It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Animal rescuer who uses drones to find animals after natural disasters says it’s the ‘look on an animal’s face’ that keeps him going
Animal rescuer and cinematographer Douglas Thron’s passion for animals began when he was a little kid. “I started rescuing orphaned baby animals,” Thron tells Yahoo Life. “And I wanted to be a wildlife cinematographer.”
When Thron grew up, he did just that, working as a cinematographer for shows like Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” filming the Great White sharks off the coast of Santa Cruz, Calif., along with doing aerial cinematography for NatGeo. But Thron says it was the Paradise fire in California in 2018 that “pushed” him to do animal rescue activism work, putting his aerial cinematography skills to good use.
At the time, Thron was working as a cinematographer filming a man who was rescuing cats after the fire using an infrared handheld camera. The camera uses heat to detect the animals at night. Thron and the man talked about how incredible it would be to put one on a drone to detect animals more easily. “The animal’s body temperature will glow on the screen and you can pick them out amongst the rubble,” explains Thron.
Cinematographer Douglas Thron rescues animals after natural disasters using an infrared drone. (Photo: CuriosityStream)
He explains that flying a drone over a big disaster gives you “a real feel for how extensive the disaster is,” adding: “You definitely get inspired to drop everything to help as much as possible. The feeling I get when I rescue an animal is most definitely an incredible feeling, so it just keeps me going.”
The first animal Thron ever rescued was a dog in the Bahamas after a category 5 hurricane hit, which “wiped out hundreds of houses,” he says. Thron tested out putting an infrared scope on a drone and found the dog “literally in the middle of the giant debris pile where hundreds of houses had been smashed,” he says. “I flew the drone over and I found him. I was able to rescue him. And nobody claimed him after 30 days so I adopted him, and he’s a super wonderful dog.”
Thron with a koala rescued after the devastating fires in Australia in 2020. (Photo: CuriosityStream)
Thron adds that he’s basically been “going non-stop since then.” His TV show, Doug to the Rescue, shows some of his heartwarming animal rescues, including after Hurricane Laura in Louisiana in 2020 and after fires in Northern California and Oregon. Thron also helped rescue koalas after fires ravaged parts of Australia in 2020, using infrared-equipped drones for the first time there to help locate the animals.
“The drone really shaves off critical time so that the really badly hurt animals are able to be rescued,” Thron says. Once the infrared scope pics up the “heat signature of an animal,” Thron turns a spotlight on the animal and zooms in on it, so he and the rescue crews can go save the animal.
Thron’s dream is to one day have an animal rescue ranch where he can train others on flying drones and to make infrared drones "as popular for rescuing animals as helicopters are for rescuing people after a disaster,” he says.
Thron with a rescue puppy. (Photo: CuriosityStream)
The work isn’t easy, but it’s rewarding. Thron shares that the “look on an animal’s face” keeps him going. “They need our help,” he says. Rescuing animals has led to many touching moments, including reuniting people with their beloved lost pets, or “when we’re rescuing animals after fires and their bodies are badly burned and then you see later on in the episode cats and dogs all fat and happy and sitting under Christmas trees and stuff like that,” he says, cracking a smile.
It’s the technology, as well as Thron’s dedication, that has made all of the difference. “It blows me away how many more animals we’re able to save now,” Thron says, “and how much faster we can save them before they might pass away after a disaster.”
We asked Republican senators about Tucker Carlson's
favorite authoritarian leader.
Their praise and dodges
underscore the danger to
the US.
Eliza Relman,John Haltiwanger
The Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. YouTube
Carlson's recent visit to Hungary sparked alarm among democracy watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers.
But some Republican senators endorsed Carlson's embrace of Viktor Orbán and his authoritarian model.
Romney, however, denounced Orbán as an autocrat who's "only a few clicks away from Vladimir Putin."
The host of America's most-watched cable news show recently spent a week in Budapest extolling the virtues of a small European country sliding into autocracy, triggering alarm among democracy experts and Democratic lawmakers.
Insider approached nearly a dozen Republican senators this week to ask them whether they endorse Fox host Tucker Carlson's promotion of Hungary's right-wing populist leader. Their answers - and nonanswers - underscore the ongoing erosion of support for democracy on the American right.
Some Republican lawmakers either tacitly or explicitly portrayed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government as a model for US conservatives. Others insisted they weren't well-informed enough to answer questions about Hungary, which has attracted widespread condemnation, while putting its European Union membership in question.
