National Italian American Foundation Honors Dr. Anthony Fauci with Leonardo da Vinci Award for Leadership in Health and Science, 

SHRO Founder Dr. Antonio Giordano Comments

3-Nov-2020 by Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO)


Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D. (left), with the Italian Ambassador to the United States, Armando Varricchio (right), at the the Villa Firenz, the Italian ambassador's residence in Washington, DC.PreviousNext


Newswise — National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) board member and Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO) founder and president Dr. Antonio Giordano congratulates Dr. Anthony Fauci on his awarding of the Leonardo da Vinci Award for Leadership in Health and Science at this year’s NIAF Anniversary Gala, held virtually on October 31st, 2020.

“Dr. Fauci is being honored at this year’s gala in recognition of his profound contribution to the fight against this terrible, global pandemic,” Giordano says, “particularly in the face of so many unprecedented challenges. Dr. Fauci has been involved with NIAF since it’s founding, and he truly represents the excellence in scholarship and public service that the Italian-American community has proudly brought to this nation for many centuries,” Giordano concludes.

In his remarks upon accepting the award, Dr. Fauci commends NIAF for their long record of support for scientific research by Italians and Italian-Americans. He also signals optimism that one of the vaccines currently being tested will be shown to be effective, adding a very important tool in the fight against the global COVID pandemic, while stating plainly the need for vigilance in public health measures.

"There will be an end to this," says Fauci, "we're gonna get a vaccine and the vaccine is going to diminish the infection rate. That together with good public health measures," he assures, "we will get back gradually to some form of normality, little by litte."

Fauci goes on to say that, "Many states are starting to rebound now and that's very dangerous as we go into the cooler months of the Fall...The threat and the risk of having a resurgance of cases is much, much greater."

"So, we've really got to get our act together and start all across the board, uniformly, doing those public health measures of uniform wearing of masks, keep a physical distance, avoid crowds," Fauci concludes.

NIAF also plans to honor Dr. Fauci with a scholarship in his name, to support the work of promising Italian and Italian-American researchers.

"The NIAF is pleased to also award the Fauci Scholarships, a $100,000 grant to be divided equally between an American and Italian post-doctoral research fellow," says Joseph V. Del Raso, Chair Emeritus, Chair of NIAF Italia, and member of the Executive Management Committee.

Dr. Giordano will lead a peer reviewed selection process for the award of the grants.

"At SHRO, we have a proven record of successful collaborations among Italian and American scientists," Giordano says. "I am honored to lead this effort as we cultivate excellence among the next generations of scientists to follow Dr. Fauci's example."

NIAF and SHRO also acknowledge American and Italian scientists working the front lines of the pandemic, and those working to develop a vaccine and therapeutic treatments.

"Now more than ever," Del Raso says, "NIAF is honored to serve as a bridge between Italian and American cooperation, especially in these scientific and humanitarian causes."

The NIAF, now in it’s 45th year, seeks to recognize Italian and Italian-American achievements in business, art, science, finance, music and medicine. Additional guests of this year’s virtual program include filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, actors John Turturro and Isabella Rossellini, former Major League Baseball star Mike Piazza, and legendary vocalist Tony Bennett.

About the Sbarro Health Research Organization

The Sbarro Health Research Organization (SHRO) is non-profit charity committed to funding excellence in basic genetic research to cure and diagnose cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other chronic illnesses and to foster the training of young doctors in a spirit of professionalism and humanism. To learn more about the SHRO please visit www.shro.org

Brown carbon ‘tarballs’ detected in Himalayan atmosphere

30-Oct-2020 by American Chemical Society (ACS)

Newswise — Some people refer to the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau as the “third pole” because the region has the largest reserve of glacial snow and ice outside of the north and south poles. The glaciers, which are extremely sensitive to climate change and human influence, have been retreating over the past decade. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters have detected light-absorbing “tarballs” in the Himalayan atmosphere, which could contribute to glacial melt.

Burning biomass or fossil fuels releases light-absorbing, carbonaceous particles that can deposit on snow and ice, possibly hastening the melting of glaciers. Previous research has shown that one type of particle, called black carbon, can be transported long distances by wind to the Himalayan atmosphere. But much less is known about the presence of brown carbon, a particle that can form tarballs –– small, viscous spheres consisting of carbon, oxygen and small amounts of nitrogen, sulfur and potassium. Weijun Li and colleagues wanted to see what types of individual aerosol particles were present in air samples taken at a remote, high-altitude research station on the northern slope of the Himalayas.

Using electron microscopy, the researchers unexpectedly found that about 28% of the thousands of particles in the air samples from the Himalayan research station were tarballs, and the percentage increased on days with elevated levels of pollution. Analyzing wind patterns and satellite data revealed that a dense array of active fire spots, corresponding to large-scale wheat-residue burning on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, occurred along the pathways of air masses that reached the Himalayan research station during sampling. Through modeling calculations, the team estimated that tarballs deposited on glacial surfaces could contribute a significant warming effect. As a result, future climate models should consider the long-range transport of tarballs to the Himalayas, the researchers say.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the Research Funding of School of Earth Sciences of Zhejiang University, the Hundred Talents Program in Zhejiang University and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program.

