US faces more risk of malaria, dengue due to climate change: study

BY SHARON UDASIN - 07/11/21 

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About 8.4 billion people — or almost 90 percent of the projected global population — could be exposed to malaria or dengue fever by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to surge, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

North America is included in that risk area, according to the study, which predicted a potential “northward shift” of both the malaria and dengue-epidemic belts.

Other new malaria-prone regions in that scenario could include northern Asia and central-northern Europe — the latter of which could also be at risk for dengue, the study said.


Socioeconomic factors like housing quality, plumbing and air conditioning have “meant that dengue poses less of a burden in the U.S. than in other regions with comparable climates,” Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor at Stanford, told The Hill’s Equilibrium.

However, she stressed that “there's always the possibility for dengue transmission with the vectors present and increasingly warm, suitable climates.”

If emissions continue to rise at today’s rates, resultant temperature increases could extend transmission seasons by more than a month for malaria and four months for dengue in the next 50 years, researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) determined in the Lancet study.

Yet they also showed how curbing emissions could reduce transmission seasons and “prevent millions of people from contracting malaria and dengue,” Felipe J. Colón-González, assistant professor at LSHTM, said in a news release.

"But policymakers and public health officials should get ready for all scenarios, including those where emissions remain at high levels,” Colón-González said in the release. “This is particularly important in areas that are currently disease-free and where the health systems are likely to be unprepared for major outbreaks."

With the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes — vectors for dengue — present in many regions of the U.S., dengue transmission has already occurred on a local level in Florida, Texas and Hawaii, according to Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor at Stanford.


As far as malaria is concerned, aggressive landscape modification — like swamp draining, electrification and urbanization — largely eradicated the parasite from the U.S. in the 1930s-40s, Mordecai explained.

“Although increased climate suitability for the Anopheles vectors of malaria could potentially expand their range and abundance, it is unlikely that all this other landscape change and socioeconomic development will be reversed in ways that would make malaria a major problem again,” she said.

The same cannot be said, however, for other parts of the Americas.

In South America, for example, malaria persists and is expanding in areas that are deforested or where gold mining occurs, in the Amazon and other tropical rainforests — particularly in Brazil, Peru and Venezuela, according to Mordecai.

“This is the region where climate change (combined with land use change) poses the biggest threat for expanding malaria in the Americas,” she said.

But another mosquito-borne pathogen, West Nile virus, has been showing up already this year across the U.S. — with the Colorado health department attributing the increase to the weather.

The role of climate change in its spread is still inconclusive. Transmission also depends on population dynamics and immunity of many wild bird species that host West Nile, Mordecai explained.

But she acknowledged the potential role of climate change, as bird activity seasons get longer, mild winters kill off fewer mosquitoes and warm summer temperatures facilitate transmission.

From a global perspective, Mordecai and her Stanford colleagues see dengue as the threat of the future, with climate change prompting what they describe as a shift in “disease burden” from malaria to dengue.

Global heating, they argued in a previous Lancet Planetary Health study, will likely limit malaria transmission in sub-Saharan African but also make the region more prone to dengue, due to both urbanization and dengue’s ability to thrive at higher temperatures.

While the other study, from LSHTM, shows how malaria and dengue are expected to expand into higher elevations and latitudes, and into cooler seasons, Mordecai said that it does not “capture the potential decrease in malaria transmission seasons in endemic areas.”

Malaria is transmitted between humans by female Anopheles mosquitoes, with about 93 percent of cases occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the LSHTM study. The global incidence of malaria declined from 2010-2018, aside from a slight increase in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Western Pacific and the Americas, the study said.


Dengue, meanwhile, is what the authors describe as “the fastest-growing mosquito-borne viral disease in the world.” While dengue impacts 120 countries, most cases occur in the Americas, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific

Today, the World Health organization estimates that 3.4 billion people are at risk of being infected with malaria while 3.9 billion people are at risk of getting dengue, which infects about 390 million each year. About 217 million people contracted malaria in 2017, the WHO reported.

