Arctic was once lush and green, could be again, new research shows

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

Research News

 

IMAGE: SARAH CRUMP AND HER FIELD PARTNER MANEUVER THEIR MAKESHIFT RAFT ACROSS A LAKE ON BAFFIN ISLAND. view more 

CREDIT: ZACH MONTES ORIJIN MEDIA

Imagine not a white, but a green Arctic, with woody shrubs as far north as the Canadian coast of the Arctic Ocean. This is what the northernmost region of North America looked like about 125,000 years ago, during the last interglacial period, finds new research from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Researchers analyzed plant DNA more than 100,000 years old retrieved from lake sediment in the Arctic (the oldest DNA in lake sediment analyzed in a publication to date) and found evidence of a shrub native to northern Canadian ecosystems 250 miles (400 km) farther north than its current range.

As the Arctic warms much faster than everywhere else on the planet in response to climate change, the findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may not only be a glimpse of the past but a snapshot of our potential future.

"We have this really rare view into a particular warm period in the past that was arguably the most recent time that it was warmer than present in the Arctic. That makes it a really useful analogue for what we might expect in the future," said Sarah Crump, who conducted the work as a PhD student in geological sciences and then a postdoctoral researcher with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR).

To gain this glimpse back in time, the researchers not only analyzed DNA samples, they first had to journey to a remote region of the Arctic by ATV and snowmobile to gather them and bring them back.

Dwarf birch is a key species of the low Arctic tundra, where slightly taller shrubs (reaching a person's knees) can grow in an otherwise cold and inhospitable environment. But dwarf birch doesn't currently survive past the southern part of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Yet researchers found DNA of this plant in the ancient lake sediment showing it used to grow much farther north.

"It's a pretty significant difference from the distribution of tundra plants today," said Crump, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Paleogenomics Lab at the University of California Santa Cruz.

While there are many potential ecological effects of the dwarf birch creeping farther north, Crump and her colleagues examined the climate feedbacks related to these shrubs covering more of the Arctic. Many climate models don't include these kinds of changes in vegetation, yet these taller shrubs can stick out above snow in the spring and fall, making the Earth's surface dark green instead of white--causing it to absorb more heat from the sun.

"It's a temperature feedback similar to sea ice loss," said Crump.

CAPTION

The scientists take sediment cores from the lake bottom.

CREDIT

Zach Montes Orijin Media

During the last interglacial period, between 116,000 and 125,000 years ago, these plants had thousands of years to adjust and move in response to warmer temperatures. With today's rapid rate of warming, the vegetation is likely not keeping pace, but that doesn't mean it won't play an important role in impacting everything from thawing permafrost to melting glaciers and sea level rise.

"As we think about how landscapes will equilibrate to current warming, it's really important that we account for how these plant ranges are going to change," said Crump.

As the Arctic could easily see an increase of 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, the same temperature it was in the last interglacial period, these findings can help us better understand how our landscapes might change as the Arctic is on track to again reach these ancient temperatures by the end of the century.

Mud as a microscope

To get the ancient DNA they wanted, the researchers couldn't look to the ocean or to the land--they had to look in a lake.

Baffin Island is located on the northeastern side of Arctic Canada, kitty-corner to Greenland, in the territory of Nunavut and the lands of the Qikiqtaani Inuit. It's the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world, with a mountain range that runs along its northeastern edge. But these scientists were interested in a small lake, past the mountains and near the coast.

Above the Arctic Circle, the area around this lake is typical of a high Arctic tundra, with average annual temperatures below 15 °F (?9.5 °C). In this inhospitable climate, soil is thin and not much of anything grows.

But DNA stored in the lake beds below tells a much different story.

To reach this valuable resource, Crump and her fellow researchers carefully balanced on cheap inflatable boats in the summer--the only vessels light enough to carry with them--and watched out for polar bears from the lake ice in winter. They pierced the thick mud up to 30 feet (10 meters) below its surface with long, cylindrical pipes, hammering them deep into the sediment.

The goal of this precarious feat? To carefully withdraw a vertical history of ancient plant material to then travel back out with and take back to the lab.

While some of the mud was analyzed at a state-of-the-art organic geochemistry lab in the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Community (SEEC) at CU Boulder, it also needed to reach a special lab dedicated to decoding ancient DNA, at Curtin University in Perth.

To share their secrets, these mud cores had to travel halfway across the world from the Arctic to Australia.

CAPTION

One of the sediment cores up close.

CREDIT

Zach Montes Orijin Media

A local snapshot

Once in the lab, the scientists had to suit up like astronauts and examine the mud in an ultra-clean space to ensure that their own DNA didn't contaminate that of any of their hard-earned samples.

It was a race against the clock.

"Your best shot is getting fresh mud," said Crump. "Once it's out of the lake, the DNA is going to start to degrade."

This is why older lake bed samples in cold storage don't quite do the trick.

While other researchers have also collected and analyzed much older DNA samples from permafrost in the Arctic (which acts like a natural freezer underground), lake sediments are kept cool, but not frozen. With fresher mud and more intact DNA, scientists can get a clearer and more detailed picture of the vegetation which once grew in that immediate area.

