Miami’s beaches ‘will be all gone,’ Bill Gates warns, and corrective action must be drastic | Opinion
When I recently interviewed Bill Gates about his new book on global warming, I didn’t expect him to use Miami as his first example of what may become a climate change “catastrophe.”
But that’s exactly what he did.
“There will be places near the ocean [that] the sea-level rise will completely wipe out,” Gates told me. “You know, like Miami won’t look anything like it does today. Those beaches will be all gone.”
Since I live in Miami Beach, in a building close to the ocean, I immediately asked him how soon he expects that to happen.
“Well, it’s fairly gradual, it gets worse every year. You know already in Miami you have periods where the water is coming up when you get the right weather conditions. And so, every year, the ocean will just get higher and higher. And by the end of the century, that’s very, very dramatic,” he told me.
“I love the beaches in Miami, you know, biking, walking, it’s so beautiful, and all the energy of people there,” he added. “And I think, wow, that won’t be there. You know, it’s kind of a sad thing. It’s not the highest on the list of bad things from climate change, but it makes it something that we can relate to.”
Gates’ new book, “How to avoid a climate disaster,” makes dire predictions not just for Miami, but also for the world.
There will be increasingly stronger hurricanes, floods, wildfires and extreme droughts, mass migrations, economic crises and deaths from natural disasters. By 2050, climate change is likely to be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly, he says.
Unless we dramatically increase efforts to reduce climate change — beyond the ambitious gas-emission reduction goals of the 190-country Paris Climate Change Accord — the world faces a “climate disaster,” Gates says.
Expanding current sources of green energy, such as wind and solar, will not suffice, he says. That’s because these energy sources are intermittent. The wind doesn’t always blow. The sun doesn’t always shine. And we have not yet invented affordable batteries that can store enough clean energies.
In addition, the Paris Accord’s goals are too modest to solve the problem, Gates says, adding that the only sensible goal is to reduce emissions to near zero by 2050.
He compares existing global agreements to reduce the effects of climate change to a bathtub that is slowly filling up with water: Even if you slow the flow to a trickle, the tub eventually will overflow.
When I asked him what will happen in countries such as Mexico, which is investing oil refineries, Gates said that electric cars are likely to dominate the market in 10 or 15 years and, “Countries will have to move away from expecting to make lots of money from selling oil or natural gas.”
“That will be a challenge for the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria and Mexico,” he said. “But 30 years hopefully is enough time to ship those (oil-related) jobs into other areas.”
Most climate experts disagree with the notion that Miami will soon disappear under water anytime soon (though, to be fair, Gates was referring only to Miami’s beaches, and said that they may vanish by the year 2100.)
What’s going to happen, if nothing dramatic is done, is that Miami will have to build much more expensive water pumps, and residents will have to pay more real estate taxes.
In that scenario, Miami — like other coastal areas in Florida — may become a place where only the ultra-rich will be able to live, some climate experts predict. Like Venice, Italy, which is regularly swamped with floodwaters and is one of Italy’s most high-priced cities, Miami’s real estate would be among the most expensive in the United States, they say.
I agree that Miami won’t disappear anytime soon, nor will its real-estate prices plummet, though I wonder about the future of its beaches. Gates is right in warning that current efforts to control global warming are not enough, and that the longer we wait to fix the climate problem, the more costly it will be.
Don’t miss the “Oppenheimer Presenta” TV show at 8 p.m. E.T. Sunday on CNN en Español. Twitter: @oppenheimera
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Feb. 20—CLEVELAND — Throw a fishing line into Lake Erie today and the biggest creature you could hope to catch would be a sturgeon, a very rare lake resident which might reach seven feet long and weigh 200 pounds. Cast the same line into the water and the nastiest fish you might encounter is the sea lamprey, a parasitic vampire with a sucker-like mouth decked out with circular rows of sharp teeth, and a fish that likely would be attached to an unwitting host.
Today, the sturgeon and the lamprey qualify as big, and scary, respectively. But they look wimpy and tiny when compared to the apex predator that was the scourge of the waters here in a different era.
This Cerberus of the sea was a fish that stretched to 25 feet or more in length and weighed a couple of tons. It was covered in armor and had a massive skull comprised of heavy, bony plates. There were two sets of huge protrusions that looked like monster-sized fangs, and a unique pair of self-sharpening jawbones that could produce an amazing 8,000 pounds per square inch of force as this fish chomped down on its prey.
Meet Dunkleosteus terrelli, the meanest and most terrifying fish in the marine world. This part of Ohio was covered in a shallow, warm sea at the time, and Dunkleosteus snacked on the sharks of those waters, and anything else that came into its path.
"This fish is significant because it was the top predator on Earth at its time," said Amanda McGee, Head of Collections & Collections Manager of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where the most complete displays of Dunkleosteus are displayed. "At that time, plants and insects had colonized the land, but most of life was still in the sea, and Dunkleosteus was the Tyrannosaurus rex of that period. It was the apex predator and it lived right here."
Dunkleosteus, also known by its efficient nickname Dunk, lived in the Devonian Period, the Age of Fishes. The Devonian Period was part of the Paleozoic Era in geological history and took place between roughly 420 million and 358 million years ago. With a very warm climate, sea levels were high and about 85 percent of the planet was covered in water.
"This whole area was a shallow sea, a lot warmer than it is today, and the global sea level was a lot higher, so the oceans flooded the land," McGee said. And Dunk, a ferocious marauder, ruled those widespread seas.
Paleontologists have uncovered fossil remains of other species of Dunkleosteus in distant parts of the world, McGee said, including in Morocco, Poland, and Australia, but Dunkleosteus terrelli, which occupied this part of the planet, has provided the best historical record.
When these fish died they would settle to the bottom of the vast saltwater seas, a veritable dead zone with little to no oxygen, so their remains were very well preserved. As mud and sediment covered them, these Dunkleosteus specimens were encased in a slowly developing sarcophagus.