"The only thing I know about [Orbán] is what I heard right there on [Carlson's] program," Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who's served in the Senate for 40 years, told Insider at the Capitol on Tuesday. "I saw enough snippets that I thought that he was a rational person."
"I haven't been tracking what's happening," Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, who served as Trump's ambassador to Japan and sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, told Insider.
"Call our press office," Sen. Ted Cruz, who also sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, told Insider. Cruz's spokespeople declined to comment when Insider reached them by email.
The only GOP senator who said he was very familiar with Hungary's government was Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and close ally of former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Orbán's leadership as a model for the US. He called Carlson's glowing portrayal of the autocrat "pretty accurate."
"I recognize the liberal left doesn't like Hungary, but there are so many positive things about what they're doing in that country," Johnson told Insider.
Carlson on the cover page of the Hungarian weekly magazine Mandiner on August 7. Janos Kummer/Getty Images
After winning two-thirds of the seats in parliament in 2010, Orbán wasted no time in overhauling the nation's constitution. Foundational laws were promptly rewritten without the approval of any lawmakers outside Fidesz, with the EU and UN raising concerns, and critics warning that Hungary was "sliding into authoritarianism." This set the tone for Orbán's rule.
Fidesz has since remade Hungary's electoral system - gerrymandering parliamentary districts and nearly halving the number of seats in parliament - to give it an advantage. The party has consistently won a two-thirds majority in parliament since 2010, despite not always winning a majority of the national vote. And Orbán granted dual citizenship to ethnic Hungarians outside the country's borders, who vote overwhelmingly for Fidesz.
In his domestic policy, Orbán has taken particularly aggressive stances against immigration - including erecting a 180-mile border wall - and LGBTQ rights in his efforts to keep the country of nearly 10 million white, Christian, and conservative. He's forced Central Europe's premier university out of the country, and he's funneled billions of dollars in government money into conservative institutions run by his loyalists as part of an effort "to turn Hungary into the intellectual capital of the nationalist conservative movement," Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Insider.
Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), a project that monitors the health of democracy worldwide, said in its 2021 report that Hungary lost its status as a democracy in 2018 and ranked among the top 10 autocratizing countries.
"Over the past decade, the Orbán government has undermined the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary, and freedom of the press; impeded Ukraine's cooperation with NATO; and cozied up to Russia, among many other acts inconsistent with a modern European liberal democracy," James Kirchick, a visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, told Insider.
'Everybody's got different views' on Hungary
Multiple GOP senators declined to comment or said they didn't know enough about Orbán's leadership to have an opinion on the state of Hungarian democracy or the US right's affinity for it. Others took the opportunity to criticize American democracy.
Grassley said he didn't have "the slightest idea" what Orbán had done in Hungary but had a favorable opinion of the leader after watching clips of Carlson's show last week. He went on to suggest that it wouldn't be out of character for Republicans to look abroad for political inspiration.
"Have you ever heard of Mrs. Thatcher?" he said, referring to the former conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. "A lot of things that Republicans started to do in the 1980s was because of what Thatcher was successful doing in Great Britain."
An aide to the senator interjected to say Grassley didn't condone what Orbán has done in Hungary, but the senator insisted the Hungarian leader appeared "rational."
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida insisted that "everybody's got different views" on Hungary's leadership and pivoted to criticizing American democracy. He said he had a Hungarian friend who's considering moving back to his home country if the US "keeps going down this path of systemic socialism."
Orbán at the White House with then-President Donald Trump. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Johnson, the Wisconsin senator who said he felt Hungary was a model for the US, was asked if he thought Orbán's restrictions on free speech and civic society were still problematic. He replied by turning the question around.
"I think what's problematic is what's happening in this country in terms of the media censorship and the media bias," he said.
Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, declined to comment on Hungary and Carlson and instead emphasized American exceptionalism.
"I think the US model should serve as a model for the world, one in which we continuously improve each generation upon the previous generation's handiwork and we leave a more perfect union for our children and grandchildren," Young told Insider. "I've got nothing else to say."
Why Hungarian autocracy appeals to the American right
Carlson's full-throated embrace of Orbán and his populist-nationalist Fidesz party didn't surprise many observers of conservatism. Orbán has become a hero to the far-right across Europe and the US, who've applauded his efforts to create a conservative ethnostate through strict anti-immigration policies, incentives for Hungarian parents, and censorship of progressive civic and educational institutions.
After years of criticism from US administrations, Orbán has found admirers in Trumpian Republicans. Right-wing commentators and operators, including the former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and writers at conservative outlets like National Review and American Conservative, are big fans.
