Food insecurity hits middle class amid Lebanon’s economic crisis

Issued on: 01/07/2020 -

Georges Jassous (L) and his family have cut back on food purchases as the value of Lebanon’s currency has fallen sharply. © FRANCE 24 (screengrab)

Text by:Leila MOLANA-ALLEN|

Video by:Leila MOLANA-ALLEN

Lebanon’s economic downturn has caused food insecurity for poor and middle class families, who are finding it difficult to afford staples such as bread, butter and cooking oil. Local collectives are distributing free meals in Beirut, but the devaluation of Lebanon’s currency makes it hard to obtain vital ingredients like rice and lentils. FRANCE 24’s Leila-Molana Allen reports.

For several months, Georges Jassous and his family have had to give up buying certain foods, as Lebanon experiences unprecedented inflation. Jassous has earned nothing for months, but still has to provide daily meals for his 5 grandchildren, whose parents are unemployed.

"A pat of butter costs 16,000 Lebanese pounds (€9.4),” Jassous said. “We go without. As for vegetable oil, we buy it as needed. Cans are overpriced they went from 5,000 LL to 10, then to 15 and to 20,000 (€11.8). We now also deprive ourselves of oil, only buying small quantities.”

>>Read: Lebanese pound plummets to record low, sparks mass protests

Now, Jassous and his family rely on local collectives that distribute free meals in the city, like one run by Cyril Badaoui, a lawyer, and a handful of volunteers. After starting by distributing food to 40 people three months ago, Badaoui’s team now feeds 200 every day. Some of these beneficiaries were middle class just a few months ago.

“Unfortunately, the middle class has been disappearing for the past three to four years. We are in a time when we have extremely wealthy people and others who are poor or extremely poor,” Badaoui said.

Click on the player to watch the full FRANCE 24 report.

'Dozens killed' as violence spreads in wake of Ethiopian singer’s death

Issued on: 01/07/2020 -

A candlelight vigil for the late musician and activist Haacaaluu Hundeessaa at the Oromo Community of Minnesota building in St Paul, Minnesota, on June 30, 2020. © Stephen Maturen, AFP

Text by:FRANCE 24

At least 50 people were killed in Ethiopia's Oromiya region in protests following the fatal shooting of protest singer Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, a regional spokesman said on Wednesday, laying bare splits in the prime minister's political heartland ahead of next year's polls.
Haacaaluu, a hugely popular figure among ethnic Oromos, was shot dead on Monday night in what police said was a targeted killing.

Protests reflecting anger at the killing of a popular figure and a sense of political marginalisation broke out the next morning in the Ethiopian capital and other towns and cities in the surrounding Oromiya region.The dead included protesters and members of the security forces, spokesman Getachew Balcha said. Some businesses had also been set on fire.

"We were not prepared for this," he said.

Police said late on Tuesday that a policeman was also killed in Addis Ababa, and three explosions there had killed and injured an unspecified number of people.

Prominent Oromo opposition leader Bekele Gerba and media mogul Jawar Mohammed were also arrested when Jawar's bodyguards refused to disarm during a stand-off with police.




Soundtrack to a generation

Haacaaluu, whose funeral will be held on Thursday, provided a soundtrack to a generation of young protesters. Their three years of bloody street demonstrations forced the unprecedented resignation of the previous prime minister and the appointment of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018.

A still from the video of Haacaaluu Hundeessaa's 2015 hit Maalan Jira. © Haacaaluu Hundeessaa videos

Abiy, Haacaaluu and Jawar are all Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, which has long complained of being excluded from power.

Abiy ushered in greater political and economic freedoms in what had long been one of the continent's most repressive states, and won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.

But ethnic and political clashes spiked as long-repressed grievances boiled over. Local power brokers competed for access to land and resources in a country with more than 80 ethnic groups.

Challenge to pan-Ethiopian politics

Abiy's attempts to quash the violence and his emphasis on pan-Ethiopian politics sparked a backlash from some erstwhile supporters, and his ability to impose order may be severely tested when polls are held.

Elections were scheduled for August but were postponed until next year due to Covid-19.

Jawar was a prominent supporter of Abiy's appointment, but became more openly critical last year. Jawar's popular Oromo Media Network gives him the ability to mobilise support quickly across Oromiya and his power base could pose a significant challenge to Abiy's party in next year's elections.

Ethiopian opposition politician held as protests continue

Issued on: 01/07/2020 

Jawar Mohammed is a former media mogul who recently joined the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress Michael Tewelde AFP/File

Addis Ababa (AFP)

Ethiopia police were on Wednesday detaining leading opposition politician Jawar Mohammed, a move that risks inflaming ethnic tensions that have led to multiple deaths during protests in the capital and surrounds.

The capital Addis Ababa was rocked by a second day of protests which erupted on Tuesday following the killing of Hachalu Hundessa, a popular Oromo singer who was gunned down Monday night.

At least eight people have been killed, according to an AFP tally, in the Oromia region which surrounds Addis Ababa and is the heartland of the country's largest ethnic group, the Oromo.

Jawar, a former media mogul who recently joined the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, was arrested in Addis Ababa along with 34 other people, federal police commissioner Endeshaw Tassew said in a statement late Tuesday.

Endeshaw said that as Hachalu's body was being transported to his native town of Ambo for burial, Jawar and his supporters intercepted it and tried to return it to Addis Ababa, where a clash ensued.

"There was a disturbance between federal security forces and others, and in the process one member of the Oromia special police force was killed," Endeshaw said.

"The security forces have taken eight Kalashnikovs, five pistols and nine radio transmitters from Jawar Mohammed's car," he said of the arrest.

The Oromo Media Network -- which was founded by Jawar before he left to become a politician -- reported there was a call for mass protests until he and the others were released.

- 'A dangerous situation' -

The internet remained cut off for a second day in a government bid to curb the unrest.

In October, reports that the government was attempting to remove Jawar's security detail kicked off days of violence that left more than 80 people dead.

Hachalu's music gave voice to Oromo feelings of marginalisation that were at the core of years of anti-government protests that swept Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018.