Reconstructing historic vegetation has most commonly been done using fossil pollen records, which preserve well in sediment. But pollen is prone to only showing the big picture, as it is easily blown about by the wind and doesn't stay in one place.

The new technique used by Crump and her colleagues allowed them to extract plant DNA directly from the sediment, sequence the DNA and infer what plant species were living there at the time. Instead of a regional picture, sedimentary DNA analysis gives researchers a local snapshot of the plant species living there at the time.

Now that they have shown it's possible to extract DNA that's over 100,000 years old, future possibilities abound.

"This tool is going to be really useful on these longer timescales," said Crump.

This research has also planted the seed to study more than just plants. In the DNA samples from their lake sediment, there are signals from a whole range of organisms that lived in and around the lake.

"We're just starting to scratch the surface of what we're able to see in these past ecosystems," said Crump. "We can see the past presence of everything from microbes to mammals, and we can start to get much broader pictures of how past ecosystems looked and how they functioned."

###

Additional authors on this study include Jonathan H. Raberg, Julio Sepúlveda and Gifford H. Miller at the University of Colorado Boulder; Gregory de Wet of the University of Colorado Boulder and Smith College; Sam Cutler of the University of California; Beth Shapiro of the University of California and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Bianca Fréchette of the Université du Québec à Montréal; Matthew Power of Curtin University; Michael Bunce of Curtin University and the New Zealand Environment Protection Authority; Martha K. Raynolds at the University of Alaska Fairbanks; Jason P. Briner and Elizabeth K. Thomas of the University at Buffalo.

Mitigating impact of artificial light at night in tropical forests

New findings have major conservation implications for critical insects

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK

Research News

 

IMAGE: SMITHSONIAN RESEARCHER COVERED IN INSECTS ATTRACTED TO ARTIFICIAL LIGHT AT NIGHT. view more 

CREDIT: SULEMA CASTRO/SMITHSONIAN

Artificial light at night (ALAN) is a major factor in global insect decline. In a paper published today in Insect Conservation and Diversity, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) scientists and partners found that using amber-colored filters to remove the blue spectra of light from "warm white" LED (light-emitting diode) lamps drastically reduces insect attraction to nocturnal lighting in a tropical forest. This is the first study to validate quantitative predictions of how lamp color affects insect attraction and provide clear recommendations to mitigate the negative impacts of ALAN on wildlife in rainforest ecosystems.

"While many people aren't necessarily fond of 'bugs,' their importance in our everyday lives is indisputable," said Jessica Deichmann, first author and research scientist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Smithsonian Conservation Commons' Working Land and Seascapes Initiative. "The essential ecosystem services they provide are endangered by nighttime lighting. We shouldn't abandon using LED lights--their energy efficiency is second to none. Our research presents an alternative, especially for outdoor settings. If people everywhere take small steps in our homes, neighborhoods and commercial properties, we can reduce the negative impacts of sustainable LED lighting on wildlife."

In addition to using filtered LEDs that remove the blue light and appear more orange/amber in color, additional ways to support insects include the use of full cutoff fixtures, motion activators and dimmers to ensure light is used only when and where it is needed.

Insects play invaluable roles as pollinators of food plants, regulators of other insect pests, decomposers of waste and sources of food for other animals, like birds. Insects may be directly affected by lights when they suffer mortality from collisions with hot lamps, exhaustion or increased predation due to the attraction of predators and/or increased visibility. Insects affected by artificial lighting may also become disoriented or inactive, leading to a failure to reproduce, and consequently, a reduction of gene flow in the population.

CAPTION

This beautiful lantern fly is known locally as the machaca (family Fulgoridae). These large "true bugs" with a peanut-shaped head are the source of legend in the Amazon and are often attracted to artificial lights.

CREDIT

Sulema Castro/Smithsonian

The study was conducted in lowland rainforest in northern Peru inside a hydrocarbon (oil and gas) concession currently operated by GeoPark Peru. Scientists set light traps in 12 different locations with three different LED lamps with different spectra and a control (no light) to evaluate the number and composition of insects attracted to lamps during two different time periods at night.

Researchers identified 763 unique morphospecies among the greater than 15,000 insects captured across all samples, belonging to 18 different orders. Overall, significantly more morphospecies were captured in the white LED light traps than in either the yellow or amber-filtered traps or the control. Likewise, significantly more individual insects were captured in the white LED traps.

By using amber-filtered LEDs, the number of morphospecies attracted to the light was reduced by 34% and individual insects were reduced by nearly 60% as compared to white LED lamps with reduced blue-light content. In addition, among captured insect families known to contain important vectors of pathogens, bacteria or parasites, 45% of all individuals were captured at white lamps, 41% at yellow lamps and just 13% were found in amber lamp traps.

These results provide essential, tangible and actionable information on how to minimize ALAN, an unavoidable consequence of many types of infrastructure development and urbanization. The paper lays out specific management recommendations for new infrastructure projects in tropical forests that can also be applied to urban and rural residential areas.