"Over millions of years, those layers of mud turned to rock," McGee said. "And much later those rocks got scraped away by huge sheets of retreating ice in the ice age, exposing some of these fossils."
The first recorded discovery of Dunkleosteus in the region that is now Northern Ohio took place in 1867 in the shale cliffs in Lorain County. Amateur paleontologist Jay Terrell made that find and he is recognized in the scientific name of the fish, along with David Dunkle, former Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The giant armored skull of a Dunkleosteus terrelli is on display in the Kirtland Hall of Prehistoric Life at the facility, which is located east of downtown at University Circle.
"Most of the early finds of Dunkleosteus terrelli were from people in that area," said Jayson Kowinsky, a high school physics teacher in Pittsburgh whose website fossilguy.com celebrates paleontology and fossil hunting.
"This fish is probably the world's most famous placoderm and that area of Ohio is very important in the study of Dunkleosteus. That is the world's hot spot for this fish."
Almost 100 years after Terrell's encounter with Dunkleosteus, the Ohio Department of Transportation was starting construction on Interstate 71 in the shale-rich Big Creek Valley area near Cleveland and a team of paleontologists worked alongside the ODOT crew and excavated a wide range of fossil fish and plants, including additional evidence that has assisted in the study of Dunkleosteus.
Kowinsky explained that Dunkleosteus was larger than the biggest great white sharks that swim in the oceans today, and the force of the bite produced by Dunk's shearing jaws was unmatched by even the most ferocious predators that ever have walked the earth or terrorized its oceans.
"This bite force was likely double that of a Megalodon and stronger than that of the T-rex," Kowinsky said.
Through the use of biomechanics and computer modeling, paleontologists with the Field Museum have estimated that at the tip of its fang-like structures, Dunkleosteus terrelli could exert an "incredible force of 80,000 pounds per square inch." They also marveled at the ability of Dunk to open and close its massive mouth with such speed — in just one-fiftieth of a second. This created a powerful suction-like vacuum that pulled prey into its mouth.
"The most interesting part of this work . . . . was discovering that this heavily armored fish was both fast during jaw opening and quite powerful during jaw closing," said Mark Westneat, past curator of fishes at The Field Museum, in a 2006 paper on Dunkleosteus. "This is possible due to the unique engineering design of its skull and different muscles used for opening and closing. And it made this fish into one of the first true apex predators seen in the vertebrate fossil record."
Kowinsky said that paleontologists believe that Dunkleosteus was around for about 20 million years or more, at a time when close to 99 percent of the vertebrate life on the planet was found in the seas.
"We would not be swimming in the ocean if this fish was still around today," he said.
Late in 2020, Dunkleosteus terrelli earned the official distinction as the Fossil Fish of Ohio when Senate Bill No. 123 was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine. Dunk joins the buckeye (state tree), cardinal (state bird), flint (state gemstone), Isotelus (state invertebrate fossil), spotted salamander (state amphibian), black racer (state reptile), and the white trillium (state wildflower).
Israel shuts Mediterranean shore after oil devastates coast
Israel Whale
Danny Morick, marine veterinarian, and Aviad Scheinin take samples from a 17 meters (about 55 feet) long dead fin whale washed up on a beach in Nitzanim Reserve, Israel, Friday, Feb. 19, 2021. Aviad Scheinin of the Morris Kahn Marine Research Station said samples from the animal will be taken to try to determine a cause of death, officials said the water nearby is polluted, including with tar. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Sun, February 21, 2021, ILAN BEN ZION
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice on Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country's worst ecological disasters.
Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel's coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture Ministry determined Sunday that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel's public broadcaster.
Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority has called the spill “one of the most serious ecological disasters” in the country’s history. In 2014, a crude oil spill in the Arava Desert caused extensive damage to one of the country's delicate ecosystems.
The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product of an oil spill from a ship in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, have already washed up on shore. The ministry is trying to determine who is responsible. It declined commenting on details of the investigation because it was ongoing.
Yoav Ratner, coordinator of the ministry's oil spill contingency plan, said that there were still many “unknown unknowns” about the extent of the ecological damage and therefore it was difficult to say how long clean-up would take.
Thousands of volunteers took to the beaches on Saturday to help clean up the tar, and several were hospitalized after they inhaled toxic fumes. The military also deployed thousands of soldiers to assist in the operation.
The Environmental Protection, Health and Interior Ministries issued a joint statement Sunday warning the public not to visit the entire length of the country's 120-mile (195 km) Mediterranean coastline, cautioning that “exposure to tar can be harmful to public health.”
Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel told Hebrew media that her department estimates the clean-up project will cost millions of dollars.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured one of the country’s tar-pocked beaches on Sunday and praised the ministry’s work.
Representatives from a coalition of Israeli environmental groups said in a press conference on Sunday that the ministry was woefully underfunded and that existing legislation did little to prevent or address environmental disasters.
Arik Rosenblum, director of the Israeli environmental group EcoOcean, said that the Environmental Protection Ministry is “fighting this situation and many other situations with their hands tied behind their back” because of inadequate legislation.
They cautioned that this disaster should be a wake-up call for opposition to a planned oil pipeline connecting the United Arab Emirates and Israeli oil facilities in Eilat — home to endangered Red Sea coral reefs.
'I also defaulted': Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley reveals her experience with student loan debt
Aarthi Swaminathan
·Reporter
Fri, February 19, 2021
Ayanna Pressley
In a heartfelt moment speaking about racial disparities related to student debt, Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) recently revealed that she defaulted on her student loans at one point.
"Like 85% of Black students, I had to borrow; and like so many of those students, I also defaulted on those loans," Pressley said during a press conference organized by the American Federation of Teachers. "We know that Black and Brown students are five times more likely to default for those loans, than our white counterparts."
