Gallup: Support for stricter gun laws in U.S. has fallen in 2020

A gun shop owner holds a .357 magnum revolver at his store in Dundee, Ill. 

File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Americans' support for stricter gun control has fallen off over the last two years and is at its lowest level since 2016, according to a Gallup survey Monday.

The new poll shows that 57% of respondents said they support stricter measures to control firearms, while 34% said restrictions should be kept where they are and 9% said they should be less strict.

The share of those who favor stricter measures is down seven points from last year and 10 points from 2018.

Gallup noted that opinions may be different this year because there hasn't been a mass shooting event in the United States in 2020 and Americans are dealing with other serious issues, mainly the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Since the early 1990s, Americans' preferences for tougher gun control have generally peaked in the wake of prominent mass shootings and waned as the memory of each fades," Gallup wrote.

"A recent example was the 2018 school massacre in Parkland, Fla., after which support for increased gun control hit 67%. Support remained near that level last year in two readings taken after mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas."

Support for stricter gun measures was strongest among women (67%), Democrats (85%) and residents in urban cities (65%). Leaving gun laws alone or favoring fewer restrictions were more popular positions among men (54%), Republicans (78%) and rural Americans (54%). Fifty-eight percent of suburban residents favored stricter measures.

Gallup said support for a handgun ban (25%) has fallen to the lowest level since it began tracking opinions 40 years ago.

"The latest reading [for a handgun ban], which is down 18 points from its 1991 high, is a slight decline from last year's 29%," Gallup wrote. "Currently, 74% of U.S. adults say such a ban should not be put in place."

Gallup polled more than 1,000 adults in all states and Washington, D.C., for the survey, which has a margin of error of 4 points.

Apple has been hit with privacy complaints from the same digital activist who successfully took on Facebook

Max Schrems’ group alleges that Apple tracks users without their consent

Last Updated: Nov. 17, 2020 By Jack Denton

Apple previously said that it would tighten its own rules around third-party data usage. ALASTAIR PIKE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Apple faces two strategic privacy complaints in Europe by Max Schrems, a digital activist who has successfully taken on Facebook’s user data practices.

Schrems’ Vienna-based nonprofit Noyb (as in “none of your business”) filed privacy complaints with German and Spanish regulators, alleging that Apple AAPL, +0.87% tracks users without their consent, in violation of European Union law.

The complaints focus on Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), a unique tracking code generated by each iPhone that allows Apple, app developers, and advertisers to track and target ads.

Noyb alleges that the default inclusion of IDFAs on iPhones is in breach of the EU’s 2011 “Cookie Law,” which requires informed and unambiguous consent from users to store their data.

Plus: Google, Facebook and Apple in the crosshairs as lawmakers agree on EU intervention in Big Tech

An IDFA “allows Apple and all apps on the phone to track a user and combine information about online and mobile behavior,” Noyb said in a statement. “Apple places these tracking codes without the knowledge or agreement of the users.”

The two complaints were made through the EU’s e-privacy directive, and not the sweeping General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means that German and Spanish regulators can fine Facebook without cooperating with the bloc’s authorities.

“EU law protects our devices from external tracking. Tracking is only allowed if users explicitly consent to it. This very simple rule applies regardless of the tracking technology used,” said Stefano Rossetti, a privacy lawyer with Noyb.

Schrems is a high-profile activist who has successfully taken on Facebook FB, +0.72% for transferring Europeans’ data to the U.S. He has argued that, given the revelations of government surveillance made public by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the U.S. doesn’t provide sufficient protection for user data.

In 2015, his complaint to authorities in Ireland — Facebook’s base in Europe — led to the invalidation of the Safe Harbour agreement, which governed trans-Atlantic data storage. Earlier this year, following another complaint from Schrems, the highest court in the EU ruled that Safe Harbour’s successor, the U.S.-EU Privacy Shield, doesn’t adequately protect user data.

Also: Google is being targeted by these tech companies urging regulators to take action against its ‘clear abuse of dominance’

Apple previously said that it would tighten its own rules around third-party data usage, requiring apps to ask users’ permission to opt-in to IDFA tracking, in the latest software update, iOS 14. However, the company backpedaled on the idea in September, delaying the changes until early next year to give developers more time to make adjustments.