CAPTION

The three lamps used in the study: from top to bottom a LED 3000k lamp with a yellow filter, with no filter, and with an amber filter.

CREDIT

Jessica Deichmann/Smithsonian

The paper's other co-authors are Christian Ampudia Gatty, Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas; Juan Manuel Andia Navarro, Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Museo de Entomología Klaus Raven Büller; Alfonso Alonso, SCBI; Reynaldo Linares-Palomino, SCBI; and Travis Longcore, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

About the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute leads the Smithsonian's global effort to save species, better understand ecosystems and train future generations of conservationists. As Washington, D.C.'s favorite destination for families, the Zoo connects visitors to amazing animals and the people working to save them. In Front Royal, Virginia, across the United States and in more than 30 countries worldwide, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and animal care experts tackle some of today's most complex conservation challenges by applying and sharing what they learn about animal behavior and reproduction, ecology, genetics, migration and conservation sustainability to save wildlife and habitats.

About Working Land and Seascapes

Working Land and Seascapes (WLS), an Action Area of the Smithsonian Conservation Commons, is an initiative that supports Smithsonian science in the service of people and nature. WLS scientists collaborate with partners and communities across 13 countries to conduct interdisciplinary research and inspire action that fosters healthy, resilient and productive landscapes and seascapes.

Losing rivers

Researchers reveal the extent to which rivers across the country are losing flow to aquifers

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA BARBARA

Research News

 

Water is an ephemeral thing. It can emerge from an isolated spring, as if by magic, to birth a babbling brook. It can also course through a mighty river, seeping into the soil until all that remains downstream is a shady arroyo, the nearby trees offering the only hint of where the water has gone.

The interplay between surface water and groundwater is often overlooked by those who use this vital resource due to the difficulty of studying it. Assistant professors Scott Jasechko and Debra Perrone, of UC Santa Barbara, and their colleagues leveraged their enormous database of groundwater measurements to investigate the interaction between these related resources. Their results, published in Nature, indicate that many more rivers across the United States may be leaking water into the ground than previously realized.

In many places surface waters and groundwaters connect, while in others they're separated by impermeable rock layers. It depends on the underlying geology. But where they do intermingle, water can transition between flowing above and below ground.

"Gaining rivers" receive water from the surrounding groundwater, while "losing rivers" seep into the underlying aquifer. Scientists didn't have a good understanding of the prevalence of each of these conditions on a continental scale. Simply put, no one had previously stitched together so many measurements of groundwater, explained Jasechko, the study's co-lead author.

Gaining and losing rivers

Waterways can gain water from the surrounding aquifer or leak water into the ground depending on the conditions.

Typical groundwater studies include water level measurements from a few hundred to 1,000 wells. This study encompasses 4.2 million.

Perrone and Jasechko devoted years to compiling data from 64 agencies across the U.S. and analyzing the results. "Compiling these data was a massive undertaking. We collected millions of datapoints and reviewed hundreds of papers over the course of six years," Perrone said.

The resulting database has precipitated a number of the team's subsequent studies. "We can use this extensive dataset in innovative ways to answer questions that we have not been able to address previously," she added.

For this paper, Jasechko, Perrone and their coauthors compared water levels in wells to the surface of the nearest stream. "We apply a simple method to a large dataset," Jasechko said. "We identify wells with water levels that lie below the nearest stream, implying that these nearby streams could leak into the subsurface if it is sufficiently permeable."

The team found that nearly two-thirds of the wells had water levels below the nearest stream. This creates a gradient that can drive water from the river channel into the aquifer beneath.

"Our analysis shows that two out of three rivers in the U.S. are already losing water. It's very likely that this effect will worsen in the coming decades and some rivers may even disappear" said co-lead author Hansjörg Seybold at ETH Zurich.

"The phenomenon, set in motion decades ago, is now widespread across the U.S. There are far more streams draining into underlying aquifers than we had first assumed," Seybold continued. "Since rivers and streams are a vital water supply for agriculture and cities, the gravity of the situation came as a surprise."

A map of well water levels with respect to the surface of the nearest river. Photo Credit: JASECHKO ET AL.

Rivers were particularly prone to losing water in arid regions, along flat topography and in areas with extensive groundwater pumping, they observed. A prime example of this would be flat agricultural land in semi-arid regions like California's Central Valley. "We are literally sucking the rivers dry," Seybold said.

Losing rivers can impact other water users, downstream communities and ecosystems that rely on surface flows. "Historically, we've often treated these two resources as separate resources," Perrone said. "Our work highlights the importance of considering groundwater and surface water as a single resource where they are connected."

The researchers also found that losing rivers have been widespread in the U.S. for quite some time, present in many places at least as far back as the 1940s and '50s. And while many waterways naturally lose water, the issue can be exacerbated by human activity.

Humans have extracted water from the ground for thousands of years; in America they've been doing so for hundreds of years. The practice accelerated after World War II and has been rampant since the 1970s, accompanied by the undesirable and unintended consequences it entails.

"This isn't a new phenomenon," Jasechko said. "It's been with us for decades."

