SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Realizing SDGs: Efforts to Overcome Ecological and Environmental Barriers

on August 7, 2023
By Munif Arif Ranti


Sustainable development is a global momentum to realize human welfare using a triple bottom line approach that includes economic development, environmental improvement and preservation, and social inclusion (Sachs, 2012). Unfortunately, sustainable development practice is still hampered by the lack of consensus in strengthening cross-sectoral synergies and attention to environmental issues that are still sidelined. Ecological and environmental issues are the main obstacles that will continue to shackle the realization of sustainable development, regardless of the extent to which environmental sustainability targets can be set. The SDGs will only be achieved if the meaning of ecological sustainability is limited to the commitment to real action that can represent environmental concerns. In addition, synergy in realizing sustainable development is hampered by the transformation of policies relevant to environmental issues that are not carried out using a climate approach, coupled with the emergence of the practice of “ecological colonization,” which maps the interests of the Global North and Global South. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the commitment of international actors accompanied by concrete actions in mainstreaming environmental interests, strengthening development transformation with climate-based considerations, and strengthening the collaboration of developed and developing countries to minimize the environmental impact of ongoing development.

Strengthening the commitment and concrete actions of various international actors to realize environmental conservation is a major responsibility if sustainable development is to be fully realized. This is based on the fact that the development carried out by humans today depends on the environment. It cannot be denied that humans always need nature or the environment, so various development practices must consider ecological conditions so as not to cause losses in the long run. The country’s commitment to the synergy between climate action and sustainable development is increasingly significant. Unfortunately, this commitment has not been accompanied by strengthening climate action relevant to current environmental problems. Actions taken by states in realizing sustainable development tend to only strengthen synergies without considering trade-offs that can undermine effective policy implementation (Dzebo et al., 2018). This means that environmental considerations are often sacrificed to fulfill development. If the actions taken in sustainable development continue to be carried out like that, the triple bottom line approach cannot be realized because environmental aspects are often marginalized.

In realizing sustainable development, at least two main things include inclusive development and environmental sustainability to strengthen the resulting policies. The meaning can be recognized by opening space for all parties to actively participate in an inclusive and environmentally friendly development process (Silva, 2021). Suppose it is related to the SDG principle that every person and country is responsible for realizing universal, safe, just, and sustainable development. In that case, there is no exception to support the SDGs’ fulfillment actively. Regardless, the issue of environmental sustainability and environmental injustice that illustrates the segregation of environmental access and risks among broad social groups needs to be more focused (Filho et al., 2019). The aim is none other than to develop collective action of global actors who are more sensitive to the problem of environmental degradation. Thus, environmental concerns will be strengthened and become a momentum that can provide great significance in realizing sustainable development that is fully ecologically responsible.

At the domestic level of the country, to maximize commitment and concrete actions that support environmental preservation in sustainable development, it is necessary to integrate global, national, and sub-national policies. The intended integration aims to maximize the desired results of the development process that implements environmental values through the climate spectrum (Dzebo et al., 2018). In other words, the policies produced by the state not only show a commitment that the development carried out is minimal risk to the environment but has considered the extent of the impacts that can occur and can overcome these impacts significantly. This means that in the development process, the value of the environment should not be a marginalized aspect but rather the main aspect directly related to the development and determines whether a development will be effective.

In addition to strengthening the commitment and concrete actions of various actors to answer the obstacles in the sustainable development process, it is necessary to strengthen the transformation of climate-based development. The consideration is based on the current development conditions that are on two spectrums. First, a development that runs quickly tends to harm the environment. Second, a development with minimal environmental impact needs to be faster in its fulfillment. Therefore, the main key that can be carried out to support SDGs that are committed to the environment is through climate-based development transformation. One of the important transformations to be carried out is the development of the eco-environment, which is an important aspect of supporting human survival (Wei et al., 2022). Through the transformation of development based on the eco-environment, it is expected that development can go hand in hand with environmental sustainability so that it is no longer the main cause of degradation.

Eco-environment refers to the combination of people, resources, and various natural factors, including climate, water, soil, and vegetation, that play an important role in human development. In the view of eco-environment, economic and population growth leads to global warming and environmental degradation, which are the main challenges in achieving eco-development. Therefore, the priority is to emphasize the importance of environmental protection in development policies (Wei et al., 2022). The intended development transformation through the eco-environment is the appropriate use of biological resources without overexploiting them. Eco-environment also emphasizes the use of other environmentally friendly alternatives in supporting development. For example, the transformation to the use of renewable energy. Given that economic growth is also one of the three main approaches to be realized through the SDGs, it is inevitable that economic growth often has environmental implications. Therefore, through climate-based transformation, economic growth can be encouraged by shifting to renewable energy sources so that industrial and economic growth can continue to develop without climate implications (Ahmed et al., 2022).