The motive for his killing has not been identified, but police have said "some suspects" have been arrested.

In Addis Ababa -- where protesters grouped at several points around the city -- security forces on Wednesday fired into the air to disperse demonstrators who were approaching a statue of Emperor Menelik II, widely seen as the creator of modern-day Ethiopia.

Oromo nationalists see Menelik as a driving force behind their perceived marginalisation, and Hachalu called earlier this month for the statue to be pulled down.

On Tuesday protesters in Harar in eastern Ethiopia pulled down a statue of Ras Mekonnen, the father of Emperor Haile Selassie, a doctor in the city told AFP on condition of anonymity, also reporting the death of one person during protests.

- 'Everything is closed' -

In the town of Nekemte in western Ethiopia, a doctor at the Wollega University Hospital, Negeo Tesfye, told AFP: "Yesterday there was a clash between protesters and local police, three people were then shot by regional special forces. Two of those people died."

"Currently everything is closed down, there is no transportation, people are not moving around," he said.

Medical sources and relatives on Tuesday reported three deaths in central Adama, and another in Western Hararge.

Federal police said several people had also been killed during three grenade attacks in the capital, without giving exact figures.

Ethiopia, an ethnic melting pot of 100 million people, has battled deadly intercommunal tensions in recent years, a major threat to efforts by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed -- himself an Oromo -- to bring about democratic reforms in a country long ruled with an iron fist from Addis Ababa.

"The assassination of an important Oromo musician, subsequent protests which have in places involved property destruction and security forces using lethal force, and the arrest of Oromo leaders, creates a dangerous situation and is another blow to Ethiopia's troubled transition," said William Davison, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

© 2020 AFP

Killing of Ethiopian protest singer sparks deadly clashes

Issued on: 30/06/2020 -

The unrest is a challenge for Ehiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. © Michael Tewelde, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

At least 10 people died and more than 80 were wounded when the killing of a popular singer triggered blasts and protests in Ethiopia's capital and the surrounding Oromiya region on Tuesday, police and a doctor said.

The unrest spotlights growing divisions in Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Oromo powerbase as powerful ethnic activists that were formerly allies increasingly challenge his government.

Abiy called the killing of musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa "an evil act" in a televised address on Tuesday night.

"This is an act committed and inspired by domestic and foreign enemies in order to destabilise our peace and to stop us from achieving things that we started," he said.

Haacaaluu was shot dead at around 9:30 p.m. on Monday, police said. Some suspects had been detained, Addis Ababa city police commissioner Getu Argawhe told state media, giving no further details. The killing appeared well planned, police said.

The capital Addis Ababa erupted the next morning. There were three explosions in the city, federal police commissioner Endeshaw Tasew said.

"Some of those who planted the bomb were killed as well as innocent civilians," he said in a televised address on Tuesday night, giving no further details.

A police officer was also killed during a stand-off with the bodyguards of media magnate Jawar Mohammed, he said. Scores died when Jawar's supporters clashed with police last October.

The prime minister, Jawar, and the slain singer are all Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, which long complained of being pushed to the margins of power until Abiy's 2018 appointment.

Jawar, a once-staunch supporter of Abiy turned vocal critic, was arrested along with Bekele Gerba, a leader of an opposition Oromo political party, and 33 other people, said Endeshaw. Police seized weapons and radios from Jawar's guards, he said.

Jawar's TV station was forced to broadcast by satellite from the U.S. state of Minnesota after police raided its headquarters and detained its staff, it said.

Jawar had posted about the killing on Facebook early on Tuesday, using an alternative spelling of the singer's name.

"They did not just kill Hachalu. They shot at the heart of the Oromo Nation, once again !!...You can kill us, all of us, you can never ever stop us!! NEVER !!" he wrote.

Haacaaluu criticised Ethiopia's leadership in an interview with Jawar's media network last week.

Protests spread

The killing ignited protests in several Oromo cities.

In the town of Adama, the main hospital received around 80 wounded people, medical director Dr Mekonnen Feyissa told Reuters. Most had been shot but some had been beaten or stabbed. Eight people died en route to the hospital or in it, he said.

Footage on social media showed large crowds surrounding a car said to carry Haacaaluu’s body, slowly walking to his home town of Ambo, about 100 km west of Addis Ababa.

In the Oromo city of Harar, pictures appeared to show demonstrators pulling down and beheading a statue of former emperor Haile Selassie's father. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the pictures or video.


Telephone services worked intermittently and the internet was shut down, a step the authorities have previously taken during political unrest.

NetBlocks, an organization that tracks global internet shutdowns, said the shutdown began around 9:00 a.m. local time and that it was the most severe for the past year.

Soundtrack to a revolution

Haacaaluu's songs were the soundtrack to years of bloody protests that propelled Abiy to power.

Haacaaluu, a former political prisoner, rose to prominence during anti-government protests which began in the Oromo heartland. Abiy's ascent to power in 2018 ended decades of dominance by ethnic Tigray leaders.

Abiy ushered in greater political and economic freedoms in what had long been one of the continent's most repressive states, and won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.

But ethnic and political clashes spiked as long-repressed grievances boiled over. Local power brokers competed for access to land and resources in a country with more than 80 ethnic groups.

Abiy's attempts to quash the violence and his emphasis on pan-Ethiopian politics sparked a backlash from some erstwhile supporters, and his ability to impose order may be severely tested when polls are held.

Elections were scheduled for August but were postponed until next year due to COVID-19.

(REUTERS)

Indonesia province declares state of emergency over forest fire risk
Issued on: 01/07/2020 -

Central Kalimantan on Borneo island was ravaged last year by fires blamed for blanketing swathes of Southeast Asia in toxic haze Wahyudi AFP

Jakarta (AFP)

An Indonesian province declared a state of emergency Wednesday as officials said they had pinpointed hundreds of spots at risk of erupting into smog-belching forest fires that plague the region every year.

Central Kalimantan on Borneo island was ravaged last year by fires blamed for blanketing swathes of Southeast Asia in toxic haze.