The paper’s abstract will be available on November 4 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00735

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder® and STN®), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Arecibo Observatory seeks $10.5M for cable repairs after accident

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the most powerful single-dish radio telescope in the world, was damaged Aug. 10 when an auxiliary cable that supports the suspended platform broke. Photo courtesy of the University of Central Florida

ORLANDO, Fla., Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The Arecibo Observatory, the world's most powerful radio space telescope, is seeking $10.5 million to begin repairs after a disastrous cable break in August that damaged the facility in the mountains of Puerto Rico.

Observatory managers, based at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla., made the funding request recently to the National Science Foundation, which owns the observatory.

The $10.5 million is only the first stage of funding that will be needed, and the request could be more than double that amount to make the facility fully functional again, said Ray Lugo, director of the university's Florida Space Institute.

"I wouldn't say the situation is dire, but I would say it's complicated," said Lugo, who heads a network of organizations that manage Arecibo. "We still don't know the root cause of the cable break, which makes things difficult."

RELATED Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico damaged by broken cable

A 3-inch-wide cable that helped support the observatory's suspended telescope failed in the predawn hours Aug. 10, tearing a 100-foot gash in the observatory's dish below. The observatory shut all major operations as a result, including crucial efforts to track asteroids that could destroy life on Earth if they hit the planet.

Lugo said a contractor in charge of investigating the accident has determined that the cable slipped out of a socket embedded in a support tower.

Unique failure

RELATED Arecibo Observatory seeks upgrades to track asteroids, study space

"The professionals tell me they've never a failure like this before," Lugo said. "These cables are sealed into the sockets with molten zinc metal, so they should be very secure

"If it ends up being something like a manufacturing defect, then we have a problem because we have a bunch of cables made around the same time."

At least "half a dozen" support cables at the observatory are showing similar signs of slipping through their base socket, he said. So, the observatory has ordered a newer, tougher cable to replace the broken one and seeks funding to replace all the cables at risk, he said.

RELATED Iconic space observatory in Puerto Rico recovers after Hurricane Maria

"This may be expensive, but it beats building a new observatory, which would likely run near $1 billion," Lugo said.

A spokesman for the National Science Foundation said it does not comment on funding requests unless they are approved.

The facility, nestled in rural hills in central Puerto Rico, suffered millions of dollars in damage during Hurricane Maria in 2017. But the facility's staff reported that it came through a series of earthquakes last winter without major damage.

Cables for the observatory, completed in 1963, were made by legacy cable company Bethlehem Wirerope, which was part of Bethlehem Steel and based in Pennsylvania. A successor, Wire Rope Works, bought the company and still owns it.

Socket examined

Technicians and scientists at Kennedy Space Center in Florida are examining the socket from the failed cable, while staff members at the observatory still seek a safe way to enter the dish area and retrieve the cable, Lugo said. He said the unknown nature of the problem has prevented that retrieval.

"We may try to inspect all the cables, using some type of imaging. But the cables are thick, several inches in diameter, and they are embedded in the sockets. So we don't really have the technology to look at it," Lugo said. "We've spent a lot of time trying to figure this out."

He said the proposal to the foundation for emergency funding was more than 500 pages.

The reflector dish set in the mountains spans about 18 acres, while the suspended platform above it is about the size of a six-story building, hanging from three towers as big as skyscrapers.

The facility received two grants of more than $14 million for repair and upgrading after Maria. But Arecibo's annual funding from the National Science Foundation has been slashed.

The structure is known as a film location for such movies as such as 1995's GoldenEye and Species, and 1997's Contact. Two scientists using data from the dish have won Nobel Prizes.

Astronomy conducted at Arecibo over the years has included the study of gravitational waves, possible signs of extraterrestrial life, asteroids, the Earth's ionosphere, pulsars and interstellar hot gas.

Such work led to the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of a binary pulsar by scientists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor, which provided the first evidence for the existence of gravitational waves, according to the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center.

Astronomers at the observatory are to be involved in watching the Didymos asteroid in 2022, when NASA's DART mission will try to hit the asteroid's small moon with a spacecraft to see how that changes its course.

upi.com/7051706

Supreme Court rules for activist in suit filed by injured police officer


Activist DeRay McKesson is seen at the 2019 Webby Awards in New York City on May 13, 2019. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court on Monday sided with prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson, overturning a ruling that allowed a police officer to sue him for injuries received during a protest.

In an unsigned order, the high court sent back a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, that decided last year the lawsuit against McKesson could go forward.

Justice Clarence Thomas provided the only written dissent. Newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate.