In addition to the eco-environment approach, climate-based sustainable development transformation can be realized through several relevant practices. For example, the implementation of smart cities, whose mechanisms are carried out to improve industrial structures and technological advances in reducing pollution and realizing greening or green space coverage (Su et al., 2023). By implementing an environment-based smart city, sustainable development goals may be closer to achieving. Furthermore, the concept of environment-based smart cities can also adopt internet integration to encourage an innovative and greener economy in today’s digital era. China is one of the countries developing such innovations to minimize environmental pollution through technology and green economic development (Ren et al., 2022). If this transformation continues to be developed, its significance in realizing the SDGs will become more apparent. It can directly maximize the fulfillment of the triple bottom line, which includes economic development, environmental improvement and preservation, and social inclusion through environmentally friendly digital transformation. In its development, it is also important to pay attention to the transformation of the water and food sector, given its direct implications on public health (Filho et al., 2019). The key lies in sustainable development and environmental justice that takes climate change mitigation into account.

In order to overcome obstacles in the SDGs caused by ecological and environmental problems, it is necessary to strengthen collaboration between developed and developing countries. We understand that the SDGs encourage developed countries to assist developing countries in meeting the specified targets jointly. Nevertheless, there often needs to be more alignment between developed and developing countries in interpreting the SDGs. Developed countries are generally more significant in fulfilling the three pillars of the SDGs while developing countries focus on the economic and social pillars (Swain & Yang-Wallentin, 2020). This is certainly not without reason; on the one hand, developed countries are economically established, so they are more likely to adopt policies related to the environment. On the other hand, developing countries still in the economic development stage will need help to adopt the same environmental policies as developed countries. This problem is one of the main obstacles to realizing the SDGs because, despite developed countries’ commitment to assisting developing countries, there will always be a gap for both parties in the conflict.

When looking at the material footprint of environmental utilization from 1970 to 2017, high-income countries representing 16% of the global population were responsible for 74% of the resource use that led to environmental degradation. This fact indicates the existence of “ecological colonization” that harms developing countries both ecologically and economically (Richards, 2023). To avoid further inequality and disagreement between North and South countries, implementing the SDGs must strengthen coherent collaboration. North-South cooperation must be carried out non-discriminately and fairly under the SDGs agenda so that all parties are not excluded from the development stage. To realize the strengthening of North-South collaboration, it is important to pay attention to the gaps that may arise so that the partnership can be more transparent and provide mutual support (Blicharska et al., 2021). If North-South countries can maximize their collaboration, the fulfillment of sustainable development goals will be more realized.

From the explanation above, ecological and environmental problems are the main obstacles that will continue to shackle the realization of sustainable development. For this reason, it is necessary to strengthen three aspects to realize effective and efficient sustainable development. First, strengthening international actors’ commitment and real action to realize environmental conservation. Second, through strengthening the transformation of ecology-based development. The intended transformation is very relevant to the eco-environment approach, which emphasizes the use of environmentally friendly alternatives in supporting development and through various other transformations whose main consideration is environmental preservation. Third, through strengthening North-South collaboration in realizing sustainable development, previously hampered by the presence of “ecological colonization.” By strengthening these three aspects, obstacles caused by ecology and the environment can be minimized so that realizing the three main pillars of the SDGs, which include economic development, environmental improvement and preservation, and social inclusion, will be maximally realized.
RELATED TOPICS:ENVIRONMENTSUSTAINABILITY

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Munif Arif Ranti



Graduate student of International Relations, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia.

 

Tree Rings Reveal: It Has Never Been This Warm In Past 1200 Years

 August 7, 2023 

By Eurasia Review

A new 1200 year-long time series based on tree rings shows that the current warming is unprecedented during this period. This is reported by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL in the scientific journal “Nature”.

The Middle Ages and the centuries that followed were turbulent, also climatically: not only was there a “Little Ice Age”, but also its opposite: the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”, during which it may have been unusually warm. The latter can clearly be seen in reconstructed temperatures from annual tree rings. In fact, reconstructed Medieval temperatures are often portrayed as higher than today’s temperatures. This has long been a puzzle because there is no known physical explanation for such exceptional Medieval warmth. Climate models are therefore unable to simulate it and instead show only moderately warm temperatures for the Medieval Climate Anomaly.

