A New Jersey plumber drove to Texas with his family to fix burst pipes and other damage from devastating winter storm

By David Williams, CNN 

A New Jersey plumber who wanted to help Texans dealing with burst pipes and other damage after last week's winter storms drove to Houston with a truck full of tools and got to work.

© courtesy Kisha Pinnock, Esq. New Jersey plumber Andrew Mitchell, right, and his apprentice Isaiah Pinnock have been working in the Houston, Texas, area since Sunday because local plumbers have been overwhelmed with calls.

Andrew Mitchell and his wife, Kisha Pinnock, decided to make the 22-hour drive from Morristown with their 2-year-old son Blake after hearing that local plumbers were overwhelmed with calls and that some customers couldn't get help for weeks. Isaiah Pinnock, who is Kisha's brother and Mitchell's apprentice, went with them.

Before leaving New Jersey, they bought as many plumbing supplies as they could afford, Pinnock said -- because those items are currently hard to find in Texas.

The group arrived in Houston, Texas on Sunday afternoon. Pinnock's sister, who lives in Houston, connected them with several people who had been looking to hire plumbers. They quickly enlisted the services of Mitchell's Plumbing & Heating.

"By the time we got here there was already about four or five jobs lined up from my sister, and we just hit those first and then everything after that has really just been referrals from like the initial customers, like their friends and family," Pinnock, who is a lawyer, said. "Since we've been here, it has really been nonstop."

Pinnock said that her husband and brother had done about 13 jobs since they arrived, and that they have full days scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

Among those customers was Dedrick Dock, of Spring, Texas. He told CNN that he'd tried to get at least 15 plumbers out to his house before he heard about Mitchell's Plumbing & Heating on social media from a friend's neighbor.

Dock and his family had been staying with relatives for more than a week because of a broken pipe in the garage.

"We had to relocate for over a week because we needed to get someone out there," he said. "And of course, with the plumbers here they were already overwhelmed with the work that was going on."

The group had planned to return home next week, but now said they will stay for about two weeks, because they've gotten so many calls from people who need their help.

"I think that we made a difference, for sure," Pinnock said.

© courtesy Kisha Pinnock, Esq. Andrew Mitchell, right, and Isaiah Pinnock work in a customer's home in Texas.

'Serious concerns:' Alberta First Nations oppose coal expansion in Rocky Mountains



EDMONTON — Two of Alberta's largest First Nations have written letters to coal companies saying they will oppose any new mine proposals in the Rocky Mountains since the provincial government has consistently ignored their concerns

The Siksika and Kainai, southwest of Calgary, say new mines would threaten one of the few places that can still support traditional Blackfoot culture. The two First Nations account for about 70 per cent of the Treaty 7 population.


"After careful review of all proposed metallurgical coal projects, and in response to the government of Alberta's failure to address the Siksika Nation's concerns ... Siksika has formally adopted a position opposing any new applications," says one letter from Chief Ouray Crowfoot.

The letter has been sent to Montem Resources, Atrum Coal and Cabin Ridge Coal — companies with exploration leases on land that was previously protected from surface mines. The Kainai Nation, also known as the Blood Tribe, has sent similar letters.


"The Blood Tribe has communicated its serious concerns with proposed metallurgical coal projects in the Crowsnest Pass Region that will threaten the rivers and environmental integrity of the region," said a release from the First Nation, which stressed its concerns over the headwaters of the Oldman River.

"(The) Blood Tribe will oppose any new applications for metallurgical coal projects in the Crowsnest Pass Region."

The letters do not apply to a proposal, currently before regulatory hearings, from Benga Mines.

"We've got to make sure our treaty rights are not impacted," said Scotty Many Guns, a Siksika consultation officer who works with industry. "Alberta isn't listening."

Last spring, the United Conservative government revoked a policy without public input that had protected the summits and eastern slopes of the Rockies from surface coal mines since 1976. That led to the sale of coal exploration leases on thousands of hectares of land, some of which is home to endangered species and the water source for much of southern Alberta.

The government recently reinstated the policy, but did not dissolve the leases it sold in the interim.

Many Guns said land in southwest Alberta is traditional Blackfoot territory that has been used for thousands of years. It remains a hunting ground, a garden of edible and ceremonial plants and a gathering site.