Johnson told Insider he'd met "repeatedly" with Hungarian parliamentarians and called them "family-oriented." He added that Orbán's anti-immigration policies had shown "you actually can defend your border and represent the people of your country, as opposed to an open border and chaos that we're seeing here."
Experts on authoritarianism say that Trump's embrace of autocratic leaders and his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election have deepened the American right's disdain for democracy.
Staffan Lindberg, a Swedish political scientist and the director of V-Dem, said that embracing Orbán and his politics "means espousing authoritarianism and anti-pluralism."
"The suggestion that the GOP should emulate Fidesz and Orbán's politics is nothing short of saying that democracy is no longer the system for the US: Democracy should be dismantled, die," he told Insider.
Democrats are outspoken in their condemnation of Orbán, who President Joe Biden last year suggested was a totalitarian "thug," and say they're increasingly worried about the US right's embrace of authoritarianism.
"Orbán is trying to model a kind of repressive, pseudo-democracy where free speech is virtually nonexistent," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, told Insider this week.
"There's obviously a lot of sympathy in the Republican Party for authoritarianism and there's a lot of Republicans who are giving up on democracy," he added. "That's what January 6 was all about. ... The Republican Party right now presents a real threat to American democracy."
Many European conservatives and experts on the right are also increasingly critical of the Hungarian ruling party.
Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, said conservative respect for Orbán "reflects the continued deterioration of the American Right."
"Supposed conservatives are sacrificing once strongly held commitments to liberty and the rule of law," Bandow told Insider. "Support for the family and tradition are important but are secure only when nestled within a democratic system and based on a liberal constitutional order."
Carlson broadcasts from Hungary and praises the country's autocratic leader. YouTube
There used to be stronger opposition to Orbán's leadership in the GOP's ranks. In 2019, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to Trump expressing its concern with Hungary's "downward democratic trajectory." The lawmakers, including Republican Sens. James Risch and Marco Rubio, urged Trump to press Orbán on Hungary's embrace of China and Russia and its authoritarian slide.
Rohac said the right's criticism of Orbán had mostly dried up since then and "pro-Orbán and anti-anti-Orbán voices are dominating the conversation."
"It wasn't taken as a given that Viktor Orbán is a friend of conservative values, of the conservative movement," Rohac said. "I think those scruples have just disappeared. It's very hard to find anybody who would be critical of Orbán among politically active Republicans."
Still, a few GOP elected officials remain willing to speak out against Hungarian authoritarianism.
"I think Viktor Orbán and Hungary are far from a model for any other nation," Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and former GOP presidential nominee, told Insider on Tuesday. "Mr. Orbán is only a few clicks away from Vladimir Putin, and autocracy is antithetical to the American experience."
Spokespeople for Risch and Rubio didn't reply to Insider's multiple requests for comment.
Rohac said Orbán's appeal to Republicans came down to his success in crushing progressive culture and politics.
"The best explanation was provided by Tucker Carlson himself at this dinner with Orbán last week when he said that you are hated by the right sort of people," Rohac said, referring to Carlson's comment last week to Hungarian right-wingers.
"I'm afraid that's where we are with intellectual conservatism - that it's no longer about policy. It's no longer about principles. It's no longer about having some sort of coherent worldview that reflects conservative principles.
"It's squarely about owning the libs. It's squarely about just doing things that the other side will hate. And for that, Orbán is your man."
Encounters with coyotes in cities across Canada appear to be more frequent these days. Starling incidents with the animals have made headlines around the world, such as the case of Macy the Yorkie, who ended up in ICU after trying to protect her 10-year-old owner from an attack in a Toronto neighbourhood. When a Global News crew came to interview the young girl, the same coyote appeared on camera chasing another neighbour.
Meanwhile, Vancouver’s Stanley Park has been the scene of a number of attacks in recent months, including one involving a two-year-old girl, which resulted in a trip to hospital, a female jogger, and a woman who was attacked from behind by the animal. The incidents led to a cull of four coyotes in the park, using soft-foot hold traps.
Are coyote attacks really on the rise in Canada?
Simon Gadbois, an ethologist at Dalhousie University who’s studied wild canines for 30 years, says while it may seem like these incidents are on the rise, it could be that the media is paying more attention. He refers to the fatal incident from 2009 involving 19-year-old Taylor Mitchell, who was attacked by coyotes while on a hike in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. It’s the only known fatal coyote attack on an adult ever reported.