Support for climate models

“Previous reconstructions are based on the width or density of the annual tree rings,” explains Georg von Arx from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. “Both are very much dependent on temperature, but sometimes other factors play a role in how wide or dense a tree ring gets”.

Together with other researchers, the head of the Dendrosciences research group has created a new reconstruction based on a particularly precise method to extract temperature information from trees. In contrast to previous work, the new results lead to the same conclusion as the climate models: the Medieval Climate Anomaly was cooler than previously thought, at least in Scandinavia, where the wood studied originated. Today’s warming is thus likely outside the range of natural fluctuations in temperatures over the past 1200 years, the researchers conclude.

50 million cells measured

For their study they used a new method optimized at WSL to directly measure the cell wall thickness of the wood cells in the annual tree rings. “Each individual cell in each tree ring records climatic information under which it was formed. By analyzing hundreds, sometimes thousands of cells per ring, extraordinary pure climate information can be obtained”, explains the first author of the study and WSL researcher Jesper Björklund.

For their new time series, the researchers measured the cell walls of 50 million cells. These come from 188 living and dead Swedish and Finnish Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris), whose annual rings together cover a period of 1170 years. Based on these measurements, the researchers then reconstructed the summer temperatures in this region and compared them both with model simulations of the regional climate and with previous reconstructions based on the density of the annual rings.

Unprecedented warming

The result was clear: the temperatures of the models and the new time series align.

“This means that there are now two independent accounts of the regional climate that both find lower temperatures during the Medieval, providing new evidence that this phase was not as warm as previously thought,” says Björklund. “Instead, both show that the current warming is unprecedented, at least in the past millennium, and emphasize the role of greenhouse gas emissions on Scandinavian temperature variability.”

The previous reconstructions based on tree ring density, in contrast, indicated significantly higher temperatures for the Medieval Climate Anomaly and lower temperatures for the current warming.

“This is critical because such reconstructions are considered when evaluating the accuracy of climate models. If the previous reconstructions were used as a benchmark, this would significantly downplay the human influence on current climate warming and reduce confidence in model projections”, warns von Arx.

The researchers used subfossil wood from trees preserved in mountain lakes. (Photo: Håkan Grudd)

 

God’s Cricketer – OpEd

 August 7, 2023 

By Acton Institute

By Christopher Sandford

With a passion for social justice, ending Apartheid in South Africa, and cricket, David Sheppard is perhaps the best batsman-bishop you’ve never heard of.

You’re facing the Cy Young Award–winning pitcher Justin Verlander from a distance of 22 yards, armed only with a three-foot long, paddle-shaped club and your own nerve. To enliven the proceedings, Verlander interacts with you not from the traditional essentially static crouch, but after a headlong sprint from the outfield to the pitcher’s mound, at the climax of which he hurls a cherry-red leather ball in the general direction of your ankles. In most cases the ball will hit the turf, deviate sharply left or right, and rear up like a skipping rock somewhere toward your unprotected midriff. Other than avoiding serious injury, your job is to score runs—the currency of the game—by striking the ball to the field boundary, or far enough from the 11 fielders to allow you, the batsman, to run to the other end of the infield before the ball can be returned. Due to certain quirks of the game’s rules, the man with the bat can sometimes remain in situ for hours on end, and the contest itself (there are varying formats involved) can last up to five days, with players and spectators going home at around six each evening and returning the following morning.

There, in a nutshell, is cricket, which despite or because of its fabled idiosyncrasies remains the world’s second most popular spectator sport, after only the ubiquitous soccer.

Bishop David Sheppard. Photo Credit: Illustrated London News, Wikipedia Commons

Cricket may appear strange to Americans, but even stranger, perhaps, is the fact of modern American life that the unashamedly Christian athlete who refuses to compromise on—in fact proudly avows—his or her faith can expect a certain amount of disdain at the hands of the mainstream media of a sort it’s somehow hard to imagine being extended to those of other beliefs. To give just a few of the many available examples: the Olympic gold-medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles was ridiculed for being “so, so into Jesus,” as well as for the shocking revelation that she prayed on a daily basis. In a similar vein, the New York Times saw fit to write about the Olympic hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones in a piece published just before a major race, mocking her for being “whatever anyone wants her to be—vixen, virgin, victim.”