The headwaters of the Oldman River must be protected, said Many Guns. Even the teepee rings that dot the area have cultural meaning.

"Crowsnest Mountain is one of the most sacred sites we have, like Mount Fuji to the Japanese," he said. "We used it in the past, we use it today and in the future we will still be using this area."

Lawyer Clayton Leonard, who works with the Kainai and Siksika, said the government hasn't taken their concerns seriously enough.

"Siksika's tried for a couple years now to communicate to Alberta that what's needed is a government-to-government process," he said. "That process needs to be a wide-open discussion of what are the concerns and interests of the Blackfoot and what can government do to work with them."

At least one coal company is urging the government to take those concerns seriously.

"Cabin Ridge recognizes and respects Indigenous rights and the importance of reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples," Brad Johnstone, that company's chief development officer, said in an email

"Cabin Ridge encourages the Government of Alberta to fully consult Indigenous Peoples as part of its announced consultation process on development of a modern coal policy."

Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage has said public consultations are to begin March 29. That will have to do, said department spokesman Kavi Bal.

"The consultation process is being designed to hear all of the perspectives on future coal development from Albertans, including First Nations," he said in an email.

The Siksika are part of a legal challenge of the province's original decision to revoke the protection policy.

The letters sent this week go much further than the court action.

"Both nations have spoken quite clearly that in the current circumstances, the answer is no to further coal development," Leonard said. "When we hear what Alberta's going to propose, we'll assess it."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2021.

— Follow @row1960 on Twitter

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

A real-life Lorax

Palm oil hasn't made headline news as a quiet killer. Though it's high in saturated fat, there remains a lot of controversy as to whether it's good for you—or not. One thing we do know for sure is that palm oil is having a disastrous impact on the environment and on an array of wild animals. This is because to get that precious oil, massive swaths of planet Earth are being damaged. The situation is like a real-life The Lorax, where forests are being destroyed to keep "biggering and biggering" a profitable industry.






1/10 SLIDES © CLARBONDIOXIDE/GETTY IMAGES

Why More People Need to Be Talking About How Palm Oil is Damaging the Environment (msn.com)

Study reports "shocking" findings of microplastics in the Arctic
Mia Gordon 

WEATHER NETWORK

2/25/2021

They are impossible to see with the naked human eye: tiny fibers no bigger than a few millimeters in size, yet they are showing up in abundance in the world’s most remote places. Every year billions and billions of microplastics are invading the Arctic Ocean and now a B.C. company is trying to figure out how they got there to investigate their potential impacts on marine life.

Play Video
From your laundry to the ocean, how microfibres are impacting the Arctic

Earlier this year, Ocean Wise released the most comprehensive study to date on Arctic microplastics and according to scientists, the results they found are troublesome.

“What we found is shocking, but at the same time not terribly surprising,” says Dr. Peter Ross, lead author of the study.

“When we look at the samples we collected in Norway, through the North Pole, down through the Canadian Arctic we see something rather surprising, an average concentration of 49 particles of plastic per cubic meter of seawater just below the surface” Ross said.

Samples from 71 different locations across the European and Northern American Arctic were collected by One Ocean Expeditions and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The samples were then brought back to a research team at Ocean Wise, who found plastic particles in 70 out of the 71 samples.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Credit: Brian Yurasits via Unsplash

“We found a surprising dominance of fibers...averaging about 11 to 14 microns in size, and they were all different colours. There were red ones, green ones, yellow ones. And When we look at the identity of those fibers, we find that 73 percent are polyester,” Ross told The Weather Network.

The study also observed almost three times more microplastic particles in eastern Arctic compared to the west, which suggests that ocean currents are transporting these fibers from countries surrounding the Atlantic Ocean.

This research also provided a concrete connection between microplastics in the Arctic and textiles from laundry, something that Ocean Wise has been working on for several years.

“The physical dimensions of the fibers that we found in the Arctic samples were very similar to those that we found in our research on microfiber shedding from textiles. So it provided evidence and support to the notion that we are getting microfibers from clothes into this environment,” said co-author Dr. Anna Posack.