Water levels do fluctuate over years and decades, and unfortunately the researchers have only one data point for many of the wells in their sample. Other work by the team suggests that groundwater typically fluctuates by no more than a few meters over the course of a year. However, the water level for the many wells near losing rivers was more than two meters below the surface of the nearest stream, increasing the researchers' confidence that leaky rivers are likely widespread.

The sun shines down on a shallow marshy stretch of river bordered by grasses and riparian shrubs. Mountains are visible off to the left against a clear blue sky.

This section of the Santa Ynez river leaks water into the surrounding aquifer.

Photo Credit: DEBRA PERRONE

"We can only observe well water levels where wells exist," Jasechko acknowledged. "It's an obvious but important point. Our analysis is inherently biased to places where wells have been drilled, and therefore also to places where groundwater is pumped."

While the researchers don't see any straightforward way around this in the short-term, they hope their results can inform resource management and monitoring, perhaps informing policies that fund more monitoring wells in under-surveyed areas.

"Big studies like this get people thinking about broader water policy," Perrone said. "And for me, that is why continental scale analyses are important."

"My hope is that this study gets more people thinking about the interconnection of groundwater and surface water where these two resources are connected, and it also gets groundwater policy on the map," she continued. For so long this resource has been literally and metaphorically out of sight.

Perrone and Jasechko plan to expand this type of large-scale analysis to other parts of the globe and see how pumping and losing rivers impact groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Perrone also intends to connect their results back to her groundwater dashboard.

"Losing rivers aren't some hypothetical scenario," Jasechko stated. "They're here and now." They are in part the result of the past century of water use and misuse.

"If we have a better understanding of how widespread this phenomenon is, then we can influence future policy in positive ways," added Perrone. Because society is past the point where it can talk about prevention; we're now talking about response.

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Global warming helps invasive species flourish - study models likely combined effects on ecosystems

SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Increased global temperatures help invasive species establish themselves in ecosystems, new research led by a Swansea University bioscientist has shown.

The study, published by the Royal Society, gives an insight into the probable combined effects of species invasions, which are becoming more common, and global warming.

Climate warming and biological invasions result in the loss of species. They also alter the structure of ecosystems and the ways in which species interact.

While there is already extensive research on how climate change and invasions affect species and ecosystems, we know surprisingly little about their combined effect, acting together in synergy.

This is where the new study marks an important step forward. The work, funded by the EU Horizon programme, involved Dr Miguel Lurgi from the College of Science working with colleagues from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRAE) and the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France.

The team used mathematical simulations to investigate how temperature influences invasions in complex food webs comprised of 30 species. They paid particular attention to the combined - synergistic - effects.

The aim was to provide a theoretical model for how ecological communities are likely to respond to the joint effects of warming and invasions.

The model accounted for factors such as reproduction and death rates, average species body size, and interactions between species - such as predators attacking prey.

The team simulated what happens when an alien species is introduced into an ecosystem. They then ran the simulation forward in time using 40 different temperature values from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius.

This allowed them to model the combined effects on the ecosystem of temperature rises and of the new species being introduced.

They analysed the simulation results to assess the effects of temperature on food web properties before invasion, invasion success, and the effects of invasions on community structure and stability.

They found:

• Warmer temperatures modified community structure and dynamics that in turn facilitated invasions.
• Warmer temperatures mostly amplified the impacts of invasions on communities when compared with their colder counterparts.
• Temperature effects on invasions are mostly indirect and mediated by changes in community structure and stability.

Dr Miguel Lurgi of Swansea University, lead researcher, said:

"Warming and invasions are driving major changes to our ecosystems, and it's essential that we understand their combined effects.

Our study provides a first step in that direction, analysing the synergistic effects of temperature and invasions on communities.

Overall, we found that temperature and invasion act synergistically to increase the rate of species loss, creating smaller and more connected networks.

We have seen with COVID19 how mathematical modelling has been crucial in understanding the likely spread and impact of the virus.

Similarly, our work provides theoretical expectations for the likely response of ecological communities to the joint effects of warming and invasions".

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The research was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Notes to Editors

Research available here:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.2622

#SPACERACE2.0

The end of U.S.-Russia collaboration in space



Miriam Kramer

Tue, March 16, 2021

Russia, the U.S.' long-standing partner in space, is turning to China for its lunar ambitions.

Why it matters: The U.S. and Russia have been uneasy partners in orbit for decades, but as the two grow farther apart in space, their rift could reshape the geopolitical landscape above Earth — and on it — for years to come.

"We're not going to see the same level of cooperation between the United States and Russia, compared to what we saw in the 1990s ... when Russia was broke, going through an economic catastrophe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and was desperate," space policy expert Bleddyn Bowen told me.


Driving the news: Last week, China and Russia signed an agreement to work together to develop a lunar research station on or orbiting the Moon, allying Russia with a nation many see as in opposition to U.S. interests in space.

The memorandum of understanding comes after Russia declined to sign NASA's Artemis Accords governing international cooperation and uses of the Moon, and after a Russian official criticized NASA's plans to build a small space station in lunar orbit.