Noyb’s position is that Apple’s proposed changes aren’t enough to satisfy EU privacy requirements. “These changes seem to restrict the use of the IDFA for third parties (but not for Apple itself),” the group said. “However, the initial storage of the IDFA and Apple’s use of it will still be done without the users’ consent and therefore in breach of EU law.”

“The IDFA should not only be restricted, but permanently deleted. Smartphones are the most intimate device for most people and they must be tracker-free by default,” Rossetti said.

MarketWatch reached out to Apple for comment.

Sweden stages coronavirus U-turn, 

banning public events with more than eight people

Last Updated: Nov. 17, 2020 By Rupert Steiner

A woman passes a Christmas-decorated shopping window in central Stockholm on Nov. 10.

 TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Sweden is switching from its voluntary lockdowns to a much more aggressive approach that will see public events of more than eight people banned.

The Nordic country was one of the few countries that didn’t go into an enforced lockdown, and has rejected the need for masks. In October, it drew up guidelines for a voluntary lockdown in cities worst hit by coronavirus.

Read: Sweden prepares to join the rest of the world with lockdowns — but they are voluntary

But in a dramatic U-turn on Monday, new restrictions will no longer be a recommendation but enshrined in law as part of Sweden’s Public Order Act, which means there will be harsh penalties for violating them. Lawbreakers could face fines or up to six months in prison.

The restriction is aimed at public events such as sporting events and concerts and doesn’t extend to private gatherings.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told citizens: “It’s going to get worse. Do your duty and take responsibility to stop the spread of infection.

“There should not be social situations with more than eight people even if they are not formally affected by the law. This is the new norm for the whole society, for all of Sweden. Don’t go to the gym. Don’t go to the library. Don’t have dinners. Don’t have parties. Cancel.”

Read: Sweden is developing herd immunity, some of the country’s experts claim, but the figures say otherwise

Previously, events had been limited to 50 and then relaxed to 300 in some situations, although different regions implement different restrictions.

The infection rate peaked at 5,764 new daily cases on Nov. 11, according to the Worldometers website. It also shows there are 177, 355 cases in total on Nov. 16. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 6,164 deaths among Sweden’s population of 10 million, according to Worldometers, which peaked at 115 a day in April.

OMFG
Trump talked out of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities last week: report

New York Times says Trump wanted to strike after U.N. reported growing stockpile of nuclear material

Published: Nov. 16, 2020 at 8:43 p.m. ET
By Mike Murphy



Top advisers talked President Donald Trump out of launching a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities last week, the New York Times reported Monday night.

Trump sought offensive options that the U.S. could take in the coming weeks, the Times reported, but senior advisers recommended against a military strike that they warned could spark a wider, regional conflict.

Last week, the United Nations Atomic Agency said Iran was stockpiling nuclear material significantly beyond what was allowed in the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Trump withdrew the U.S. from in 2018. The U.N. also said Iran’s nuclear research is ongoing and it has taken steps to potentially increase production of low-enriched uranium, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Still, the amount of Iran’s nuclear material is far below the level it possessed before signing the nuclear deal, the Times said.

After Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, laid out the risks, the officials left last week’s meeting satisfied that a missile strike was off the table, the Times reported, citing unnamed administration officials.

Other responses are still believed to be options, including a cyberattack, seizing Iranian assets or attacks against Iranian proxies in Iraq, the Times said.

The Times said that senior Pentagon officials have been worried that Trump will initiate military action against Iran or other countries before the end of his presidential term, after he fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper and his top aides last week.

In January, Trump approved a missile strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general, and Iran responded with missile strikes against bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops. 

The tensions earlier this year sent oil prices CL00, -0.27% spiking

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate sparks market rally after achieving 94.5% efficacy in late-stage trial and requires only standard refrigeration 

Biotech says vaccine remains stable at refrigerated temperatures for longer times, so distribution could be a lesser challenge

 Nov. 17, 2020 By Ciara Linnane

A research associate works at the Moderna lab in Cambridge, Mass. 