Last year's blazes were the worst since 2015 due to dry weather, with around 1.6 million hectares (3.95 million acres) of land razed.

There are growing fears over Indonesia's ability to tackle the crisis this year, with funds and personnel redirected to battling the coronavirus pandemic.

The province detected more than 700 hotspots across the region since the start of the year, said Central Kalimantan disaster mitigation chief Darliansyah, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Hotspots are areas of intense heat detected by satellite which indicate a high chance of fire.

Dozens of blazes have already been extinguished, Darliansyah said.

In May, the archipelago deployed tens of thousands of personnel and water-bombing aircraft to tackle the season's first fires -- which are often intentionally set to clear land for agriculture such as palm oil plantations.

Firefighters have started cloud seeding -- a technique that uses chemicals to induce rain -- with operations set to last until the end of the dry season in September.

The noxious haze from last year's fires spread forced school closures around the region and threatened the health of millions.

They also sparked fresh concerns over the risk of carbon emissions from the blazes aggravating global warming.

© 2020 AFP

Special edition: Israel's contentious annexation plan for the West bank
Issued on: 30/06/2020 - VIDEO AT THE END

MIDDLE EAST MATTERS © France 24

By:Sanam SHANTYAE

In this edition, we're focusing our entire programme on Israel’s planned annexation of settlements in the West Bank. The term ‘annexation’ is used when a state unilaterally incorporates another territory within its borders. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called these zones “an integral part of the historic Jewish homeland.” Palestinians say the plan is an “existential threat" and have threatened to respond with their own measures.

This latest move comes after US President Donald Trump last year presented a so-called “Middle East plan”, which allows Israel to annex 30 percent of this territory, which has been under illegal occupation — according to international law — since 1967.

Joining our programme to discuss this contentious issue is Dr Evan Cohen, former international media advisor to Israel’s prime minister, and Ashraf al-Ajrami, a former minister for the Palestinian authority.

But first here’s our report, which looks at the landlocked territory in question: the West Bank.

Family films moment Turkish airstrike hits

Iraq's Kurdish population


Zharo Baxtiar and his family were playing in river in Kuna Masi when a missile hit a nearby store, causing debris to rain down on them. (Screengrabs: Zharo Baxtiar/Facebook)

TURKEY / IRAQ - 07/01/2020

A video filmed on June 25 captures the horror of air strikes on Iraq’s Kurdish population. The footage shows a family with two toddlers playing in the river near a picnic area. They are all laughing and splashing when, all of a sudden, a piercing noise cuts through the air and a projectile lands in the water, just a few centimetres from one of the children. The family panics, rushing to get out of the water. None of the people shown in the video were physically injured in the attack.

The incident took place around 5:30pm on June 25, when a Turkish air strike hit a car and a shop near a picnic area in Kuna Masi, a village popular with tourists in the Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah.

The video was first posted online by Zharo Baxtiar, who appears with his wife and children in the video. His brother reposted the video on Twitter, where it garnered more than 1.3 million views.

"Come on, swim over there, it’s deeper!” says one adult, coaxing one of the tiny children.

“It’s ok, swim, swim!” another says.

The family is speaking Sorani, a Kurdish dialect. They laugh as one of the children takes a tumble. When a projectile suddenly lands near one of them, they start screaming again and again, “Get out of here!”

Our team of journalists verified the video and determined that it was indeed filmed in this village, namely because of a unique, blue building.


The image on the left is a screengrab of the video. The image on the right is a photo posted on Instagram that was geolocalised in Kuna Masi.

Kurdish news channels also filmed the same spot a few hours after the air strike. The family also sent our team the original video file, which includes metadata confirming the date and the location where it was filmed.



The GPS coordinates in the metadata of the video correspond with the village of Kuna Masi. The date and time (June 25 at 5:30pm) indicated on the video correspond with news reports on the airstrike as well as Baxtiar’s testimony.


"A few seconds before the impact, we heard the shrill sound of a missile”
Zharo Baxtiar is the man wearing a black shirt in the video. He was visiting the river with his wife, son and sister-in-law, who is the one who filmed the video.

We decided to go to Kuna Masi because we wanted to show my three-year-old son the Kurdish countryside and get a bit of a break from the town of Sulaymaniyah. Kuna Masi is really popular for families. It’s not at all a place for fighters. On that day, I would say that there were between 70 and 100 people who came to relax on the river bank, like us.

A few seconds before the impact, we heard the shrill sound of a missile. It wasn’t the missile that hit us, it was probably a piece of debris but we aren’t sure. At the moment of impact, it was as if it was raining rocks and pieces of glass. The hill was on fire and there was a lot of smoke. We saw several injured people, including the woman who ran the shop that was hit directly by the missile. She was covered with blood. We later saw on the news that her husband and three children were also injured in the blast.

My family and I are safe and sound but we are traumatized. The sound of the explosion was so intense that whenever we hear a loud sound, we’re immediately transported back into the middle of the chaos. Our son keeps talking to us about it.
Kurdish authorities blame TurkeyThe local mayor reported that six civilians were injured during the attack and one so-called “fighter”. PJAK (the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan is the Iranian branch of the PKK) reported that one of its fighters had been killed during the attack and three others were wounded. PJAK added that the fighters were returning from a mission when they were targeted by "Turkish state’s fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft”.

The military leadership of Kurdistan, an autonomous region in Iraq, said Turkey was responsible for this attack on civilians.

"In the name of the hunting down members of the Kurdistan Workers Party [commonly known as the PKK, this is an armed autonomist group based in Turkey] they [the Turkish government] targeted civilians in the Kuna Masi resort,” said Babakir Faqe, the spokesperson for the ministry of the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan (Peshmerga).

Just a few days before this incident, Turkey launched joint operations known as Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger with Iran against the PKK in the mountainous region that saddles Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Claw-Eagle, the air offensive, was launched on June 15, while Claw-Tiger, the ground offensive, was launched two days later. The Iraqi government has reported that five civilians have died in the days since the start of this campaign.

The Turkish government says that this accusation is unfounded and “fed by the PKK’s terrorist propaganda”. The government further claimed that it “pays close attention to the safety of civilians while preparing and executing all operations”.

