After 'Incredible First Steps' on KXL and Paris, Biden Urged to 'Go Further' on Climate

"The Biden White House needs to chart a much more aggressive course for dealing with our climate emergency."

by

Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

by

Common Dreams

At a January 19, 2021 rally organized by Food & Water Watch, New York Communities for Change, and 350 NYC, environmental activists demand that the Biden administration Build Back Fossil Free in front of Charging Bull sculpture in New York City. (Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

As President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on Wednesday, climate action advocates reiterated calls for them to not only deliver on campaign promises but to go even further to address the planetary crisis both ignored and exacerbated by former President Donald Trump.

Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica, in a statement, celebrated Biden and Harris' swearing in as "the return of decency, common sense, and empathy to the White House," emphasizing that they "now have an unprecedented opportunity to push aggressively on climate at the scale that the crisis demands."

As meteorologist and journalist Eric Holthaus wrote in his newsletter:

This is the moment that climate advocates have been waiting decades for: A president who campaigned on climate change, is planning to make it a centerpiece of their governing strategy, at a moment when the stars are aligned in Congress and in the country for rapid progress.

Simply put: President Joe Biden's first days in office will kick off the best chance we've ever had to make transformational changes throughout society at the scale necessary to avert catastrophic climate change.

Ahead of the Biden-Harris victory in November, scientists, activists, and other experts rallied behind their bid for the White House in "a clarion call to all progressive environmentalists," warning that "the 2020 election is literally a matter of life and death." Since his win, Biden has been pushed to serve as a #ClimatePresident.

Biden's day one executive actions aimed at "tackling climate change, creating good union jobs, and advancing environmental justice" include signing the instrument to rejoin the Paris agreement and rolling back certain actions of Trump "in order to protect public health and the environment and restore science."

Pretty solid Day 1 for climate action, @Transition46! https://t.co/hGE2ShO6YV pic.twitter.com/1Y2jbet0r0

— Ben Cushing (@bmcushing) January 20, 2021

The president is directing executive departments and agencies to immediately review Trump-era regulations and actions harmful to public health and the environment, unsupported by science, or otherwise not in U.S. interest. He is further directing agencies "to consider revising vehicle fuel economy and emissions standards, methane emissions standards, and appliance and building efficiency standards to ensure that such standards cut pollution, save consumers money, and create good union jobs."

Biden's widely anticipated actions also include revoking the presidential permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, re-establishing the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (GHG), directing the Interior Department to review the boundaries and conditions of the Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears, Northeast Canyons, and Seamounts Marine National Monuments, and putting a temporary moratorium on all fossil fuel activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"The sweeping nature of these executive orders are an important down payment in addressing the tatters left behind by President Trump," said Kathleen Rest, executive director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "With these day one actions, President Biden is delivering on his promise, demonstrating that climate change will be at the top of his administration's agenda. And his skilled climate team knows what it takes to make progress."

President-elect Joe Biden will bring with him the largest team ever assembled inside the White House to tackle climate change. https://t.co/rWUcNXVOB4

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 20, 2021

"The science couldn't be clearer: the time for incremental climate action has long since passed," Rest continued. "We welcome a bold vision to limit the worst impacts of climate change—one grounded in science and racial and economic equity and created with local environmental justice communities."

Pica of Friends of the Earth called Biden's day one commitments "incredible first steps" that "indicate a complete shift on climate and demonstrate the power of grassroots, progressive activism to push leaders to fight for a stronger and healthier environment."

"This administration must make use of all of its executive and legal authorities to stop all forms of dirty energy expansion."
—Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch

"The Biden-Harris campaign listened to activists and transformed their climate plan into the most progressive, justice-oriented platform ever seen from a Democratic presidential nominee," he added. "Now the Biden administration must not only follow through on those commitments but go further to stop the worst of the crisis."

Nick Tilsen, president and CEO NDN Collective, noted Indigenous efforts and demands to block not only KXL but also the the Line 3 and Dakota Access pipelines.