Ricardo Sanchez, a spokesperson for the congresswoman, confirmed her experience with Yahoo Finance and stated: “Congresswoman Pressley, like many Black women who have disproportionately borne the impact of the student debt crisis, had student loans that were in default for a period of time and have since been paid off. With the public health and economic crisis worsening daily, she is committed to fighting for broad-based student debt cancellation—which would help reduce the racial wealth gap and stimulate our economy—and robust federal investments in education to make tuition-free college a reality.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts raises her hand during a memorial service for George Floyd at North Central University, on Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
'The typical Black borrower owed about $17,500 more'
The experience of Pressley, who previously described student debt cancellation as "a matter of racial and economic justice across our country," is similar to other Americans of color who live with a student loan debt burden.
"Decades of systemic racism and discriminatory policies like redlining and predatory lending... systematically denied Black and Latinx families the opportunity to build wealth," Pressley said, "forcing our families to take on greater rates of student debt, just for the chance at the same degree as our white counterparts, and contributing to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis that is disproportionately borne by black and brown communities."
A Demos report based on credit records of 35,000 student debtors, sampled from Experian’s entire credit database in December 2014, found that Black student debtors "are 16 percent more likely to be in default or seriously delinquent than white student debtors; Latino borrowers are 8 percent more likely."
Growing up in a single-parent household, Pressley explained, she was the first person in her immediate family to pursue higher education "and there wasn't anyone to hold my hand or a walk you through the college application process, or to fully explain what I was signing on to when I was signing all these documents."
A report from Brookings Institute by Judith Scott-Clayton noted that 38% of Black first-time college students in 2004 had defaulted within 12 years. That number is more than three times higher than white students' performance. Projecting those rates to 20 years out, the author added that as many as 70% of Black borrowers "may ultimately experience default."
(Screenshot from Brookings report)
According to a report by the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, Black students are not only more likely to take on more student debt than their white peers but also more likely to carry that debt for longer periods of time.
Comparing the student cohort that started college in 1995-96, the researchers found while 43% of white students didn't take on any student loans, only 25% of Black students were able to avoid taking on debt to fund school.
Furthermore, the "the typical Black student borrower took out about $3,000 more in loans than their White peers," the authors stated, and "the typical Black borrower owed about $17,500 more than their White peers" 20 years later.
(Screenshot of report by Brandeis University)
"Several Black [woman politicians] have now talked openly about having debt," Louise Seamster, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa, told Yahoo Finance. But the stigma of having debt lingers, she added, such as when Stacey Abrams disclosed that she had hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when running for public office. Pressley's colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has also tweeted on February 17 that she took on "thousands of dollars in debt" to attend a for-profit college.
"While it doesn't match our image of what Congresspeople are facing," Seamster added, "it's a sign of how stark the racial disparities are, that you can be successful and still not be able to pay off your student debt quickly."
Seamster added that defaulting on student loans was an issue that is often misunderstood.
"We think of debt as an individual thing that's shameful, it's your individual burden," she explained. "And default is thought of as shameful... but this idea of default contributes to a false narrative."
This chart shows how the government's interest-free forbearance on federal loans has caused the delinquency rate to drop sharply. (Screenshot: New York Fed)
While executive orders have paused student loan payments for federally-backed debt amid the coronavirus pandemic, sending the overall delinquency rate plummeting, it's unclear how this will play out once the payment pause is lifted.
Democrats, including Pressley, are urging President Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt for roughly 43 million Americans through executive order.
Some experts argue that forgiveness could be a way to partly remedy the racial disparities created by the U.S. student loan system.
VIDEO
Aarthi Swaminathan
·Reporter
Fri, February 19, 2021
Ayanna Pressley
In a heartfelt moment speaking about racial disparities related to student debt, Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) recently revealed that she defaulted on her student loans at one point.
"Like 85% of Black students, I had to borrow; and like so many of those students, I also defaulted on those loans," Pressley said during a press conference organized by the American Federation of Teachers. "We know that Black and Brown students are five times more likely to default for those loans, than our white counterparts."
Ricardo Sanchez, a spokesperson for the congresswoman, confirmed her experience with Yahoo Finance and stated: “Congresswoman Pressley, like many Black women who have disproportionately borne the impact of the student debt crisis, had student loans that were in default for a period of time and have since been paid off. With the public health and economic crisis worsening daily, she is committed to fighting for broad-based student debt cancellation—which would help reduce the racial wealth gap and stimulate our economy—and robust federal investments in education to make tuition-free college a reality.”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts raises her hand during a memorial service for George Floyd at North Central University, on Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
'The typical Black borrower owed about $17,500 more'
The experience of Pressley, who previously described student debt cancellation as "a matter of racial and economic justice across our country," is similar to other Americans of color who live with a student loan debt burden.
"Decades of systemic racism and discriminatory policies like redlining and predatory lending... systematically denied Black and Latinx families the opportunity to build wealth," Pressley said, "forcing our families to take on greater rates of student debt, just for the chance at the same degree as our white counterparts, and contributing to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis that is disproportionately borne by black and brown communities."
A Demos report based on credit records of 35,000 student debtors, sampled from Experian’s entire credit database in December 2014, found that Black student debtors "are 16 percent more likely to be in default or seriously delinquent than white student debtors; Latino borrowers are 8 percent more likely."
Growing up in a single-parent household, Pressley explained, she was the first person in her immediate family to pursue higher education "and there wasn't anyone to hold my hand or a walk you through the college application process, or to fully explain what I was signing on to when I was signing all these documents."
A report from Brookings Institute by Judith Scott-Clayton noted that 38% of Black first-time college students in 2004 had defaulted within 12 years. That number is more than three times higher than white students' performance. Projecting those rates to 20 years out, the author added that as many as 70% of Black borrowers "may ultimately experience default."