  

© Provided by The Weather NetworkCredit: Aaron Burden via Unsplash

Whenever we do a load of laundry at home, millions of fibers shed from your clothes and end up in our greywaters. This water travels to a treatment facility where about 95 percent of these fibres are trapped in sludge, but there is still a significant amount that is released into the environment.

Since research on microplastics is still relatively new, the team isn’t entirely sure about the exact impacts these fibers could have on marine life, but what they do know is that it is not nutritional for them.

In hopes of protecting the environment from the still unknown side effects of these microplastics, Ocean Wise has teamed up with different Canadian companies like Joe Fresh and Arc'teryx to create clothes made with textiles that don’t shed as much.

You can find out more about the partnerships in the Ocean Wise feature “Me, My Clothes, and the Ocean.”

Thumbnail credit: doble-d. iStock. Getty Images.

California's iconic redwoods threatened by climate change
Jeff Berardelli 

California's iconic coastal redwoods, some standing since before Julius Caesar ruled Rome, are in a fight for their lives. They are increasingly threatened by wildfires that are larger and more intense due to the impact of human-caused climate change.

© Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Big Basin Redwoods State Park, San Jose, California, wildfire.

And it's not just the redwoods — giant sequoias and Joshua trees are also in trouble. These majestic trees are unique to the West Coast and are an integral part of the fabric of California's storied landscape. But the experts who know and love these trees are genuinely worried about their future.

Last year, 4.2 million acres burned in California's worst fire season on record. Scientists say as the climate warms these fires will grow bigger at an accelerating pace. And although the giant redwoods and sequoias have been historically resilient to natural wildfire, these unnaturally intense fires are starting to overwhelm their defenses, with fires reaching higher up into their crowns

It is estimated that 10% of the ancient redwoods that burned during the 2020 fire season in places like the Big Basin Redwood State Park, 50 miles south of San Francisco, will die.

A couple of hundred miles to the east, in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, 350 giant sequoias were killed as flames shot hundreds of feet high, burning far up to the canopy. To the south, in the Mojave Desert, about 1.3 million Joshua trees burned as firenadoes tore through invasive grass.

© Provided by CBS News Charred Joshua Trees are seen during the Bobcat Fire in Valyermo, California, on September 18, 2020. / Credit: KYLE GRILLOT/AFP via Getty Images

CBS News visited Big Basin State Park earlier this month and met with two longtime forest scientists, Todd Keeler-Wolf, a vegetation ecologist, and Joanne Kerbavaz, the senior scientist at Big Basin.

"This fire was on a scale and of an intensity that there are no records of fires that have been that big in this vicinity," Kerbavaz said of the August fire which raged through almost the entire park, engulfing 18,000 acres.

It started as part of a lightning siege of 14,000 strikes which sparked 350 fires statewide. Lightning events like that are almost unheard of in California; this one was a result of a surge of moisture from a decaying tropical system off of Baja California.

While that lightning event can be considered just weather chance, it coincided with a sweltering summer heat wave which was undoubtedly made worse by climate change. This heat, on top of a long-term climate-driven drought, dried out vegetation, turning it into a tinderbox just waiting for lightning bolts to spark fires.

In her 22 years at Big Basin, Kerbavaz says she has witnessed a shift: a once nurturing climate has experienced significant change.

"There's a consensus that things are getting hotter and drier, and most of us who lived in this area can feel that," she said. "And there is a consensus that fog patterns have changed, and that we know that in the redwood forest fog patterns are essential to maintain the redwood forests in this climate."

She is concerned that in the coming decades, if the fog continues to shrink, the habitat suitable for redwoods that live further away from the ocean will also shrink.

© Provided by CBS News Big Basin Redwoods State Park in California was hit by a wildfire in August 2020 that burned roughly 97% of the park's 18,224 acres. State Parks safety officer and ranger Gabe McKenna, center, looks at the damage. The park contains 4,400 acre of old-growth redwood forest and 11,3000 acres of secondary growth. / Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Since 2000, the western U.S. has been experiencing a megadrought, one of its worst droughts in 1,200 years. On top of that, since 1970, summers in California have warmed by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit. These types of climate conditions, warmer and drier, set the stage for a longer fire season with larger, more intense fires.