“Coyotes were in the news and everybody had Land and Forest on their speed dial,” he tells Yahoo Canada News. “Any time people would see a coyote they would panic and call.”
However, when Gadbois started researching incidents between coyotes and humans, he learned that there had been many such reports over the last 20 years.
“I’m not sure it’s as much as on the increase as people think,” he says. “But this past year, there seems to be something going on but it comes in waves.”
Currently, Stanley Park seems to be at the centre of that. Gadbois explains that coyotes aren’t attracted to humans, and if they are, there’s something compelling them, particularly a source of food.
People are either feeding them, or more often its indirect feeding like garbage management or picking up apples from your yard, emptying the bins in school yards. They’re around schools because there’s really juicy stuff in those garbage bins.Simon Gadbois, Ethologist at Dalhousie University
Culling of the animal is a decision made by a provincial government body, like the Department of Land and Forest. Gadbois explains that culling can actually backfire, since the move tends to boost the population down the line. The first year will see a reduction in numbers, but the following year there will be an increase in prey, so that the pups will have a better survival rate.
What to do if you encounter a coyote
There are other ways to secure a boundary between humans and coyotes. One is called hazing, in which a method is used to deter the animal from an area, conditioning them to associate humans with something other than food. There’s different ways to do this, which range from making loud noises, using water guns with vinegar or projecting rubber balls.
If you find yourself crossing paths with a coyote in the wild, Gadbois stresses that whatever you do, resist the urge to run away.
“Even if they’re not in predatory mode, they will start running after anything that moves,” he says. “It’s almost an instinctual response. You’re triggering something there and they can’t stop it.”
The same advice goes for people on bikes - don’t bike away. Instead, stop and get off. If you stop moving, the animal will stop.
Another step to take to discourage the animal from bothering you is to make a lot of noise, especially in a low voice.
“Make yourself look big, find something to throw,” he says. “Basically you’re sending a message that this isn’t going to be an easy fight and it’s not worth it.”
First New Oil Sands Pipeline in Years Could Start Next Month
Robert Tuttle Fri, August 13, 2021
(Bloomberg) -- A key pipeline linking Canada’s oil sands to U.S. markets could start shipping crude as early as next month.
Enbridge Inc.’s Line 3 oil pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin could start operating as soon as Sept. 15, bringing relief to Canadian oil sands producers who have had limited access to export pipelines. The new 760,0000 barrel-a-day conduit that replaces an older one with less capacity is as little as 30 to 60 days from completion, according to a notice sent to shippers.
Canada’s oil sands producers have struggled for years with a shortage of export pipelines as projects to build new ones face increasing scrutiny from courts and regulators. U.S. President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, rescinded a permit for TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL project that would have helped increase shipments of Canadian crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“Enbridge has filed for toll surcharges on the Line 3 replacement with the Canada Energy Regulator and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which could be effective as early as Sept. 15,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “There will be a further filing to specify the specific in-service date shortly before the line goes into service once all necessary construction and commissioning activities are complete.”
Heavy Western Canadian Select crude for September delivery was unchanged at a $13 a barrel discount to benchmark West Texas Intermediate at 2:48 p.m. Calgary time, after the spread earlier shrank to as narrow as $12.60 a barrel, NE2 Group data show.
The pipeline would be the first new cross-border export project built between Canada and the U.S. in years. The line is scheduled to enter service with oil sands production exceeding the capacity of existing lines out of Western Canada, forcing some companies to ship crude by rail.
The Line 3 project has been fiercely opposed by some environmental and indigenous groups, who have staged protests this summer along the construction route. Enbridge spent years in court fights and regulatory battles to get the line built. The Trans Mountain expansion, another export pipeline under construction is British Columbia, is scheduled to enter service as early as 2022.
Enbridge shares were little changed in Toronto on Friday, at C$49.06.
3,000 Americans died in worst year of polio epidemic, yet we all got vaccinated ASAP
Dave Helling Thu, August 12, 2021
I got my first polio vaccine in the early 1960s. It came in a sugar cube. Like millions of baby boomers, I lined up for the dose at a local clinic, with my parents and hundreds of other kids.
We didn’t know what polio was. We knew polio was sometimes called “infantile paralysis,” which would have been scary if we’d known what “infantile” meant. We collected dimes in a special card at school, to help pay for research into the disease. That was about it.
But my dad knew. Polio was a terror, he told us. Pools and churches and schools closed in the hot weather, when the strange virus circulated. Pictures of kids in machines called “iron lungs,” or wearing leg braces, filled the newspapers.