“It's very hard to say what is ‘better’ or ‘worse’ for public health when comparing two diseases with uncertain futures, but we know that malaria currently causes a major burden in sub-Saharan Africa that is declining,” Mordecai said. “The situation is reversed in most of the Americas and Southeast Asia, where dengue causes a much larger burden. In both cases, there is a large disease burden, though malaria is more likely to cause deaths than dengue.”

A malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline is currently in Phase III clinical testing, according to the CDC. A dengue vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur is available in some countries, but the WHO recommends only vaccinating those who have had a confirmed previous infection.

Beyond vaccines, the infrastructure for malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment is advancing rapidly, Mordecai said. But for dengue, she added, similar infrastructure is lagging in sub-Saharan Africa, where she expects that disease to become much more prevalent due to climate change.

While such tools and vaccines remain critical, Mordecai emphasized the importance of improving socioeconomic conditions in areas with high environmental exposure to mosquitoes. This means addressing housing quality and clean water access, as well as reducing deforestation and illegal gold mining.

Taking these actions, Mordecai said, as well as “sustaining equitable development and education, are the most important big-picture goals for reducing vector-borne disease burdens and improving lives.”

CAPITALI$TS IN SPACE
The space race between Branson and Bezos is about business and branding
BY MARK WHITTINGTON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/11/21


© Getty Images

The race between Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin for which billionaire will be the first to fly into space on his own rocket has certainly captured the public imagination. If schedules hold up. Branson will be the first at the head on a six-person crew on July 11. Bezos will follow on July 20 with a crew that includes his brother, someone who paid $28 million to charity for a seat, and “Mercury 13” pilot Wally Funk.

Both the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo and the Blue Origin New Shepard will take their crews on brief, suborbital jaunts. In the meantime, SpaceX’s Elon Musk is watching this space race between two of his business rivals with what must be amusement. His rockets go into orbit.

Is the “space race” between Branson and Bezos a little more than two wealthy boys competing for who has the best rocket ship? Certainly, bragging rights are a part of the motivation. However, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are also engaged in the serious task of starting a suborbital tourism business. The narrative that the two upcoming flights constitute a “race” actually benefits both space entrepreneurs.

Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have been trying to start a suborbital tourism business for years, the former since 2004. The two upcoming flights will be a public display that, if you have enough money, you too can fly into space, albeit for a few minutes. How many people will be willing to pony up and whether they will be numerous enough to support two suborbital tourism companies is anyone’s guess.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will not just consist of billionaires selling joy rides to millionaires. A market exists for SpaceShipTwo and New Shepard flying science experiments. Sirisha Bandla, the vice president of Government Affairs and Research Operations at Virgin Galactic, will fly with Branson and will evaluate the human-tended research experience during the flight.

Bezos is using the first crewed flight of the New Shepard as an opportunity to rebrand himself. He is most famous for founding Amazon.com, the largest online retail outlet on the planet. Amazon has been a boon for customers by making the retail experience simple and convenient. Bezos has transformed the retail industry and has become fabulously wealthy doing so. He has also been slammed by some as a monopolist who treats some of his employees like Roman galley slaves. According to a recent story in the New York Post, some have compared Bezos to a Bond villain.

Bezos has started to rebrand his image. He has stepped down as CEO of Amazon, presumably to devote his full attention to Blue Origin. Bezos knows from the example of his main rival, Elon Musk, that billionaires who build and fly rocket ships are considered kind of cool.

Next, Bezos invited a woman named Wally Funk to fly with him on the New Shepard when it takes off on July 20. Sixty years ago, Funk was part of a group of female pilots loosely referred to as the “Mercury 13.” The women pilots were subjected to the same kind of testing that male NASA astronauts underwent in the early 1960s. Some of them passed with scores that exceeded those of the male astronauts.

An urban legend has arisen about the Mercury 13 female astronauts being cruelly denied space flights they were clearly qualified for out of misogynism at NASA. In fact, as retired space journalist James Oberg pointed out, such was never the case. NASA at the time required that its astronauts be test pilots with experience in supersonic aircraft, which none of the Mercury 13 were.

Nevertheless, the narrative is that Funk, at the age of 82, is finally getting the space flight she was “denied” so long ago, thanks to the beneficence of Bezos. Bezos, a capitalist who is seen by some as an exploiter, is now a space entrepreneur, soon to be an astronaut and a champion of women.

