratory Species: CMS Flagship

Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS)
14 February 2024

According to the report, the extinction risk is growing for CMS and non-CMS migratory species alike.

It identifies overexploitation and loss of habitat due to human activity as the two greatest threats to all migratory species, with climate change, pollution, and invasive species posing additional threats.

The report also shows that population and species-wide recoveries are possible and showcases examples of successful policy action.

The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has launched the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the state of the world’s migratory species. The report warns that almost half of the world’s migratory species are in decline and more than a fifth are threatened with extinction, including nearly all of CMS-listed fish. It provides a set of recommendations for priority action to save migratory animals.

Titled, ‘State of the World’s Migratory Species,’ the report provides an overview of the conservation status and population trends of migratory animals, both CMS-listed species and those not listed in CMS. It presents the latest information on their main threats and successful actions to protect them. The report mainly focuses on the 1,189 animal species that are listed under CMS, but also features analysis of some 3,000 additional migratory species. CMS-listed species are “those at risk of extinction across all or much of their range, or in need of coordinated international action to boost their conservation status,” a press release notes. Globally, 399 migratory species that are threatened or near threatened with extinction – including many albatrosses and perching birds, ground sharks, and stingrays – are not listed under CMS.

According to the report, the extinction risk is growing for CMS and non-CMS migratory species alike, with half of key biodiversity areas of importance for CMS-listed migratory animals lacking protected status and nearly 60% of the monitored sites of importance for CMS-listed species facing “unsustainable levels of human-caused pressure.” In the last 30 years, 70 CMS-listed migratory species have become more endangered. These include the steppe eagle, Egyptian vulture, and the wild camel. Only 14 listed species, including blue and humpback whales, the white-tailed sea eagle, and the black-faced spoonbill, have improved their conservation status.

The report identifies overexploitation and loss of habitat due to human activity as the two greatest threats to all migratory species, both those that are listed in CMS and those that are not. Other threats include climate change, pollution, and invasive species.

At the same time, the report shows that population and species-wide recoveries are possible. It offers examples of successful policy change and positive action, including coordinated local efforts that reduced illegal bird netting in Cyprus by 91% and “integrated conservation and restoration work in Kazakhstan, which has brought the Saiga Antelope back from the brink of extinction.”

“When species cross national borders, their survival depends on the efforts of all countries in which they are found,” said CMS Executive Secretary Amy Fraenkel. “This landmark report will help underpin much-needed policy actions to ensure that migratory species continue to thrive around the world.”

The report recommends that governments prioritize:Strengthening and expanding efforts to tackle illegal and unsustainable taking of migratory species, as well as incidental capture of non-target species;
Increasing actions to identify, protect, connect, and effectively manage important sites for migratory species;

Urgently addressing those species in most danger of extinction, including nearly all CMS-listed fish species;

Scaling up efforts to tackle climate change, as well as light, noise, chemical, and plastic pollution; and
Considering expanding CMS listings to include more at-risk migratory species in need of national and international attention.

Prepared for CMS by conservation scientists at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), the report features expert contributions from BirdLife International, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), among other institutions. It was launched on 12 February 2024, during the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP14). 

[Publication: State of the World’s Migratory Species] [CMS Press Release] [UN News Story][ENB coverage of CMS COP14]

 

Landmark UN report reveals shocking state of wildlife: the world’s migratory species of animals are in decline, and the global extinction risk is increasing

First-ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report is launched by the UN Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS)

Reports and Proceedings

UN CONVENTION ON MIGRATORY SPECIES

 

IMAGE: 

THE UNPRECEDENTED REPORT PROVIDES A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF THE CONSERVATION STATUS AND POPULATION TRENDS OF MIGRATORY ANIMALS, COMBINED WITH THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THEIR MAIN THREATS AND SUCCESSFUL ACTIONS TO SAVE THEM.