JULY 1 

Hong Kong: Police make first arrests under new national security law
Police unfurled a new flag Wednesday during a protest in Causeway Bay informing demonstrators it is now illegal to chant and carry signs calling for Hong Kong's independence. Photo courtesy of Hong Kong Police Department/Facebook

July 1 (UPI) -- Police in Hong Kong said Wednesday they have made their first arrests under a controversial new national security law as hundreds of protesters took to the streets in defiance.

Police said via Twitter officers arrested a man for holding a black flag at Causeway Bay calling for the city's independence from China, making him the first person to be arrested under the new national security law that has received widespread condemnation as a threat to the embattled region's autonomy and the rights of its citizens.

"This is the first arrest made since the law has come into force," the statement said.

A second person was later arrested in suspicion of breaking the new law by holding a handwritten sign that said "Hong Kong Independence.

The new national security law went into effect at 11 p.m. Tuesday, criminalizing acts of secession, sedition, subversion, terrorism and working with foreign agencies to undermine the national security of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong.

Punishment for those convicted range from less than three years for smaller offenses to life imprisonment.

In a second tweet some 20 minutes later, the Hong Kong Police Force published a photo of officers holding up a purple flag warning protesters chanting Hong Kong independence slogans and waving flags at the retail-dense area that they were violating the new law and could be arrested.

"You are displaying flags, chanting slogans or conducting yourself with an intent such as secession or subversion, which may constitution offenses under the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] National Security Law," the police flag read. "You may be arrested and prosecuted.

By Wednesday afternoon, more than 70 people protesting at Causeway Bay had been arrested, two of whom under the new law, police said, adding that people had block roads and spilled nails drilled into plastic tubes to puncture the tires of cars on the roads.

"The police will continue to maintain high alert and will take firm enforcement in case of the law," the statement said.

The arrests were announced as Carrie Lam, the embattled region's chief executive, argued that the new law, which has received widespread international condemnation for evaporating Hong Kong's autonomy from China, was proof of Beijing's commitment to the "One Country, Two Systems" governmental framework it had functioned under.

Hong Kong has operated under this system since it returned to China from Britain in 1997 with a U.N.-filed declaration that promised the city 50 years of autonomy. However, critics argue the new law all but scraps that governmental framework.

Lam told reporters during a press conference critics who say the new law undermines the "One Country, Two Systems" structure are wrong as it will actually strengthen it.

RELATED EU to accept travelers from 15 nations; U.S. stays on blacklist

"The central people's government likes to improve upon the One Country, Two Systems through the national security law so that the stability and prosperity we've enjoyed the past 23 years can continue," she said.

However, for this unique and unprecedented government framework to flourish, the foundation of China must first be solidified, she said.

"One country is the root, one country is the foundation so we have to get the foundation and the root right before we can get the two systems to work," she said.

In the 23 years since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, it hasn't lived up to its responsibilities under its mini-constitution to uphold national security, she said, adding that it has also "not done a proper job" in educating youth about Chinese culture and history nor has it worked to strengthen its relationship with China.

These issues may have contributed to the "turbulences" that began in Hong Kong last June, she said referring to the yearlong pro-democracy protests that erupted and threatened the stability of the region.

"And since June, the central people's government has witnessed the turbulences and rises in Hong Kong and decided it was time they take action," she said.

The law, she said, shows the central authorities' determination to end "the chaos and riots of the past year," to protect citizens from those who cause harm and to improve One Country, Two Systems.

"The central authorities are determined the majority of the citizens here will enjoy the rights and freedoms they unduly enjoy," she said.

However, many countries, including the United States, warned China that there will be consequences for implementing the law.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Tuesday that the United States "will not stand idly by while China swallows Hong Kong into its authoritarian maw," and has already moved to revoke policies that permitted the region special trade status as well as imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials they accuse as being responsible for eroding its autonomy.

Britain has also said that if the law was imposed, it would overhaul its visa system that would create a pathway to citizenship for some 3 million of Hong Kong's 7.4 million residents.

Diminished but not dismantled, Seattle protest occupation enters fourth week

© Reuters/Lindsey Wasson FILE PHOTO:

 The CHOP area after a fatal shooting incident in Seattle

By Gregory Scruggs

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Seattle crews on Tuesday used heavy machinery to remove some barricades around the city's "autonomous zone", as die-hard anti-racism demonstrators camped out for a fourth week despite legal and political pressure to end their protest.

Following four nights of gun violence in the last 10 days that left two black teenagers dead and two more people hospitalized, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) outside an abandoned police precinct has diminished in size and scope.

Medic stations, a mobile health care clinic, and multiple free food tents in a police-free zone set up in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody have dwindled to a single free kitchen.

The crowds that came by the thousands to listen to speeches about police brutality and marvel at street art commemorating black lives, have disappeared.

But at least 100 activists remain in the streets, having occupied the area since police on June 8 moved street barricades and vacated their East Precinct station in a move city officials say aimed to reduce tension.

President Donald Trump has demanded the state and city eject the protesters, calling them "domestic terrorists", but city authorities have so far taken a nonconfrontational approach.

The removal of three of the six concrete barricades - which city workers installed to improve traffic flow and ensure protester safety - found no resistance. However, protesters quickly replaced the barricades with things like couches, plywood, and signs.

"We are grateful that (Seattle Department of Transportation) had given us these barricades to begin with," David Lewis, a product manager at Lululemon who has been organizing protests in Seattle since late May, told Reuters. "More lives would have been lost a couple of days ago as that drive-by (shooting) happened."

In the latest shooting on Monday, a 16-year-old boy was killed and a 14-year-old boy remained in critical condition.

Police investigations into the shootings have been hampered by lack of access to the site. But the zone has also become a place to party at night and the shootings do not appear to be politically motivated, protesters say.

"Enough is enough," police chief Carmen Best, who is Black, said Monday at a news conference outside the abandoned precinct. She reiterated her goal to move police back into the East Precinct but gave no timeline.

CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS

Businesses in the area, a trendy neighborhood of hipster bars and boutiques, have also had enough. Attorneys have filed two class action lawsuits against the City of Seattle: one on behalf of nearby businesses and residents for depriving them of access to their property and another to prevent city and state leaders from allowing the establishment of any future "lawless autonomous zones."

The first lawsuit established a June 26 deadline to initiate a plan to remove the protest, which prompted Mayor Jenny Durkan to hold a closed-door meeting with protesters and hash out a proposal to begin removing barricades.

"It's time for people to go home," Durkan told a news conference last week, a day before proposing a 5 percent cut to the Seattle Police Department budget. Protesters have called on the city to "defund the police" by cutting its budget in half.

Later on Tuesday, the parks department closed Cal Anderson Park to remove trash and assess property damage following three weeks of occupation, but indicated they would not remove or alter artwork or a newly planted community garden.

One block away, two employees with the city's Human Services Department offered referrals to shelters for people sleeping in tents.

Protest leader Lewis said he appreciated the city's efforts. "We are not against the city," he said. "We are Seattle against (the police department). Period."

(Reporting by Gregory Scruggs; editing by Bill Tarrant and Richard Pullin)

AUSTERITY KILLS
 AP Exclusive  Hollowed out public health system faces more cuts amid virus

ALL PHOTO'S https://tinyurl.com/y7z8hdyx

By LAUREN WEBER, LAURA UNGAR, MICHELLE R. SMITH, HANNAH RECHT and ANNA MARIA BARRY-JESTER

JULY 1, 2020

The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century.

Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than 126,000 people and cost tens of millions of jobs and $3 trillion in federal rescue money, state and local government health workers on the ground are sometimes paid so little, they qualify for public aid.

They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax. Working seven-day weeks for months on end, they fear pay freezes, public backlash and even losing their jobs.

Since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%, according to a KHN and Associated Press analysis of government spending on public health. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world’s top public health systems.




The U.S. public health system has been starved for decades and it lacks the resources to confront the worst health crisis in a century. An Associated Press- KHN investigation has found a skeletal workforce facing more possible county budget cuts.

KHN, also known as Kaiser Health News, and AP interviewed more than 150 public health workers, policymakers and experts, analyzed spending records from hundreds of state and local health departments, and surveyed statehouses. On every level, the investigation found, the system is underfunded and under threat, unable to protect the nation’s health.

Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview in April that his “biggest regret” was “that our nation failed over decades to effectively invest in public health.”

So when this outbreak arrived — and when, according to public health experts, the federal government bungled its response — hollowed-out state and local health departments were ill-equipped to step into the breach.

Volunteers take registration information in Annandale, Va. COVID-19 testing was available from Fairfax County at no cost and without a doctor's order. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

In this May 14, 2020 file photo, a Salt Lake County Health Department public health nurse performs a COVID-19 test outside the Salt Lake County health department, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)


Over time, their work had received so little support that they found themselves without direction, disrespected, ignored, even vilified. The desperate struggle against COVID-19 became increasingly politicized and grew more difficult.

States, cities and counties in dire straits have begun laying off and furloughing their limited staff, and even more devastation looms, as states reopen and cases surge. Historically, even when money pours in following crises such as Zika and H1N1, it disappears after the emergency subsides. Officials fear the same thing is happening now.

“We don’t say to the fire department, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. There were no fires last year, so we’re going to take 30% of your budget away.’ That would be crazy, right?” said Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, the health officer in Shawnee County, Kansas. “But we do that with public health, day in and day out.”

Ohio’s Toledo-Lucas County Health Department spent $17 million, or $40 per person, in 2017.

Jennifer Gottschalk, 42, works for the county as an environmental health supervisor. When the coronavirus struck, the county’s department was so short-staffed that her duties included overseeing campground and pool inspections, rodent control and sewage programs, while also supervising outbreak preparedness for a community of more than 425,000 people.

When Gottschalk and five colleagues fell ill with COVID-19, she found herself fielding calls about a COVID-19 case from her hospital bed, then working through her home isolation. She only stopped when her coughing was too severe to talk on calls.

This March 24, 2020 photo provided by Jennifer Gottschalk shows her in a hospital while being tested for COVID-19 in Toledo, Ohio. (Jennifer Gottschalk via AP)

“You have to do what you have to do to get the job done,” Gottschalk said.

Now, after months of working with hardly a day off, she says the job is wearing on her. So many lab reports on coronavirus cases came in, the office fax machine broke. She faces a backlash from the community over coronavirus restrictions and there are countless angry phone calls.

Things could get worse; possible county budget cuts loom.

But Toledo-Lucas is no outlier. Public health ranks low on the nation’s financial priority list. Nearly two-thirds of Americans live in counties that spend more than twice as much on policing as they spend on nonhospital health care, which includes public health.

More than three-quarters of Americans live in states that spend less than $100 per person annually on public health. Spending ranges from $32 in Louisiana to $263 in Delaware, according to data provided to KHN and AP by the State Health Expenditure Dataset project.

That money represents less than 1.5% of most states’ total spending, with half of it passed down to local health departments.


The share of spending devoted to public health belies its multidimensional role. Agencies are legally bound to provide a broad range of services, from vaccinations and restaurant inspections to protection against infectious disease. Distinct from the medical care system geared toward individuals, the public health system focuses on the health of communities at large.

“Public health loves to say: When we do our job, nothing happens. But that’s not really a great badge,” said Scott Becker, chief executive officer of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. “We test 97% of America’s babies for metabolic or other disorders. We do the water testing. You like to swim in the lake and you don’t like poop in there? Think of us.”

But the public doesn’t see the disasters they thwart. And it’s easy to neglect the invisible.
Full Coverage: Underfunded and Under Threat

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A HISTORY OF DEPRIVATION

The local health department was a well-known place in the 1950s and 1960s, when Harris Pastides, president emeritus of the University of South Carolina, was growing up in New York City.

“My mom took me for my vaccines. We would get our injections there for free. We would get our polio sugar cubes there for free,” said Pastides, an epidemiologist. “In those days, the health departments had a highly visible role in disease prevention.”