(Screenshot from Brookings report)
According to a report by the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, Black students are not only more likely to take on more student debt than their white peers but also more likely to carry that debt for longer periods of time.
Comparing the student cohort that started college in 1995-96, the researchers found while 43% of white students didn't take on any student loans, only 25% of Black students were able to avoid taking on debt to fund school.
Furthermore, the "the typical Black student borrower took out about $3,000 more in loans than their White peers," the authors stated, and "the typical Black borrower owed about $17,500 more than their White peers" 20 years later.
(Screenshot of report by Brandeis University)
"Several Black [woman politicians] have now talked openly about having debt," Louise Seamster, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa, told Yahoo Finance. But the stigma of having debt lingers, she added, such as when Stacey Abrams disclosed that she had hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when running for public office. Pressley's colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has also tweeted on February 17 that she took on "thousands of dollars in debt" to attend a for-profit college.
"While it doesn't match our image of what Congresspeople are facing," Seamster added, "it's a sign of how stark the racial disparities are, that you can be successful and still not be able to pay off your student debt quickly."
Seamster added that defaulting on student loans was an issue that is often misunderstood.
"We think of debt as an individual thing that's shameful, it's your individual burden," she explained. "And default is thought of as shameful... but this idea of default contributes to a false narrative."
This chart shows how the government's interest-free forbearance on federal loans has caused the delinquency rate to drop sharply. (Screenshot: New York Fed)
While executive orders have paused student loan payments for federally-backed debt amid the coronavirus pandemic, sending the overall delinquency rate plummeting, it's unclear how this will play out once the payment pause is lifted.
Democrats, including Pressley, are urging President Joe Biden to cancel $50,000 in student loan debt for roughly 43 million Americans through executive order.
Some experts argue that forgiveness could be a way to partly remedy the racial disparities created by the U.S. student loan system.
VIDEO
WHO Panel to Recommend ‘Deeper’ Study into First COVID Patient
Brittany Bernstein
Sun, February 21, 2021
A World Health Organization panel will recommend more comprehensive contact tracing of the first known COVID-19 patient in Wuhan, China and the supply chain of the wildlife market where it is thought to have originated in its preliminary report into the origins of the coronavirus.
The panel will call on Chinese officials to conduct a deeper investigation into the contact history of the first known patient, who is believed to have contracted the virus on December 8, 2019, according to CNN. Investigators have described the patient as a white-collar worker in his forties who “lived a typical urban life.”
“He did not do crowded sporting activities. His main hobby was surfing the Internet,” said Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO investigation team.
The patient, who reportedly did not have a history of traveling far from home, revealed to the WHO team that his parents had visited a wet market in Wuhan shortly before he was infected.
“Then he said at the end of the interview — and it was all being translated and the translator, specifically said — ‘My parents visited a local community wet market,'” Daszak said.
That market is separate from the Huanan seafood market where experts believe the virus originated.
“Now, to use the term ‘wet market,’ especially under this political constraint we were under, tells me something very significant: that the other markets in Wuhan — not [only] Huanan market, other markets — sold wildlife products,” Daszak said.
Professor Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the network he was shocked that Chinese officials had not investigated “two important clues like that.”
“They have top-notch scientists, who are much more knowledgeable than most in terms of recognizing the importance of this information,” he said.
The panel will also recommend an immediate probe into the supply chain of the Huanan seafood market, according to CNN.
Chinese scientists gave the WHO team a list of farms in the southern provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong that supplied the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan with wildlife, Daszak said.
“There will be recommendations that will include going down to those farms, testing farmers, interviewing and testing relatives, and finding out if there is any evidence that there were outbreaks down there before Wuhan,” Daszak said.
The team announced earlier this month that the virus was likely spread from an animal to humans, calling a theory that the virus was released in a lab accident “extremely unlikely.”
“Our initial findings suggest that the introduction through an intermediary host species is the most likely pathway and one that will require more studies and more specific, targeted research,” WHO food safety and animal diseases expert Peter Ben Embarek said then.
“However, the findings suggest that the laboratory incidents hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus to the human population,” Embarek said. “Therefore it is not a hypothesis that we advise to suggest future studies . . . into the understanding of the origin of the virus.”
Health experts have said that the novel coronavirus likely originated in Wuhan, China in November 2019. Scientists in recent months have questioned whether the virus originated at a live animal market in Wuhan or was the result of a lab accident at one of the city’s two laboratories — the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control — that had been studying coronaviruses that originated in bats.
China has argued that the virus did not start within its borders and instead has peddled other theories that the virus may have originated elsewhere.
The WHO team, which draws on experts from ten countries, is considering several theories for how the disease first ended up in humans. The team’s work is meant to be an initial step in investigating the origins of the virus, which is believed to have originated in bats before being passed to humans via another species of wild animal, such as a pangolin or bamboo rat.
Mexico’s Controversial Coronavirus Czar Gets COVID-19
Published: Saturday, February 20, 2021
Download mp3 (946.02 KB)
Gobierno de México
Mexican Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s coronavirus czar has become a well-known controversial character in his country. While he heads the strategy to fight the pandemic, he has been criticized for not following the same health protocols he recommends. And this weekend he revealed that he has contracted COVID-19.
Hugo López-Gatell is Mexico’s undersecretary of health, leading the fight against COVID-19 along with the president.
On Saturday, López-Gatell tweeted that he has mild symptoms of the virus, and that he will continue working from home.
López-Gatell has faced criticisms for his policies, arguments and personal approaches to the pandemic. He once defended the president for not wearing facemasks, arguing that he is a source of morality and not of infection.
The undersecretary was recently exposed vacationing in a beach not following health protocols, and he offers press conferences without a face mask.
Critics say López-Gatell’s pandemic strategy has been exceedingly relaxed, while the vaccination numbers are still very low.
Did nuclear spy devices in the Himalayas trigger India floods?