Russia was initially expected to provide an airlock for the small lunar space station, which is part of NASA's plans to land people on the Moon, but now "NASA will be pursuing other options for the provider of the airlock," NASA said in a statement.

The backstory: U.S.-Russia space relations began to sour in the early 2010s when Russia annexed Crimea.

The two countries' space programs kept them talking via the International Space Station, but since then, Russia's public posture toward the U.S. on space issues changed, experts say.

"We saw a marked change in how the Russians interacted in multilateral space forums," Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation told me. There was "a marked increase in the hostility of their language against pretty much anything the U.S. was proposing."

The intrigue: China's space program and industry is booming, with support from the government and a long-term vision of what the nation hopes to accomplish. Russia's star, on the other hand, is fading.

Russia is losing a significant source of revenue as SpaceX flies astronauts to the space station, ending NASA's reliance on the Russian-made Soyuz rocket.

This partnership with China will allow Russia to work with a nation on the rise when it comes to space, while China gets to take advantage of Russia's established technical acumen.

Just as important, if not more, the two powers together will wield geopolitical weight in forming international space policy.

As Europe, Canada, Japan and others are already partnering with the U.S. on its Moon plans, this partnership between Russia and China could potentially pull in support from other nations, if the two nations decide they also want partners.

What to watch: It's not clear how high a priority the Russia-China lunar research station will have as China works to build its own space station orbiting Earth in the coming years.

The division of labor for the two nations hasn't been laid out, and there isn't a clear funding source announced yet.

And experts say that the door isn't necessarily closed for the U.S. and Russia to partner with one another in space in the future.

VEGAN NEWS

Joseph Goebbels' mansion proposed as a vegan-friendly commune for artists and immigrants

Swikar Oli 

3/15/2021

© Provided by National Post The former country house of Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda during the National Socialist regime and one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates, is pictured on the left on January 05, 2008 at the Bogensee lake near Lanke, eastern Germany.


The former private villa of the Nazi’s chief propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is getting a meaningful upgrade.

Plans underway would turn Goebbels’ 70-plus room lakeside estate in Bogensee, Germany — which includes a private movie theatre — into a vegan-friendly commune.

The transformation would serve as a rebuke to the legacy of Adolf Hitler and Goebbels, welcoming the types of residents the Nazis targeted, Arnim Beutel of Life & Creativity Bogensee Campus (LKC), the non-profit group behind the project, told the Daily Star :

“It should be a diverse community. I think they would hate it because of course, we do the opposite of what they would do,” Beutel said.
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“We want to build a co-operative community and we want to bring life back there. We want to make it a hotspot for culture and education and health. We want to create an area for an alternative way to live and to work.”


Renovation of the building, abandoned for two decades and left in disrepair, would be gradual and require public and private financing, the LKC website states. Once complete, the estate would house 250 residents, with special accommodation granted to immigrants and the disabled.

The champions of the initiative intend for the repurposed building to discourage Neo-Nazi intrusions.

In 1936, Hitler gifted the Bogensee land to Goebbels, his loyal chief propagandist, who brought the then-nascent TV and radio media under Nazi influence. Goebbels poured money into building his forested hideaway, located 15 kilometres to the north of Berlin, where he reportedly had love affairs with mistresses, including a young Lida Baarova, the Czech-born leading lady.

His family came to live with him at the Bogensee property, up until they fled to Berlin during the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945. Soon after, facing certain Nazi defeat, Goebbels poisoned his six children and committed suicide with is wife Magda.

After the war’s end, the property became a training school for youths under the East German socialist party and was abandoned around the time Germany reunified in 1990.

The renovated space would incorporate living spaces, artist’s workshops, a health and wellness centre, a theatre, vegan restaurant and supermarket. A museum focusing on the mansion’s peculiar history is also proposed.

Residents will be able to work on campus, and visitors could live in the “hostel” and “hotel,” according to a translated statement on the LKC website.

Nature lovers can take quiet strolls along the lakeshore and surrounding woods.

“If you walk the old ways, the grass in the joints of the pavement muffles your footsteps,” LKC says. “The chirping of birds and the wind in the leaves underscore an almost contemplative silence

Kamala Harris visits vegan taco shop in Las Vegas
Tue, March 16, 2021, 

Vice President Kamala Harris made an unscheduled stop at a vegan taco stand in Las Vegas, Nevada on Monday. Harris and other Biden Administration officials are on the road promoting the new $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. (March 16)

Video Transcript

- In a hurry.

KAMALA HARRIS: OK.

- But, again, thank you so much.

KAMALA HARRIS: I have my black bean burritos, or I think enchiladas, right?

- I think they--

KAMALA HARRIS: Because that's what I wanted.

- --already ordered for you.

KAMALA HARRIS: That's what I ordered.

- So we'll--

KAMALA HARRIS: Did you-- are you hungry?

AARON FORD: [INAUDIBLE]

- Oh, yeah, we can add stuff in if you want more.

- Hello, Madame Vice President.

KAMALA HARRIS: Hi. How are you? What's your name?