"The KXL pipeline was set to go through the heart of the Oceti Sakowin Territory," Tilsen said. "The people came together, resisted the fossil fuel industry, and stood up for our lands, water, and rights. We will continue to resist and fight. We look forward to collaborating with the Biden administration in closing the DAPL pipeline and stopping the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. These are Indigenous lands and we need to return them to Indigenous hands to protect them, combat climate change, and build a better tomorrow."

Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Rodney Bordeaux explained that "we have been fighting KXL ever since we heard about it. It was not only about treaty rights violations, it was also about dirty oil. It was about being in solidarity with the Dene and Cree people in Canada. The State Department did not consult with us, they never paid attention to us. Maybe, now they will. Indigenous Peoples have always stood up for Mother Earth and we will never give up that fight."

Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter also welcomed the reversal of the Trump administration's push to build the climate-wrecking Keystone XL Pipeline as "a good first step, and a huge victory for grassroots organizers who have fought to stop this monstrous proposal."

"But the Biden administration must go much bigger than stopping one stalled pipeline: There are fossil fuel projects planned across the country, and all of them represent decades of additional climate and air pollution," Hauter said. "This administration must make use of all of its executive and legal authorities to stop all forms of dirty energy expansion."

"The Paris climate accords were insufficient six years ago, and they are even more so now," she added. "The Biden White House needs to chart a much more aggressive course for dealing with our climate emergency. We need a rapid transition to 100% renewable energy and a ban on fracking and all fossil fuel infrastructure projects. The Paris agreement represents market-friendly incrementalism, and we need a much more ambitious plan to get the country—and the world—off fossil fuels."

Tell @JoeBiden to #BuildBackFossilFree starting on Day One. With the stroke of a pen, Biden can:

Ban new fossil fuel leases on public lands & waters
Reject fossil fuel projects & enact a climate test
Eliminate US fossil fuel subsidieshttps://t.co/sm0duqWogM

— 350 Action (@350action) January 19, 2021

Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard similarly urged Biden to "not just to Build Back Better, but to Build Back Fossil Free."

"For years, we have been offered a false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy planet," she said. "We've been told that inequality is the result of individual shortcomings, not systemic failures. Today, we see through those myths and begin writing a new story. One that says the just, green, and peaceful future we deserve is possible, and that together we can build the power to manifest it. Our movement will make sure President Biden is listening."

This post has been updated with comment from Nick Tilsen of NDN Collective and Rodney Bordeaux of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.

 

On World Environmental Education Day, we are highlighting one of the pillars of our Earth Day 2021 Restore Our Earth theme: Climate and Environmental Literacy. What is climate and environmental literacy? It is a critical understanding of how the natural world works around us, the ability to analyze how we each are connected to natural and social systems around us and the motivation to effectively advocate for a sustainable future. By arming the next generation with knowledge, skills and efficacy, we will create a literate citizenry that can effectively tackle the climate crisis. Learn more about our global Climate and Environmental Literacy campaign. READ MORE Our children need an interdisciplinary education that instills a respect for the planet and inspires action to protect it. Teachers can weave environmental themes throughout subjects to encourage a critical, systems approach to the world. Civics skills — knowledge on how to participate in community and government — will enable individuals to effectively act on behalf of the Earth. To this end, EARTHDAY‍.ORG believes every school in the world must have compulsory, assessed climate and environmental education with a strong civic engagement component. The next generation will inherit a complicated world, and we are obliged to give them the skills they need to create equitable solutions and build hope for a brighter future. Climate and environmental literacy will create jobs, build a green consumer market and allow citizens to engage with their governments in a meaningful way to solve climate change. Read more about our global campaign and how we’re using education to change the world. For the future, EARTHDAY‍.ORG Education Department P.S. If you missed today's Earth Day Live digital event on this topic, Environmental Literacy and Civics: Education to Change the World, you can view it here.

Could Biden’s student loan freeze argue for bigger debt relief?

The US government doesn’t expect to collect hundreds of billions of dollars from people who took out student loans, leading some to ask ‘Why not try to erase those debts now?’