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Moderna Inc. said Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate met its primary endpoint in the initial analysis of data from a Phase 3 trial, demonstrating 94.5% efficacy, a far higher rate than originally expected and sparking a broad-based market rally.

The news was shared in a release and has not yet been published as a preprint or in a peer-reviewed medical journal. The company also said the vaccine can remain stable at refrigerated temperatures for a longer time than expected, which should make it easier to distribute.

BofA analysts said the results represent a best-case scenario. “Today’s news is a clear win for the global community,” they wrote in a note to clients. However, “additional data such as extended safety, durability, transmission rates, and decreased hospitalizations are key data points still missing,” said the note.

The announcement comes a week after Pfizer Inc. PFE, -3.51% and partner BioNTech SE BNTX, -13.66% said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate had achieved 90% efficacy in a similar late-stage trial, news that also sent the broad market, and pandemic-decimated sectors notably, sharply higher.

It comes as the U.S. continues to set records for new cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations and as health-care systems in states including the Dakotas and Wisconsin are close to full hospital capacity. The U.S. leads the world by case numbers at 11 million and deaths at 246,224, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University. In each case, it is about a fifth of the global tally.

For all of MarketWatch’s coverage of the pandemic, see:Coronavirus update

Cambridge, Mass.–based Moderna MRNA, +9.57% said it plans to submit an emergency-use-authorization application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the vaccine, which is named mRNA-1273, in the coming weeks and expects it to be based on the final analysis of 151 cases and a median follow-up of more than two months. The FDA has said it would require a coronavirus vaccine to be at least 50% effective to win approval.

The Phase 3 trial enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the U.S. and is being conducted with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Read:BioNTech and Pfizer say their COVID-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, a much higher benchmark than anticipated

Related:Here are 5 things to know about BioNTech and the married couple developing the COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer

Moderna said the primary endpoint of the Phase 3 trial is based on the analysis of COVID-19 cases starting two weeks after the second dose of vaccine. The first analysis was based on 95 cases with 90 cases in the placebo group and five in the mRNA-1273 group.

The 95 cases were in older adults, aged 65 and up, with 20 participants identifying as coming from diverse communities. Twelve were Hispanic or Latinx, four were Black or African-American, three were Asian Americans and one was multiracial person. Including diverse patients in trials is important as Black and Asian people are at greater risk statistically of contracting the virus and developing severe cases of COVID-19. The trial did not report any significant safety concerns.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are both based on messenger RNA technology, which uses synthetic version of the virus to cause human cells to create copies of part of the virus and then prompt the immune system to fight back. That technology is being developed to treat other serious illnesses, including cancer, but no mRNA vaccine has been approved yet.

Separately, Moderna said mRNA-1273 now remains stable at refrigerated temperatures for longer times. Specifically, the vaccine can remain stable at 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius (36 degrees to 46 degrees Fahrenheit), which is the temperature of a standard home refrigerator, for 30 days, an extension from an earlier estimate of seven days.

In case you missed it:Moderna and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine candidates require ultralow temperatures, raising questions about storage, distribution

At negative 20 degrees Celsius (negative 4 degrees Fahrenheit), mRNA-1273 can remain stable for up to six months. It can remain stable at room temperature for up to 12 hours.

The vaccine won’t require dilution or special handling, which means vaccination can be made in a range of settings, including pharmacies and physicians’ offices, said Moderna.

Like the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, two doses of the Moderna vaccine are required.

“We are pleased to submit these extended stability conditions for mRNA-1273 to regulators for approval,” said Moderna’s Chief Technical Operations and Quality Officer Juan Andres. “The ability to store our vaccine for up to six months at [-20 degrees Celsius] including up to 30 days at normal refrigerator conditions after thawing is an important development and would enable simpler distribution and more flexibility to facilitate wider-scale vaccination in the United States and other parts of the world.”

Medical experts cautioned last week that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may prove to be less effective in the real world than in the lab, as MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported.

“In the clinical trial, you select the patients that you like, and you follow them very closely,” said Mizuho Securities analyst Difei Yang. “In the real world, there’s all kinds of ages, and everyone has different underlying health conditions.”