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CREDIT: UN CONVENTION ON MIGRATORY SPECIES

The first-ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report was launched today by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), a UN biodiversity treaty, at the opening of a major UN wildlife conservation conference (CMS COP14). The landmark report reveals:

• While some migratory species listed under CMS are improving, nearly half (44 per cent) are showing population declines.
• More than one-in-five (22 per cent) of CMS-listed species are threatened with extinction.
• Nearly all (97 per cent) of CMS-listed fish are threatened with extinction.
• The extinction risk is growing for migratory species globally, including those not listed under CMS.
• Half (51 per cent) of Key Biodiversity Areas identified as important for CMS-listed migratory animals do not have protected status, and 58 per cent of the monitored sites recognized as being important for CMS-listed species are experiencing unsustainable levels of human-caused pressure.
• The two greatest threats to both CMS-listed and all migratory species are overexploitation and habitat loss due to human activity. Three out of four CMS-listed species are impacted by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation, and seven out of ten CMS-listed species are impacted by overexploitation (including intentional taking as well as incidental capture). 
• Climate change, pollution and invasive species are also having profound impacts on migratory species.
• Globally, 399 migratory species that are threatened or near threatened with extinction are not currently listed under CMS.

Until now, no such comprehensive assessment on migratory species has been carried out. The report provides a global overview of the conservation status and population trends of migratory animals, combined with the latest information on their main threats and successful actions to save them.
 

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said: “Today’s report clearly shows us that unsustainable human activities are jeopardizing the future of migratory species – creatures who not only act as indicators of environmental change but play an integral role in maintaining the function and resilience of our planet’s complex ecosystems. The global community has an opportunity to translate this latest science of the pressures facing migratory species into concrete conservation action. Given the precarious situation of many of these animals, we cannot afford to delay, and must work together to make the recommendations a reality.”

Billions of animals make migratory journeys each year on land, in rivers and oceans, and in the skies, crossing national boundaries and continents, with some travelling thousands of miles across the globe to feed and breed.

Migratory species play an essential role in maintaining the world’s ecosystems, and provide vital benefits, by pollinating plants, transporting key nutrients, preying on pests, and helping to store carbon. 

Prepared for CMS by conservation scientists at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), the CMS State of the World’s Migratory Species report uses the world's most robust species data sets and features expert contributions from institutions including BirdLife International, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

The main focus of the report is the 1,189 animal species that have been recognized by CMS Parties as needing international protection and are listed under CMS, though it also features analysis linked to over 3,000 additional non-CMS migratory species.

Species listed under the Convention are those at risk of extinction across all or much of their range, or in need of coordinated international action to boost their conservation status. 

Amy Fraenkel, CMS Executive Secretary, said: “Migratory species rely on a variety of specific habitats at different times in their lifecycles. They regularly travel, sometimes thousands of miles, to reach these places. They face enormous challenges and threats along the way, as well at their destinations where they breed or feed. When species cross national borders, their survival depends on the efforts of all countries in which they are found. This landmark report will help underpin much-needed policy actions to ensure that migratory species continue to thrive around the world.”

While there have been positive trends for numerous CMS species, the report’s findings underscore the need for greater action, for all migratory species. The listing of species under CMS means that these species require international cooperation to address their conservation. But many of the threats facing these species are global drivers of environmental change – affecting biodiversity loss as well as climate change. Thus, addressing the decline of migratory species requires action across governments, the private sector and other actors.  

Over the past 30 years, 70 CMS-listed migratory species – including the steppe eagle, Egyptian vulture and the wild camel – have become more endangered. This contrasts with just 14 listed species that now have an improved conservation status – these include blue and humpback whales, the white-tailed sea eagle and the black-faced spoonbill.

Most worryingly, nearly all CMS-listed species of fish – including migratory sharks, rays and sturgeons – are facing a high risk of extinction, with their populations declining by 90 per cent since the 1970s.

Analysing the threats to species, the report shows the huge extent to which the decline in migratory species is being caused by human activities.

The two greatest threats to both CMS-listed and all migratory species were confirmed as overexploitation – which includes unsustainable hunting, overfishing and the capture of non-target animals such as in fisheries – and habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation – from activities such as agriculture and the expansion of transport and energy infrastructure.

One key priority is to map and take adequate steps to protect the vital locations that serve as breeding, feeding and stopover sites for migratory species is a key priority. The report shows that nearly 10,000 of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas are important for CMS-listed migratory species, but that more than half (by area) are not designated as protected or conserved areas. Fifty-eight per cent of monitored sites important for CMS-listed species are under threat due to human activities.