The United States Department of Education, which has a $1.4 trillion portfolio of student debt, is ever more pessimistic about how much borrowers will repay 

[File: Michael B Thomas/Getty Images]

By Shahien Nasiripour

Bloomberg
22 Jan 2021



Thanks to vagaries of the accounting world, Donald Trump’s administration had a chance in the final weeks of the presidential race to cancel more than $200 billion of student loans with no immediate hit to the Department of Education’s massive portfolio. Yet it didn’t do it.

Now, perhaps Joe Biden will.

For years, bean counters at the department have been writing down the value of its $1.4 trillion portfolio of student debt as they adopted ever-more-pessimistic views of how much borrowers will repay. In September, the analysts made their biggest adjustment yet, valuing loans at just 82 cents on every dollar owed, down from 104 cents in 2015, records show. The debt is now worth $258 billion less than the amount outstanding.

Had officials under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos decided to identify some of the borrowers least likely to repay, and then forgiven those debts, it wouldn’t have put a major dent in the remaining portfolio’s value. Such losses were, theoretically, already reflected anyway.

By Wall Street standards, the government’s loan writedowns are gigantic, amounting to $98 billion in September alone. While they have gone virtually unnoticed in the political realm so far, they are almost sure to attract attention now, as consumer advocates urge Biden’s new administration to ease the burden on young professionals and jump-start the pandemic-stricken economy.

Some are starting to ask: If the government doesn’t expect to collect hundreds of billions of dollars from borrowers, why not try to erase it now?

“Betsy DeVos has already decided that a bunch of this debt is not going to be paid back,” said Mike Pierce, director of policy at the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center and a former official at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “That makes it much easier for the Biden administration to justify canceling.”

The Education Department didn’t respond to messages seeking comment both before and after the change in administration.

Loans or Rent

Shortly after his inauguration as U.S. president on Wednesday, Biden asked the department to extend his predecessor’s pandemic policy of waiving interest and to continue letting borrowers skip monthly payments on government-owned student loans until at least the end of September. About 24 million borrowers have stopped payments, department data show.

Biden has expressed sympathy for borrowers but suggested he’s reluctant to wipe away debt without an act of Congress. In November, he said student-loan burdens are “holding people up. They’re in real trouble. They’re having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying their rent.”

While Wall Street often values its debt holdings based on the prices they would fetch in the market, the government’s markdowns mainly reflect “amounts not expected to be recovered.” From a valuation perspective, that means there wouldn’t be much immediate difference between forgiving doomed loans and waiting for borrowers to turn out their empty pockets.


Still, there’s the issue of moral hazard: If authorities offer relief to struggling borrowers, it could create an incentive for others to stop repaying too, causing more of the portfolio to sour.

Rush for Relief

Much of the gap between what is owed and what the government reckons will be repaid stems from loan programs that cap monthly payments relative to borrowers’ incomes. Income-based repayment plans promise the possibility of loan forgiveness after two decades of steady payment, or one decade for public-service workers. As annual borrower defaults climbed past 1 million, Barack Obama’s administration made the repayment plans increasingly generous. Enrollment has tripled since 2014.

The anticipated cost of income-based plans has risen, too. The Education Department recently realized borrowers in the plans were earning “substantially” less than it had forecast. So the government cut its projections of borrowers’ future income by 35%, boosting the estimated tab to be forgiven in later years.

“There already is significant loan forgiveness,” said Constantine Yannelis, who researches student debt and teaches finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “We’re just talking about moving it up or giving it to borrowers who wouldn’t qualify for it under current rules.”

Yannelis said he recently found that debt owed by lower-income borrowers had a lower present value to the federal government than debt owed by high-income borrowers.

Rising Odds

Across-the-board loan cancellations make little sense, but the government has all the information it needs to target forgiveness, said Adam Looney, a finance professor at the University of Utah whose research on student loans dates to his time as a tax official at the U.S. Treasury Department. In fact, he said, the Education Department’s own valuation reflects a belief the government will eventually cancel large amounts owed by people earning little or at least too little relative to their debts.

Forgiving loans could encourage future students to over-borrow on the hope that their debts will be wiped away, advisers to the federal consumer bureau warned in a report this month. And that could, in turn, remove some of the pressure on colleges to lower their costs.