Moderna shares were last up 11% on the news and have gained 406% in the year to date, while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF XBI, +0.48% has gained 31% and the S&P 500 SPX, +1.16% has gained 11%.

THIRD WORLD USA

A grim test case on how progressive paid-leave and child-care policies fail to address the gap in men and women’s wages

Women typically need at least one extra degree to earn as much as their male colleagues


Researchers “still don’t have great understanding how norms and cultures evolve,” one economist said. JOSE JORDAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES


The U.S. is the only highly-developed country without a federal paid parental leave law.

This is especially critical as millions of American women face a coronavirus-induced recession that’s hit them especially hard, advocates for paid leave say. Shutdown orders and consumer anxiety have cut into the services sector, which also happens to employ more women than men.

From February to April, U.S. men lost roughly 10 million jobs, while women lost 12.1 million jobs, according to calculations from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. Compounding that issue: Many women are stepping out of the workforce to care for their children, and supervise them in an era of remote learning and fewer child care options.

What’s more, the median annual earnings of a man with a bachelor’s degree is $74,900, compared to $51,600 for college-educated women, according to U.S. Census Bureau data cited by the Pew Research Center. And while a college degree helps to boost women’s earnings, it’s not enough to bring them up to par with men’s earnings.

Women typically need at least one extra degree to earn as much as their male colleagues. In other words — a woman with a bachelor’s degree earns about the same on average as a man with an associate’s degree.

One theory: Occupational segregation or the idea that women and men tend to work in different fields and male-dominated sectors typically pay more. Women account for roughly one-quarter of college-educated workers in computer occupations and just 15% of college-educated workers in engineering occupations, Pew notes.

The U.S. needs measures like a universally available child-care system to help working women — and, by extension, the nation — to recover from the pandemic’s economic consequences, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The country also needs other safety-net measures like paid sick and family leave, the organization said.

Other countries provide a test case for paid-leave policies

But other countries that have more progressive paid-leave and child-care policies have found that the gender pay gap is more deeply entrenched and harder to address than they may have thought. Case in point: Decades of paid-leave policies and child-care subsidies within Austria have done little to nudge the needle forward on equal pay for men and women, according to research released this week.

Over the years, the Austrian government started offering up to 35 months of paid leave if shared between the parents, or 28 months if used alone. It also began to subsidize child care, to the point that out-of-pocket costs for Austrian families with young children were a fraction of the costs for families in other highly developed countries.

After all that, the average earnings of Austrian women is currently 43.5% lower than men, according to the researchers who poured over data from the country’s social security agency and gauged employment rates, hours worked and wage rates.


The earnings of Austrian women would have been 41.5% lower if family policies stayed where they were in 1960, according to researchers from Princeton University, the London School of Economics, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Zurich.

The data shows a short-term dip in earnings for the Austrian women who stay out of the labor pool while they care for their young children. But when women get back to work, those wages rebound to the same earnings trajectory they were on before the left the workforce. That is, their wages did not progress significantly from when they first left the workforce.

“Our main conclusion is simple and striking: The enormous expansions of parental-leave and child-care subsidies have had virtually no impact on gender convergence,” the researchers wrote in a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Why did Austria’s progressive policies not boost women’s pay?

The answer may lie in the country’s cultural norms and expectations on a mother’s balance between child rearing and career, explained Princeton University economist Henrik Kleven, one of the study’s authors. Put bluntly: Austria is “relatively gender conservative,” he said. “As is the U.S.”

It’s a relatively easier task measuring policies and pay data compared to the ideas and expectations floating through a culture, he said. Researchers “still don’t have great understanding how norms and cultures evolve,” Kleven added.

Austrian women’s 2018 gross earnings were 14.9% less than men, according to a different measure of pay disparities from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was 18.5% for American women last year.

Kleven cautioned about making an “apples and oranges” comparison between Austria and the United States — especially at this point when American lawmakers and experts are grappling with just how to get the economy back on the road to recovery.
‘The model of motherhood’ is more difficult to change

Austria and America are obviously two very different societies. For one thing, Austria has an estimated 8.8 million-person population compared to 332.6 million in America. Yet a new study offers a glimpse at a common, persistent pay gap — and a suggestion that government programs can only accomplish so much.