A president got polio. If you weren’t careful, you could get it too.
The disease prompted an unprecedented search for a vaccine. Jonas Salk and associates found one in 1955; later, Albert Sabin’s group developed the oral dose that I got. Both discoveries brought headlines, and worldwide acclaim.
For my parents, the polio vaccine was a miracle. My dad was deeply conservative — he thought Barry Goldwater was too far left — but there was never any question we would take the Sabin vaccine, and escape the scourge of polio.
So let’s think about this: The nation saw about 58,000 polio cases in 1952, the worst year for the disease in American history. Around 21,000 people were paralyzed, some permanently. There were 3,145 deaths.
It’s astonishing that the U.S. conducted a mass vaccination program for a disease that killed two or three thousand patients a year, yet struggles to get enough people to take shots for a disease that killed 21,000 people in one week.
It’s true that polio largely infected children, while COVID attacked mostly adults and the elderly. But the onslaught of this coronavirus hasn’t spared the young: As of this month, 4.3 million children have caught COVID-19, roughly 14% of all cases.
Kansas reports 43,000 kids have been infected with COVID; Missouri, 66,000.
More children are being hospitalized with COVID now; the delta variant seems to be more harmful to kids. As of now, children younger than 12 can’t get a vaccine, which could make things worse.
And death isn’t the only danger from COVID-19. Studies now show a disturbing number of children suffer from “long COVID,” a disastrous side effect that could affect learning and living for years, even decades.
The numbers of pediatric long COVID cases aren’t clear. Even if it’s just 1%, though, that would mean 43,000 kids could potentially face debilitating COVID symptoms and disability, including one thousand children in Kansas and Missouri.
The harm is real, and ongoing. By any measure, COVID-19 is far more dangerous than polio. Yet hundreds of thousands of Americans now fiercely resist any meaningful attempt to limit COVID exposure to kids. Some states have banned schools from requiring masks.
Hundreds of thousands of kids will face COVID at reopened schools without shots, without masks, without protection. They’re on their own. History will remember this tragedy, and a nation’s blindness to facts.
It might have been different.
Since 1979, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, not a single case of polio has originated in the U.S. The last time someone brought polio into the country was 1993. Vaccines have all but eradicated polio as a disease.
Yet most kids are still required to get polio shots. Four are recommended (interestingly, the live oral vaccine I got hasn’t been used for years). The reason is simple: Vaccines work. They protect kids, and everyone else.
The nation once understood this. We no longer do
Arnold Schwarzenegger asks if Americans are 'really this selfish and angry' after his rant against anti-maskers
Brendan Morrow, Staff Writer Fri, August 13, 2021
Arnold Schwarzenegger NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
Arnold Schwarzenegger is continuing to call out those "schmucks" refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The former Republican governor of California earlier this week blasted anyone who claims that wearing a mask infringes upon their freedom, telling them "screw your freedom" and that "you're a schmuck for not wearing a mask." He expanded on that in an essay for The Atlantic on Friday, saying he stands by his rant, while acknowledging it may have been "a little much."
Schwarzenegger goes on to write, though, that some responses he received to his rant "really worried me," as "many people told me that the Constitution gives them rights, but not responsibilities," and they apparently "feel no duty to protect their fellow citizens." In response to this sentiment, he calls on Americans to reflect on the fact that "our country began with a willingness to make personal sacrifices for the collective good."
"When I look at the response to this pandemic, I really worry about the future of our country," he continues. "We have lost more than 600,000 Americans to COVID-19. Are we really this selfish and angry? Are we this partisan?"
Schwarzenegger also writes that it "doesn't bother me" that some have accused him of being a RINO, or a Republican In Name Only, because of his stance.
"Honestly, rhinos are beautiful, powerful animals," he writes, "so I take that as a compliment." Read the full essay at The Atlantic.
Inconvenient truth: Droughts shrink hydropower, pose risk to global push to clean energy
FILE PHOTO: Hoover Dam reservoir sinks to record low, in sign of extreme Western U.S. drought Sharon Bernstein, Jake Spring and David Stanway Thu, August 12, 2021
SACRAMENTO, Calif./BRASILIA/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Severe droughts are drying up rivers and reservoirs vital for the production of zero-emissions hydropower in several countries around the globe, in some cases leading governments to rely more heavily on fossil fuels.