For the redwoods — despite their extensive root system, bark 12 inches thick, and having survived repeated fires over their thousands of years of existence — these recent intense fires are overwhelming their natural defenses.

Keeler-Wolf has the duty of surveying the wreckage from the August fires. Pointing up at a huge ancient redwood, he talks about the immensity of the fire.

"It affected the entire tree right up to the very top. This one is a candidate for being pronounced dead, but we haven't pronounced it yet," he said.

Both scientists agree that these coastal redwoods are very resilient. Even when they are heavily damaged from fires, they can re-sprout new trees from their trunks and even their roots.

Kerbavaz explained, "There's also dormant buds by the base that can re-sprout and actually form new trees. Even before the flames were out the plants were starting to come back. Redwoods were re-sprouting at the same time as adjacent areas were still burning."

Although approximately 1 in 10 of the burned redwoods will not make it, historically speaking, Kerbavaz says 90% should survive. But the loss of so many ancient trees, some of which had been standing for thousands of years, means that things will never look quite the same.

"I am hoping for a long lifetime, but realistically, in the next 40 years it may not look like it looked in the 40 years before. A lot of the trees have been burned. So, we do expect the trees to come back, but in some cases they will look quite different," said Kerbavaz

.

© Provided by CBS News Torched trees smolder in the Alder Creek grove of Giant Sequoia National Monument in Springville, California, on October 28, 2020. The Castle Fire burned through portions of roughly 20 giant sequoia groves on the western slopes of the Sierra, the only place on the planet they naturally grow. / Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Sequoias posses many of the resilient qualities of the redwoods, but unlike the redwoods they cannot re-sprout with ease. That, combined with the fact that they live much further inland, away from the moist marine layer of the Pacific Ocean, makes them even more vulnerable to wildfire.

Park Williams is a Columbia University scientist and expert on the connection between fires and climate change. Through is research, he has observed an unprecedented difference in the climate and its impact on the forests. At a meeting in New York City in mid-January, I asked Park what his research has revealed.


Jeff Berardelli: It seems to be happening to the Joshua trees, to the sequoias and to the redwoods. And those are all different microclimates. So what is going on?

Park Williams: Well, there are a lot of things going on, but the one thing that all forests across the western U.S. are experiencing is warming. And so as we warm up the atmosphere, these forests are more likely to burn.

Jeff Berardelli: These fires are able to burn higher up on these trees, causing these trees to die where they wouldn't have died years ago. Is that right?

Park Williams: We know that fires were very common in these forests over the last millennia. These trees are designed to be able to tolerate fire, but they can only tolerate fire if these fires aren't giant catastrophic events. These giant fires with flames that are hundreds of feet tall managed to kill many hundreds of these ancient majestic trees.

As giant as these fires are, Williams says this may be just the beginning. As the region continues to warm, wildfires will get worse at an accelerating pace.

"The really important connection between heat and fire is it's actually exponential. And that means that for every degree of warming that you have in California, the amount of extra forest fire you get goes up more than it did in the previous degree of warming."

All of the scientists interviewed for this story agree that if we don't stop warming the planet, these majestic trees will be facing a losing battle.

"We do fear that there might be some thresholds that are crossed. So that some of the species, some of the things that live here, will no longer be able to be sustained," said Kerbavaz.

WAIT A MINUTE THAT'S US

Trans Mountain pipeline owner asks regulator to hide identity of its insurers

CALGARY — Federal government-owned Trans Mountain is asking the Canada Energy Regulator to keep secret the identities of the companies that provide insurance coverage for its pipeline system because of fears environmental activists will target them.

  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In a submission dated Monday, the company that operates the Trans Mountain pipeline and its expansion project says there is evidence that "certain parties" are using filings in the regulator's database to identify insurers and pressure them to drop their policies for the pipeline.

The filings come days after Indigenous youth in Vancouver blocked the entrances of buildings housing insurance companies to demand they stop insuring the pipeline, resulting in four arrests.

Trans Mountain says it saw a significant reduction in available insurance capacity in 2020 and, when it found partial replacement policies, it had to pay a significantly higher cost.