Soutik Biswas - India correspondent
Sat, February 20, 2021,
Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, is near the country's north-eastern border with China.
In a village in the Indian Himalayas, generations of residents have believed that nuclear devices lie buried under the snow and rocks in the towering mountains above.
So when Raini got hit by a huge flood earlier in February, villagers panicked and rumours flew that the devices had "exploded" and triggered the deluge. In reality, scientists believe, a piece of broken glacier was responsible for the flooding in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, in which more than 50 people have died.
But tell that to the people of Raini - the farming mountain village with 250 households - and many don't quite believe you. "We think that the devices could have played a role. How can a glacier simply break off in winter? We think the government should investigate and find the devices," Sangram Singh Rawat, the headman of Raini, told me.
At the heart of their fears is an intriguing tale of high-altitude espionage, involving some of the world's top climbers, radioactive material to run electronic spy systems, and spooks.
It is a story about how the US collaborated with India in the 1960s to place nuclear-powered monitoring devices across the Himalayas to spy on Chinese nuclear tests and missile firings. China had detonated its first nuclear device in 1964.
"Cold War paranoia was at its height. No plan was too outlandish, no investment too great and no means unjustified," notes Pete Takeda, a contributing editor at US's Rock and Ice Magazine, who has written extensively on the subject.
In October 1965, a group of Indian and American climbers lugged up seven plutonium capsules along with surveillance equipment - weighing some 57kgs (125 pounds) - which were meant to be placed on top of the 7,816-metre (25,643-ft) Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, and near India's north-eastern border with China.
A blizzard forced the climbers to abandon the climb well short of the peak. As they scampered down, they left behind the devices - a six-foot-long antenna, two radio communication sets, a power pack, and the plutonium capsules - on a "platform".
One magazine reported that they were left in a "sheltered cranny" on a mountainside which was sheltered by the wind. "We had to come down. Otherwise many climbers would have been killed," Manmohan Singh Kohli, a celebrated climber who worked for the main border patrol organisation and led the Indian team, said.
When the climbers returned to the mountain next spring to look for the device and haul it back to the peak, they had vanished.
Captain MS Kohli, an internationally-renowned climber, led the Indian team
More than half a century later and after a number of hunting expeditions to Nanda Devi, nobody knows what happened to the capsules.
"To this day, the lost plutonium likely lies in a glacier, perhaps being pulverised to dust, creeping towards the headwaters of the Ganges," wrote Mr Takeda.
This could well be an exaggeration, say scientists. Plutonium is the main ingredient of an atomic bomb. But plutonium batteries use a different isotope (a variant of a chemical element) called plutonium-238, which has a half-life (the amount of time taken for one-half of a radioactive isotope to decay) of 88 years.
What survives are the stories of a fascinating expedition.
In his book Nanda Devi: A Journey to the Last Sanctuary, British travel writer Hugh Thompson recounts how the American climbers were asked to use an Indian sun tan lotion to darken their skins so that they didn't evoke suspicion among locals; and how the climbers were told to pretend that they were on a "high altitude programme" to study the effects of low oxygen on their bodies. The porters who carried up the nuclear luggage were told it was a "treasure of some sort, possibly gold".
Before that, the climbers, reported Outside, an American magazine, were taken to Harvey Point, a CIA base in North Carolina, for a crash course in "nuclear espionage". There, a climber told the magazine, that "after a while, we spent most of our time playing volleyball and doing some serious drinking".
A set of devices were finally placed on the peak of Nanda Kot
The botched expedition was kept a secret in India until 1978, when the Washington Post picked up the story reported by Outside, and wrote that the CIA had hired American climbers, including members of a successful recent summit of Mount Everest, to place nuclear-powered devices on two peaks of the Himalayas to spy on the Chinese.
The newspaper confirmed that the first expedition ended in the loss of the instrument in 1965, and the "second foray happened two years later and ended in what one former CIA official termed a "partial success".
In 1967, a third attempt to plant a fresh set of devices, this time on an adjacent and easier 6,861-metre (22,510-ft) mountain called Nanda Kot, had succeeded. A total of 14 American climbers, had been paid $1,000 a month for their work to put the spying devices in the Himalayas over three years.
In April 1978, India's then prime minister Morarji Desai dropped a "bombshell" in the parliament when he disclosed that India and the US had collaborated at "top level" to plant these nuclear-powered devices on the Nanda Devi. But Desai did not say how far the mission was successful, according to a report.
Declassified US State Department cables from the same month talk about some 60 people demonstrating outside the embassy in Delhi against "alleged CIA activities in India". The protesters carried signs, saying "CIA Quit India" and "CIA is poisoning our waters".
As for the lost nuclear devices in the Himalayas, nobody quite knows what happened to them. "Yeah, the device got avalanched and stuck in the glacier and God knows what effects that will have," Jim McCarthy, one of the American climbers, told Mr Takeda.
Climbers say a small station in Raini regularly tested the waters and sand from the river for radioactivity, but it is unclear whether they got any evidence of contamination.
"Until the plutonium [the source of the radio-activity in the power pack] deteriorates, which may take centuries, the device will remain a radioactive menace that could leak into the Himalayan snow and infiltrate the Indian river system through the headwaters of the Ganges," Outside had reported.
I asked Captain Kohli, now 89, whether he regretted being part of an expedition which ended up leaving nuclear devices in the Himalayas
"There is no regret or happiness. I was just following orders," he said.
Soutik Biswas - India correspondent
Sat, February 20, 2021,
Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, is near the country's north-eastern border with China.
In a village in the Indian Himalayas, generations of residents have believed that nuclear devices lie buried under the snow and rocks in the towering mountains above.
So when Raini got hit by a huge flood earlier in February, villagers panicked and rumours flew that the devices had "exploded" and triggered the deluge. In reality, scientists believe, a piece of broken glacier was responsible for the flooding in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, in which more than 50 people have died.