And then of course there’s the NFL’s Tim Tebow, whose unembarrassed Christianity earned him the cover story in GQ magazine entitled “Have You Accepted Tebow as Your QB and Sunday Savior?” complete with a picture of the Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback altered to make him seem to be in a crucifixion pose. Even that shameless manipulation qualified as mere routine secular bigotry, unexceptional in today’s media, compared to the vitriol of the popular Chicago sportswriter Dan Bernstein, who called Tebow “little more than an affable simpleton” and his admirers “lunatic-fringe cultists” and “batspit crazy fanatics.”

Which all somehow brings us to the life story of the English-born David Sheppard (1929–2005), who enriched the international cricket world of the 1950s and early 1960s.

Sheppard was the only son of a lawyer father and a homemaking mother and related through them respectively to the Victorian illustrator William James Sheppard and the Reverend Thomas “Tubby” Clayton, founder of the Toc H global Christian movement. Broadly speaking, one side of the family had artistic leanings, while the other was noted for its entrepreneurial flair and spiritual piety. The boy David was precociously gifted at sports and remembered both for his striking appearance, with crisp, center-parted dark hair and a smile like that of a young model in a toothpaste advertisement, and academic prowess. Boarding school was followed by two years of mandatory army service and then, belatedly, by Cambridge University.

Sheppard quickly began breaking existing batting records on the college cricket field. In August 1950, the game’s mysterious national selection panel, as arcane in its deliberations as those of a papal conclave, invited him to represent England in an international, or “Test,” match against a visiting team from the West Indies. Readers familiar with baseball’s annual All-Star Game need only think of a 20-year-old rookie being invited to participate and then in short order becoming its star performer to get some of the flavor.

It’s not necessary to dwell at any length on Sheppard’s subsequent career as a professional cricketer. But it touched the very heights of the sport. In 1952 it was the turn of the Indian team to visit Great Britain. At that level, a batsman (one makes another imaginative leap here from baseball) scoring 40 or 50 individual runs is considered eminently respectable, even distinguished. If you’re lucky you might even reach 70 or 80. The still only 22-year-old Sheppard went out to bat for his country against India in a game at The Oval ground in London and scored 119. Making runs in cricket is often less about brute power than it is about delicately placing the ball where no fieldsman is present. One venerable critic exclaimed when watching Sheppard bat: “Poetry!” An England teammate named Godfrey Evans said simply: “I always regarded David as the most graceful player who ever lived.”

In 1953, Sheppard was duly appointed captain of his professional club side, and the following year he achieved the sport’s ultimate accolade by being asked to lead England. It was both a popular and yet not uncontroversial decision by the team’s selectors. The leading alternative candidate, Len Hutton, was widely regarded as a superbly efficient but somewhat dour artisan, while Sheppard’s image was more that of the merry swashbuckler. At that time in English society, there was still a lingering preference for leaders drawn from the ancient universities. It seems almost satirically quaint now, but the received wisdom was that the needs of the England captaincy of the 1950s were better met by a dapper, Cambridge-bred swell than by an honest yeoman.

In any event, Sheppard soon resolved the selectors’ dilemma by announcing his decision to return to his old university to study theology, with a view to taking holy orders. Although he continued to intermittently play cricket until 1963, the sport now took second place to his clerical duties. In September 1955, Sheppard was ordained by the Anglican bishop of London in a ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he served his first curacy in Islington, north London, at a time when the area was still a byword for urban decay rather than the spiritual home of Britain’s left-wing intelligentsia. He faced other challenges of a personal nature, too, when his young wife, Grace, collapsed with a serious nervous breakdown. For many years afterward, Grace, with her husband’s help, struggled to fight against agoraphobia.

Sheppard’s first order of business in Islington was to take over a derelict factory building and rename it the Mayflower Family Centre, where among other things volunteers offered addiction and counseling services long before these became fashionable. His passion for social justice spread to his cricketing life. When in 1960 the selectors asked Sheppard to return to play for England against the touring South Africans, he declined the honor in order to protest the system of racial segregation known as apartheid—a scandalous decision to many cricket traditionalists, and one that led to an angry summons by the selectors. On his way to the meeting, Sheppard stopped his car at a traffic light and, as was his habit, picked up the Bible he kept on the passenger seat to read a few verses. The book fell open at Isaiah 58:1: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression.” Thirty minutes later, Sheppard politely informed his hosts in the committee room that he would never again dignify the all-white South African team by playing cricket against them. The affair did a good deal to convince the government in Pretoria of the strength of worldwide anti-apartheid feeling.