The emerging problems with hydropower production in places like the United States, China and Brazil represent what scientists and energy experts say is going to be a long-term issue for the industry as climate change https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/once-in-50-year-heat-waves-now-happening-every-decade-un-climate-report-2021-08-09 triggers more erratic weather and makes water access less reliable.
They also could pose a threat to international ambitions to fight global warming by hindering one of the leading forms of existing clean power. Hydropower is the world's top source of clean energy and makes up close to 16% of world electricity generation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
This year, climate-driven droughts have triggered the biggest disruptions in hydropower generation in decades in places like the western United States and Brazil. China is still recovering from the effects of last year's severe drought on hydro production in Yunnan province in the southwestern part of the country.
Elsewhere, too much water is the problem.
Last year in Malawi, for example, flooding and debris from megastorms forced two power stations to go offline, reducing hydropower capacity from 320 megawatts (MW) to 50 MW, according to the IEA.
Those effects have forced power grid operators to rely more heavily on thermal power plants, often fired by natural gas or coal, and to ask businesses to curtail electricity use to prevent outages, according to Reuters interviews with grid operators and regulators.
"When we're talking about hydropower we're really talking about making sure we have enough water to get electricity," said Kristen Averyt, a research professor focusing on climate resilience at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. "What does that hydro generation get replaced with?"
SHUTDOWN AT LAKE OROVILLE
In California, the State Water Project was forced to shut down a 750-MW hydroelectric power plant at Lake Oroville this month for the first time since it was built in 1967 because of low water levels. In good years, the plant can power half a million homes.
Power facilities at Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in the federal government's Central Valley Project in California, were also generating about 30% less power than usual this summer, said Cary Fox, a team leader for the Bureau of Reclamation's operations in the state.
The lake usually provides about 710 MW during the summer, but in July was producing only 500 MW, Fox said.
At the huge 2,000 MW Hoover Dam on the Colorado River at the border of Nevada and Arizona, production was also down by about 25% last month, the agency said.
One megawatt can power up to 1,000 U.S. homes.
Tight power supplies in California, driven in part by low hydropower production, led Governor Gavin Newsom to issue an order on July 30 allowing industrial power consumers to run on diesel generators and engines that emit more greenhouse gases. [
The order also allowed ships at port to use diesel generators instead of plugging into the grid, and lifted restrictions on the amount of fuel natural gas plants can use to generate power.
Environmentalists have criticized the move, saying it will worsen air quality in California and undermine the state's efforts to fight climate change.
Tim Welch, director of hydropower research at the U.S. Department of Energy, said the department is researching ways that dams can more efficiently store water during rainy periods so it can be reserved for use during droughts.
Hydropower plants in the United States are capable of producing about 80 gigawatts (GW) of energy, about 7% of total energy production, Welch said.
DROUGHT IN BRAZIL
In Brazil, where hydroelectric power is the top source of electricity at 61%, drought recently cut water flows into hydro dams to a 91-year low, the country's mines and energy minister said.
To offset the drop in hydropower, the country is seeking to activate thermoelectric plants, mainly powered by natural gas, threatening to drive up greenhouse gas emissions. In July, sector regulator Aneel raised the most expensive electricity rate by 52%, due to the drought crisis.
Severe weather events like the current drought will become increasingly frequent with climate change, and Brazilians will need to change their attitudes about water, said José Marengo, a climatologist at the government's disaster monitoring center.
"People always thought that water is unlimited, but it really isn't," Marengo said.
Brazil Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque said in an online briefing with reporters that a boom in the construction of power lines to reroute electricity to where it is needed and diversification away from hydro to solar and wind will help the country deal with such events in the future, and prevent the need for water rationing.
Even so, Brazil will remain reliant on hydropower for years. By 2030, the energy ministry predicts 49% of electricity will come from hydro. The country is also maintaining plans to build more hydro plants, exploring potential cross-border dam projects with Bolivia, Guyana and Argentina, as well as building 2 GW worth of small dams domestically.
DAMS - SAVE THE PLANET OR HARM IT?
Last year's drought in China's Yunnan province slashed hydro power generation by nearly 30% during the first five months of 2020, according to official data. Output this year remains curtailed by around 10%.
Yunnan usually accounts for roughly a quarter of China's total hydro generation, and the province is home to several aluminum smelting businesses that require vast quantities of power to operate. The province restricted metal producers' power use earlier this year, forcing some smelting capacity to be temporarily shut.
More disruptions are expected.
A recent study by researchers in Nanjing looked at the potential impact of climate change and rising temperatures on hydropower generation in Yunnan. Their models showed decreases in rain and snowfall during the October-April drought season and increases in the summer rainy season.