The case stems from an incident four years ago in which Black Lives Matter protesters rallied against police in Baton Rouge, La., following the shooting death of Alton Sterling.


The officer was struck in the face by a rock and received injuries to his brain, jaw and teeth. He sued McKesson on the theory that, as a protest organizer, he should have known there was a reasonable chance of violence.

The Supreme Court wrote that the appellate court erred by not obtaining guidance from a Louisiana state court before allowing the officer's lawsuit to move forward.

The justices ruled that the 5th Circuit should not have "ventured into so uncertain an area" of law that was "laden with value judgments and fraught with implications for First Amendment rights" without first obtaining guidance on Louisiana law from the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Barrett is expected to hear oral arguments for the first time Wednesday when the court will take up a case about gay and lesbian rights.

Her confirmation last week gave conservatives a 6-3 majority on the high court and is drawing concern from LGBTQ and civil rights groups that she and the court's other conservatives could start stripping away gay rights immediately.

In Fulton vs. City of Philadelphia, Catholic Social Services is seeking to defend its policy of refusing to work with same-sex households in adoption matters.

Philadelphia refused to refer foster children to the group beginning in 2018, citing a city law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Catholic Charities sued citing religious discrimination, but the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals last year sided with the city in a unanimous decision.

The Human Rights Campaign said the high court's ruling "could have a sweeping impact on the lives of LGBTQ people" on adoptions and other issues.

"A ruling hostile to equality in this case could have staggering consequences for American social safety net programs including services for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, runaway youth, refugees, and those needing emergency shelters and services," it said.


upi.com/7051778

Former Republican Candidate Was Arrested After Showing Up To The Polls With A Gun

Police said Justin Dunn, who wore a camouflage Trump hat and no mask, returned to the polling site two hours after being banned from it.

Julia Reinstein BuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on November 3, 2020

The Charlotte Observer / Via charlotteobserver.com

A former Republican candidate for the North Carolina House of Representatives was arrested on Election Day for returning to a polling station in Charlotte while armed and wearing a pro-Trump hat after he had been banned from the site earlier in the day.

Justin Dunn, 36, voted at the polling site, but "continued to loiter" outside the area after casting his vote, the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department tweeted.

Around 10:30 a.m., officers received a call "regarding Dunn possibly intimidating other voters." Photos from journalists at the scene show the man wearing a camouflage Trump hat and no mask. He was legally carrying an unconcealed gun, police said.

BuzzFeed News has journalists around the US bringing you trustworthy stories on the 2020 elections. To help keep this news free, become a member.

Election officials asked Dunn to leave, and the precinct official banned him from returning, police said. But about two hours later, Dunn allegedly returned to the location as a group of women politicians were speaking. Police then arrested him for second-degree trespassing.

Police later tweeted they are "committed to protecting the right of our community members to engage in safe, secure and unimpeded access to voting sites."

Dunn was not charged with voter intimidation, a federal crime. Police told BuzzFeed News that “based on the information provided to officers on the scene from witnesses, there was not sufficient evidence to charge him with Voter Intimidation.”

Dunn unsuccessfully ran for the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2016 as a Republican candidate, he confirmed in a phone interview on Tuesday night with BuzzFeed News.

He denied he was trying to intimidate voters at the polls on Tuesday, saying he was the one who experienced voter intimidation and had been “yelled at by BLM people.”

“To combat what I thought was intimidation, I said a prayer,” Dunn said. “I thought it was good to go back there to let everyone know I was there legally.”

Dunn also defended his carrying of a gun, saying it is legal and that he always has a gun on him because he is concerned about the murder rate in Charlotte.



Charlotte Agenda@charlotteagenda

Thread: As several prominent local female politicians spoke at precinct 212, one of the largest Democratic polling places in the state, the event was cut short when a maskless white man open carrying a gun showed up and began circling the property.04:46 PM - 03 Nov 2020
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In video of the arrest captured by the Charlotte Observer, Dunn can be seen being placed in handcuffs and arrested without incident.

He can be heard asking officers why he was being arrested. "I was not informed by anyone who owns the property to leave," Dunn says in the video.

According to the Charlotte Agenda, Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, who represents the area, had been present at the site and was "quickly whisked away." Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles also left shortly after.

Volunteers told the local outlet that some people had seen Dunn hanging around with a firearm left before casting their vote.

City Council Member Renee Perkins Johnson told the Agenda she would not have let Dunn stop her from voting.

“I wasn’t intimidated," Johnson said. "The polls are safe."

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a spokesperson for Adams' campaign condemned Dunn for showing up to the polls armed.

“Voting is sacred,” the spokesperson said. “It is the right that guarantees all of our other rights. There is no place for voter intimidation and voter suppression in our democracy, and guns have no business being at polling sites.”
If you have a news tip, we’d like to hear from you. Reach out to us via one of our tip line channels.

Prior to his 2016 campaign, Dunn worked at a tuition assistance nonprofit and at a Thai restaurant.