- I'm Jermaine.

KAMALA HARRIS: Jermaine, Kamala Harris.

- It's an honor to meet you. It's an honor.

AARON FORD: How you doing, Jermaine?

KAMALA HARRIS: Aaron Ford, your--

AARON FORD: I'm Aaron Ford. I'm your attorney general.

KAMALA HARRIS: --attorney general.

- Honor to meet you.

AARON FORD: Good to see you.

- OK, so your food's already ready.

KAMALA HARRIS: OK.

- Like, they called ahead and held it for you.

KAMALA HARRIS: So the-- what, we have the enchiladas, right?

- You have like six tacos. No, no, no, you have six tacos.

AARON FORD: Big tacos, OK.

KAMALA HARRIS: Oh, we got tacos instead. Great, OK, great. So I'll share.

AARON FORD: You'll share?

KAMALA HARRIS: [CHUCKLES]

- So I have your food sitting right over here.

KAMALA HARRIS: OK. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, you're not going to be hungry after this.

AARON FORD: I'm going to [INAUDIBLE].

KAMALA HARRIS: Hello.

- Hi.

KAMALA HARRIS: How are you?

- [INAUDIBLE]

KAMALA HARRIS: Aw.

- It's been a pleasure having you here.

KAMALA HARRIS: What's your name?

- Gigi.

KAMALA HARRIS: Gigi, Kamala Harris. It's all-- we're all in it together, right? We've had some difficult, difficult times. It's been a year. It's been a year.

- Right, it's been a year.

KAMALA HARRIS: But look at what's happening, right? I mean, I just left the vaccination site at UNLV. People are getting vaccinated when it's their turn.

- I already got my vaccine. So--

KAMALA HARRIS: Good.

AARON FORD: Very good.

KAMALA HARRIS: Good. Good. You did.

- Yes.

KAMALA HARRIS: And tell everybody you know, right?

- Yeah.

KAMALA HARRIS: Tell the aunties, and the uncles, and the friends--

- Yes.

KAMALA HARRIS: --and the neighbors, and the grandparents. Everyone should get the vaccine when it's their turn, right?

- Yes.

KAMALA HARRIS: That's how we love thy neighbor, right?

- Yes.

KAMALA HARRIS: That's how we'll get back

EXPLAINER: How Uber UK case could foreshadow gig work revamp


FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2019, file photo is an Uber office in Secaucus, New Jersey, USA. Uber is giving its U.K. drivers the minimum wage, pensions and holiday pay, following a recent court ruling that said they should be classified as workers and entitled to such benefits, the company announced Tuesday, March 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

KELVIN CHAN
Wed, March 17, 2021

LONDON (AP) — Ride hailing giant Uber says it's giving U.K. drivers benefits like minimum wage and pensions, after losing a yearslong court battle to prevent them from being classified as “workers." It's an early sign of what companies like Uber face as authorities get to grips with regulating the app-based gig economy.

Starting right away, Uber's more than 70,000 U.K. drivers will get the minimum wage, equivalent to about $12 an hour for people aged 25 and up, plus pension payments and holiday pay. The company made the changes after the U.K. Supreme Court rejected its appeal against an employment tribunal ruling that drivers should be considered workers, not independent contractors as Uber insisted. That doesn't mean they're considered full-time staff employees, but under U.K. employment law, they fall into a middle category of “workers” who have more casual work terms but are also entitled to benefits and protections.


IS IT GOOD FOR DRIVERS?

Yes and no. San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc. says a driver's minimum wage will be calculated based on the time they accept a trip through the app. The drivers union behind the legal case said it's a step in the right direction but not good enough because drivers should be paid for time spent waiting for rides after logging on to the app, as the court ruled, otherwise they'll be shortchanged by up to 50%.

“If you go to work for Starbucks and no customers come into the shop, should you still be paid? Of course you should," said James Farrar, one of two former Uber drivers who filed the initial claim. “Uber simply has to do this, this is not difficult to understand."

But it may not be so simple. The company has argued that drivers could be logged in to the app while they're sitting at home, and not actually driving.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Will these changes mean passengers pay more and hurt the company’s profitability? Uber revealed little in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing announcement, saying only that it’s not making any changes to previously announced quarterly or full year earnings forecasts.

Experts said the company may end up making other adjustments to afford these new policies and shore up its chances of turning a profit, but they could end up limiting flexibility for drivers - one of the big selling points of working for Uber.

One big possibility is restricting the number of drivers on the platform, said Matthew Taylor, who carried out an independent review of working practices for the U.K. government in 2017.

To properly comply with the court ruling, Uber “probably are going to have to move to a system where they say to drivers you can only log on at certain times," Taylor told the BBC.

THE GIG ECONOMY'S FUTURE

The Uber case is part of broader efforts to rein in the gig economy that are gaining traction, at least in Europe. Spain last week unveiled legislation classifying food delivery riders as employees of the digital platforms they work for, not self-employed.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been a dvocating for reforms to what he called outdated labor laws that force gig workers to choose between flexibility and social protections. His proposals could find a receptive audience in Brussels, where the European Union's executive Commission is looking at how to improve conditions for platform workers.