Musk may have the last laugh. From the private orbital tourism business to the Starship now undergoing testing in Boca Chica, Texas, SpaceX is far ahead of anything Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin hope to accomplish. The next Americans to land on the moon will likely ride to the lunar surface on a SpaceX rocket. Indeed, for now, Bezos and Branson are fighting for second place in the great commercial space race.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among other venues.

Made for Vegas: Trump's rallies now a 'nostalgia act'
BY JOE FERULLO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 

07/11/21 

Donald Trump should leave Mar-a-Lago.

He needs to take up long-term residency in a town that really understands what he has to offer: Las Vegas.

The former president has been back on the road, with two packed rallies in Ohio and Florida. But both performances revealed a new side of Trump’s relationship with his hardcore base: In many ways, he’s become what the entertainment industry calls a “nostalgia act.”

He and his audience seemed most excited living off past glories and grievances: Hillary Clinton, the Mueller report, the election. They were happier looking back than looking forward. This impulse to marinate in the glow of times gone by is just the kind of powerful desire that paves the streets of Las Vegas with gold.

For performers such as Elton John (age 74), Cher (75) and Rod Stewart (76), Vegas residencies have kept them working well past their glory years. But their success comes because each understands the world of nostalgia entertainment brings one unshakable demand: Nothing about you can change. Ever.

That’s why “classic” acts strain to look exactly as they did at the height of their fame. They step on stage in the same hair and clothing styles they’ve worn for more than 30 years. And each night, they play their biggest hits note for note, just the way fans remember them from that special beach summer they’ll never forget.

That approach works, time after time, because for many fans, these nostalgia performances are deep down about melancholy and a sense of loss. People return each year and pay top dollar so veteran entertainers can take them back to a time when life felt filled with possibilities and the world was theirs to own.

Trump (age 75) has begun to cross over into that world.

At Trump’s rallies, his hair and clothes — red tie, white shirt, blue suit — were as iconic as Elton John’s bedazzled eyeglasses. Trump ticket holders now arrive with old campaign banners and wear favorite T-shirts from previous events. They loved it when the former president asked, “Are we having a good time?” and then tossed red MAGA hats out into the first few rows — standard crowd-pleasers that every seasoned headliner lives by.

But just like fans at the MGM hotel singing along with vintage hits from Aerosmith (lead singer Steven Tyler, age 73), Trump’s people didn’t show up to hear the “new stuff.” Laugh lines about woke generals and New York prosecutors missed their mark even as they made headlines the next day.

For Trump, the best model to follow is the king of all "oldies’ performers," Elvis Presley. The rock 'n' roll idol essentially invented the Las Vegas residency, setting in stone the way it should be done. Even in 1976, a year before he died, with the music world changing all around him, Presley’s set list of songs for his Las Vegas Hilton show was jammed with hits from the 1950s — the sweet spot for his fan base.

Over those Vegas years, Elvis’s connection to his audience became ironclad. Elvis sightings continued years after his death; fans just could not let go of a man who represented so much that was golden about their lives. Eventually — once his death was reluctantly accepted — true believers moved on to the next best thing: Elvis impersonators, a Las Vegas industry that continues to thrive 44 years after the King’s final days.

Trump’s connection to his base has the same appeal as Presley’s — a deliberate throwback to a less complicated post-war era, seen through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. Some reports have noted an increasingly dark and angry side to his fan base, but Trump’s appearances can also be seen as a safety valve — a way to let off steam as the audience is taken back to a better time.

He’s even spawned his own Elvis-like cadre of would-be impersonators (Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley), waiting for him to surrender the stage.

Understandably, the former president may be reluctant to make the move to Vegas. Financially, he’s done well fundraising from his headquarters in Florida. But in Sin City, money flows even faster. Consider this: Rod Stewart is a year older than Trump and last had a No. 1 hit in 1979 with “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” Stewart’s reported Caesar’s Palace salary: $2,700,000 for each performance.

'U-S-A' chants drown out boos as Trump enters arena for UFC match

Even a billionaire must find that kind of coin hard to ignore.