An archived version of Dunn’s former campaign website says Dunn planned to “increase public safety and hold accountable those who infringe on the safety of the public.”

Voter intimidation is illegal under federal law, which states that "whoever intimidates, threatens, coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of such other person to vote" may be fined or imprisoned.

In the lead-up to the election, Trump and his campaign sparked concerns after calling for poll watcher volunteers by using highly militaristic language.

As he spread baseless concerns about voter fraud, Trump asked supporters to "watch" the polls.

“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully," he said at the first debate. "I am urging them to do it."


Julia Reinstein is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Ice breakers in the Arctic: Let’s talk Inuit safety (commentary)

Commentary by Martin Robards and Beverly Maksagak on 3 November 2020

A little-considered impact of warming temperatures in the Arctic is the increased activity of ice breakers.

Martin Robards, Regional Director for the Arctic Beringia Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and Beverly Maksagak, Manager of the Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization, write that ice breakers potentially pose a threat to traditional Inuit ways of life.

Robards and Maksagak write about the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, which last year brought together communities, industry, and vessel operators find solutions to issues of concern on Arctic waterways.

This post is a commentary: the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

The solitude of the north is changing. George Angohiatok noticed this quite graphically a decade ago when, after returning to Iqaluktuuttiaq (or Cambridge Bay, as it was renamed by settlers), he observed an ice breaker moving through the same frozen waterways he had travelled by snow machine the day before.

If the vessel had smashed that open lead through the frozen veneer of ice a day earlier, he would have been cut off for at least a few weeks until the ice refroze. George wonders whether, even with his headlights, he would have detected the steam that signals the transition from ice to water in winter through his goggles.

The growing presence of ice breakers worries George. His Inuit ancestors moved east across the Arctic coast of North America thousands of years ago. Since that time, the waterways have been their highways, both in summer and winter. Traveling between camps and villages, the Inuit have followed the wildlife at the heart of their food security.

The caribou herds of the far northern islands—the Dolphin and Union herd and the Peary herds—also stride out onto the sea ice during their migrations between summer and wintering areas. The herds contribute heavily to the Inuit’s essential needs—providing both a source of “country food” and clothing with fur that is warm beyond compare. In the past elders have used the leg bones for carving and to build shelters.

The Dolphin and Union caribou herd. Photo © Xavier Fernandez Aguilar.

Use of the sea and ice by people has been relatively predictable over past millennia. Harsh winters and only a few months of open water warded off all but the most determined visitors. Even a casual read of Pierre Berton’s The Arctic Grail provides a clear picture of just how challenging these areas are. Unprepared visitors throughout history have perished.

But things change. The powerful Finish Polar Class icebreakers MSV Fennica and MSV Nordica passed this way in October of 2015, returning home from supporting oil exploration off Alaska in the Chukchi Sea; both vessels capable of ramming their way through ice a meter thick unassisted.

In 2017, the ice breaker MV Xue Long (Snow Dragon) passed by in August. While not a winter transit, it was a clear demonstration of the increasing interest and capacity of the Chinese to explore Arctic waters. And Russia just launched the first in a new generation of what are the largest and most powerful nuclear-powered icebreakers, Arktika, capable of traveling through ice up to 3 meters thick!

Drift ice camp in the middle of the Arctic Ocean as seen from the deck of icebreaker Xue Long. Photo @copy; Timo Palo.

The convergence of technology, loss of one third the summer sea ice over the past two decades, and both economic and political interest have led the Arctic’s frozen backwaters to be targeted as highways between the Atlantic and Pacific—but also as the most efficient way to serve a growing number of mines and oil and gas developments, Bulk Carriers—those vessels serving the mining industry for transport of ore—have alone increased their Arctic travel by 160 percent between 2013 and 2019!

The Fennica and Nordica travelled with a local observer and ice pilots guided by 30 years of experience. But as things get busier, what will become of vessels entering these frozen waters with less on-board experience of the north? Or without an understanding of Inuit and wildlife passage across the sea ice?

These are the types of questions that were addressed a year ago by the Proactive Vessel Management (PVM) initiative, part of Transport Canada’s Ocean Protection Plan. The initiative was designed to bring communities, industry, and vessel operators together to proactively find solutions to issues of concern on the waterways.

The Ekaluktutiak Hunters and Trappers Organization (HTO) conducted a workshop in October 2019 that brought together federal agencies representing shipping and wildlife, ice breaker operators, the mining industry, and local hunters.

Ryan Angohiatok and Ivor Maksagak venture out on the sea ice south of Cambridge Bay to measure ice thickness. Credit © Ryan Angohiatok.

Based on maps of hunter travel and research on caribou migrations, annual ice conditions, and vessel routes, workshop members mapped the times and places where threats to caribou or people could occur. They sought solutions balancing food security, traveler safety, risk to caribou, and local and national economic development needs.