Meanwhile, Uber's U.K. case could act as catalyst for wider change, by inspiring further legal challenges and influencing courts elsewhere that are wrestling with the issues. It all means that other gig economy companies, which are often accused of exploiting workers, will face growing pressure to make improvements for them.

___

For all of AP’s tech coverage, visit https://apnews.com/apf-technology

Uber worker benefits 'will make a difference'

Tom Espiner - Business reporter, BBC News
Wed, March 17, 2021, 

Uber driver

After a long court case fought by Uber drivers to get recognition as workers, the company has offered holiday pay, a guaranteed minimum wage, and pensions benefits to its drivers.

But what do Uber drivers think of the outcome of the case?

Reactions range from welcoming it as a good thing to anger and disappointment that Uber has not gone further.

'I think it's great'

Abul Kalam, an Open University student who wants a career in education, uses Uber work in London to bring in some money.

He says the concessions from the firm are "valuing the tremendous work that Uber drivers have done over the last difficult year".

He says Ubers have transported key workers to and from their jobs and "any holiday pay will be a welcome gesture".

"The pensions are an added bonus," he says.

However, he views Uber drivers as providing a freelance service, and says they shouldn't be paid while they are waiting for fares.

"Everyone should be entitled to the same benefits. It's greatly welcome, but why should we be treated differently?" he says.

Abul added that he can't see why Uber is guaranteeing a minimum wage.

"I can't ever be on a job for an hour and not be getting £8," he says.
'It will make a difference'

Zafar Iqbal stopped working for Uber in October last year after a dispute over pay.

The Birmingham-based taxi driver could not make Uber work financially, especially with the family commitments that he has.

"The fare was always too little," he says, and the commission was "not cheap".

"Taxi costs are rising day after day and they [Uber] keep the fares low," he says. "If you go outside the city you're unlikely to get a fare back."

He says the Uber concessions on holiday pay and pensions "will make a difference, and it will help".

He adds that taxis are "really struggling at the moment - there is not much work available".
'Uber has flooded the market'

Abduzak Hadi, who is based in London, was one of the claimants in the court case against Uber.

He says that Uber has not gone far enough in its concessions, and that the Supreme Court ruling directed Uber to pay drivers from when they logged onto the app, not from when they accepted a job.

"Uber has flooded the market with drivers because it costs them nothing," he said. "I started work at 7 o'clock this morning, and I've only taken £20."

He said the holiday pay entitlement was 12.07% after expenses, which are significant.

"In reality, it will not make any difference," he says. "I'm still out here putting in long hours."

He said the pandemic had made it hard for drivers to make ends meet.

"I've been getting loans, and any savings we had are long gone. I'm in debt at the moment and rent is outstanding," he said. "I've never been like that."

Hopes and fears raised in rural West Virginia by push for $15 minimum wage

FILE PHOTO: Senator Joe Manchin speaks after

 winning his 2018 midterm election in Charlestown, 

West Virginia

Jason Lange and Makini Brice

Wed, March 17, 2021

(Reuters) - At the Custard Stand restaurant in Webster Springs, West Virginia, Angie Cowger worries Democrats' goal of raising the hourly minimum wage to $15 would be the death knell for her business.

Roughly half her employees make about $9 an hour. Cowger can't imagine raising prices on hot dogs and ice cream by enough to cover $15, so she would expect to lay off workers, perhaps having customers place orders on a screen rather than with a cashier.

"I don't know our customer base would support that," Cowger said of her rural town of about 700 people. "We're in a town that has only one red light in the whole county."

While an effort to raise the national minimum wage from its current $7.25 level without Republican votes was blocked in the Senate this month, congressional Democrats have signaled they plan to try again.

The stakes are perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in West Virginia. Its 16% poverty rate is among the nation's highest and its low wages - half its workers earn less than $16.31 an hour - mean it could see some of the biggest risks and rewards of such a move.

West Virginia is also home to Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who opposes the $15 target and is emerging as a key force in the narrowly divided chamber.

Manchin, whose support would be crucial to the success of any legislation on the issue, says he would back an $11 minimum wage, still a more than 50% increase from where it has stood since 2009.

Five Senate Republicans - including West Virginia's other senator, Shelley Moore Capito - have proposed an increase to $10, suggesting compromise of some kind is possible.

In Republican-dominated states, where wages are generally lower than in Democratic-leaning states that are home to America's biggest cities, the biggest concern is retaining jobs, not raising wages.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in February that raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 as proposed by Democratic President Joe Biden would reduce the number of jobs nationwide by 1.4 million, and possibly by as much as 2.7 million, as businesses struggle with higher costs.

That hit would come after the pandemic sent the jobless rate well above 15% in West Virginia, higher than the national average. The state's current 6.5% unemployment rate is just above the national level.

SPLIT ON JOBS

Some experts said job losses could be sharper in rural areas because it will be harder for businesses in small-town America to raise prices enough to offset dramatic increases in pay.