But there is a growing expectation in the public anyway that relief is coming. In a December survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, respondents estimated there is a 39% chance – more than ever in five years of polling – that the federal government will cancel some amount of student loans over the next year.

Global chip shortage chokes China’s bitcoin mining sector

Soaring computer equipment prices are squeezing smaller miners while benefitting big-time players, many outside China.

Bitcoin mining is closely watched by traders and users of the world's largest cryptocurrency, as the amount of bitcoin they make and sell on the market affects its supply and price [File: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters]

22 Jan 2021

A global chip shortage is choking the production of machines used to “mine” bitcoin, a sector dominated by China, sending prices of the computer equipment soaring as a surge in the cryptocurrency drives demand.

The scramble is pricing out smaller miners and accelerating an industry consolidation that could see deep-pocketed players, many outside China, profit from the bitcoin bull run.

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Bitcoin mining is closely watched by traders and users of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, as the amount of bitcoin they make and sell on the market affects its supply and price.

Trading around $32,000 on Friday, bitcoin is down 20 percent from the record highs it struck two weeks ago but still up some 700 percent from its March low of $3,850.

“There are not enough chips to support the production of mining rigs,” said Alex Ao, vice president of Innosilicon, a chip designer and major provider of mining equipment.

Bitcoin miners use increasingly powerful, specially-designed computer equipment, or rigs, to verify bitcoin transactions in a process that produces newly minted bitcoins.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung Electronics Co, the main producers of specially designed chips used in mining rigs, would also prioritise supplies to sectors such as consumer electronics, where chip demand is seen as more stable, Ao said.

The global chip shortage is disrupting production across a global array of products, including automobiles, laptops and mobile phones.

Mining’s profitability depends on bitcoin’s price, the cost of the electricity used to power the rig, the rig’s efficiency, and how much computing power is needed to mine a bitcoin.

Demand for rigs has boomed as bitcoin prices soared, said Gordon Chen, cofounder of cryptocurrency asset manager and miner GMR.

“When gold prices jump, you need more shovels. When milk prices rise, you want more cows.”

Consolidation

Lei Tong, managing director of financial services at Babel Finance, which lends to miners, said that “almost all major miners are scouring the market for rigs, and they are willing to pay high prices for second-hand machines.”

“Purchase volumes from North America have been huge, squeezing supply in China,” he said, adding that many miners are placing orders for products that can only be delivered in August and September.

Most of the products of Bitmain, one of the biggest rig makers in China, are sold out, according to the company’s website.

A sales manager at Jiangsu Haifanxin Technology, a rig merchant, said prices on the second-hand market have jumped 50 percent to 60 percent over the past year, while prices of new equipment more than doubled. High-end, second-hand mining machines were quoted around $5,000.

“It’s natural if you look at how much bitcoin has risen,” said the manager, who identified himself only by his surname Li.
The cryptocurrency surge is affecting who is able to mine.

The increasing cost of investment is eliminating smaller players, said Raymond Yuan, founder of Atlas Mining, which owns one of China’s biggest mining business.

“Institutional investors benefit from both large scale and proficiency in management, whereas retail investors who couldn’t keep up will be weeded out,” said Yuan, whose company has invested over $500m in cryptocurrency mining and plans to keep investing heavily.

Many of the larger players growing their mining operations are based outside of China, often in North America and the Middle East, said Wayne Zhao, chief operating officer of crypto research company TokenInsight.

“China used to have low electricity costs as one core advantage, but as the bitcoin price rises now, that has gone,” he said.
Zhao said that while previously bitcoin mining in China used to account for as much as 80 percent of the world’s total, it now accounted for around 50 percent.

Obituaries

US baseball legend and civil rights icon Hank Aaron dies

Aaron, one of the few Black baseball players at the time, beat Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974.

Former Atlanta Braves's Hank Aaron is honoured during a ceremony before a baseball game between the Braves and the San Diego Padres in Atlanta [File: John Bazemore/AP Photo]

22 Jan 2021

Hank Aaron, who endured racist threats with stoic dignity during his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record and gracefully left his mark as one of baseball’s greatest all-around players, has died. He was 86.

The Atlanta Braves, Aaron’s longtime team, said he died peacefully in his sleep on Friday. No cause was given.