Through the International Maritime Organization’s new Polar Code, operators in the Arctic must plan voyages to avoid impacts to Indigenous Peoples, but can only do so through the documentation of times, places, and mitigation measures that work.

As a result of the workshop, a Notice to Mariners will now be published each year that includes these details for vessel captains and operators. Mariners can avoid the riskiest times when people and caribou are using the frozen waterways around Cambridge Bay. They coordinate with local representatives on what to do if transit is unavoidable.

Caribou calf. Photo © Xavier Fernandez Aguilar

For example, if ice breakers are present, informing local communities of their presence, reducing speed, and maintaining a single channel to minimize damage to the ice that can take weeks to re-form can all help avoid a catastrophic situation for caribou and people.

The Notice to Mariners, penned through the efforts of the Ekaluktutiak HTO, has provided a local voice in avoiding impacts from these new global visitors. Hopefully,

Wildfires Don’t Stop At The Canadian Border - Debunking The Latest Twitter Myth

Marshall Shepherd Senior Contributor FORBES Science Sep 15, 2020

There are days when the climate change myths and narratives by segments of the population are sad, scary, and amusing at the same time. This week happens to be one of them. You have people saying that cool days or seasonal transition refutes climate change. Of course, we know that a day or week of cool weather says nothing about a global warming in the same way that one hit or week-long hitting streak by a baseball player says nothing about his career batting average. However, the most bizarre myth this week came from people on social media claiming that wildfires conveniently stopped at the Canadian border. Clearly, the map that I generated from the NOAA Hazard Mapping System (below) for September 14th, 2020 shows otherwise. Let me explain what is going on with the latest foolishness on Twitter.

Fire and smoke activity on September 14th in Canada and the U.S. NOAA

This week numerous colleagues were tweeting into the “social media wilderness” refuting baseless claims about fires at the border. Apparently maps like the one below were being shared with questions like, “Why does climate change stop at the border? “ People ranging from Hollywood actors to medical doctors got on the geographically-illiterate bandwagon. Though I am the director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program, my tenured home is the Department of Geography. I immediately recognized the problem and so did my colleague Professor Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University.

The fires seem to stop at the border because of the dataset being used and the particular time ... [+] K. HAYHOE VIA TWITTER

Hayhoe is one of the top climate scientists in the world and a frequent slayer of climate zombie theories that slog around in social media. She tweeted in response to the ridiculous Tweets about the map, “The latest disinformation circling the twittersphere asks why the impacts of climate change appear to stop at the Canadian border. The answer is simple: because US maps only show US data.” While her response was a “Duh” for most of us, the toxic mix of ideology, climate change denial, and lack of familiarity with geospatial data created this firestorm (pun-intended). I would also add that cherry-picked days or time frames can also present a perception of minimal activity in Canada or the U.S at specific times.

Fire hotspots in Canada on September 11th, 2020

 NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA

I knew that there were numerous ways to debunk this madness so I went to the Natural Resources Canada website. It has a host of interactive resources that allow you to assess fire data in Canada. I used the interactive map and quickly plotted the fire hot spots for Canada and parts of the western U.S. for September 11th, 2020 (above). Guess what folks? There are fires in Canada too. If you still don’t believe fires happen in Canada, the map below shows a historical accounting of fire activity from 1980 to 2019. To be fair, perhaps some people just aren’t as accustomed to looking at geospatial datasets. However, if that is the case, don’t make sweeping, inaccurate statements. You don’t look at the weather radar on your App and conclude that it doesn’t rain in other states just because you are only looking at a radar image of your state.

Forest fire perimeters from 1980 to 2019 in Canada 

NATURAL RESOURCES CANADA

The western U.S. fire season has likely been more intense than the Canadian fire season in 2020. Experts attribute that to wet conditions in Canada and aggressive COVID-19 lockdown policies. However, Professor Hayhoe’s Tweet in response to one of the ridiculous claims sums things up nicely. She wrote, “Sir, you appear are unaware of the difference between climate vs weather....Some days, weeks, or years, Canada will have more fires. The last 2 years were particularly bad. Other times, the US will. Pls update your understanding here before commenting again.”

California fire season has been one for the record books. NOAA

A Human Tragedy Could Unfold With Hurricane Eta In Central America

Marshall Shepherd Senior Contributor FORBES Science


Photo of the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Hurricane Eta is already an unprecedented storm. It represents the first time that we have used the Greek letter “Eta” in a storm name. Hurricane Eta is the fifth major hurricane (category 3 or greater) of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the third major hurricane to form since October 1st. According to Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach on Twitter, “This is the first time on record that the Atlantic has had 3 major hurricane formations (e.g., storm first reached major hurricane strength) in October-November.” However, there is something more ominous than climatological records that worries me about Eta. A human tragedy could unfold as it makes landfall.