"It's not surprising that the elected officials in low-wage states are more reticent to support higher minimum wages," said Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Nine of the 10 states with the lowest median hourly wage - a group that includes West Virginia - picked Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Biden took nine of the ten states with the highest typical hourly wage. (For a graphic on hourly wages across U.S. states, click here: https://tmsnrt.rs/3bP1qcT)

Some experts say there is no evidence linking a higher minimum wage to job cuts, however.

"We do not detect any negative employment effects in our sample, and so I would not expect any in WV," said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Labor activists are putting pressure on Manchin and Capito to go big on a minimum wage hike in West Virginia, where Trump beat Biden by nearly 40 percentage points and where well-paying coal jobs - long the state's trademark industry - have been on the decline for decades.

They point out that the CBO study also projected that bringing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would boost the incomes of 17 million people nationally and pull 900,000 people out of poverty.

Last month, the activists hired vans to circle Capito and Manchin's offices in Charleston, the state capital, with mobile billboards demanding $15 an hour. The Poor People's Campaign also organized a rally outside of Manchin's office promoting the rise.

Pam Garrison, a 62-year-old retiree who has held minimum-wage jobs for her entire working life, mostly as a cashier, said low wages were part of what held the economy back.

"If you give us the money, we'll get this economy going," she said from Fayette County, a coal mining area. "We spend our money. We will fix our falling-down houses up."

(Reporting by Jason Lange and Makini Brice in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Sonya Hepinstall)

THAT'S BIPARTISANSHIP
80% of Americans think the federal minimum wage is too low, new poll finds


Ayelet Sheffey,Juliana Kaplan
Tue, March 16, 2021

A group of BLM demonstrators protest the Federal Reserve Bank about $15 minimum wage in NYC to solidarity nationwide in Lower Manhattan on July 20, 2020. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


An Amazon/Ipsos poll found 80% of Americans believe the current federal minimum wage isn't sufficient.


It's only the latest poll to show popular support for a minimum wage increase.


The poll echoed prior research, finding women and workers of color are more likely to earn under $15.

A federal minimum wage increase didn't make it into the American Rescue Plan President Joe Biden signed into law last week, but the majority of Americans still believe a $7.25 minimum wage is too low.

A new Amazon/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found that 80% of Americans believe the current federal minimum wage is not sufficient, with two in three who have an opinion on the topic supporting an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Amazon has previously advocated for a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, and the poll found that two in three Americans want large companies to play a role in pushing for a minimum wage increase.

"America has hope that 2021 will be a year of recovery," the poll said. "Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour will help supercharge that recovery and help those who need it most. Boosting the income of those at the bottom end of the pay scale means that, instead of just trying to survive, they have the opportunity to participate in the economic recovery."


Here are the other main findings of the poll:


Eight in ten Americans don't know the actual amount of the current federal minimum wage;


People who earn less than $15 an hour are more likely to be women, people of color, people living in rural areas, and people with less formal educations;


70% of Americans say a wage increase would have a positive impact on employees, with 55% saying it will positively impact the country;


And those who make less than $15 an hour are significantly less likely to be satisfied with aspects of life - jobs, income, and ability to pay bills - than those making $15 an hour or more.

The push for a federal minimum wage increase has remained controversial among lawmakers. Although Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and other progressive lawmakers, failed to pass a wage increase in the stimulus, he is continuing to fight for future legislation that will raise the wage to help working Americans.

"There is nowhere - I repeat, NOWHERE - in the United States where a full-time worker being paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 can make ends meet. That is a disgrace," Sanders said on Twitter on March 4. "It is far past time that we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and give millions of workers a raise."


Meanwhile, moderate and conservative lawmakers, like Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have pushed against an increase to $15 an hour, citing the potential impact on the labor market.

"I would amend it to $11," Manchin told reporters. "We can do $11 in two years and be in a better position than they're going to be with $15 in five years."
A $15 minimum wage has already had broad popular support - and could impact millions of workers

An Insider poll from February showed that more than 60% of respondents would definitely or probably support a $15 minimum wage. That echoed Insider's 2019 polling, where 63% of respondents supported or strongly supported an increase to $15 per hour.

A minimum-wage hike would impact 32 million workers, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Around one in three Black workers and about one in four Latino workers would benefit from the raise; almost 60% of workers who would benefit are women, with women of color seeing a particular boost. Those are all groups who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic's economic devastation.

Raising the minimum wage could also ease the strain on social safety net programs. A study from the University of California at Berkeley found that low wages cost taxpayers more than $100 billion a year.

One main concern that has emerged in the minimum wage debate is the potential impact on employment, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projecting that an increase could lead to the loss of 1.4 million workers while lifting 900,000 people out of poverty.

However, not all economists are so sure about those employment projections. According to recent report from Morgan Stanley, "the wealth of research points to no definitive conclusion on the impact higher wages have on employment."

While the impact to employment may not a cause for alarm, Morgan Stanley highlighted other important aspects to consider.

"The social benefits to lifting real wages of lower-income earners and millions out of poverty are substantial."

Read the original article on Business Insider