What’s more, the “model of motherhood” might be more conservative in a country like Austria than the U.S., said Ariane Hegewisch, program director of employment and earnings at IWPR.

Consider one data point: the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the labor force participation rate for all women was 56.8% in September, still while in the grips of the pandemic. The female labor force participation rate was 55% two years ago in Austria, researchers said in the newly-released paper.

The cultural and economic conditions in Austria and the U.S. were “vastly different,” said Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for All, a campaign advocating an expansion of the laws. She advised against extrapolating the findings in Austria to the U.S. Hegewisch has one solution: “Include more men in the take up of paid leave, and reduce women’s time out from the labor market when they have kids,” she said.

Huckelbridge said how paid-leave laws are structured is obviously important, but added that it was also “important to remember there are benefits to paid leave beyond workplace advancement and wages. Infant mortality, maternal health, postpartum depression — access to paid leave improves all of these — and healthy people benefit the economy in the long term,” she said.

Workplace discrimination is also entrenched in U.S. culture, studies suggest. White men who ask for a raise are 25% more likely to get one than people of color, a study by the jobs site Payscale concluded. And yet white men believe they face an uphill battle in corporate America.


‘Simply expecting people from underestimated backgrounds to ask for a raise will not close the wage gap.’— Ruchika Tulshyan, author of the study, ‘The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality in the Workplace’

But in sectors like computer science, women account for a small share of workers. Black and Hispanic workers make up just 9% and 7% of the STEM workforce respectively, though they account for 11% and 16% of the U.S. workforce overall.

What’s more, careers site Payscale said that women of color were 19% less likely to have received a raise than a white man and men of color were 25% less likely to receive a raise. The company surveyed more than 160,000 people.

“This report supports growing evidence that simply expecting people from underestimated backgrounds to ask for a raise will not close the wage gap,” Ruchika Tulshyan, author of the Payscale study, “The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality in the Workplace,” said in a statement.

If U.S. businesses changed their culture, in fact, women would be five times more likely to become leaders. That was the conclusion of a major report by Accenture ACN, +1.31% into workplace culture in the U.S. and around the world. Accenture identified 40 factors that are statistically shown to influence advancement. They include a diverse leadership team that sets, shares and measures equality targets openly, family-friendly policies and practices, flexible work schedules and respectful policies such as not asking employees to conform to a dress or appearance code.

Accenture surveyed more than 22,000 working men and women with a college education in 34 countries — including 1,400 employees in the U.S. — to measure their perception of important issues that contribute to their workplace culture. Out of more than 200 personal and workplace factors, including policies, behaviors and collective opinions of employees, Accenture came up with a list of over a dozen factors that are most likely to affect change.

They included gender diversity as a priority for management; diversity target or goals shared outside the organization; clearly stating gender pay-gap goals and ambitions; progress in attracting, retaining and progressing women; and providing a women’s network and hat women’s network is also open to men.

Some policies are becoming more commonplace due to the coronavirus pandemic such as avoiding long-distance travel via virtual meetings and working from home when needed. Others require deeper cultural and organizational change: comfortable environment to report sexual harassment; providing training to ensure staff skills stay relevant; never asking employees to change their appearance; employees feel free to be creative and innovative; and — last but not least — encouraging men to take parental leave
Change needs to happen in school, in addition to the workplace

The battle for equal pay starts before men and women finish school. Expanding class size in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classrooms has the greatest negative effect on female class participation, according to a 2019 study published in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience. Large classes start negatively impacting students once they consist of more than roughly 120 students, the authors found.

Women make up only 26% of people in computer and mathematical occupations, 21% of computer programmers and 16% of those in architecture and engineering, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, STEM careers are some of the most lucrative.

The researchers collected student data from 44 courses, with participating institutions including Cornell University, the University of Minnesota and American University in Cairo, Egypt. They analyzed more than 5,300 instructor-student interactions in STEM courses over two years, measuring female participation.