Hurricane Eta on Monday afternoon (November 2nd, 2020). NOAA AND TROPICALTIDBITS.COM

Eta, which rapidly intensified to a Category 4 storm on Monday afternoon, is expected to make landfall on Tuesday. The National Hurricane Center is sounding the alarms for a multi-hazard event, which includes potentially catastrophic winds and excessive rainfall. I want to specifically focus on the rainfall amounts. National Hurricane Center estimates are as follows:


Nicaragua and Honduras: 15 to 25 inches with isolated amounts of 35 inches.
Eastern Guatemala and Belize: 10 to 20 inches with isolated amounts of 25 inches.
Panama and Costa Rica: 10 to 15 inches with isolated amounts of 25 inches.

One particular concern about Hurricane Eta is the forward speed. The forecast map below illustrates that the storm will not move significantly after landfall. Between now and Wednesday, the storm is still sitting over regions of Nicaragua and Honduras. Even by Thursday, the weakened storm is projected to be over the region before moving back out over water by late Friday. Eta is just one more storm in what Weather Channel expert Rick Knabb calls Category “Slow” hurricanes like Harvey (2017), Florence (2018), or Sally (2020).



Forecast track for Hurricane Eta NOAA NHC

In the Monday afternoon National Hurricane Center Public Advisory, forecasters warn that, “This rainfall will lead to catastrophic, life-threatening flash flooding and river flooding, along with landslides in areas of higher terrain of Central America." Additionally, coastal regions of Nicaragua could experience storm surge water levels in the 12 to 18 feet above normal tide levels.


Topographic map of Central America NASA JPL

Richard Henning is a meteorologist and former graduate school classmate of mine at Florida State University. Henning is also a NOAA Hurricane Hunter. He reflected on Hurricane Mitch (1998) in a social media post. He wrote, “It (Eta) reminds me of late season Hurricane Mitch of 1998 that caused the deaths of more than 10,000 people in this same area.” Nearly 2 to 3 feet of rainfall falling on terrain like the map below is a recipe for disaster and the potential loss of human lives. Hurricane Mitch, which reached Category 5 status, caused over $5 billion in damages and was one of the deadliest storms in the Western Hemisphere, according to History.com

At the time of writing, Hurricane Eta was still in an intensification phase. There is nothing that guarantees that we will see scenarios like the region saw in 1998, but the similarities are in place.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.

Marshall Shepherd
Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, a leading international expert in weather and climate, was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS) and is Director of the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Atmospheric Sciences Program. Dr. Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor and hosts The Weather Channel’s Weather Geeks Podcast, which can be found at all podcast outlets. Prior to UGA, Dr. Shepherd spent 12 years as a Research Meteorologist at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and was Deputy Project Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission. In 2004, he was honored at the White House with a prestigious PECASE award. He also has received major honors from the American Meteorological Society, American Association of Geographers, and the Captain Planet Foundation. Shepherd is frequently sought as an expert on weather and climate by major media outlets, the White House, and Congress. He has over 80 peer-reviewed scholarly publications and numerous editorials. Dr. Shepherd received his B.S., M.S. and PhD in physical meteorology from Florida State University.

Mongabay Series: Global Forests
Rewilding key to averting mass extinctions and reducing carbon emissions

by Meghie Rodrigues on 3 November 2020


A recent study that analyzed data from biomes all over the world, covering an area of almost 3 billion hectares (7 billion acres) that were turned from natural habitats into farmlands, concluded that rewilding is key to recovery.

Restoring 30% of this area and preserving remaining natural habitats could remove almost half the carbon dioxide surplus humans have emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Restoring this area would also save 71% of animal species from extinction compared with current extinction rates, according to researchers.

High-priority areas are concentrated in the tropics. Wetlands restoration has the highest positive impact for biodiversity conservation and forests the highest importance for climate change mitigation.

An international team led by Brazilian researchers recently published a study in the journal Nature showing that restoring habitats that are currently degraded by agricultural activity is key to mitigating climate change impacts and avoiding animal species extinction.

The study analyzed data from 2.87 billion hectares (7.09 billion acres) of natural areas worldwide that were transformed into farmland over the years, assessing forests, grasslands, shrublands, wetlands and arid ecosystems all over the globe.

Researchers used three criteria to evaluate optimal outcomes — biodiversity conservation, mitigation of climate change, and costs — with the best restoration solutions combining the highest biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation with the lowest costs possible. They modeled 1,200 scenarios combining these elements using different restoration approaches.

They note that different objectives point out distinct restoration areas and strategies: recovery of forest areas is the priority when the goal is to mitigate climate change effects, while the restoration of wetlands is of the highest importance when the objective is to conserve biodiversity. Arid ecosystems and grasslands are the most cost-effective areas for restoration.