The report also investigated how many migratory species are at-risk but not covered by the Convention. It found 399 migratory species – mainly birds and fish, including many albatrosses and perching birds, ground sharks and stingrays – are categorised as threatened or near-threatened but are not yet CMS-listed.

While underscoring the concerning situation of many species, the report also shows that population and species-wide recoveries are possible and highlights instances of successful policy change and positive action, from local to international. Examples include coordinated local action that has seen illegal bird netting reduced by 91 per cent in Cyprus, and hugely successful integrated conservation and restoration work in Kazakhstan, which has brought the Saiga Antelope back from the brink of extinction.

The State of the World’s Migratory Species report issues a clear wake-up call, and provides a set of priority recommendations for action, which include:  

• Strengthen and expand efforts to tackle illegal and unsustainable taking of migratory species, as well as incidental capture of non-target species,
• Increase actions to identify, protect, connect and effectively manage important sites for migratory species,
• Urgently address those species in most danger of extinction, including nearly all CMS-listed fish species,
• Scale up efforts to tackle climate change, as well as light, noise, chemical and plastic pollution, and,
• Consider expanding CMS listings to include more at-risk migratory species in need of national and international attention. 

The UN wildlife conservation conference (CMS COP14) Feb. 12-17 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan is one of the most significant global biodiversity gatherings since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Biodiversity Plan). It will also be the first COP of any global environmental treaty to take place in Central Asia, a region home to many migratory species including the Saiga Antelope, the Snow Leopard, and many species of migratory birds. Governments, wildlife organisations and scientists have come together at the week-long meeting to consider actions to advance implementation of the Convention. The State of the World’s Migratory Species report will provide the scientific-grounding along with policy recommendations to set the context and provide valuable information to support the deliberations of the meeting.

About the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS)

An environmental treaty of the United Nations, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) provides a global platform for the conservation and sustainable use of migratory animals and their habitats. This unique treaty brings governments and wildlife experts together to address the conservation needs of terrestrial, aquatic, and avian migratory species and their habitats around the world. Since the Convention's entry into force in 1979, its membership has grown to include 133 Parties from Africa, Central and South America, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
www.cms.int

About UNEP-WCMC

The UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is a global centre of excellence on biodiversity and nature’s contribution to society and the economy. It operates as a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme and the UK charity WCMC. 

UNEP-WCMC works at the interface of science, policy and practice to tackle the global crisis facing nature and support the transition to a sustainable future for people and the planet: www.unep-wcmc.org  

About CMS Appendices

• Appendix I comprises migratory species that have been assessed as being in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of their range. The Conference of the Parties has further interpreted the term “endangered” as meaning “facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future” (Res. 11.33 paragraph 1).  Parties that are a Range State to a migratory species listed in Appendix I shall endeavour to strictly protect them by: prohibiting the taking of such species, with very restricted scope for exceptions; conserving and where appropriate restoring their habitats; preventing, removing or mitigating obstacles to their migration and controlling other factors that might endanger them.
• Appendix II lists migratory species which have an unfavourable conservation status and which require international agreements for their conservation and management.  It also includes species whose conservation status would significantly benefit from the international cooperation that could be achieved by an international agreement.

 

These Paintings Reveal How the Dutch Adapted to Extreme Weather During the Little Ice Age

Artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hendrick Avercamp documented locals’ resilience in the face of freezing winters and food shortages

During the Little Ice Age, which spanned roughly 1250 to 1860, average global temperatures dropped by as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

 Illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Wikimedia Commons

HISTORY | JANUARY 30, 2024 
Tim Brinkhof

On the afternoon of January 2, 1565, an iceberg drifted down the harbor of Delfshaven, a fishing village in the Netherlands. According to the inscription on a 16th-century oil painting of the event, the block of ice measured nearly 20 feet tall and 230 feet wide—large enough to cut off the village’s access to the Nieuwe Maas River. No fishers would have been looking to set sail that day, though, as the water was completely frozen over, with boats great and small trapped in the ice.

The fact that artist Cornelis Jacobsz van Culemborch commemorated this iceberg’s arrival with a painting suggests it was not a regular occurrence. Dutch winters were cold, but they were rarely this unforgiving. As it happened, the year 1565 fell in the middle of the Little Ice Age (LIA), a period of widespread cooling that spanned roughly 1250 to 1860. Average global temperatures dropped by as much as 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly due to a combination of volcanic eruptions and a reduction in solar activity.