But tell that to the people of Raini - the farming mountain village with 250 households - and many don't quite believe you. "We think that the devices could have played a role. How can a glacier simply break off in winter? We think the government should investigate and find the devices," Sangram Singh Rawat, the headman of Raini, told me.
At the heart of their fears is an intriguing tale of high-altitude espionage, involving some of the world's top climbers, radioactive material to run electronic spy systems, and spooks.
It is a story about how the US collaborated with India in the 1960s to place nuclear-powered monitoring devices across the Himalayas to spy on Chinese nuclear tests and missile firings. China had detonated its first nuclear device in 1964.
"Cold War paranoia was at its height. No plan was too outlandish, no investment too great and no means unjustified," notes Pete Takeda, a contributing editor at US's Rock and Ice Magazine, who has written extensively on the subject.
In October 1965, a group of Indian and American climbers lugged up seven plutonium capsules along with surveillance equipment - weighing some 57kgs (125 pounds) - which were meant to be placed on top of the 7,816-metre (25,643-ft) Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, and near India's north-eastern border with China.
A blizzard forced the climbers to abandon the climb well short of the peak. As they scampered down, they left behind the devices - a six-foot-long antenna, two radio communication sets, a power pack, and the plutonium capsules - on a "platform".
One magazine reported that they were left in a "sheltered cranny" on a mountainside which was sheltered by the wind. "We had to come down. Otherwise many climbers would have been killed," Manmohan Singh Kohli, a celebrated climber who worked for the main border patrol organisation and led the Indian team, said.
When the climbers returned to the mountain next spring to look for the device and haul it back to the peak, they had vanished.
Captain MS Kohli, an internationally-renowned climber, led the Indian team
More than half a century later and after a number of hunting expeditions to Nanda Devi, nobody knows what happened to the capsules.
"To this day, the lost plutonium likely lies in a glacier, perhaps being pulverised to dust, creeping towards the headwaters of the Ganges," wrote Mr Takeda.
This could well be an exaggeration, say scientists. Plutonium is the main ingredient of an atomic bomb. But plutonium batteries use a different isotope (a variant of a chemical element) called plutonium-238, which has a half-life (the amount of time taken for one-half of a radioactive isotope to decay) of 88 years.
What survives are the stories of a fascinating expedition.
In his book Nanda Devi: A Journey to the Last Sanctuary, British travel writer Hugh Thompson recounts how the American climbers were asked to use an Indian sun tan lotion to darken their skins so that they didn't evoke suspicion among locals; and how the climbers were told to pretend that they were on a "high altitude programme" to study the effects of low oxygen on their bodies. The porters who carried up the nuclear luggage were told it was a "treasure of some sort, possibly gold".
Before that, the climbers, reported Outside, an American magazine, were taken to Harvey Point, a CIA base in North Carolina, for a crash course in "nuclear espionage". There, a climber told the magazine, that "after a while, we spent most of our time playing volleyball and doing some serious drinking".
A set of devices were finally placed on the peak of Nanda Kot
The botched expedition was kept a secret in India until 1978, when the Washington Post picked up the story reported by Outside, and wrote that the CIA had hired American climbers, including members of a successful recent summit of Mount Everest, to place nuclear-powered devices on two peaks of the Himalayas to spy on the Chinese.
The newspaper confirmed that the first expedition ended in the loss of the instrument in 1965, and the "second foray happened two years later and ended in what one former CIA official termed a "partial success".
In 1967, a third attempt to plant a fresh set of devices, this time on an adjacent and easier 6,861-metre (22,510-ft) mountain called Nanda Kot, had succeeded. A total of 14 American climbers, had been paid $1,000 a month for their work to put the spying devices in the Himalayas over three years.
In April 1978, India's then prime minister Morarji Desai dropped a "bombshell" in the parliament when he disclosed that India and the US had collaborated at "top level" to plant these nuclear-powered devices on the Nanda Devi. But Desai did not say how far the mission was successful, according to a report.
Declassified US State Department cables from the same month talk about some 60 people demonstrating outside the embassy in Delhi against "alleged CIA activities in India". The protesters carried signs, saying "CIA Quit India" and "CIA is poisoning our waters".
As for the lost nuclear devices in the Himalayas, nobody quite knows what happened to them. "Yeah, the device got avalanched and stuck in the glacier and God knows what effects that will have," Jim McCarthy, one of the American climbers, told Mr Takeda.
Climbers say a small station in Raini regularly tested the waters and sand from the river for radioactivity, but it is unclear whether they got any evidence of contamination.
"Until the plutonium [the source of the radio-activity in the power pack] deteriorates, which may take centuries, the device will remain a radioactive menace that could leak into the Himalayan snow and infiltrate the Indian river system through the headwaters of the Ganges," Outside had reported.
I asked Captain Kohli, now 89, whether he regretted being part of an expedition which ended up leaving nuclear devices in the Himalayas
"There is no regret or happiness. I was just following orders," he said.
What Ever Happened to Daniel Dale? CNN Fact-Checker Has Disappeared From Air Post-Trump
By Tommy Christopher
By Tommy Christopher
Feb 20th, 2021, MEDIAITE
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale was one of the busiest people in the cable news business for several years, but he has almost completely disappeared from the network’s programming over the past month or so. What happened?
Dale became a veritable household name among cable news viewers during Trump’s presidency after his work for the Toronto Star, tallying and debunking false or misleading statements by Trump, landed him a national gig with CNN.
Since joining CNN in June of 2019, Dale has appeared or been mentioned on the network more than once every other day on average, according to the Internet Archive.
That exposure dropped sharply after November 4, and according to the TV Eyes media monitoring database, since President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, Dale has only appeared on the network once. And that appearance, last Friday, was to fact-check Donald Trump’s lawyers.