Though all continents harbor areas that best combine the three criteria, most of the priority areas for restoration were determined to be in the world’s tropics. Preserving natural habitats and restoring 30% of the total converted lands focusing in these regions would save 71% of animal species from extinction and absorb 465 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — roughly half of all carbon emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Gislene Ganade, coordinator of the Restoration Ecology Laboratory at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, says this is the first study to piece together advanced modeling methodology and focus on biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and overall restoration costs globally. “There are several restoration studies with different recovery techniques to all ecosystems, but I don’t know one that has used these three criteria at the same time globally before,” Ganade, who did not participate in the study, told Mongabay in an interview.

This research sounds the alarm for policymakers and citizens at a time when the world is entering the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration starting next year as defined by the United Nations, Ganade says. “It shows that Brazil is a leader in restoration studies and also helps to look at a global problem with deep local implications. If there’s a time to talk about these issues, it is definitely now,” she adds.

The study at the global scale was inspired by the same methodology that lead author Bernardo Strassburg, a researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, developed to map priority areas for restoration in the Atlantic Forest, one of the most degraded biomes in Brazil.

Restoration, the authors note, does not need to come at the expense of agricultural production, since 55% of converted lands could be restored while maintaining current yields.

The Atlantic Forest is a biome in the top 5 % highest priority for restoration. The image shows a portion of the biome at Serra do Caparaó, at the limits between Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais states. Credits: Heris Luiz Cordeiro Rocha/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
Differing views

The approach the researchers used, however, has its critics. Giselda Durigan, a researcher at the São Paulo State Forest Institute, who did not participate in the study, says she considers the criteria to be fruit of a “pragmatic economist view,” since it focuses on restoration in areas “where it is easier and cheaper to do.”

Durigan told Mongabay that “it is important to heal Earth’s wounds where they are deepest, where natural areas are degraded the most and where there is more pollution and water scarcity — and these areas do not always match with what the study found.” The areas Durigan highlights are mostly in the global north. Restoring areas at fountainheads and riverbeds are of special importance for the maintenance of water in volume and quality, but this isn’t mentioned in the study, she adds.

Strassburg says he agrees with Durigan’s assertion. “Restoring fountainheads is extremely necessary and when we work on modeling at the local scale, we come across this sort of priority,” he told Mongabay.

The study, however, was not able to merge such specific modeling because of its scale. There are a number of factors to take into account when working with such fine-grained models, “from the type of soil in riverine areas to river inclination and its curve type,” Strassburg says. “It is possible to work with such data on a local scale. At the global scale, this is not yet computationally possible.” He adds that, despite mapping restoration areas in a grid of 9-hectare (22-acre) cells, they used much larger cells of 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) to optimize the final modeling. “Within these cells it makes all sense to prioritize fountainhead areas for restoration. Both approaches work well together,” he says.

Semi-arid farmland in Kenya. The study led by Bernardo Strassburg oversees the restoration of farmland to their natural ecosystems to halt biodiversity loss and mitigate climate change effects. Credits: Andrew Wu, World Resources Institute, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

The role of forests and a glimpse of what is possible

More than half of the converted lands the study mapped were originally forest regions (54% of the total). Twenty-five percent of the area was grasslands, 14% shrublands, 4% arid lands and 2% wetlands.

Recovering forest areas is crucial to mitigating the effects of climate change, but many forest areas in priority regions such as Brazil are seeing their areas shrink instead of expanding. The Amazon Rainforest has had more fires this year than in 2019 (more than 89,600 to date against 89,176), when the smoke was so massive that it blacked out the skies in São Paulo, more than 2,700 kilometers (1,700 miles) away.

In the Atlantic Forest, a region that harbors 70% of Brazil’s population, the situation is even more critical. Originally, the biome covered parts of the Brazilian northeast and all states in the southeast and south, including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil’s most populated cities. But today, little more than 12% of its total vegetal cover is left. The study shows the biome is in the top 5% of priority areas for global restoration, Strassburg says.

Deforestation between 2018 and 2019 was almost 30% higher than in the period from 2017 and 2018, according to the SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation and INPE, Brazil’s national space research institute. Restoring and maintaining the forests in such populous regions are essential for the water maintenance Durigan calls attention to.

But there are actions trying to counter the trend.

Strassburg says initiatives such as the Pact for the Atlantic Forest Restoration — aiming to restore 15 million hectares (37 million acres) of native forest — have been very important in the attempt to mitigate part of the habitat loss in the area. “There have been several restoration initiatives in priority places that we mapped in this study and in previous ones. There are actions of several kinds, from natural restoration to assisted natural restoration, led by local groups, cooperatives and large companies,” he says. One example is the Restoration Task Force, led by the Environment Secretariat in the city of Rio de Janeiro, an ongoing reforestation program in the Atlantic Forest region since 1994.

Another of these initiatives, led by photographer Sebastião Salgado’s Instituto Terra, won the E-Award for education from the United Nations at the Rio+20 Conference in 2012. On the occasion, they had planted more than 1.7 million trees in the Atlantic Forest.