The United States’ decentralized public health system, which matches federal funding and expertise with local funding, knowledge and delivery, was long the envy of the world, said Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.

“A lot of what we’re seeing right now could be traced back to the chronic funding shortages,” Omer said. “The way we starve our public health system, the way we have tried to do public health outcomes on the cheap in this country.”

This May 13, 2020 file photo made with a fisheye lens shows a list of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Salt Lake County early in the coronavirus pandemic at the health department in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In Scott County, Indiana, when preparedness coordinator Patti Hall began working at the health department 34 years ago, it ran a children’s clinic and a home health agency with several nurses and aides. But over time, the children’s clinic lost funding and closed. Medicare changes paved the way for private services to replace the home health agency. Department staff dwindled in the 1990s and early 2000s. The county was severely outgunned when rampant opioid use and needle sharing sparked an outbreak of HIV in 2015.

Besides just five full-time and one part-time county public health positions, there was only one doctor in the outbreak’s epicenter of Austin. Indiana’s then-Gov. Mike Pence, now leading the nation’s coronavirus response as vice president, waited 29 days after the outbreak was announced to sign an executive order allowing syringe exchanges. At the time, a state official said that only five people from agencies across Indiana were available to help with HIV testing in the county.

The HIV outbreak exploded into the worst ever to hit rural America, infecting more than 230 people.

At times, the federal government has promised to support local public health efforts, to help prevent similar calamities. But those promises were ephemeral.

Two large sources of money established after Sept. 11, 2001 — the Public Health Emergency Preparedness program and the Hospital Preparedness Program — were gradually chipped away.

The Affordable Care Act established the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was supposed to reach $2 billion annually by 2015. The Obama administration and Congress raided it to pay for other priorities, including a payroll tax cut. The Trump administration is pushing to repeal the ACA, which would eliminate the fund, said Carolyn Mullen, senior vice president of government affairs and public relations at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who championed the fund, said he was furious when the Obama White House took billions from it, breaking what he said was an agreement.

“I haven’t spoken to Barack Obama since,” Harkin said.

If the fund had remained untouched, an additional $12.4 billion would eventually have flowed to local and state health departments.


But local and state leaders also did not prioritize public health over the years.

In Florida, for example, 2% of state spending goes to public health. Spending by local health departments in the state fell 39%, from a high of $57 in inflation-adjusted dollars per person in the late 1990s to $35 per person last year.

In North Carolina, Wake County’s public health workforce dropped from 882 in 2007 to 614 a decade later, even as the population grew by 30%.

In Detroit, the health department had 700 employees in 2009, then was effectively disbanded during the city’s bankruptcy proceedings. It’s been built back up, but today still has only 200 workers for 670,000 residents.

Many departments rely heavily on disease-specific grant funding, creating unstable and temporary positions. The CDC’s core budget, some of which goes to state and local health departments, has essentially remained flat for a decade. Federal money currently accounts for 27% of local public health spending.

Years of such financial pressure increasingly pushed workers in this predominantly female workforce toward retirement or the private sector and kept potential new hires away.

More than a fifth of public health workers in local or regional departments outside big cities earned $35,000 or less a year in 2017, as did 9% in big city departments, according to research by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the de Beaumont Foundation.

In this Wednesday, May 13, 2020 file photo, Maria Fernanda works on contact tracing at the Florida Dept. of Health in Miami-Dade County, during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Even before the pandemic, nearly half of public health workers planned to retire or leave their organizations for other reasons in the next five years. Poor pay topped the list of reasons.

Armed with a freshly minted bachelor’s degree, Julia Crittendon took a job two years ago as a disease intervention specialist with Kentucky’s state health department. She spent her days gathering detailed information about people’s sexual partners to fight the spread of HIV and syphilis. She tracked down phone numbers and drove hours to pick up reluctant clients.

The mother of three loved the work, but made so little money that she qualified for Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for America’s poorest. Seeing no opportunity to advance, she left.

“We’re like the redheaded stepchildren, the forgotten ones,” said Crittendon, 46.

Such low pay is endemic, with some employees qualifying for the nutrition program for new moms and babies that they administer. People with the training for many public health jobs, which can include a bachelor’s or master’s degree, can make much more money in the private health care sector, robbing the public departments of promising recruits.

Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director, said the agency “intentionally underpaid people” in a training program that sent early-career professionals to state and local public health departments to build the workforce.

“If we paid them at the very lowest level at the federal scale,” he said in an interview, “they would have to take a 10-20% pay cut to continue on at the local health department.”

As low pay sapped the workforce, budget cuts sapped services.

In Alaska, the Division of Public Health’s spending dropped 9% from 2014 to 2018 and staffing fell by 82 positions in a decade to 426. Tim Struna, chief of public health nursing in Alaska, said declines in oil prices in the mid-2010s led the state to make cuts to public health nursing services. They eliminated well-child exams for children over 6, scaled back searches for the partners of people with certain sexually transmitted infections and limited reproductive health services to people 29 and younger.

Living through an endless stream of such cuts and their aftermath, those workers on the ground grew increasingly worried about mustering the “surge capacity” to expand beyond their daily responsibilities to handle inevitable emergencies.

When the fiercest of enemies showed up in the U.S. this year, the depleted public health army struggled to hold it back.

NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE APRIL

—-

A DECIMATED SURGE CAPACITY

As the public health director for the Kentucky River District Health Department in rural Appalachia, Scott Lockard is battling the pandemic with 3G cell service, paper records and one-third of the employees the department had 20 years ago.

He redeployed his nurse administrator to work round-the-clock on contact tracing, alongside the department’s school nurse and the tuberculosis and breastfeeding coordinator. His home health nurse, who typically visits older patients, now works on preparedness plans. But residents aren’t making it easy on them.

“They’re not wearing masks, and they’re throwing social distancing to the wind,” Lockard said in mid-June, as cases surged. “We’re paying for it.”

Even with more staff since the HIV outbreak, Indiana’s Scott County Health Department employees worked evenings, weekends and holidays to deal with the pandemic, including outbreaks at a food packing company and a label manufacturer. Indiana spends $37 a person on public health.