Cornelis Jacobsz van Culemborch's painting of an iceberg that appeared in Delfshaven in January 1565 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons


The LIA manifested in a variety of ways. “Many [Dutch people] died in floods that were partly caused by severe storms,” says Dagomar Degroot, an environmental historian at Georgetown University and the author of The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age and the Dutch Republic, 1560-1720. “Others froze to death in bitterly cold winters.” Some parts of the world saw frequent flooding, while others suffered from persistent drought. Glaciers expanded; certain pathogens spread more readily; and icebergs floated to regions that had not seen them since the last glacial period (popularly called the Ice Age), which ended more than 11,500 years ago, before the birth of civilization.

Researchers have long been interested in how early modern societies adapted to the changes wrought by the LIA. Written accounts can certainly provide insight into this period of global cooling. Reporting from Paris in 1675, author Marie de Rabutin-Chantal wrote, “It is horribly cold. … The behavior of the sun and of the seasons has changed.” Nine years later, in January 1684, English diarist John Evelyn noted, “The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of shops and trades furnished and full of commodities.”

Frost Fair on the Thames, With Old London Bridge in the Distance, unknown artist, 1684 Yale Center for British Art

But an especially rich source of information on the LIA is art. A 1684 painting by an unknown artist, titled Frost Fair on the Thames, With Old London Bridge in the Distance, illustrates the festival that Evelyn described. Italian artist Gabriel Bella, meanwhile, depicted the frozen canals of Venice in 1708. Other paintings and etchings of the Mediterranean city-state indicate its lagoon froze over at least twice more in the 18th century, in 1789 and 1791.

Even artworks that don’t center on climate anomalies can offer clues about the LIA. Scholars have used paintings of Venice’s historic architecture to track rising sea levels by comparing the positions of algal bands along the buildings’ walls then and now. A 2010 study of a 1571 painting by Paolo Veronese, who likely employed a camera obscura to ensure proportional accuracy, concluded that the sea level outside of the Coccina family’s palace was roughly 30 inches lower at the time than it is at present.

The Madonna of the Coccina Family, Paolo Veronese, 1571 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Little Ice Age

The LIA coincided with a period of great religious and political upheaval. In the aftermath of the 16th-century Protestant Reform

ation, Northern European artists slowly abandoned Christian imagery of heaven and hell in favor of the here and now. In Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, portraits of kings and saints gave way to paintings of parents and children, soldiers and workers, street scenes, and landscapes.

Dutch artists were especially celebrated for their commitment to realism. In 1882, French painter Eugène Fromentin declared Dutch art a “faithful, exact, complete” representation of the country’s culture; a century later, art historian Svetlana Alpers characterized Northern European painting as “an art of describing” reality, distinct from the narrative art of the Italian Renaissance. Johannes Vermeer’s The Little Street (circa 1658), for example, shows touched-up cracks in the bricklaying of a building in Delft—likely a scar from the 1654 gunpowder explosion that devastated the city and killed one of Rembrandt’s most gifted students, Carel Fabritius.

The Little Street, Johannes Vermeer, circa 1568 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

As a genre of painting, winter scenes hardly existed in Europe before the LIA. This was partly because harsh winters like the one immortalized by van Culemborch were, at best, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. “The medieval world …. had been much warmer,” with Vikings settling in Greenland and grapes growing as far north as southern England, writes author Benjamin Moser in The Upside-Down World: Meetings With the Dutch Masters. He points out that Europe’s “first notably cold winter” took place in 1564 and 1565, when that iceberg made its way to Delfshaven.

The frost stretched from Rotterdam to Brussels, where its effects were documented by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder in his painting Hunters in the Snow (Winter). (Art historians use the term “Flemish” to refer to Flemish-speaking towns in the medieval Low Countries, which included parts of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Germany.) Part of a series depicting the seasons, the image captures the hardships of the LIA, especially when compared with other hunting scenes of the time. As journalist Harmen van Dijk writes for Dutch newspaper Trouw, “The hunters do not seem to have had any luck, returning with one little fox. Not exactly a feast. The innkeepers are trying to get a fire going. They might have some food, though that dilapidated sign outside doesn’t look promising.”