In 2019, a coalition of 32 environmental and Indigenous groups said they had sent letters to 27 insurance companies demanding they drop coverage of the Trans Mountain pipeline or refuse to provide policies for the expansion project, including lead liability insurer Zurich Insurance Group, based in Switzerland.

The coalition said Zurich had intended to continue its coverage of Trans Mountain, but the pipeline confirmed last July that Zurich had decided not to renew the policies.

"If the name of Trans Mountain’s insurers is disclosed publicly, ongoing targeting and pressure on those insurers to stop insuring the pipeline are likely to result in material loss to Trans Mountain and its shippers in the form of higher insurance premiums (due to a smaller pool of insurers available to Trans Mountain) and challenges in maintaining adequate insurance coverage," said Trans Mountain in its letter to CER.

It asked the regulator for a decision by March 15 so it has time to complete its annual financial resources plan update, including its certificate of insurance, before April 30.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Biden signs executive order to investigate semiconductor shortage affecting electronic goods

Thomas Wilde GEEK WIRE

U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that will start an investigation into critical shortages of various necessary goods in the U.S. This includes the global semiconductor shortage, which has dramatically affected the manufacturing for electronic goods such as smartphones, video cards, laptops, and new cars.

© Provided by Geekwire (Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President)


The Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains directs the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense, and Health to conduct a 100-day review of supply chain risks, and for the secretary of each department to present policy recommendations that will address those risks.

“The American people should never face shortages in the goods and services they rely on,” Biden said.

The low global supply of semiconductors is also one of the reasons why next-generation video game consoles, such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, have been so hard to find for the last three months. (This is probably not what’s motivating Biden’s executive order. Dude’s a Mario Kart fan.)

The shortage, which has caused manufacturing bottlenecks throughout the world, has several root causes. One of the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was a heightened worldwide demand for consumer electronics, first due to work-from-home orders, and then to quarantine-induced boredom. People needed new computers for their home offices, and then they needed something to do instead of going out.

That put additional stress on chip manufacturers in places such as Taiwan and South Korea, which were already working as hard as they could. There was no way for factories to increase supply to meet demand, particularly once lockdown measures forced some of them to temporarily shut down. Add that to other issues, such as effects from Donald Trump’s 2019 tariffs on China, and it’s proven to be a recipe for disaster.

Wednesday’s executive order follows up on news from Feb. 11, where White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the Biden administration planned to take steps to address the semiconductor shortage, including today’s mandated probe into governmental supply chains.

On the same day, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) sent an open letter to President Biden, noting that the U.S. share of global semiconductor manufacturing has steadily declined over the last 30 years from 37% to 12%, with relatively flat U.S. investment in R&D.

The letter, co-signed by CEOs from AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, and 17 other American technology companies, urges the president to address the issue by authorizing federal incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacture, research, and development.

JUST DON'T TAX US
Business groups rally around green infrastructure plans

The Business Roundtable, which represents corporate CEOs, recently warned against increasing corporate taxes to fund investments in infrastructure.

Alex Gangitano  2/22/2021
  

© iStock Solar panel outfitting

Business groups are ramping up pressure on the Biden administration to move forward on infrastructure and arguing that a climate change component is critical to their members.

The growing consensus among business leaders is that an infrastructure package should tackle green initiatives, but executives say they're leaving it to Congress and the White House to determine the provisions and overall price tag.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said infrastructure, along with technology-focused legislation, will be the next priorities for congressional Democrats following the passage of COVID-19 relief. He indicated that climate change proposals will play a key role in the package, making it a harder sell with Republicans.

Democrats are hoping that momentum and support from major corporations will help put pressure on Republicans in Congress.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with more than a hundred local chambers and the Bipartisan Policy Center, urged Congress last week to "enact a fiscally and environmentally responsible infrastructure package."

"As a nation we must be able to build big things quickly to accelerate the economic recovery and build the resilient low-carbon economy of the future," the groups wrote.

The Chamber is calling for the legislation before July 4, saying that in addition to climate provisions the measure needs to create middle-class jobs, improve federal project approvals and address the digital divide.

More recently, manufacturing company Siemens USA called on Congress this week to go big on infrastructure.