“When you get home, the phone never stops, the emails and texts never stop,” said Hall, the preparedness coordinator.

All the while, she and her colleagues worry about keeping HIV under control and preventing drug overdoses from rising. Other health problems don’t just disappear because there is a pandemic.

“We’ve been used to being able to `MacGyver’ everything on a normal day, and this is not a normal day,” said Amanda Mehl, the public health administrator for Boone County, Illinois, citing a TV show.

Pezzino, whose department in Kansas serves Topeka and Shawnee County, said he had been trying to hire an epidemiologist, who would study, track and analyze data on health issues, since he came to the department 14 years ago. Finally, less than three years ago, they hired one. She just left, and he thinks it will be nearly impossible to find another.

While epidemiologists are nearly universal in departments serving large populations, hardly any departments serving smaller populations have one. Only 28% of local health departments have an epidemiologist or statistician.


Strapped departments are now forced to spend money on contact tracers, masks and gloves to keep their workers safe and to do basic outreach.

Melanie Hutton, administrator for the Cooper County Public Health Center in rural Missouri, pointed out the local ambulance department got $18,000, and the fire and police departments got masks to fight COVID-19.

“For us, not a nickel, not a face mask,” she said. “We got (5) gallons of homemade hand sanitizer made by the prisoners.”

Public health workers are leaving in droves. At least 34 state and local public health leaders have announced their resignation, retired or been fired in 17 states since April, a KHN/AP review found. Others face threats and armed demonstrators.

Ohio’s Gottschalk said the backlash has been overwhelming.

“Being yelled at by residents for almost two hours straight last week on regulations I cannot control left me feeling completely burned out,” she said in mid-June.

Many are putting their health at risk. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, public health worker Chantee Mack died after, family and co-workers believe, she and several colleagues contracted the disease in the office.

Roland Mack holds a poster with pictures and messages made by family members in memory of his sister, Chantee Mack, in District Heights, Md. (AP Photo/Federica Narancio)

—-

A DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD

Pence, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on June 16, said the public health system was “far stronger” than it was when coronavirus hit.

It’s true that the federal government this year has allocated billions for public health in response to the pandemic, according to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. That includes more than $13 billion to state and local health departments, for activities including contact tracing, infection control and technology upgrades.

A KHN/AP review found that some state and local governments are also pledging more money for public health. Alabama’s budget for next year, for example, includes $35 million more for public health than it did this year.

But overall, spending is about to be slashed again as the boom-bust cycle continues.

In most states, the new budget year begins July 1, and furloughs, layoffs and pay freezes have already begun in some places. Tax revenues evaporated during lockdowns, all but ensuring there will be more. At least 14 states have already cut health department budgets or positions or were actively considering such cuts in June, according to a KHN/AP review.

Since the pandemic began, Michigan temporarily cut most of its state health workers’ hours by one-fifth. Pennsylvania required more than 65 of its 1,200 public health workers to go on temporary leave, and others lost their jobs. Knox County, Tennessee, furloughed 26 out of 260 workers for eight weeks.

Frieden, formerly of the CDC, said it’s “stunning” that the U.S. is furloughing public health workers amid a pandemic. The country should demand the resources for public health, he said, just the way it does for the military.

“This is about protecting Americans,” Frieden said.


Cincinnati temporarily furloughed approximately 170 health department employees.

Robert Brown, chair of Cincinnati’s Primary Care Board, questions why police officers and firefighters didn’t face similar furloughs at the time or why residents were willing to pay hundreds of millions in taxes over decades for the Bengals’ football stadium.

“How about investing in something that’s going to save some lives?” he asked.

In 2018, Boston spent five times as much on its police department as its public health department. The city recently pledged to transfer $3 million from its approximately $60 million police overtime budget to its public health commission.

Looking ahead, more cuts are coming. Possible budget shortfalls in Brazos County, Texas, may force the health department to limit its mosquito-surveillance program and eliminate up to one-fifth of its staff and one-quarter of immunization clinics.

Months into the pandemic response, health departments are still trying to ramp up to fight COVID-19. Cases are surging in states including Texas, Arizona and Florida.

Meanwhile, childhood vaccinations began plunging in the second half of March, according to a CDC study analyzing supply orders. Officials worry whether they will be able to get kids back up to date in the coming months. In Detroit, the childhood vaccination rate dipped below 40%, as clinics shuttered and people stayed home, creating the potential for a different outbreak.

Cutting or eliminating non-COVID activities is dangerous, said E. Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Cuts to programs such as diabetes control and senior nutrition make already vulnerable communities even more vulnerable, which makes them more likely to suffer serious complications from COVID. Everything is connected, he said.

It could be a year before there’s a widely available vaccine. Meanwhile, other illnesses, including mental health problems, are smoldering.

The people who spend their lives working in public health say the temporary coronavirus funds won’t fix the eroded foundation entrusted with protecting the nation’s health as thousands continue to die.

___

Michelle R. Smith is a correspondent for the AP, and Lauren Weber, Hannah Recht, Laura Ungar and Anna Maria Barry-Jester are writers for KHN.

Contributing to this report were: Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York; Mike Householder in Toledo, Ohio; Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City, Utah; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; Jim Anderson in Denver; Sam Metz in Carson City, Nevada; Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri; Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber in Washington.

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

___

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and KHN (Kaiser Health News), which is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Study: Climate change crisis requires less growth-oriented global economy


The pursuit of affluence is a major impediment to curbing global warming and repairing Earth's damaged ecosystems, researchers argue in a new paper. Photo by nikolabelopitov/Pixabay

June 19 (UPI) -- Economies and consumers can't aspire to both affluence and sustainability, researchers warn in a new paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications.

Hundreds of studies have highlighted the challenges facing the planet's climate, biodiversity and food systems -- global warming, pollution, habitat loss -- but few have focused on the relationship between Earth's climate and ecological crises and the planet's growth-oriented economies and the pursuit of affluence.