To even out the variability, the researchers proposed more storage capacity - more dams and reservoirs.
But the diversions could worsen droughts elsewhere, according to experts. China's giant reservoirs
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California, Jake Spring in Brasilia, David Stanway in Shanghai; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
Carbon emissions from wildfires raging across the world are adding up
Andrew Freedman Fri, August 13, 2021 Data: CAMS/Mark Parrington; Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios
Wildfires are raging in Canada, the U.S. and Siberia, emitting carbon dioxide, soot, and other planet-warming pollutants, while also destroying homes and fouling air quality. Now new data shows just how large the fires' carbon footprint may be.
Until then, they will continue to emit greenhouse gases. The Siberian fires alone are emitting as much as individual countries do in a year, according to data from the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS).
By the numbers: According to Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at CAMS, the two Canadian provinces contributing the most fire-related carbon dioxide emissions are British Columbia and Saskatchewan, while the Sakha Republic and Far Eastern Federal District of Russia are emitting the greatest amounts in Russia.
So far, the Siberian fires have emitted total emissions of about 1613.00 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent gases, which is on par with Indonesia's annual emissions in 2019, per numbers from The Rhodium Group.
It's also higher than emissions last year from Siberian fires, which was also an unusually severe fire season.
Massive wildfires are wiping out entire Siberian villages, killing people, emitting dangerous smoke, and destroying woods and national parks across more than 5 million hectares.
The fires, which started in May in Yakutia, are now larger than all wildfires around the planet combined, according to Greenpeace. There is no official death toll yet, but at least five people are known to have died so far.
For months, Russian authorities have been saying that the situation was under control. Finally, on Thursday, the minister of Emergency Situations, Yevgeny Zinichev, traveled to the epicenter of the disaster in Yakutia and concluded: the fires will reach Moscow, if nobody stops them.
There are more than 3,000 miles between Moscow and Yakutia, a republic four times the size of France, located in northeastern Siberia. It is one of the coldest places on the planet in winter time. But this summer has been unusually hot, with unprecedented droughts and strong winds fueling the disaster.
On Wednesday, a local tractor driver died fighting the fire in Yakutia, which has been burning for weeks. Many locals blame the Kremlin for not doing enough to help the burning north. “Russia is a huge power. Every year it demonstrates its military power but cannot put out the fires. Or does it not want to?,” a prominent Yakutia politician, Sardana Avksentyeva, wrote in a Thursday Instagram post.
When Avksentyeva started posting photographs of wildfires on June 8, she was convinced that the special forces of the emergency ministry, known as MCHS, would handle the problem. But by Aug. 1, houses were still burning and animals were still dying as 163 fires raged around the republic.
“It seems the authorities are simply waiting for August rains to put down the fires. MCHS, are you alive?” she wrote on Instagram. “All our pleas to announce the emergency situation were left unanswered.”
Meanwhile, Moscow has been focused on upcoming parliament elections—and on persecuting the opposition. Yakutia had to fight the fires using only its own local budget. “This is a lesson to all the other Russian regions: do not wait for the center’s help, count only on yourself.”
The leader of Greenpeace Russia’s firefighting team, Grigory Kuksin, says that the government is to blame for the lack of funding to manage the disaster.
“Russia spends about 30 billion rubles on preventing fires and training regional forest firefighting teams, but the budget should be at least three times bigger,” Kuksin told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
He added: “Professional firefighters cannot appear from nowhere, they should have been trained. The aftermath of lives lost, as a result of these fires, will number thousands, since several cities are now suffering from smoke.”
Every day, Polina Pavlova, a volunteer from the devastated region of Berdigestyakh, posts emergency phone numbers, calls for volunteers, and posts photographs of her smoky village, which has been receiving hundreds of evacuated victims. Local authorities provide aid for pregnant women, little children, and others whose homes have burnt in the wildfire. “There is so much smoke, we cannot see the sun,” Pavlova posted on Facebook on Wednesday.
Earlier this week Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of more firefighting aircraft to Siberian regions, but ecologists say the government was late.
“Right now, there are about 5,000 people fighting the wildfires around one million kilometers of burning woods in Yakutia, at least 3,000 of them are local volunteers,” Bagdan Bakaleiko, a Rain TV journalist covering the crisis in Yakutia, told The Daily Beast. “Firefighters tell us that everything that has never burnt before is burning now.”