Though hardly a single-minded professional sportsman, Sheppard was fully capable of holding his own amid the horseplay and banter, not all of it elevated, of the typical male locker room of the day. He wasn’t just a great cricketer. He was also a character. Among other eccentricities, he sometimes liked to act as his own announcer while on the field. Having swung at and missed a ball, he’d be heard to mutter: “In the match yesterday Sheppard was below form; his footwork was slow, and his strokes were slovenly.” Or, conversely, when smiting the ball out of the park for cricket’s equivalent of a home run (and this necessarily later in the 1950s): “Elvis has left the building.” In addition to his technical brilliance with the bat, he was known for his bravery, keenness, and gentle satirical humor. He once remarked of a particularly flamboyant cricket teammate that “One always expects a chorus of naked ladies to suddenly appear and start dancing around behind him.” He never took offense at the inevitable ribbing about his higher calling in life. Nor did he ever object to a post-match drink with his colleagues. To the best of anyone’s recollection, in the course of a long career he only once protested at an exasperated teammate’s choice of language. “Perhaps best to restrict that particular name to one’s prayer,” Sheppard remarked mildly at the blasphemous outburst. His England colleague Godfrey Evans said of him: “Every teammate liked David, and every opponent respected him.”

Sheppard played his last professional cricket match in March 1963. He became the Anglican bishop of Woolwich in 1969 and bishop of Liverpool six years later. Then aged 45, he was the youngest diocesan bishop in England. He remained an outspoken social campaigner both at home and abroad and continued to vocally oppose the apartheid regime in South Africa. In the early 1980s, he personally lobbied the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, for increased government funding for a wide range of social programs and would later remember a sticky meeting at No. 10 Downing Street when he was on the receiving end of Thatcher’s tart comments and frequent interruptions. “My mouth went dry as I remembered it doing once or twice when facing a hostile bowler on the cricket field,” he told me. “But I kept going.”

Sheppard’s name was on the short list for the archbishopric of Canterbury when the post fell vacant in 1991. By then Thatcher had been replaced by the cricket fanatic John Major, and several of the British tabloid newspapers got behind “Reverend Dave” for the top job. It wasn’t to be, but in 1997 Sheppard finally retired, he insisted, a happy and fulfilled man.

Perhaps Sheppard could have risen even higher than he did in the Church or in sport. A critic once remarked of him that he had “ambitions rather than ambition.” He was simply too various for the single aim and lacked the ruthlessness of the true careerist. Nonetheless, he played the game he loved to the highest level. He gave and received unbounded affection. And he lived by the belief that only personal friendship, “doing ordinary things together,” rather than lofty abstract principles could truly communicate the gospel. In every sense of the phrase, Sheppard was a robustly muscular Christian who brought distinction on the Church and himself, and in the end you can’t help but wonder if that wasn’t success enough

About the author: Christopher Sandford is a British-born writer who now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest. He’s the author of many books, including Union Jack, a bestselling account of John F. Kennedy’s special relationship with the United Kingdom.

Source: This article was published by the Acton Institute

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is named after the great English historian, Lord John Acton (1834-1902). He is best known for his famous remark: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Inspired by his work on the relation between liberty and morality, the Acton Institute seeks to articulate a vision of society that is both free and virtuous, the end of which is human flourishing. To clarify this relationship, the Institute holds seminars and publishes various books, monographs, periodicals, and articles

THEY ARE A RIGHT WING CALVINIST ORG WITH LINKS TO THE REFORMED CHURCH OF SOUTH AFRICA

 

HALO Research Aircraft To Analyze Transport Of Greenhouses Gases And Aerosols Over Pacific

 August 7, 2023

By Eurasia Review

The extreme precipitation that occurs during the Asiatic monsoon season repeatedly causes catastrophic devastation in Southeast Asia. The same weather systems which cause these extreme events also affect the altitude region of 12 to 20 kilometers.

Strong convection transports partly heavily polluted air masses from the ground-level atmosphere in Southeast Asia into this altitude region, the so-called upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, and from the northern Pacific subsequently to Europe. This transport will be investigated over the next two months by a team of atmospheric researchers during the PHILEAS (Probing High Latitude Export of Air from the Asian Summer Monsoon) mission. Forschungszentrum Jülich and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) are coordinating the project. Airborne measurement flights using the high altitude HALO aircraft will be taking off from Oberpfaffenhofen in Bavaria starting on Sunday and from Anchorage in Alaska in about two weeks.

One key objective of the two-month campaign is to obtain insight into the transport and mixing processes that occur in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere influencing the global climate and weather. A second focus will be on the severe wildfires in Canada.