Many economists, business leaders, policy makers and even a few climate scientists have suggested technological advances will see planet Earth and its economies through the climate crisis -- continuing economic growth but with a smaller carbon footprint.

But a new paper by an international team of scientists argues such predictions ignore the realities of economic and environmental history.

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The authors claim the pursuit of affluence is a major impediment to curbing global warming and repairing Earth's damaged ecosystems.

"Our paper has shown that it's actually dangerous and leads to planetary-scale destruction," Julia Steinberger, a professor of ecological economics at the University of Leeds in Britain, said in a news release. "To protect ourselves from the worsening climate crisis, we must reduce inequality and challenge the notion that riches, and those who possess them, are inherently good."

For the study, researchers looked at the drivers of consumption across the world's largest economies, as well as the role of technology in the pursuit of sustainability.

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"In our scientists' warning, we identify the underlying forces of overconsumption and spell out the measures that are needed to tackle the overwhelming 'power' of consumption and the economic growth paradigm -- that's the gap we fill," said lead study author Tommy Wiedmann, professor of environmental engineering at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Analysis of economic and energy-use trends over the last four decades showed that wealth growth has continuously outpaced efficiency gains.

"Technology can help us to consume more efficiently -- to save energy and resources -- but these technological improvements cannot keep pace with our ever-increasing levels of consumption," Wiedmann said.

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The new research also highlighted what many critiques of climate change mitigation plans have pointed out -- that the world's wealthiest citizens shoulder most of the blame for the planet's environmental problems.

The wealthiest citizens have the largest carbon footprint and apply the greatest negative pressure to natural resources, researchers said.

"Consumption of affluent households worldwide is by far the strongest determinant - and the strongest accelerator -- of increased global environmental and social impacts," said study co-author Lorenz Keysser, researcher at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

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But authors of the new study suggest it is not just individual attitudes about affluence that must change. They also note that all of the world's largest economies are designed to prioritize growth, which they call problematic.

"The structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies leads to decision makers being locked into bolstering economic growth, and inhibiting necessary societal changes," Wiedmann said. "So, we have to get away from our obsession with economic growth -- we really need to start managing our economies in a way that protects our climate and natural resources, even if this means less, no or even negative growth."

To address the problem of overconsumption by the planet's wealthiest citizens, researchers suggest a range of taxes could be used to alter spending behaviors and shift investment patterns.


Some scientists estimate that the world's economies will actually need to shrink in order to stave off ecological disaster.

"'Degrowth' proponents go a step further and suggest a more radical social change that leads away from capitalism to other forms of economic and social governance," Wiedmann said.

"Policies may include, for example, eco-taxes, green investments, wealth redistribution through taxation and a maximum income, a guaranteed basic income and reduced working hours," Wiedmann said.

While there is disagreement on what must be done, authors of the new paper claim there is no doubt that current economic trends are unsustainable.



"The strongest pillar of the necessary transformation is to avoid or to reduce consumption until the remaining consumption level falls within planetary boundaries, while fulfilling human needs," researchers wrote in the new paper.

"Avoiding consumption means not consuming certain goods and services, from living space (overly large homes, secondary residences of the wealthy) to oversized vehicles, environmentally damaging and wasteful food, leisure patterns and work patterns involving driving and flying."

Global warming has erased 6,500 years of cooling
Temperatures have increased by 1 degree Celsius since the mid-1800s, meaning they are higher now than at any point in the last 12,000 years, researchers say. Photo by Pexels/Pixabay

June 30 (UPI) -- New paleoclimate research suggests the last 150 years of global warming have erased 6,500 years of cooling.

For the study, an international team of scientists applied a variety of statistical models to paleoclimate data sets in order to reconstruct global temperature averages during the Holocene Epoch, the period that followed the last ice age and began roughly 12,000 years ago.

The analysis -- published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Data -- showed temperatures peaked in the middle of the Holocene, roughly 6,500 years ago, topping out at 0.7 degrees above the mid-19th century temperature average.

"Before global warming, there was global cooling," lead study author Darrell Kaufman, a professor of paleoclimatology at Northern Arizona University, said in a news release. "Previous work has shown convincingly that the world naturally and slowly cooled for at least 1,000 years prior to the middle of the 19th century, when the global average temperature reversed course along with the build-up of greenhouse gases."

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"This study, based on a major new compilation of previously published paleoclimate data, combined with new statistical analyses, shows more confidently than ever that the millennial-scale global cooling began approximately 6,500 years ago," he said.

Kaufman was the lead author a study published early this year that catalogued the most extensive set of Holocene paleoclimate data yet assembled.

At 659 different sites around the globe, Kaufman and his research partners recorded hundreds of measurements of both marine and terrestrial samples, including lake deposits, marine sediments, peat and glacier ice.

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Illustration by Victor O. Leshyk/Northern Arizona University

For the new study, researchers used several statistical methods to synthesize the global data sets, revealing the rates of warming and then cooling that characterized the post-glacial period.

"The rate of cooling that followed the peak warmth was subtle, only around 0.1 degrees Celsius per 1,000 years," said study co-author Michael Erb, an assistant research professor at Northern Arizona.

"This cooling seems to be driven by slow cycles in the Earth's orbit, which reduced the amount of summer sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere, culminating in the 'Little Ice Age' of recent centuries," Erb said.

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Since the middle of the 19th century, global temperatures have increased by 1 degree Celsius, which means temperatures are higher today than at any time during the last 12,000 years.

"It's possible that the last time the sustained average global temperature was 1 degree Celsius above the 19th century was prior to the last Ice Age, back around 125,000 years ago when sea level was around 20 feet higher than today," Kaufman said.

By tracing the rise and fall of pre-industrial temperatures during the Holocene, scientists can more accurately predict the future of climate change, researchers say.

"Our future climate will largely depend on the influence of human factors, especially the build-up of greenhouse gases," said co-author and assistant research professor Cody Routson.

"However, future climate will also be influenced by natural factors, and it will be complicated by the natural variability within the climate system," Routson said. "Future projections of climate change will be improved by better accounting for both anthropogenic and natural factors."