Hunters in the Snow (Winter), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The LIA confronted the Dutch with challenges they had never faced before. In the Low Countries, rivers and canals were used to transport goods; when they froze, entire villages were cut off from maritime trade. Food shortages were common, and timber was in such short supply that in the winter of 1564 to 1565, a single bushel sold for two weeks’ wages. Households unable to afford these exorbitant prices had no choice but to look for fuel in unexpected places, tearing apart the gallows of their town squares or, if those had already been burned up, their own floorboards.

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Hunters in the Snow contrasts the hard-working hunters with a group of carefree ice skaters playing in the background. Another Bruegel painting, Winter Landscape With Skaters and Bird Trap, also from 1565, lacks this explicit juxtaposition but delivers a similar message through its subject matter. At a time when birds were considered “symbols of the soul,” wrote art historians Linda and George Bauer in a 1984 journal article, the work’s winter setting appeared deliberate, with the skaters representing “the dangerous progress of the soul as it passes through the world.”

Winter Landscape With Skaters and Bird Trap, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Hendrick Avercamp and the Little Ice Age

Bruegel’s moralizing tone—a kind of visual representation of the expression “walking on thin ice”—differs from that of later Dutch and Flemish landscape painters like Hendrick Avercamp, who was active in the early 17th century. If Bruegel’s winters appear harsh and cold, Avercamp’s are warm and fuzzy, both in color and in atmosphere. Sidelining seasonal hardship, his paintings almost exclusively show people enjoying themselves as they skate, sled or play an early form of ice hockey called ijskolf. As Moser writes in The Upside-Down World, “They show a merry Christmassy world of funnily dressed people disporting themselves on frozen canals: paintings I knew from jigsaw puzzles and holiday cards.”

These pleasant scenes may have been shaped by Avercamp’s own experiences: Moser records the oft-repeated possibility that the painter, who was probably born deaf and mute, romanticized an environment he was forced to observe from a distance. But the works also have their roots in history. Avercamp was born in 1585—three years before the Dutch Republic (consisting of seven northern Netherlandish provinces) won independence from Spain in a long and brutal war—and he died in 1634. Over the course of the painter’s life, the republic developed into one of the world’s most powerful and prosperous nations.

Winter Landscape With Skaters, Hendrick Avercamp, circa 1608 

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Degroot argues that the republic’s successes were, in part, a result of the LIA. “Increased precipitation hampered Spanish invasions,” he says, “while changes in atmospheric circulation helped Dutch fleets to sail into battle with the wind behind them, an important tactical advantage in the age of sail. Dutch farmers, sailors, soldiers, entrepreneurs and inventors also found ways to cope with—and even exploit—otherwise disastrous weather.”

Shipwrights, for example, greased and fortified the hulls of their vessels, allowing them to slide past ice. Ice-breaking boats kept domestic waterways open in times of persistent frost and helped maintain a steady supply of ice for wine cellars.

But developments during the LIA weren’t all positive. “Dutch people also suffered from extreme weather that can now be connected to the Little Ice Age,” Degroot says. During bitterly cold winters, “rivers froze over that would otherwise have protected the republic from invasion, and hostile armies took advantage.” Ultimately, the historian concludes, “The Little Ice Age offered more benefits than drawbacks for the republic, but the same cannot be said for many of its citizens.”

Enjoying the Ice Near a Town, Hendrick Avercamp, 1620

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Bustling compositions like Avercamp’s Winter Landscape With Ice Skaters document not only the republic’s increasing resilience but also its growing disregard for traditional social hierarchies. “Frozen water was like carnival,” Moser writes, “an upside-down world when, for a few days, the conventions of daily life relaxed.” The polymath Hugo Grotius, a contemporary of Avercamp, agreed. “Here nobody speaks of rank,” he wrote in a poem, “here we are open and free; here the farm girl joins with the nobleman.” In time, this upside-down world would no longer be restricted to the ice.

Avercamp’s unceasing production of winter landscapes—he hardly painted anything else, leaving behind around 100 such scenes—cemented the season and its corresponding activities as a central aspect of burgeoning Dutch national identity. Today, his paintings provide snapshots of a climate that is gradually disappearing from living memory due to global warming.