The entire village of Byas-Kyuel has burnt to the ground. Flames destroyed 31 houses, and at least 400 people were evacuated to temporary shelters. Authorities promise to build new homes for the victims by October. Reporters from News.Yukt.ru compare the scene in the ruined village to an “apocalypse.” Meanwhile, the smoke has reached the republic’s capital, Yakutsk. The IQAir monitors suggest that the concentration of toxic smoke pollution in the air is 247 times the recommended norm.
Several other Russian regions are suffering from wildfires in the Urals, Far East and in the central parts of Russia. Earlier this month, wildfires spread in the national park of Republic of Mordovia, 352 miles from Moscow. This week, the fires reached Alamasovo village in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
“Until recently the Kremlin did not pay much attention to wildfires, but considered the significance of climate change,” Kuksin said. “Russian authorities should be focusing harder and spending bigger budgets on fire prevention, and training professional wood firefighters.”
Forest Service maxed out as wildfires break across US West
EUGENE GARCIA and DAISY NGUYEN Thu, August 12, 2021
WESTWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service said Friday it's operating in crisis mode, fully deploying firefighters and maxing out its support system as wildfires continue to break out across the U.S. West, threatening thousands of homes and entire towns.
The roughly 21,000 federal firefighters working on the ground is more than double the number of firefighters sent to contain forest fires at this time a year ago, and the agency is facing “critical resources limitations,” said Anthony Scardina, a deputy forester for the agency's Pacific Southwest region.
An estimated 6,170 firefighters alone are battling the Dixie Fire in Northern California, the largest of 100 large fires burning in 14 states, with dozens more burning in western Canada.
The fire began a month ago and has destroyed more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other structures, much of it in the small town of Greenville in the northern Sierra Nevada.
The fire had ravaged more than 800 square miles (well over 2,000 square kilometers) — an area larger than the city of London — and continued to threaten more than a dozen rural and forest communities.
Containment lines for the fire held overnight, but it was just 31% surrounded. Gusty and erratic winds were threatening to spread the fire to Westwood, a lumber town of 1,700. Lightning could spark new blazes even as crews try to surround a number of other forest fires ignited by lightning last month.
"Mother nature just kind of keeps throwing us obstacles our way," said Edwin Zuniga, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, working together with the Forest Service to tamp out the blaze.
Meanwhile, firefighters and residents were scrambling to save hundreds of homes as flames advance across the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana.
The blaze was still burning near the tribal headquarters town of Lame Deer, where a mandatory evacuation remained in place and a second fire was threatening from the opposite direction.
Smoke from the blazes grew so thick Friday morning that the health clinic in Lame Deer was shut down after its air filters could not keep up with the pollution, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said.
An air quality alert covering seven Montana counties warned of extremely high levels of small pollution particles found in smoke, which can cause lung issues and other health problems if inhaled.
The fires near Lame Deer combined have burned 275 square miles (710 square kilometers) this week, so far sparing homes but causing extensive damage to pasture lands that ranchers depend on to feed their cows and horses.
Gusts and low humidity were creating extremely dangerous conditions as flames devoured brush, short grass and timber, fire officials said.
Hot, dry weather with strong afternoon winds also propelled several fires in Washington state, and similar weather was expected into the weekend, fire officials said.
In southeastern Oregon, two new wildfires started by lightning Thursday near the California border were spreading through juniper trees, sagebrush and evergreen trees.
Gov. Kate Brown declared an emergency for one of the fires to mobilize crews and other resources to the area of ranches, rural subdivisions and RV parks about 14 miles (23 kilometers) from the small town of Lakeview.
The blaze grew from a lightning strike to 11 square miles (28 square kilometers) in less than 24 hours, said Tamara Schmidt, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
Authorities Thursday evening ordered the evacuation of an RV park that stood in the path of the Oregon's Patton Meadow Fire.
The fires are near the area torched Oregon's Bootleg Fire which started July 6 and burned an area more than half the size of Rhode Island before crews gained the upper hand. The fire is not yet fully contained and was the nation’s largest until being eclipsed by the Dixie Fire.
Triple-digit temperatures and bone-dry conditions in Oregon, enduring a third day of extreme heat, could increase fire risks through the weekend.
Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.
More than 6,000 square miles (almost 16,000 square kilometers) have been burned in the U.S. so far this year. That's well ahead of the amount burned by this point last year, but below the 10-year average, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Nguyen reported from Oakland, Calif. Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont., Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco and Gillian Flaccus in Portland contributed to this report.