“The information we collect will allow us to look at the long-range transport of contaminants from the monsoon regions. Furthermore, we will concentrate on the impact of the disastrous forest fires in Canada and their consequences for the stratosphere. The heat of the fires can result in powerful convection currents that bring aerosols and pollutants to elevations of 12 kilometers or more. The innovative payload configuration used for PHILEAS provides us with the opportunity to investigate the effects and development of the smoke plumes on the corresponding composition and their impact on the environment,” explained Professor Peter Hoor, head of the Airborne Measurements group at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at Mainz University. The PHILEAS data are also a central element for transport and aerosol studies within CRC TRR-301 “TPChange”, which is headed by the Professor Peter Hoor at Mainz University.

Especially during summer, both local fires and also the long-range transport from Asia contribute to the pollution in the lower stratosphere. During the summer, the Asian monsoon distributes aerosols and greenhouse gases throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere. Its extensive convective transport carries contaminated near-surface air layers in Southeast Asia up to a height of some 16 kilometers. Here the polluted air accumulates in the so-called monsoon anticyclone, a gigantic high-pressure zone in the upper troposphere over East Asia. The monsoon anticyclone can, at times, stretch all the way from the Arabian Peninsula to the Pacific coast of Asia. During summer and early autumn, air masses containing increased levels of greenhouse gases and aerosols frequently split off from this high-pressure zone. These then move northeast over the Pacific and are subsequently mixed into the lower stratosphere. In addition to the pollutants, water vapor is also conveyed into the lower stratosphere, which is climate-relevant in this high-altitude region.

“In the initial phase of PHILEAS, we will be assessing the westward transport of polluted air masses originating from the monsoon anticyclone flying from Oberpfaffenhofen towards the Arabian Peninsula. The eastward transport of the polluted air masses over the Pacific to high altitudes and their incorporation in the lower stratosphere will be examined in a second campaign phase by flights from Anchorage,” said Professor Martin Riese, Director of the Stratosphere section at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK) at Forschungszentrum Jülich.

The aircraft carries a novel combination of highly sophisticated instruments. These combine state-of-the-art remote sensing technologies with high-precision local in-situ measurements. To be able to adapt the flights ideally to the respective meteorological conditions, a large forecast group will be present in Oberpfaffenhofen and Anchorage. Mainz University provides the meteorological forecast data, which are generated by the European Center of Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF), to the science team. Chemical information will be generated by the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMs) system developed at Jülich.

The key pollution markers such as carbon monoxide, methane, and ethane, which can be used to identify different sources of pollution, are measured by the group headed by Professor Peter Hoor from JGU. Aerosol composition will be measured with the novel ERICA instrument jointly developed by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Mainz University. A core instrument on board HALO is the infrared spectrometer GLORIA (Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere), which allows 3D tomographic mapping of temperatures, cloud parameters, and the levels of numerous trace gases in the atmosphere.

The PHILEAS mission will conclude in early October 2023 with a measurement phase at its base in Oberpfaffenhofen. Comparison of the results of this with the early phase will enable the researchers to ascertain the effects that the monsoon system has on the lower stratosphere over Europe.

Preparing the HALO research aircraft in the hangar in Oberpfaffenhofen for the measurement campaign: Clearly visible are inlet openings for the measuring equipment on the upper side of the fuselage of the aircraft. (photo/©: Martin Riese / Forschungszentrum Jülich)

 

PeptiMatrix lab

Researchers Develop New Platform That Could Replace Use Of Animals In Research

 August 7, 2023

By Eurasia Review

PeptiMatrix is the latest spin-out company from the University of Nottingham, providing access to an innovative 3D cell culture platform that aims to replace the use of animals in research.

With the support of the NC3Rs, BBSRC, and EPSRC, researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed a fully-synthetic self-assembling peptide hydrogel (SAPH) platform, which aims to address all the current shortcomings of available in vitro models.

Current models of development and disease typically rely on animals or animal-derived products, which often do not accurately reflect the physiology of human tissues. This is a major contributing factor to the high attrition rate of new drugs moving from the laboratory to the clinic, leading to an estimated cost of US$2 billion to bring a new life-saving therapy to market.

Growing recognition of this has led to the recent interest in developing more sophisticated, synthetic in vitro model platforms which allow for bespoke customisation of their stiffness and composition. However, despite considerable research effort, no single platform has yet pulled ahead of the competition and researchers continue to rely on animal-derived materials, such as those derived from Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm (EHS) mouse sarcoma.