"Promoting U.S. leadership in emerging technologies and unlocking private capital will accelerate progress on infrastructure and help us move the country forward: rebuilding our economy, creating jobs, tackling climate change, raising U.S. competitiveness and answering the call for racial justice," CEO Barbara Humpton wrote in an open letter.

Humpton said achieving those goals includes steps toward a decarbonized power grid that's more resilient to severe weather, a key concern following massive power outages during this month's winter storm in Texas.

"Consider New York's Javits Center, which installed rooftop solar panels offsetting 1.3 million pounds of carbon. Seventy percent of U.S. businesses will generate energy savings by investing in similar projects," she wrote, adding that only a small fraction of commercial buildings doing this would generate enough renewable capacity to power over half of America's homes.

Biden's Build Back Better plan includes building 1.5 million new sustainable homes, as well as zero-emissions public transportation in major U.S. cities and a power sector that is carbon pollution free by 2035.

The White House has eyed prioritizing an infrastructure package after COVID-19 relief, as well as hot-button issues like immigration and gun control legislation. The most likely area for bipartisan agreement, though, is on infrastructure, where lawmakers from both sides of the aisle want to see action.

But infrastructure isn't without its divisive issues, namely the high cost and inclusion of climate change initiatives.

Infrastructure was considered a priority for the Trump administration, but no deal ever materialized over four years, leading in many ways to pent up demand on both sides of the aisle to move forward on the issue in 2021.

Biden met with lawmakers earlier this month to gauge GOP support, though it's largely understood that it will be difficult to garner broad bipartisan backing given Republican concerns about the rising deficit, which will increase further if Biden's $1.9 trillion relief package is signed into law.

For that reason, infrastructure could be the second bill, following the COVID-19 relief package, that Democrats try to pass through the budget reconciliation process that lets them sidestep a legislative filibuster.

While business groups are largely in agreement that Biden's plan to modernize infrastructure will help promote renewable energy, the president is getting pressure from trade groups to not raise taxes as a funding mechanism for infrastructure.

Biden campaigned on increasing the corporate tax rate, but administration officials have signaled there are no immediate plans to take that step.

The Business Roundtable, which represents corporate CEOs, recently warned against increasing corporate taxes to fund investments in infrastructure.

"We may think well, for stimulus purposes, we don't want to pay for everything; we just want to inject some money into the economy. That's not an unreasonable position in the short term coming out of a recession as we are right now, but it would not be a way to set us up for long-term success. And it would be a really terrible shame if Congress fails to address the long-term funding and financing issues for our nation's infrastructure when they do this package," said Matt Sonnesyn, the trade group's vice president of infrastructure, energy and environment.

CDC must encourage better ventilation to stop coronavirus spread in schools, experts say

By Maggie Fox, CNN 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be doing more to guide and encourage improved air circulation in buildings -- especially in schools -- to help prevent the spread of coronavirus, ventilation experts say   

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 24: Jackie Sato, a teacher

 at Yung Wing School P.S. 124 wears a mask and teaches remotely

 from her classroom. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

They say the CDC has not paid anywhere near enough attention to the role ventilation can play in helping the spread of coronavirus -- or reducing it.

Schools will need to spend time and money improving airflow using HVAC systems, stand-alone HEPA air filtering systems or even just by opening windows if students, teachers and staff are to return safely to in-school learning in the fall, the experts say.


"The state of ventilation in schools in the United States right now is woefully inadequate," Richard Corsi, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University, told a forum hosted by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health this week.

"Right now, schools are looking to CDC and they are not getting the answers to the kinds of things we are talking about," Corsi added. "All of them look to CDC." Corsi said he has advised schools they need to improve ventilation, and their response has been that there is no specific guidance on the CDC website.

The CDC does suggest that schools think about ventilation improvements.

"Consider ventilation system upgrades or improvements and other steps to increase the delivery of clean air and dilute potential contaminants in the school. Obtain consultation from experienced Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) professionals when considering changes to HVAC systems and equipment," it says in its guidance.

It also points to the guidance posted by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

But that's not enough, the experts agreed.

Why ventilation matters

With poor ventilation, viral particles can build up in the air in a classroom, cafeteria or hallway.