Aaron’s hitting prowess earned him the nickname “Hammerin’ Hank”, and his power was attributed to strong wrists. He was somewhat shy and unassuming and did not have the flair of contemporaries Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

Aaron was in the news two weeks ago when he publicly received the first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine with his wife, Billye, with the aim of sending a message to Black Americans that the shots are safe.

Getting vaccinated “makes me feel wonderful”, Aaron said at the time. “I don’t have any qualms about it at all, you know. I feel quite proud of myself for doing something like this … It’s just a small thing that can help zillions of people in this country.”

Aaron played with a smooth, under-control style that made the game look so easy that some critics wondered if he was really giving his best [File: AP Photo]

Aaron broke Ruth’s home-run record in 1974 when he hit his 715th.

The longtime Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves slugger held the record for most career home runs for more than 30 years before Barry Bonds broke it in 2007. Aaron finished his 23-year career with 755 home runs, including an 18-year stretch where he hit at least 24 every season.

Aaron began his career in the Negro Leagues in 1951 with the Indianapolis Clowns, before the Braves picked up his contract. He made his MLB debut in 1954 and spent the next 21 seasons with the Braves before ending his career with the Milwaukee Brewers (1975-1976).

He appeared in a record-breaking 25 All-Star games.

Aaron was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first ballot in 1982. Both the Braves and Brewers retired his Number 44.

But Aaron’s journey to that memorable homer was hardly pleasant. He was the target of extensive hate mail as he closed in on Ruth’s cherished record of 714, much of it sparked by the fact that Ruth was white and Aaron was Black.

“If I was white, all America would be proud of me,” Aaron said almost a year before he passed Ruth. “But I am Black.”

Aaron was in the news on January 5 when he publicly received the first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, with the aim of sending a message to Black Americans that the shots are safe [Ron Harris/AP Photo]

Bodyguards were assigned in 1973 after Aaron and his family became the targets of death threats and other harassment from racists who did not want a Black man to break such a sacrosanct record held by the charismatic Ruth.

Another Black baseball player, Jackie Robinson, who was Aaron’s hero, had integrated the major leagues in 1947. Still, when Aaron arrived in 1954, the US civil rights movement had yet to build momentum. Aaron sometimes found himself unable to stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as his white teammates, some of whom ostracised him.

The drive for the home run title left scars on Aaron. In his 1991 autobiography, I Had A Hammer, he described the final days of his quest by saying: “I thought I had earned the right to be treated like a human being in the city that was supposed to be too busy to hate.“The way I saw it, the only thing Atlanta was too busy for was baseball. It didn’t seem to give a damn about the Braves, and it seemed like the only thing that mattered about the home run record was that a nigger was about to step out of line and break it.”

Aaron played with a smooth, under-control style that made the game look so easy that some critics wondered if he was really giving his best. But Aaron was driven by a powerful inner desire as he overcame an impoverished youth and racial hatred to become one of the greatest and most consistent baseball stars of all time.

Aaron’s profile on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s website notes that boxing legend Muhammad Ali called Aaron “the only man I idolise more than myself”. It quotes Mickey Mantle as calling Aaron “the best baseball player of my era … He’s never received the credit he’s due”.

SOURCE : NEWS AGENCIES

Indian farmers call off parliament march after deadly violence

February 1 protest when government presents the annual budget postponed following clashes that left one dead and hundreds injured.

A farmer holds a sword during a protest against farm laws at the historic Red Fort in Delhi [Adnan Abidi/Reuters]

28 Jan 2021

Indian farmers on Wednesday called off a march to parliament on February 1, the day of the government’s budget announcement, following violent clashes with police a day earlier that left one person dead and hundreds injured.

Tens of thousands of farmers have been camped on the outskirts of New Delhi for two months to demand the withdrawal of three farm laws passed last year, which they say benefit big private buyers at the expense of growers.

On Tuesday, a protest parade of tractors around the fringes of the capital to coincide with Republic Day celebrations turned into chaos when some farmers diverged from agreed routes and broke through barricades.

Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the group of farm unions organising the protests, condemned the violence which saw protesters – some carrying ceremonial swords – storm into the historic Red Fort complex as police used tear gas and batons to constrain them.

It said on Wednesday the unions would hold rallies and a hunger strike on Saturday but there would be no planned events on Monday, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is due to present the annual budget.

“Our march to parliament has been postponed,” farm leader Balbir Rajewal told a news conference. “[But] our movement will go on.”

At a separate news conference, Delhi’s chief of police SN Srivastava said 394 police officers and constables had been injured in the violence.

“The violence occurred because terms and conditions were not followed,” he said. “Farmer leaders were involved in the violence.”

More than 25 criminal cases had been filed, with 19 arrests and 50 people detained to date, Srivastava added.

It was not clear how many protesters had been injured but one farmer died after his tractor overturned during the clashes.

Leaders of the farmers’ unions bemoaned the violent turn protests took, saying it undermined their cause.

“These incidents have only delayed our fight,” said farmer leader Darshan Pal.

Agriculture employs about half of India’s population of 1.3 billion and unrest among an estimated 150 million land-owning farmers is one of the biggest tests Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced since coming to power in 2014.

While the protests are beginning to undermine support for Modi in the countryside, he retains a solid majority in parliament and his government has shown no sign of bending to farmers’ demands.

The government says the agriculture laws will open up new opportunities for farmers.

Farmers seen at the Red Fort as they protest on India’s Republic Day on January 26

 [Sajjad Hussain/AFP]

‘It all happened suddenly’

During a huge “tractor rally” on Tuesday, several hundred demonstrators breached the outer walls of Delhi’s Red Fort – one of its most recognisable landmarks – before raising flags from the ramparts and clashing with police.

Among those who reached the fort was Vikramjit Singh, who said farmers had not originally planned to storm the historic complex, a favourite tourist attraction where prime ministers deliver the annual Independence Day speech.

“Nobody had given a call to go to Red Fort,” said Singh, a farmer from Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. “It all happened suddenly.”


The events came after protest leaders held lengthy talks with police and promised an enormous but peaceful rally along a pre-determined route.

Balbir Singh Rajewal, a protest leader, said the demonstrations had been hijacked by a tiny minority.

“Ninety-nine percent of the protesters were peaceful,” he told reporters.

Police had removed protesters from the Red Fort complex by Tuesday evening, but a heavy security presence remained on Wednesday.

Roads across the New Delhi remained closed while extra police, including paramilitary units, were at protest sites on the outskirts.

The government blocked the internet in some parts of the capital and mobile speeds were low.

Farm leaders from the eastern state of Odisha to the western state of Gujarat said on Wednesday they would continue to support protesters in Delhi.

“We have already made it clear that we want all three agriculture bills to be repealed,” said Raman Randhawa, a farm leader from Rajasthan state.

“We will not step back before the laws are scrapped totally by the government.”

SOURCE : NEWS AGENCIES

Photos: Farmers’ protests overshadow India’s Republic Day parade | India News | Al Jazeera

Geological phenomenon widening the Atlantic Ocean

by University of Southampton

39 Ocean Bottom Seismometers where deployed on the ocean floor across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge as part of the PI-LAB experiment. Credit: University of Southampton

An upsurge of matter from deep beneath the Earth's crust could be pushing the continents of North and South America further apart from Europe and Africa, new research has found.

The plates attached to the Americas are moving apart from those attached to Europe and Africa by four centimetres per year. In between these continents lies the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a site where new plates are formed and a dividing line between plates moving to the west and those moving to the east; beneath this ridge, material rises to replace the space left by the plates as they move apart.

Conventional wisdom is that this process is normally driven by distant gravity forces as denser parts of the plates sink back into the Earth. However, the driving force behind the separation of the Atlantic plates has remained a mystery because the Atlantic ocean is not surrounded by dense, sinking plates.

Now a team of seismologists, led by the University of Southampton, have found evidence of an upwelling in the mantle—the material between the Earth's crust and its core—from depths of more than 600 kilometres beneath the Mid Atlantic ridge, which could be pushing the plates from below, causing the continents to move further apart.