PeptiMatrix hydrogels are well-defined, have limited batch variability, offer excellent handling properties, and contain no irrelevant animal-derived material. They can also be customised through a variety of available methods to mimic both the stiffness and composition of any target tissue type.

This unique combination of features promises to deliver to researchers more accurate and reproducible data in drug development and investigative research, whilst also helping to reduce the use of animals in research.

Dr Johnathan Curd, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PeptiMatrix, comments: “Our mission is to bring the next generation of peptide hydrogels for 3D cell culture to the wider research community. Behind this, our passion for reducing, replacing, and refining the use of animals in research is our driving force.

“By bringing a reliable synthetic alternative for animal-derived hydrogels (such as those derived from EHS mouse sarcoma) to market, researchers will be provided a way to generate more accurate and reliable data, whilst also helping to reduce (and eventually replace!) the use of animals in research.”

Professor Cathy Merry, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of PeptiMatrix, adds: “From the start, we recognised it was critical we built a product that others could use reliably and that could be integrated into their existing experimental workflow. We’ve worked with expert 3D modellers at multiple centres across the world to develop these gels and are delighted to have an affordable solution that fits that remit.”

PeptiMatrix was supported by Nottingham Technology Ventures, who manage the University of Nottingham spin out portfolio. James Duncan, Life Sciences Executive at Nottingham Technology Ventures, said: “It is incredibly exciting time to announce the launch of Peptimatrix. We have been fortunate to collaborate and support the team throughout the development of the company, and we look forward to continuing that journey with support from the University of Nottingham.”

NC3Rs funded much of the initial work to demonstrate the adaptability and ease-of-use of the hydrogels, including funding to support joint projects with The Manchester Breast Centre and The Medicines Discovery Catapult. To help bring this technology to market, the team at the University of Nottingham developed their business proposition first through the ICURe programme and then through a project funded by the University’s Strategic Innovation Fund. Following this, they were successful in securing grant funding from the ICURe Follow-on-Fund offered by Innovate UK.

Dr Kamal Badiani from Pepceuticals Ltd has also been involved with the development of the hydrogel matrix technology by developing the desired, high-quality peptide(s) for the hydrogel platform. Consequently, the platform now offers superior reproducibility when compared to similar biomaterials currently on the market. Dr Badiani continues to be involved with the project as a non-executive director of PeptiMatrix.

 

Cybersecurity Threats From Online Gaming – Analysis

 August 6, 2023 

By Observer Research Foundation

By Prateek Tripath

From the emergence of the video game “Pong” in 1972 to the release of “Hogwart’s Legacy” in 2023, the video gaming industry has come a long way. With a revenue of over US$227 billion in 2022, gaming is no longer the niche industry it was once thought to be. The number of gamers in the world is expected to reach a figure of 3.32 billion by 2024. This recent surge in growth has, in a large part, been a result a of the COVID-19 pandemic when the market expanded by about 26 percent between 2019 and 2021.

However, this popular form of recreation has also imperilled cybersecurity. There has been a surge in cyberattacks on the gaming sector, with an increase of 167 percent in web application attacks in 2021 alone. In 2022, the gaming industry became the biggest target of Distributed Denial of Service attacks, accounting for about 37 percent of all such attacks. Account takeovers, cheating mods, credit card theft, and fraud are all issues faced by gamers on a regular basis. The most alarming development, however, was the leaking of secret documents in April 2023 containing confidential US Intelligence on a videogame chat server, in what has come to be described as the worst Pentagon leak in years. This just goes to show how ignorance of this threat could have unforeseen and potentially catastrophic consequences, even from a national security perspective.

Mining Pentagon data 

In April 2023, several highly classified documents, some even marked “Top Secret”, were leaked on a Discord server, dedicated to “Minecraft”, a popular video game. The data later found its way to social media platforms like Twitter and Telegram.

The documents contained sensitive information such as Ukraine’s status in its ongoing conflict with Russia, potential problems with Ukrainian ammunition supplies, and the losses sustained by the Russian military. Apart from this, they also provided a strong indication that the United States (US) has been spying on its allies, particularly Israel and South Korea. The motivation behind the leaks remains unclear, but it seems to have originated from an online spat between two players over the Ukraine conflict. One of the users, a 21-year-old US National Guard airman Jack Teixeira, seemingly posted the classified documents to win the debate. Reportedly, the leaks began in February 2022 in a Discord group called “Thug Shakers Central” created by Teixeira, and later spread to other Discord servers and social media platforms.