Even when women do set their sights on male-dominated, well-paying fields, they can face challenges breaking through. Middle-school girls scored better on an assessment of their science, technology, engineering and math (or STEM) skills, and yet by the time they’re teenagers they’re less likely to pursue a career in STEM.

One reason: There are few female scientist role-models on television and elsewhere. It’s also likely because women who do enter these fields report experiencing insulting, condescending and patronizing behavior. “Part of why you’ve got occupational segregation is because women face such hostility in those occupations,” Chandra Childers, a study director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told MarketWatch.

In addition, to occupational segregation, college-educated women are more likely to face situations where bias can seep in, Childers said. For example, a boss may have more discretion in handing out lucrative assignments, awarding raises and providing feedback.

These increased opportunities for discretion mean that the wage gap between college-educated men and women is actually larger than between male and female workers without a bachelor’s degree.

(Jillian Berman and Meera Jagannathan contributed to this story.)

Trump administration moves to sell drilling rights in Arctic Refuge

The Bureau of Land Management will open up bids for leases to drill oil and gas on the coastal region of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this week.

 File Photo courtesy of USFWS/U.S. Department of the Interior/Facebook

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The Trump administration moved this week to lock in oil and gas leases at Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by asking companies to stake claims on tracts in the wilderness area that will be sold by the Interior Department.

Interior's "call for nominations" to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, covers 1.6 million acres in the wildlife refuge's coastal plain in northeast Alaska that the Bureau of Land Management estimates to contain between 4.25 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

"This call for nominations brings us one step closer to holding an historic first Coastal Plain lease sale, satisfying the directive of Congress in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and advancing this administration's policy of energy independence," BLM Alaska state director Chad Padgett told the Anchorage Daily News.

The area is home to caribou, polar bears, and more than 280 species of other wildlife.

Conservation groups and Native American groups have sued over the plan, claiming it violates the Endangered Species Act and other environmental policies.

"Trump is trying to lock in climate chaos and the extinction of polar bears and other endangered arctic species on his way out the door. This is unconscionable," Kristen Monsell, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement on Monday.

"The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge can't be replaced, so we can't let this lame-duck president give it away to Big Oil," Monsell added.

The BLM sale would take place before President-elect Joe Biden has been sworn in, and contradicts Biden's campaign vow to prevent drilling on public lands, spelled out on his website.

Biden's plan calls for banning oil and gas development on public lands and replacing them with renewable development, including "doubling offshore wind" by 2030.

In October, the Trump administration stripped federal protections for Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the largest old-growth forest in the United States, to logging and other business operations.

Trump officials push on with oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Biden takes office

Low crude price, infrastructure needs and bank-sector reluctance

 raise uncertainty about Big Oil’s rush to drill there

Published: Nov. 16, 2020 By Rachel Koning Beals

A protestor holds a photograph of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) at a large rally at the capitol in 2005. Refuge oil-drilling approval was stalled then, but is moving ahead under the Trump administration. AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The Trump administration beginning Tuesday wants oil and gas firms to select where they might want to drill for the first time in the U.S.’s largest pristine tract of wilderness, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, before President-elect Joe Biden assumes the White House in January.

The “call for nominations” to be published in the Federal Register allows companies to first identify tracts on which to bid during an upcoming lease sale on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million acre coastal plain, which is about the size of Delaware. Leases may prove difficult to claw back once finalized, though court challenges are expected.

The move will open up public lands to drilling, as well as logging, mining and grazing. Biden campaigned on protecting public lands from these activities.

A Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 authorized drilling in the refuge, which is home to tens of thousands of migrating caribou and waterfowl, along with polar bears and Arctic foxes. President George W. Bush had promoted drilling there but ran into congressional roadblocks.

It remains to be seen how strong drilling interest in the refuge might be from major U.S. oil concerns, including Exxon Mobil XOM, +5.76% and Chevron CVX, +7.25%. For one thing, infrastructure and roads have been purposefully kept out of the refuge and would require investment. Historically low oil prices CL00, -0.36% may also preclude investing in expansion. The area is estimated to contain as much as 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable crude.