"If you look at all the high profile outbreaks -- same underlying factors -- no masks, low ventilation. It doesn't matter if it's spin class, ice hockey, camps, classrooms, choir practice or restaurants, (it's) the same underlying factors," Joseph Allen, who directs the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told CNN earlier this month.

The pandemic has revealed the role that our buildings, including schools, can play in infectious disease transmission," William Bahnfleth, a professor of architectural engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, told the forum.

It's a simple enough concept. People cough, sneeze or simply breathe out particles constantly. If a person is infected with a virus, including coronavirus, viral particles can be carried out on droplets that can become suspended in the air. In a closed room, those particles will build up and others will breathe them in.

The solution can also be simple -- air exchange. Swap the particle-laden air for fresh, clean air, and the risk of transmission falls.

The problem comes when sealed buildings also have poor ventilation systems, and the problem is worse in colder months, when any windows or doors there might be are firmly closed against the chill.

Three full exchanges of air in a room can remove the infectious particles, Bahnfleth said. A high-performance air cleaning or ventilation system can do this in 20 minutes, he said.

A portable HEPA system with a clean air delivery rate of 300 cubic feet a minute in a typical classroom gives you the equivalent of three to four air changes per hour. That, in many classrooms, is up to a 50%, 60%, 70% reduction in inhalation doses," Corsi added.

But principals, school boards and teachers often know little about this concept.

"There is not a lot of awareness about indoor air," said Claire Barnett, founder of the Healthy Schools Network. She said the problem has worsened since the US Environmental Protection Agency stopped funding its indoor air program for schools 10 years ago. Neither CDC or EPA has expertise on indoor air in schools now, she said.

And it's a problem that, like so many others, affects poorer communities more.

"It's been well documented for decades that the poorest communities often have the poorest school facilities. That means no clean air, no ventilation, nonworking plumbing, difficulties with sanitation leaks and molds," Barnett said.

ahnfleth pointed to a 2020 Government Accountability Office (GAO) study that found 54% of school districts needed multiple system updates. "About half of districts needed to update or replace multiple systems like heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) or plumbing," the report reads. "An estimated one-third of schools needed HVAC system updates."

It costs money upfront, but it's worth it, Bahnfleth said. "Yes, there may be significant costs involved in some cases, but not as high as some might think, and the cost of not making that investment is much higher," he said.

So who should pay?

"There's a need for investment, if only in filtering air cleaning systems for classrooms. This should be provided by the federal government," Dr. Donald Milton, a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland, told CNN.

There's money for schools in President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion rescue plan, but none is earmarked for school ventilation systems.

And the CDC, he said, needs to do more to help people think about where the virus is -- and that's in the air.

"If it is in small particles floating in the air and you inhale them -- it doesn't matter how far it traveled in the air -- the problem is the same. The solution is the same too: you need ventilation, filtration, and source control, and you need tight fitting masks with good filters and breathability," he said.


What not to do

The experts advised against using unproven technology to "clean" the air, saying some approaches could result in contaminated air. The important thing is to exchange all the air in a room with fresh air several times an hour, they said.

"I want to implore everyone not to venture into unproven technologies that have slick marketing," Corsi said during the Johns Hopkins forum.

That includes fogging or misting systems, disinfecting "robots" or on-the-spot ultraviolet light systems.

"Foggers and misters work ideally in certain settings," Barnett said. They include laboratories or hospitals -- not schools or office buildings where untrained workers have no idea how to use the dangerous chemicals involved.

Ultraviolet light systems that are installed high up in ceilings, with air circulation to take any breathed-out air up to them, work well, Bahnfleth said. But they can be expensive and are more appropriate for large, shared spaces such as gyms or cafeterias than small classrooms.

Some low-tech approaches can do more harm than good, also, said Barnett. Plastic shields, for instance, can concentrate contaminated air and may stop large droplets for a short period -- think a grocery checkout -- but are useless in settings such as classrooms where the air can circulate around them over time.

"If you can smell cigarette smoke from other side of the Plexiglass, you are also inhaling virus," Barnett said.