Apparently, for many high-profile performers Trump’s age, nostalgia is a lot better than it used to be. He should try it. Las Vegas is waiting.

Joe Ferullo is an award-winning media executive, producer and journalist and former executive vice president of programming for CBS Television Distribution. He was a news executive for NBC, a writer-producer for “Dateline NBC” and worked for ABC News. Follow him on Twitter @ironworker1.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Fauci: 'Horrifying' to hear CPAC crowd cheering anti-vaccination remarks

BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 07/11/21

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he was horrified to hear the crowd at a conservative gathering this weekend cheering anti-vaccination comments.

“It's horrifying. I mean, they are cheering about someone saying that it's a good thing for people not to try and save their lives,” Fauci told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union," referring to the audience's reaction to remarks at CPAC in Dallas.

Fauci also said that it was “almost frightening” for people to say that they don’t want health officials to save their lives.

“I mean, if you just unpack that for a second, Jake, it's almost frightening to say, hey, guess what, we don't want you to do something to save your life,” Fauci said.

“Yay. Everybody starts screaming and clapping. I just don't get that," he added. "I don't think that anybody who is thinking clearly can get that. What is that all about? I don't understand that, Jake.”




Fauci was responding to a clip of conservative author Alex Berenson, who spoke at CPAC on Saturday.

“The government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90 percent of the population into getting vaccinated," Berenson told the crowd.

"And it isn't happening,” he added to applause.

Tapper also asked Fauci about a former Health and Human Services Secretary Obama Kathleen Sebelius wanting schools and businesses to mandate COVID-19 vaccines.

Fauci said that he’s in favor of that idea, adding that he anticipates more demand for the vaccines once they are formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“So these vaccines are as good as officially approved with all the I's dotted and the T's crossed. It hasn't been done yet because the FDA has to do certain things, but it's as good as done,” Fauci said. “So, people should really understand that. But they are waiting now until you get an official approval before. And I think, when you do see the official approval, Jake, you are going to see a lot more mandates.”

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in guidance on Friday encouraged schools nationwide to open for in-person learning this fall.

Moves to silence critical race theory have only amplified its virtues

BY SHANNON PRINCE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/10/21 

© Twitter

Recently, a number of states have passed laws banning critical race theory — or what legislators with willful ignorance or outright malice misspeak of as critical race theory — as well as teaching about past and present racism in its systemic form.

As a woman of color committed to antiracism, I am delighted. And the reason for my delight can be found in the very history legislators seek to forbid.

One of the greatest titans of American history is the abolitionist, male women’s suffrage activist, and defender of civil rights for all peoples: Frederick Douglass. When he was a boy, the enslaved Douglass asked his mistress to teach him to read, which she did until the day she proudly shared his progress with her husband. As Douglass recounts in “My Bondage and My Freedom”:

“Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. [Hugh] Auld promptly forbade continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.”

Assessing his master’s words, Douglass said:

“Very well,” thought I; “knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” From that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom… The very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.”

There are times when the path to a nation that truly has liberty and justice for all seems indiscernible, when those committed to realizing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream wonder how to make it come true. Well, now we know. As Douglass taught us, the knowledge that is forbidden to us is the knowledge that frees us. The instruction that we are told is unsafe, leads only to mischief and that is being made unlawful — that instruction is liberating. It offers the direct pathway to freedom. The proof of the revolutionary power of education that examines racism with candor and courage lies in the determination of those who seek to keep our children in ignorance. And that very determination should render us all the more resolute in seeking intelligence for them and for ourselves.

Think about it: If our children don’t know what systemic racism is, they may think that George Floyd’s murder was the result of — as a white adult described it to me — the actions of “one bad officer.” And they might then think that justice is served when that officer — Derek Chauvin — is removed from the force and convicted.