Hilcorp Energy Co., Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips COP, +7.69% already produce oil and gas in Alaska’s north slope. Chevron partnered with BP BP, +5.10% on the only test well ever drilled in the refuge more than three decades ago.

Major banks including Goldman Sachs GS, +1.50%, JPMorgan Chase JPM, +2.82%, Citigroup C, +3.57%, Morgan Stanley MS, +2.65% and Wells Fargo WFC, +3.44% are among the two dozen financial firms that have said they will not fund any new oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge as part of their own climate-change initiatives.

Smaller participants might be likely to bid on leases. For instance, some Alaska Native tribal corporations have already expressed an interest in conducting seismic tests to identify oil reserves on the coastal plain, the Washington Post reported.

“This call for nominations brings us one step closer to holding a historic first Coastal Plain lease sale, satisfying the directive of Congress in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and advancing this administration’s policy of energy independence,” Chad Padgett, the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska state director said in a statement.

Opponents have said that extracting oil from the refuge would exacerbate the climate crisis, violate the human rights of indigenous Alaskans who live off the land and is “fraught with financial risk,” given the likelihood of long legal battles over refuge leases. A group of more than 250 signatories, mostly representing environmental, indigenous and investing interests, expressed such concern in a letter released in September.

Opening up the refuge follows a host of fossil fuel-favorable policy moves during the Trump administration, including the roll back of more than 125 environmental regulations or policies. Some of these protections had been in place for decades, spanning administrations from both parties.

Those in favor of the rollbacks have said they are expensive for business and unevenly enforced. But the industry has also spent mightily in Washington to make its case. Lobbying data from the Center for Responsive Politics showed that during the 2017-2018 midterm election cycle, corporations, individuals and trade groups in the fossil fuel industry spent $265,773,915 in lobbying and $93,392,002 in contributions to national-level candidates, parties and outside groups, bringing the total spending by the industry to more than $359 million in two years.

Still in the works are plans to open up much of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to drilling and narrowing the definition of critical habitat for endangered species, including when companies are liable for killing migratory birds.

The government also plans to auction off oil and gas rights to more than 383,000 acres of federal land in the Lower 48 in the next two months, Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigner for the advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, told the Washington Post.

Ancient storms could help predict shifts in tropical cyclone hotspots

NOV. 16, 2020 

Researchers have developed new models -- based on evidence of 3,000 years of storms hitting the Marshall Islands -- that could help predict the path and intensity of Pacific Ocean storms such as Typhoon Soulik, seen in a NASA image in 2013. File Photo by NASA/UPI

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- To get a better sense of how climate change might alter the patterns of major ocean storms, shifting the parameters of tropical cyclone hotspots, scientists reconstructed 3,000-years of storm history in the Marshall Islands.

The analysis showed that during the Little Ice Age, storms more frequently struck Jaluit Atoll in the southern Marshall Islands.

The findings, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggest differences in ocean warming strongly influence Pacific storm patterns.

By analyzing differences in sediment size, researchers were able to pinpoint the timing of extreme weather events. The data showed that prior to the Little Ice Age, storms hit Jaluit Atoll roughly once per century, but between 1350 and 1700 AD, the islands were struck by four cyclones per century -- a significant increase.

RELATED Climate change is influencing where tropical cyclones are formed

By studying the affects of ancient climate change on storms patterns in the Northern Pacific, researchers were able to predict how modern climate change, or global warming, will influence tropical storm patterns in the decades ahead.

"Atmospheric circulation changes due to modern, human-induced climate warming are opposite of the circulation changes due to the Little Ice Age," lead study author James Bramante said in a news release.

"So we can expect to see the opposite effect in the deep tropics -- a decrease in tropical cyclones close to the equator. It could be good news for the southern Marshall Islands, but other areas would be threatened as the average location of cyclone generation shifts north," said Bramante, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

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Bramante were able to reconstruct the region's storm history by studying sediment layers excavated from "blue holes," ancient caves that collapsed and became underwater sinkholes.

When large ocean storms strike, they churn up the water and marine sediments, causing previously stratified sediment layers to mix. By identifying the mix of large and small sediment particles created by Typhoon Ophelia, which devastated the atoll in 1958, researchers were able to locate the sediment signatures of ancient storms.