“These paintings already have a nostalgic quality to them,” Moser tells Smithsonian magazine, “of sadness or loss,” particularly among Dutch people who grew up skating outdoors. “These images are over 400 years old, and the people in them look different, but we connect to them because we went outside and did the same things they did when we were kids. Now, they are the skeletons of dinosaurs.”


Tim Brinkhof | READ MORE
Tim Brinkhof is a Dutch journalist who covers art, culture and history. He studied comparative literature at New York University and has written for Vox, Vulture, Big Think, JSTOR Daily, Jacobin, New Lines and more.

Why China’s great property bust threatens to backfire on the West


Michael Bow

TELEGRAPH
Mon, 29 January 2024

China Evergrande

After years of turbulence, Chinese property giant Evergrande was hit with a winding-up order by a judge in Hong Kong on Monday, setting up a multibillion-dollar battle between Western creditors and Chinese authorities.

In a dramatic escalation of Evergrande’s plight, the world’s most indebted property company failed to convince Judge Linda Chan that it had a viable restructuring plan – three years after the company first defaulted on its debt.

“Enough is enough,” said Judge Chan, as she ordered Evergrande to liquidate.


The decision wiped a fifth off its share price in Hong Kong before trading was halted, meaning Evergrande – which was founded by Hui Ka Yan in 1996 – is now worth $275m (£216m) but has $328bn of debt.

Given the scale of its borrowings, it is unclear what happens next.

The one certainty is that there will be an almighty battle between Western financiers and Chinese policymakers.

Despite Evergrande’s liquidation being decided by a court in Hong Kong, the vast bulk of the company’s assets are held in mainland China.

This means Western investors who lent it billions of dollars must now proceed through the Chinese courts, pitting them against Beijing policymakers, retail investors, and small suppliers.

In theory, the latter two will rank lower than overseas investors when it comes to sharing payouts.

An ad hoc creditor group of offshore bondholders, advised by Moelis & Company and Kirkland & Ellis, has already been leading efforts to recoup cash but now they face a new challenge.

Will local authorities stiff them, further undermining China’s status as an international market? Or will they be minded to preserve China’s attractiveness to Wall Street and the City of London and pay investors back?

“If there’s a choice that needs to be made, I’m sure the Chinese Government will protect the domestic retail investor versus the foreign one,” said Natixis’ Hong Kong senior economist Gary Ng.

Evergrande has around 1,000 projects across mainland China, although Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist at Capital Economics, warns that investors will struggle to get their money back.

“Even if the mainland courts accept this, it is going to run into political and social issues,” he says.

“I don’t think local governments are going to be amenable to just selling them off and getting the money over as quickly as possible.”

For Western investors, the liquidation of Evergrande marks the end of a slow-motion car crash that started several years ago.

Before China’s property crisis, when the so-called Golden Era was in full swing, Evergrande raised money by issuing IOUs in dollars rather than renminbi to lure international investors.

Western fund managers like Ashmore, Amundi and Legal & General, as well as banks such as HSBC and UBS, lapped up so-called “Kungfu bonds”, with Evergrande holding around $19bn worth of IOUs at its peak.

However, as the company unravelled and ultimately defaulted, these bonds fell from being worth 95 cents in the dollar to just 20.

They are now trading at around just 1.5 cents in the dollar, attracting the attention of vulture funds who buy cheap debt to squeeze a few more pennies from insolvency.

In recent years, Evergrande’s debt has been acquired by funds such as Saba Capital Management, led by US hedge fund boss Boaz Weinstein, who made millions of dollars from the infamous “London Whale” trade.

It is unclear which investors sit in the bondholder group led by Moelis and Kirkland while Saba declined to comment.

However, one bond investor says: “At those prices, they will be purely distressed guys.

“These are teams where there are as many lawyers as there are portfolio managers because the key thing is trying to predict how courts will play it.”

Predicting how mainland courts in China will rule on commercial disputes is an unenviable task.

And in this case, China may be hesitant to follow through with Evergrande’s liquidation order for a range of complex political reasons.

Firstly, the Hong Kong court order was made on the same day that new rules designed to increase mutual recognition of judgements in courts between Hong Kong and China came into force.