Upwellings beneath ridges are typically thought to originate from much shallower depths of around 60 km.

Deploying one of the remote sensors. Credit: University of Southampton

The findings, published in the journal Nature provide a greater understanding of plate tectonics which causes many natural disasters around the world, including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Over two research cruises on the RV Langseth and RRV Discovery, the team deployed 39 seismometers at the bottom of the Atlantic as part of the PI-LAB (Passive Imaging of the Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary) experiment and EURO-LAB (Experiment to Unearth the Rheological Oceanic Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary). The data provides the first large scale and high-resolution imaging of the mantle beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

This is one of only a few experiments of this scale ever conducted in the oceans and allowed the team to image variations in the structure of the Earth's mantle near depths of 410 km and 660 km—depths that are associated with abrupt changes in mineral phases. The observed signal was indicative of a deep, sluggish and unexpected upwelling from the deeper mantle.


Lead author, Matthew Agius, a former post-doctoral fellow at the University of Southampton and currently at Università degli studi Roma Tre said: "This was a memorable mission that took us a total of 10 weeks at sea in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The incredible results shed new light in our understanding of how the Earth interior is connected with plate tectonics, with observations not seen before."

Dr. Kate Rychert and Dr. Nick Harmon from the University of Southampton and Professor Mike Kendall from the University of Oxford led the experiment and were the chief scientists on the cruises. The experiment was funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council, UK) and the ERC (European Research Council).

Play Explainer video showing the deployment of sensors and explanation of the geological phenomenon. Credit: University of Southampton

Dr. Harmon said: "There is a growing distance between North America and Europe, and it is not driven by political or philosophical differences—it is caused by mantle convection!"

As well as helping scientists to develop better models and warning systems for natural disasters, plate tectonics also has an impact on sea levels, and therefore affects climate change estimates over geologic times scales.

Dr. Rychert said: "This was completely unexpected. It has broad implications for our understanding of Earth's evolution and habitability. It also demonstrates how crucial it is to gather new data from the oceans. There is so much more to explore!"

Professor Mike Kendall added: "This work is exciting and that it refutes long held assumptions that mid-ocean ridges might play a passive role in plate tectonics. It suggests that in places such as the Mid-Atlantic, forces at the ridge play an important role in driving newly-formed plates apart."

Explore further

Geophysicists challenge traditional theory underlying the origin of mid-plate volcanoes

More information: A thin mantle transition zone beneath the equatorial Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Nature (2021). 

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03139-x , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03139-x

Journal information: Nature

Provided by University of Southampton

Canada’s lawmakers grant citizenship to Saudi blogger Badawi

A human rights defender, Badawi is in jail in Saudi Arabia for blogging about free speech and ‘insulting Islam’.

Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in jail for blogging about free speech and 'insulting Islam' [File: Facundo Arrizabalaga/DPA]

28 Jan 2021

Members of Canada’s House of Commons decided to grant citizenship to Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who has been imprisoned in his home country for nine years and whose wife and three children live in Canada.

The motion, which was unanimously voted on Wednesday, asks Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino to use his “discretionary power” to grant Canadian citizenship to Badawi, “in order to remedy a particular situation and unusual distress”.

Badawi was arrested in 2012 and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes and then resentenced to 10 years and 1,000 lashes in 2014 for blogging about free speech and “insulting Islam”.

He received 50 of those beatings in January 2015, but the rest of the sessions, which were to be carried out weekly, were suspended after a global outcry.

Before Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court abolished in late April flogging as a form of physical punishment, Badawi had been the most high-profile instance of flogging in the kingdom.

The blogger was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize the following year. He is currently serving his jail term.

Ensaf Haidar, the wife of the jailed Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi, shows a portrait of her husband as he is awarded the Sakharov Prize, in Strasbourg, France [File: Christian Lutz/AP Photo]

“Now that this is a formal request from the House, [Prime Minister] Justin Trudeau and Minister Marco Mendicino must act,” Yves-Francois Blanchet, head of the separatist Bloc Quebecois party and sponsor of the bill, said after the vote.

“Every day counts” for Badawi, “as his health is constantly in danger in prison”, Blanchet said in a statement.

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