But if they are taught about the event through the lens of systemic racism, then they will learn that Chauvin had eighteen complaints against him — that after a half dozen, a dozen, and then still more grievances — someone other than Chauvin, likely multiple people, kept him on the force. They learn that someone looked at Chauvin’s record and decided to give him the responsibility of training other officers. They learn that Floyd was at least the seventh person Chauvin choked or knelt on: Three of them, including Floyd, were Black, two were Latino, one was Native American and the races of the other two are unknown. They learn that Chauvin is only now facing charges for a 2017 incident in which the federal government argues he hit a Black 14-year-old in the head with a flashlight so brutally the boy needed stitches, and then knelt on his neck and back for several minutes — even though the boy, like Floyd, was handcuffed, prone and unresisting. They will learn that other officers failed to treat this as a crime and while police chose not to take action to get Chauvin off the force, let alone keep him out of a position of authority, the police union did step in after all that inaction finally led to a murder — to spend $1 million on his criminal defense.

When children learn about systemic racism, they understand that just stripping Chauvin of his badge or even his freedom isn’t enough to achieve justice because there was an entire system that functioned to condone Floyd’s murder, that tried to grant his murderer impunity, and that, if not transformed, whose machinery will inevitably grind others to death.

You can’t change a system you don’t know exists. And that’s why these legislators are enacting these “peculiar rules.” They don’t want our children to know. They don’t want things to change.

But their plan backfired.

This time last year, systemic racism was an obscure concept. Thanks to the legislators banning it, it’s now a topic of popular conversation.

Looking back as a free man, a renowned leader, a man whose global repute was second only to that of Abraham Lincoln, Douglass mused, “In learning to read, therefore, I am not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress.”

In learning about how racism has and continues to function — and, thereby, how to destroy it — I am not sure that we do not owe quite as much to the opposition of our legislators as we do to the theorists, historians and teachers brave enough not to place feelings over facts.

Shannon Prince is a lawyer at Boies Schiller Flexner and a legal commentator. She is the author of "Tactics for Racial Justice: Building an Antiracist Organization and Community."

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Why it matters that climate change is shrinking birds

BY BRIAN WEEKS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/10/21   

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HIL

© Istock

Many of the benefits that humanity derives from the natural world, like the provisioning of oxygen, are priceless. Those ecosystem services that can have a dollar value assigned to them, for example the pollination of crops, generate far more value for humanity each year than the entirety of the global economy. Climate change can threaten these services through the loss of species or shifts in species’ size or abundance. For example, warming temperatures have reduced the size of many birds over the last four decades; this is emblematic of the scale of climate change impacts on the world’s biological diversity. There is an urgent need for action.

Shrinking birds are indicative of a much bigger problem

Scientists have long predicted that increasing temperatures would drive reductions in body size across the tree of life, but testing this requires huge amounts of data collected consistently over decades. This type of data is only available for a tiny fraction of the world’s species, including some North American birds.

Recently, a study based on over 70,000 North American bird specimens found that warming temperatures have been shrinking birds for the past 40 years. Because size determines organisms’ behaviors, survival and contributions to the functioning of natural systems, widespread shrinking of birds has important implications for the ecosystem services that birds provide to people.

North American birds are not the only group of species that are shrinking. Marine ectotherms, or cold-blooded animals (e.g., most fish), are getting smaller in response to warming temperatures. This group of species feeds billions of people around the world each year. Understanding the impacts of widespread size reductions on the productivity of this system is clearly of global significance.

While scientists have only been able to test whether there have been warming-driven size reductions for a small fraction of the world’s species, there is reason to believe that this may be a widespread problem. A long-standing observation, known as Bergmann’s Rule, holds that individuals tend to be smaller in the warmer parts of a species’ geographical range. In a temporal analog to Bergmann’s Rule, scientists have predicted that plants and animals will get smaller as humans warm the world.

While some large sets of species have uniformly gotten smaller as temperatures increased, there is also evidence that size responses to warming can be variable among species. However, the potential that not all species will shrink is not cause for comfort. If species in a community are responding to climate change in different ways, with only some getting smaller, the changes in relative size can impact how species relate to each other and the environment. These changes may have cascading impacts up or down food webs, again disrupting essential natural systems.

In addition to improving our understanding of which species are getting smaller as a result of increasing temperatures, further research is needed to refine our understanding of why higher temperatures are causing decreases in size. Both a better understanding of the patterns of warming-driven size reductions across the world’s species, and the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are needed to predict future impacts of warming on the natural systems that support humanity.