How China responds to Evergrande will set a major precedent.

Secondly, the vast majority of Evergrande’s assets are in mainland China.

Local government financing has long been intertwined with property development and if Evergrande’s assets are rapidly sold, there could be a ripple effect of unintended consequences.

The third factor is that President Xi Jinping’s economic priorities have changed.

He now cares less about the message he sends to international investors as he tries to move the economy away from investment and property, says William Hurst, Chong Hua Professor of Chinese Development at the University of Cambridge.

Instead, he says the President is focusing on consumption and higher-value production.

“In the past, the Chinese government has frequently erred on the side of better protections for large foreign investors,” he says. “But certainly the Chinese government currently does favour the domestic economy over going back to the export-driven, foreign direct investment dependent model that was there for so many years.”

But Xi Jinping is being pulled in two directions.

“There’s a bit of schizophrenia,” Hurst adds. “On the one hand, there is huge domestic emphasis and a trepidation about too much international integration.

“On the other, there is an overriding imperative to try to bring global business back to China.”

The bond investor adds: “Xi is paranoid about a subprime crisis, which leaves him in a tough spot.

“The longer-term repercussions of this is that international investors are going to get less involved but he’s a bit less worried about that. He doesn’t necessarily mind. A bit less capital in there, keeping it cooler - he doesn’t feel that’s the end of the world.”

Still, as the saga moves to the next phase, the outcome for international investors may be more nuanced.

They could take a small haircut on their investment in return for the guarantee of at least some return on their cash.

“There’s still uncertainty about whether the offshore investors will be high enough in the repayment rankings to actually recover some of their assets and whether that will be enforced in China,” says Ng.

Undoubtedly, this will spark unease for investors around the world and all eyes will be on Beijing as Evergrande limbers up for the next stage of its crisis.

Danakali goes after new project as “vultures” on the prowl

Cecilia Jamasmie | January 19, 2024 | 

Danakali explored the use of filtered seawater at Colluli. 

(Image courtesy of Danakali.)

Danakali (ASX: DNK) warned shareholders on Friday of “predatory activity” by unidentified groups currently approaching investors with “vulture” share purchase offers for their stakes in the company as little as A$0.01 each.


The company, which last year sold its 50% stake in the Colluli potash project in Eritrea to Chinese buyers for $121 million (A$154.7 million), returned nearly 90% of the proceeds to shareholders mid-January.

Danakali now has cash reserves of about A$38 million, or about A$0.11 a share. This means shareholders are being offered less than 10% of the underlying value of their shares, it said.

The Australian miner noted in a separate statement it was already exploring a range of new liquidity options for shareholders. These include an off-market share buyback and further distribution of the firm’s cash reserves in the form of a capital return.

The alternatives are part of Danakali’s efforts to get its shares re-listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Its latest proposal to resume trading was rejected.

“We believe the extended suspension of our shares puts our shareholders in a difficult position and we will now explore other options to achieve additional liquidity while continuing to engage with the ASX,” executive chairman Seamus Cornelius said in a statement.

“From what we can ascertain, most of the activity has originated offshore and potentially beyond the reach of Australian regulators. Any shareholder who has received such an offer should contact Danakali directly,” he noted.

The Perth-based miner said it had taken the first steps to pursuing a new project in Eritrea by applying to an exploration licence covering 1,537 km². Preliminary work at the property shows the area may be prospective for copper and gold, the company said.

Danakali noted it would report back to shareholders on the outcome of the board’s work and talks in coming weeks.

 

Scientists, farmers and managers work together to avoid the decline of the little bustard, an endangered steppe bird

Generating trust and cooperation among different sectors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: 

THE STUDY REVEALS HOW BY CHANGING AGRICULTURAL PRACTISES AND GROWING THE FALLOW LAND COULD HELP THE PRESERVATION OF THE POPULATION OF THESE SPECIES, WHICH IS SEVERELY AFFECTED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY.

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CREDIT: FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER OF CATALONIA (CTFC)

The collaboration between scientists, farmers and managers is crucial to improve the protection of the little bustard, an endangered steppe-land bird in Spain due to human activity. The reduction of natural habitats, the increase in irrigation and the urbanization of the land have led to having less surface areas that guarantee the survival of this vulnerable species. An article published in the journal Biological Conservation reveals how cooperation between different actors is key to finding answers and avoiding the decline of the most threatened populations of the little bustard.