All the experts were critical of the CDC's emphasis on cleaning desks and others surfaces at the expense of the concept of clean air. "Surface cleaning isn't very useful in terms of bang for the buck in Covid-19," said Delphine Farmer, an aerosol expert at Colorado State University. If nothing else, cleaning solutions can fill the air with a complex cocktail of toxic chemicals, she said.

"There are very real consequences of overcleaning," Farmer told the Johns Hopkins symposium.

The same applied to systems that use oxidative chemical processes to break down virus-laden particles.

"But in doing so they produce a series of organic compounds," she said -- including toxins such as formaldehyde.

"What we know works is ventilation and filtration," Farmer said.

With her dreadlocks and nose piercing, Shanna Reis doesn't exactly look the part of the camouflage-clad hunter tracking game in the forest

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© Daniel ROLAND Shanna Reis, 28, represents a new German generation of enthusiasts concerned about where they get their meat

But the 28-year-old represents a new German generation of enthusiasts concerned about where they get their meat, especially as home cooking sees a resurgence during the pandemic.

© Daniel ROLAND Hunting licences have grown increasingly popular in Germany

Reis was a practising vegetarian for a decade before returning meat to her plate once she got her hunting licence five years ago.

But the only kind that passes her lips these days is fresh game, preferably specimens she's killed and prepared herself.

"It's important to me to know where the meat I eat comes from," she said on the outskirts of her western village Aspisheim near the River Rhine, rifle slung over a shoulder and accompanied by one of her three dogs

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© Daniel ROLAND Reis climbs up to a hunting lookout in Aspisheim, western Germany

Hunting licences have grown increasingly popular in Germany, where meat makes up a large part of the average diet.

The National Hunting Federation said there were about 390,000 practitioners at the end of 2020, a quarter more than 30 years ago, its spokeswoman Anna Martinsohn told AFP.

That's far below the number in neighbouring France, estimated at around one million in 2019. But there the figure has fallen by half in the last 40 years.

In Germany, 19,000 people went for their hunting permit last year and four in five of them were successful -- "twice as many as 10 years ago", Martinsohn said.

- 'Don't want that meat' -

Europe's top economy is the biggest consumer of pork in the EU and its large slaughterhouse industry prepares the meat of more than 55 million pigs and 3.5 million cows for consumption.

However mass meat production has suffered a serious blow to its image after a series of Covid-19 outbreaks at German slaughterhouses, particularly at plants run by market leader Toennies.

Media coverage of the spread of infections zeroed in on scandalous working conditions among subcontractors, many brought in from eastern Europe to toil for low wages on precarious contracts to ensure a supply of discount meat.

"People are saying that in the long run they don't want to eat that kind of meat," said Nicole Romig, 47, a high school teacher in Offenbach outside Frankfurt who has taken up hunting.

With the help of a butcher who is a friend of her family, she makes a range of meat dishes using game she has killed including grilled steaks, sausages and liver patties.

Another hunting enthusiast, 55-year-old Ulf Grether, makes his own wild boar sausages and says demand is so strong he manages to sell out "even before I've made them".

- 'Respecting animal life' -

Those new to hunting are interested in "understanding the relationship between the forest, the fields and animals", said Alexander Polfers, the director of a hunting school in Emsland in the northern state of Lower Saxony, which grants 600 licences a year.

Reis said she is interested in cleaning up hunters' cruel image, also with the help of social media.

"It's about conserving biotopes, talking to farmers and preserving the forest economy," said Reis, who has more than 20,000 followers on her Instagram account dedicated to the hunting lifestyle.

The brothers Paul and Gerold Reilmann, aged 25 and 22 and avid hunters, have over 30,000 subscribers on Facebook. 

TROPHY KILLERS

But the snapshots of their trophies don't only draw admirers, in a country where animal welfare groups are a powerful lobby.

"Killing an animal has nothing to do with respecting its life," said Sandra Franz, spokeswoman of NGO Animal Rights Watch.

"There is no rational argument for hunting apart from the desire to kill and collect trophies to be displayed."

Hunters must also abide by regulations on wild animals' habitats backed by foresters and farmers, who tend to support massive culls to prevent deer eating the shoots of young trees and hordes of wild boar trampling cornfields.

"We are always at war with the forest rangers," said Grether, because "hunters are happy when there's a strong animal population".

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