 

The problem is complex, but the path forward is clear

We are warming plants and animals at a global scale, and how they respond will shape our future in untold ways. Despite the enormous importance of the impacts of climate change on the world’s biological diversity, we are remarkably limited in our capacity to monitor the effects of rising temperatures on most of the world’s species. This should change. The scope of the data necessary to understand biological responses to climate change exceeds the scale of what is feasible for individual researchers or even institutions to collect. A massive increase in investment in the natural sciences is needed to expand our ability to understand and predict the impacts of climate change on plants and animals. The development of large-scale coordinated efforts to collect data on natural systems should be a policy priority.

It is also important to recognize that the impacts of climate change are occurring in a world that has already been heavily modified by human activities. Species and ecosystems are reeling from the effects of habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species.

Efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change must go hand-in-hand with efforts to conserve and expand habitat and reduce the spread of invasive species if we are to reverse the ongoing loss of ecosystem services. This will only be achieved if policymakers recognize that the value captured in economic markets is dwarfed by the value of ecosystem services that are outside of those markets, and mitigating the combined impacts of climate change, habitat loss and invasive species on the natural systems that are essential to human persistence is the most important governance challenge of our time. Maintaining functional natural systems should not be an afterthought, it should be a central component of any policy initiative.

Addressing these challenges is urgent. Bird populations have declined so drastically that this year, there are 3 billion fewer birds in North America than there were in 1970 — the proverbial canaries in the coal mine are dropping dead all around us. The world’s biological diversity and the ecosystem services it provides to all of us are our natural heritage; we all stand to benefit from an improved understanding of the world around us, and the effective conservation of ecosystems and the services they provide.

Brian Weeks is an assistant professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. His research focuses biotic responses to global change and the importance of biodiversity to ecosystem stability and functioning. Follow him on Twitter: @BriWeeks_MI

What it means if 'ecocide' becomes an international crime

BY JOJO MEHTA, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 07/10/21 

© Getty Images

Ecocide means to destroy the environment, but when considered etymologically, from the Greek and Latin, it signifies to kill one’s home.

When we were first able to view, and photograph, the Earth from space, our planetary perspective changed. Suddenly “home” had a whole new meaning. Nowhere, as far as our technology has been able to discern, is there evidence of any planet like Earth — anywhere else that can sustain life as we know it.

In its recent 11,700-year period of climatic stability, that is what our planetary home has done, facilitating the spread and technological advance of human civilization. While benefiting many in terms of material comfort, life expectancy and societal support structures, this advance has increasingly taken place within a framework of thought that perceives nature as “other” — a resource to be exploited, or a foe to be conquered. The Oxford English Dictionary even defines nature as “opposed to humans.”

With this perspective, ever since the industrial revolution, we have been — at first unwittingly, now recklessly and even knowingly — disrupting the biological, chemical and atmospheric systems on whose stable interaction we intimately and profoundly depend. Greenhouse gas emissions are just one part of this story. Bit by bit, with each felled forest, polluted river system, species extinction, oil spill, toxic waste leak, nuclear or mining disaster, we are committing ecocide. Relentlessly, and with startling rapidity, we are killing our home — while exacerbating social injustice, racial inequality and resource conflict along the way.

And because our legal system doesn’t treat environmental destruction with the seriousness we are now beginning to understand it warrants, we are doing this with impunity.

The word “ecocide” was first used on the international stage by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme at the UN environment conference in Stockholm (1972), when he stated that “destruction brought about... by large scale use of bulldozers and pesticides is an outrage sometimes described as ecocide, which requires urgent international attention.”

Nearly 50 years later, the world is at last beginning to pay that attention. Last month an expert panel of top international criminal and environmental lawyers, convened by the Stop Ecocide Foundation, proposed a legal definition of the term, suitable for adoption into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a fifth crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Responding to the explicit call of climate-vulnerable island nations Vanuatu and the Maldives, directly impacted by rising sea levels and heavy tropical storms, such a move would criminalize, “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

The warmth of response to this legal definition has been remarkable. Sparking articles in over 100 global publications in the first week, from the Financial Times to Der Spiegel and from Bloomberg to Le Monde, it has also prompted political action. From Bangladesh to the Caribbean to the UK (where an amendment to the government’s Environment Bill includes the newly released definition in full), diplomats and politicians are joining a conversation which already includes EU states such as France and Belgium and has the support of public figures as influential and diverse as Pope Francis and Greta Thunberg.