The study, a pioneer example of adaptative conservation, is signed by the experts Santi Mañosa, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and Gerard Bota, from the Conservation Biology Group of the Forest Science and Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC).

An endangered steppe-land bird

For birds such as the little bustard (Tetrax tetrax), it is becoming increasingly hard to find suitable habitats due to the reduction of steppe-land and the disappearance of traditional agriculture and livestock farming. The study states that growing the area of fallow lands — the unsown farmland — helps to stabilize the population of the little bustard in Catalonia.

“This strategy has a positive impact on the little bustard, mainly because it increases the reproductive success, for it provides the species with everything that has disappeared in the rain-fed agricultural environments as a result of the intensification of agricultural practises”, notes Professor Santi Mañosa, from the UB’s Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

“In spring, — he continues — they find food, places for the males to stop and attract females, mate, nest and feed the baby birds. In summer and autumn, and a great part of the winter, when crops are reaped and cultivated, fallow lands are the only places with enough plants to provide the little bustard flocks shelter and food”.

However, fallow lands have lost interest from a productive and agricultural perspective, and they are in regression in Spain. “Between 2009 and 2018, 21% of the fallow land surface has been lost in Catalonia, according to the latest State of Nature in Catalonia report, published in 2020, and steppe-land bird populations have reduced by 27% between 2002 and 2019, mainly due the loss of fallow lands (as one of the main causes)”, notes expert Gerard Bota. “The little bustard is one of the most affected birds and one of the few species to have suffered a major decline in Catalonia and other areas of Spain in a short period of time. As a result of this situation, it is currently catalogued as an endangered species in Spain, the same level of threat of other emblematic species such as the bearded vulture, the brown bear or the Iberian lynx”.  

What to do besides promoting fallow lands

The population models generated in this study show that increasing the surface area of fallow lands could certainly halt the decline of the species towards its disappearance, “but this measure, albeit essential, is not enough to recover the population numbers, since adult mortality — particularly in females — is still excessive”, warns Santi Mañosa.

.

“It will be essential to implement other conservation measures that have not been worked on much to date”, notes Gerard Bota. “For instance, reducing the mortality of adult females, mainly anthropogenic, which is the one we can manage. We know the little bustard is sensitive to death by collision with power lines because of its relatively reduced frontal vision when flying. It would be necessary to identify the main areas of post-breeding and winter aggregation and to act on the power lines installed to reduce the probability of death of the specimens. In the most important breeding and hibernation areas, some lines should be buried or eliminated, and in the rest of the areas, the lines should be properly marked with anti-collision elements”.

Generating trust and cooperation among different sectors

In 2009, a total of eight Special Protection Areas for Birds (SPAs) were declared in the steppe sectors of the Lleida Plain, aiming to protect the most important population of little bustard. Over an area of 47,360 hectares, the land use is regulated so that, in theory, the populations of steppe birds can be maintained. "In these areas, the most important measure that has been carried out so far to favour the populations of little bustards has been to lease and manage up to 3,400 hectares of fallow land, where the little bustards can find refuge and food to breed and spend the winter", says Mañosa.

Building trust and cooperation between different sectors related to land and biodiversity conservation is the cornerstone for finding solutions to ecological challenges in increasingly complex systems.

"Adaptive management is an effective process that managers can use to incorporate uncertainty of outcomes into the management model, learn from their actions and achieve the desired results. A key step in this process is the rigorous monitoring and evaluation of management interventions. For this, the work in the same direction of different actors involved in the implementation — Department of Climate Action and Rural Agenda, public companies, managers and scientists — has been key to the success of the measure", says Bota.

This model of adaptive conservation, "which involves the management of complex socio-ecological systems with the interests of very different groups, is exportable to other scenarios that require the application of actions — with an unknown or uncertain outcome — with the participation of very diverse actors", concludes Mañosa.

 

 

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JOURNAL

Biological Conservation

DOI

10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110386 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Modelling the effectivity of a land sparing strategy to preserve an endangered steppe-land bird population in cereal farmland: Scopes and limits