This has come about in part due to the US military’s recent attempts to identify and engage Gen Z recruits using online gaming platforms like Discord, which already runs a 17,000-member server for service members to talk about first-person shooter games and participate in the so-called “Army of Tomorrow.” It is part of the Army Recruiting Command’s army e-sports programme, which is designed to unite the army and general population through a shared passion for gaming.

With the rapid increase in the popularity of video games, developers have found new ways to monetise them as well. This has led to the creation of virtual or in-game currencies, which can be purchased using real money, usually via the use of credit cards. These can further be used to conduct “micro-transactions” or purchase “loot boxes”. Micro-transactions refer to small in-game transactions that unlock specific content or features, which can be purely cosmetic like outfits and shaders, or items affecting gameplay like experience boosts and weapons. A loot box is a variant of a microtransaction in which a player can purchase a virtual item or a “loot box,” which further contains a randomised selection of virtual items such as cosmetics. The catch is that the player does not know what they are going to get in advance.

In-game currency and loot boxes have become the source of a lot of controversy lately since they have evolved into a form of predatory monetisation by greedy developers, especially when it comes to minor players. They have been declared outright illegal in several countries, which now consider them to be a form of online gambling. For instance, in 2018, the Belgian government banned the purchase of “FIFA points” (an in-game currency) in the famous football franchise “FIFA” made by one of the biggest video game developers in the world, “Electronic Arts.” In February 2023, Austria followed suit and declared FIFA packs as “illegal gambling”.

Another outcome of micro-transactions and the increasing value of in-game items has been the rise in the cases of money laundering via the medium of video games. The virtual economy of video games has become a flourishing market online, with examples of items costing millions of dollars. This has made them a prime target for money launderers. Gaming marketplaces provided by games like “Call of Duty” are often overcrowded and hard to monitor. Launderers can purchase in-game currency or items using a pre-paid, single-use credit card and subsequently put these up for sale on third-party websites, where it is purchased by enthusiastic gamers, usually via cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, and the seller receives his payment immediately. This transaction leaves behind no trace of the identity of the seller or their source of income. For instance, in May 2023, India’s Enforcement Directorate conducted a nationwide crackdown on foreign registered online gaming companies suspected of laundering INR 4,000 crores. These companies were registered in tax havens like Curaçao, Malta, and Cyprus, and all of them were linked to Indian bank accounts opened in the name of proxy persons with no links to online gaming activity. 

Current policy framework around online gaming 

In April 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified the new rules for online gaming that divided online games into two categories: Online real money games, which are registered with Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs), and those that do not involve real money. The new rules banned all online games involving betting and wagering. They further defined online gaming intermediaries and their obligations with a focus on Know Your Customer norms, parental consent, and grievance-redressal mechanisms. Finally, the rules declared the appointment of three SROs comprising industry representatives, educationists, and other experts, who will be responsible for deciding which online games are permissible.

These rules are a good beginning but inadequate to contend with the issues threatening this sector. They only focus on games that involve real money and wagering, and thus are drastically limited in their scope. Most online games nowadays are riddled with micro-transactions and, thus, can easily circumvent these rules. Games can just offer prizes in virtual currency and completely bypass these laws. Moreover, there is no mention of loot boxes in these rules and, therefore, they remain completely legitimate. Purchase of FIFA points, for example, remains legal within India. There needs to be a discussion on whether allowing loot boxes in video games amount to gambling and what kind of impact it has on players, particularly children and minor users. The plethora of cases on this issue reported from around the world can provide ample guidance to lawmakers.

The issue of money laundering using video games also needs to be addressed. The MeitY must consult the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Ministry of Finance, and industry experts to frame laws to deal with this issue. There is also an urgent need to figure out a way to trace these virtual currency transactions and differentiate them from regular transactions. India can perhaps work with other like-minded partners to tackle this novel and potentially dangerous avenue for laundering money.

Conclusion 

The online gaming world has provided cybercriminals with a new avenue to conduct nefarious activities. What started with cheating in competitive online games and stealing credit card information, has now evolved into money laundering schemes and military leaks threatening national security. There is an urgent need for governments and policymakers around the world to start paying more attention to the online gaming industry and the escalation in cybersecurity threats surrounding it. Online gaming is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the global entertainment and media industry and provides a powerful new platform to unite people from all around the world. Consequently, we need to ensure that the industry continues to grow in a safe and responsible manner, and the bad actors looking to tarnish the experience for others are dealt with accordingly.

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About the author: Prateek Tripathi is a probationary Research Assistant with the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.

Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation

Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.