Banner image: Tiger Leg Monkey Tree Frog (Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis) in Brazil. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Citation:

Strassburg, B. B. N., Iribarrem, A., Beyer, H. L., Cordeiro, C. L., Crouzeilles, R., Jakovac, C. C., … Visconti, P. (2020). Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration. Nature, 586(7831), 724-729. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2784-9

Article published by Genevieve Belmaker

Report: Soy, cattle industries trail palm oil, timber on deforestation risk

by Ashoka Mukpo 

on 3 November 2020

The report says the soybean and cattle industries lack certification bodies like the RSPO that were created after consumer pressure.

Among soybean and cattle producers, Glencore Agriculture, JBS and Minerva scored worst on indicators for forest risk.

The two industries have a significant role in the deforestation of the Amazon and Brazil’s Cerrado biome.

Corporations that trade in four forest-risk commodities are failing to do enough to prevent deforestation in their supply chains, according to new analysis by the Climate Disclosure Project (CDP), an NGO that works with businesses and governments to track their environmental impacts. The paper points an accusing finger at the cattle and soy industries in particular, saying that their practices lag far behind those of companies that trade in other commodities.

“The focus on deforestation today has been on timber and palm oil despite the fact that cattle has been one of its major drivers between 2005 and 2015,” said Ling Sin Fai Lam, lead analyst at CDP and one of the authors of the report.

According to the report, companies operating in the agriculture and logging industries drive more than 80% of global deforestation, with soy, palm oil, cattle, and timber being largely to blame. Lam says that a combination of consumer pressure and certification schemes have forced changes in the timber and palm oil sectors, while soy and cattle companies continue to operate with few checks and balances despite their heavy footprint in the Amazon and other forest regions.

“A lot of these companies have no visibility on where the cow might have been reared or if at some point in its life cycle it may have grazed on deforested land,” Lam told Mongabay. “And our analysis shows that all the cattle and soy companies in our sample continue to operate in the Amazon, which has the highest rate of tree loss.”

The boom in global demand for beef and soybeans has pushed the Amazon into crisis, with one recent analysis of NASA satellite data concluding that forest fires were likelier to occur near industrial meatpacking pants and soybean silos than in other areas.

Part of the reason why has to do with their supply chains. Major traders like JBS and Cargill typically purchase cattle and soybeans directly from smaller companies and independent farmers. Cows often pass through multiple hands before reaching a slaughterhouse, and Lam says the big industry players that operate them aren’t doing nearly enough to make sure their suppliers aren’t contributing to deforestation.

“Companies like Minerva and JBS don’t actually provide any evidence of traceability beyond the fattening farms where cattle goes before it gets slaughtered, but throughout the life cycle of the cattle it could actually move through quite a few farms before it gets there,” Lam said.

Of the 10 major soy and cattle producers analyzed in the report, Glencore Agriculture, JBS, and Minerva Foods ranked at the bottom of a list of indicators developed by CDP to evaluate deforestation risks. All three companies have made commitments to fight deforestation, but CDP’s report says their efforts are falling far short of what’s needed to protect tropical forests.

JBS, for example, claims to prevent deforestation in its direct supply chain, but says it isn’t able to monitor all of its indirect suppliers. This summer, an investigation revealed evidence that it continued to work with some of those suppliers that had been sanctioned for illegal deforestation.

And Cargill has dismissed the idea of a moratorium on the production of soy inside the Cerrado, a forested savanna region of Brazil that boasts some of the highest biodiversity in South America. Like in the cattle industry, most large soybean traders purchase the commodity from smaller local operations.

Demand for the legumes has skyrocketed in recent years, largely as a result of China’s appetite for the pigs that feed on them.

“Just four out of the seven soy companies that we covered provided any clarity on soy certification,” Lam said.

In contrast, the report says the palm oil and timber industries have made progress in recent years, largely via participation in certification platforms that bring civil society, governments, and producers together to monitor plantation operations. The 10 palm oil producers covered in the report are together responsible for managing nearly half of the total land certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO); and 68% of the timber produced by companies included in CDP’s analysis was certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

But even those certification bodies have been critiqued by environmental campaigners, and some say it would be misleading to point to them as a standard that the beef and soy industries should mimic.

“Industrial agricultural commodities responsible for the majority of deforestation worldwide are not regulated and therefore continue to drive the climate crisis through unfettered environmental destruction and human rights violations,” said Gaurav Madan, senior forests and lands campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “This blind spot in regulation comes in part due to an overreliance on voluntary corporate commitments and sustainability certification schemes, like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.”

Lam says the better track record of the palm oil and timber industries in recent years doesn’t mean they are entirely off the hook.

“It’s all relative, and at the end of the day we know that deforestation is still happening for all these commodities,” she said. “But we’d really like to see cattle and soy get up to where palm oil and timber is.”

In the long run, she adds, the main takeaway of the analysis is that the world isn’t doing nearly enough to tackle the impact that forest-risk industries are having on climate-critical forests.

“The world needs to make systemic changes to the global food system,” she said.