Dale is still doing presidential fact-checks, but they have thus far been relegated to CNN’s website. As John Avlon pointed out earlier this month, there’s just something different about the exercise these days.
Noting the growth in fact-checking during the Trump presidency, Avlon said “In the opening days of the Biden presidency, fact checkers have been adjusting to a new normal. Take this headline from CNN Daniel Dale. He went through Biden’s big economic speech and found seven claims worth fact checking. The accuracy was usually a question of calculations or characterizations. Debatable details but far from willful lies.”
Indeed, Dale did perform a fact-check of Biden’s CNN town hall this week, and the result was 4 claims that were statistically inaccurate to varying degrees, and a pair of others that required additional context.
For example, Dale dinged Biden for misquoting Trump’s Proud Boys “Stand back and stand by” line, while noting that Biden stipulated his retelling may not have been exact:
Biden said, “You may remember in one of my debates with the former President, I asked him to condemn the Proud Boys. He wouldn’t do it. He said, ‘Stand by. Stand ready.’ Or whatever the phrasing exactly was.”
Facts First: Biden, who conceded that he might not be correctly reciting Trump’s debate quote, was indeed off at least slightly. After debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and Biden interjected to mention the Proud Boys in particular, Trump said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” So Biden got Trump’s “stand by” right, but he replaced Trump’s “stand back” with a “stand ready” — arguably a significant distinction.
We won’t call the claim flat false because Biden made clear he was uncertain.
After a presidency that featured an average of 21 false or misleading claims per day over 4 years, according to The Washington Post, Dale seems to have his work cut out for him if he wants to remain a cable news fixture for the next four years.
Watch the clip via CNN.
CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale was one of the busiest people in the cable news business for several years, but he has almost completely disappeared from the network’s programming over the past month or so. What happened?
Dale became a veritable household name among cable news viewers during Trump’s presidency after his work for the Toronto Star, tallying and debunking false or misleading statements by Trump, landed him a national gig with CNN.
Since joining CNN in June of 2019, Dale has appeared or been mentioned on the network more than once every other day on average, according to the Internet Archive.
That exposure dropped sharply after November 4, and according to the TV Eyes media monitoring database, since President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, Dale has only appeared on the network once. And that appearance, last Friday, was to fact-check Donald Trump’s lawyers.
Dale is still doing presidential fact-checks, but they have thus far been relegated to CNN’s website. As John Avlon pointed out earlier this month, there’s just something different about the exercise these days.
Noting the growth in fact-checking during the Trump presidency, Avlon said “In the opening days of the Biden presidency, fact checkers have been adjusting to a new normal. Take this headline from CNN Daniel Dale. He went through Biden’s big economic speech and found seven claims worth fact checking. The accuracy was usually a question of calculations or characterizations. Debatable details but far from willful lies.”
Indeed, Dale did perform a fact-check of Biden’s CNN town hall this week, and the result was 4 claims that were statistically inaccurate to varying degrees, and a pair of others that required additional context.
For example, Dale dinged Biden for misquoting Trump’s Proud Boys “Stand back and stand by” line, while noting that Biden stipulated his retelling may not have been exact:
Biden said, “You may remember in one of my debates with the former President, I asked him to condemn the Proud Boys. He wouldn’t do it. He said, ‘Stand by. Stand ready.’ Or whatever the phrasing exactly was.”
Facts First: Biden, who conceded that he might not be correctly reciting Trump’s debate quote, was indeed off at least slightly. After debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, and Biden interjected to mention the Proud Boys in particular, Trump said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” So Biden got Trump’s “stand by” right, but he replaced Trump’s “stand back” with a “stand ready” — arguably a significant distinction.
We won’t call the claim flat false because Biden made clear he was uncertain.
After a presidency that featured an average of 21 false or misleading claims per day over 4 years, according to The Washington Post, Dale seems to have his work cut out for him if he wants to remain a cable news fixture for the next four years.
Watch the clip via CNN.
Top U.S. Firms Stop Donations To Republicans Supporting Trump's 'Big Lie'
Artie Villasanta
Updated February 21, 2021
Artie Villasanta
Updated February 21, 2021
Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump protest in front of the
U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S. January 6, 2021.
(Photo: Stephanie Keith/REUTERS)
A number of major U.S. corporations continue to punish Republican members of the U.S. Congress that voted against certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory despite the violent and deadly insurrection last Jan. 6 instigated by ex-president Donald Trump
At least 10 corporations slashed donations to Republican Party candidates seeking federal office by more than 90% in January. These companies had earlier vowed to stop making political donations to Republican congressmen who supported Trump's "Big Lie," or his attempt to overturn his election defeat by alleging massive fraud committed by Democrats.
Among these corporations were Microsoft Corporation, Walmart Inc, AT&T Inc and Comcast Corporation. None of the political action committees (PACs) of the 10 major companies donated to any of the 147 congressional Republicans that voted to support Trump's Big Lie, said Reuters.
In addition, PACs from Best Buy Co Inc, State Street Corporation, Dow Inc and Nike Inc didn't report new donations to any of these 147 congressmen in January. Many large U.S. corporations, especially technology firms, tend to support the Democratic Party because their leaderships share the same set of liberal values with Democrats.
The Republican congressmen in question still voted to support Trump during the validation of Electoral College votes just hours after a mob incited to action by Trump launched a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission the corporate PACs affiliated with these 10 companies only made $13,000 in new donations to other candidates in January.
The money donated during January was less than one-tenth of the $190,000 the PACs of these 10 companies donated in January 2017. It's also puny when compared to the $10 million donated to candidates during the 2019-2020 election cycle.
The 147 Congressmen that voted to overturn President Joe Biden's victory received more than $2 million from these 10 PACs during the last two-year political cycle.
Only PACs from General Electric Company and American Express Company reported any new giving to other federal candidates in January.