Radiocarbon dating helped researchers work out the timing of ancient storms in the region, revealing an uptick in cyclone frequency during the Little Ice Age. By analyzing tree rings, coral cores and fossilized marine organisms, scientists were able to reconstruct ancient changes in climate conditions.

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When scientists plugged their data into climate models, they determined shifts in the behavior of equatorial trade winds drove significant changes in the frequency at which tropical cyclones formed. The shifts also drove changes in the intensity and paths of North Pacific storms.

Scientists suggest their models can be used to predict how rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures will alter the location of current tropical cyclone hotspots.

"Through the geologic archive, we can get a baseline that tells us how at-risk we really are at any one location," said study co-author Jeff Donnelly.

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"It turns out the past provides some useful analogies for the climate change that we're currently undergoing. The earth has already run this experiment. Now we're trying to go back and determine the drivers of tropical cyclones," said Donnelly, a WHOI senior scientist.

U.N. chief urges countries to 'get it right' on climate change by 2021

Protestors marched to call attention to democracy and climate change awareness in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The United Nations chief said Monday that 2021 could be the year countries 'get it right' on climate change by adopting plans to reach carbon neutrality.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the statement to leaders in government, business, technology and academia gathered at the third annual virtual Bloomberg New Economy Forum.

"2021 must be the year of a great leap toward carbon neutrality," Guterres said. "Every country, city, financial institution and company should adopt plans for transitioning to net zero emissions by 2050."

Guterres added countries could address climate change amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are all rightly focused on responding to the pandemic. But as we strive to overcome one crisis, we have an opening to address another," Guterres said. "The pandemic has shown that we can think big and act big in the face of an emergency. We have crucial decisions to make in the weeks and months ahead. Let's get it right."

Recently, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea and over 110 other countries pledged to reach the 2050 carbon neutrality goal, and China pledged to reach the same goal by 2060, Guterres reported.

"By early 2021, countries representing more than 65% of global carbon dioxide emissions and more than 70% of the world economy are very likely to have made ambitious commitments to carbon neutrality," Guterres said.

Celebrity monk in South Korea under fire for 'lavish lifestyle'

A South Korea-based Buddhist monk is coming under criticism for his way of life after an episode of a television program that aired Nov. 7. File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 16 (UPI) -- A South Korea-based Zen Buddhist monk who's written best-selling self-help books says he's opting out of all public appearances and returning to a life of quiet meditation after a recent controversy.

Haemin, a Korean American monk whose real name is Ryan Joo, is coming under criticism for his lifestyle after he appeared on a local television program.

On an episode of a South Korean reality TV show, On & Off, Haemin is seen at his private residence in one of Seoul's most expensive neighborhoods, where he enjoys an exclusive view of Namsan Tower, a city landmark, local news service EDaily reported Monday.

Haemin's lifestyle angered South Korean viewers, according to reports. Seoul is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, where housing prices skyrocketed in 2020 amid a surge in demand despite government policies that curb lending and real estate speculation.

South Korean YouTube personalities said the show's depiction indicates the monk, who has said he lives a life of monastic discipline, was a hypocrite.

"He is the greediest person that I've ever known," said "Krocodile Choi," a heavy metal singer with local band Victim Mentality, according to JoongAng Daily.

"His meditation app requires in-app purchases," Choi said. "He is making money by ripping off those who are emotionally hurt with sugarcoated words that are far from supportive. All the content in the app is very low quality."

Haemin launched the mobile app, "Kokkiri," in August 2019. The app gained more than 330,000 subscribers in a year, according to EDaily.

Many Zen Buddhist monks are major public figures in South Korea. Several monks who have written books and gained large followings are Americans.

Hyon Gak, an American monk of Irish and German descent who goes by the moniker "blue-eyed Zen Buddhist monk" in Korea, slammed Haemin on Facebook for his alleged materialistic lifestyle.

Hyon Gak, whose real name is Paul Muenzen, called Haemin a "parasite that steals Buddha's wisdom for his greed." He later deleted the comment after a phone call, according to the JoongAng on Monday.