American Express' PAC gave $5,000 to Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota who voted not to impeach Trump last week. Thune last week blasted Republicans and party leaders for engaging in "cancel culture" by censuring the seven GOP senators who found Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection.
GE gave $5,000 to Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a prominent Republican Trump critic, and $1,000 to Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington, a Democrat.
A number of major U.S. corporations continue to punish Republican members of the U.S. Congress that voted against certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory despite the violent and deadly insurrection last Jan. 6 instigated by ex-president Donald Trump
At least 10 corporations slashed donations to Republican Party candidates seeking federal office by more than 90% in January. These companies had earlier vowed to stop making political donations to Republican congressmen who supported Trump's "Big Lie," or his attempt to overturn his election defeat by alleging massive fraud committed by Democrats.
Among these corporations were Microsoft Corporation, Walmart Inc, AT&T Inc and Comcast Corporation. None of the political action committees (PACs) of the 10 major companies donated to any of the 147 congressional Republicans that voted to support Trump's Big Lie, said Reuters.
In addition, PACs from Best Buy Co Inc, State Street Corporation, Dow Inc and Nike Inc didn't report new donations to any of these 147 congressmen in January. Many large U.S. corporations, especially technology firms, tend to support the Democratic Party because their leaderships share the same set of liberal values with Democrats.
The Republican congressmen in question still voted to support Trump during the validation of Electoral College votes just hours after a mob incited to action by Trump launched a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission the corporate PACs affiliated with these 10 companies only made $13,000 in new donations to other candidates in January.
The money donated during January was less than one-tenth of the $190,000 the PACs of these 10 companies donated in January 2017. It's also puny when compared to the $10 million donated to candidates during the 2019-2020 election cycle.
The 147 Congressmen that voted to overturn President Joe Biden's victory received more than $2 million from these 10 PACs during the last two-year political cycle.
Only PACs from General Electric Company and American Express Company reported any new giving to other federal candidates in January.
American Express' PAC gave $5,000 to Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota who voted not to impeach Trump last week. Thune last week blasted Republicans and party leaders for engaging in "cancel culture" by censuring the seven GOP senators who found Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection.
GE gave $5,000 to Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a prominent Republican Trump critic, and $1,000 to Rep. Rick Larsen of Washington, a Democrat.
LAS VEGAS SUN EDITORIAL:
Americans deserve to know the whole truth about what happened Jan. 6
JOHN MINCHILLO / AP
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo rioters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington.
Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021 | 2 a.m.
In announcing the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took appropriate action.
But a thorough investigation is also critical from the standpoint that Republican Party leaders are warping the truth about the event — downplaying its severity and trying to convince Americans that their alarm over it wasn’t warranted.The nation needs to know much more about the insurrection, particularly how it was fomented and why the Capitol was so lightly protected. Key questions remain, including whether Capitol security forces or Congress and its staff either inadvertently aided the rioters or, more disturbingly, did it knowingly.
It’s important to counter this GOP gaslighting with hard facts.
As is, Republican leaders and their abettors in right-wing media are attempting to normalize the attack and numb Americans to its significance.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin provided the latest example, saying he didn’t consider the attack an armed insurrection and was “literally never afraid” as it played out. The whole thing was overblown by the media, he said.
“When you hear the word ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms?” Johnson asked. “Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask: How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired?”
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson made similar remarks in the immediate aftermath of the riot, ridiculing those who were already calling for a major investigation and suggesting that the violence was merely a protest. After showing video of members of Congress calling the riot an insurrection, Carlson smirked: “According to the Honorable Jim McGovern (a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts) and everyone else you just saw on the screen, this was not a protest, how dare you call it that? This was an insurrection. Insurrection insurrection insurrection! Write that a hundred times on the board and don’t forget it. I-n-s-u-r-r-e-c-t-i-o-n. Insurrection. Learn it. Love it.”
With remarks like this, the GOP leadership wants Americans to disbelieve what they witnessed with their own eyes and ears: Law enforcement officers being beaten with bats, flag poles, hockey sticks or whatever kind of club the attackers could get their hands on; people chanting “Hang Mike Pence”; rioters shattering windows and roaming the halls hunting for victims; pipe bombs being discovered; tasers visible in the hands of rioters (including one used on a police officer who suffered a mild heart attack as a result); guns found in a vehicle near the Capitol, and Lord knows how many concealed in the rioters’ clothing.
According to Johnson, Carlson and the like, though, this was just a political gathering where a few of the good ol’ boys and gals in the crowd decided to take an impromptu tour through the Capitol. Yeah, maybe a few of them got kind of riled up, but it was nothing to get excited about. It certainly wasn’t an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the electoral results and overturn the results of the election.
All wrong, of course. This wasn’t just a bunch of cosplay idiots letting off steam, it was an organized assault that left five people dead and dozens injured in its immediate aftermath, including a law enforcement officer. It was the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812, and it left Americans stunned and agonized over what they’d witnessed.
News that has emerged since the attack adds to the concerns. Law enforcement officers and former military personnel were arrested for allegedly taking part. It’s been revealed that the insurrectionists had been planning the attack on social media, right under the noses of authorities. The former chief of the U.S. Capitol Police claims officials were aware of the threat well before the rally and asked congressional security officials to call in assistance from the National Guard, but were rebuffed.
It’s time to get a full look at what happened.
Pelosi’s plan calls for the establishment of a bipartisan investigatory panel similar to the 9/11 Commission, the successful undertaking that resulted in dozens of hearings and an authoritative 561-page report about the terrorist attack.
The key now is to establish the Jan. 6 commission in a way that is truly independent and bipartisan, which may be a tall order in today’s polarized political environment. But the good news is that both Republicans and Democrats are calling for such an approach.
They owe it to Americans to follow through, especially to the survivors of those who were killed that day and to the many who were injured. Beyond that, the information is important in defending against the GOP misinformation loop that is crippling the country.
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