Since the International Criminal Court’s mandate is the prosecution of individuals, the addition of ecocide to the list of crimes considered “of most serious concern to the international community as a whole” would make key corporate and political actors personally liable to criminal prosecution in any ratifying state, should their decisions threaten severe and either widespread or long-term environmental damage — thus creating an enforceable deterrent to help prevent finance from flowing to projects that could destroy ecosystems. Nothing concentrates the mind like having one’s personal freedom on the line.

Moreover, ecocide law may prove to be not just a stick but also a carrot. Setting a criminal parameter will not only steer activity away from hazards — acting as a kind of health and safety law for the planet – but is likely to stimulate innovation and development in a healthy direction in a wide range of economic sectors. Many of the solutions we need to transition to sustainability are already available — renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, circular economy — but aren’t being supported or developed at scale while finance continues to flow towards the same old destructive approaches, leaving those who would do the right thing at a disadvantage.

Criminalizing ecosystem destruction at the highest level could also shore up and strengthen the whole edifice of environmental law, supporting all those working to improve regulation and best practice, from frontline activists to academics, scientists, NGOs and policymakers.

While it would be naive to believe that establishing this crime would be a silver bullet for all of our environmental woes, or even prevent all ecocides, it is difficult to see how our planet’s life-support systems can be adequately protected — or indeed Paris targets and UN Sustainable Development Goals realistically approached — without a “hard stop” intervention of this kind. This year’s NDC synthesis report from the UNFCCC certainly suggests that we’re not doing well without it. Goodwill agreements and raised ambitions are clearly not up to the task.

But perhaps the most powerful effect of defining and criminalizing ecocide as an international crime may be that of beginning to shift cultural and moral assumptions. Our understanding of our place in, and responsibility towards, the natural world is in dire need of a reality check. Calling out and condemning ecocide for what it is may be exactly what is required if we are to begin to transform our relationship with the Earth from one of harm to one of harmony. That may be the best way to ensure our children, and our children’s children, will still be able to call this beautiful planet “home.”

Jojo Mehta is co-founder and executive director of Stop Ecocide International and chair of the charitable Stop Ecocide Foundation. She co-founded the public campaign in 2017 (alongside legal pioneer the late Polly Higgins) to support making severe harm to nature an international crime and has overseen the growth of the global movement while coordinating legal developments, diplomatic traction and public narrative.

US has no plans to offer military assistance to Haiti: reports

BY JORDAN WILLIAMS - 07/10/21 

© Getty Images

The Biden administration reportedly has no current plans to offer military assistance to Haiti following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse earlier this week.

A senior Biden administration official told Reuters and The New York Times late Friday that there were no plans to provide U.S. military assistance to Haiti at this time.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Haiti requested security forces to guard critical infrastructure amid rising turmoil in the country following Moïse’s assassination.

Interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph instituted a “state of siege” in the nation after Moïse was killed at his home in Port-au-Prince early Wednesday morning.

A congressional source told The Hill on Friday that the request for forces was “generically mentioned.”

“It's kind of been framed in this bucket of U.S. security assistance where in reality the Haitian government made a request for U.S. troops,” the source said.

But another source said there was confusion over the request and noted that the French word for “troops” can also refer to police.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that senior FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials would be dispatched to the country. She also said the U.S. would be providing financial resources.

Haiti has also requested forces from the United Nations Security Council, according to Reuters.

At least 19 people have been arrested following the assassination, including two Haitian Americans, James Solages and Joseph Vincent, and 17 Colombians.

The Colombian defense ministry confirmed Friday that 13 of its former soldiers are among the suspects, according to the Times.

EPA bans sale of COVID-19 disinfectant authorized under Trump

BY RACHEL FRAZIN - 07/09/21 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week issued an order stopping the sale of a disinfectant that the Trump administration granted emergency authorization to combat COVID-19.

The agency said in a news release Thursday that its investigators determined Allied BioScience, the maker of the disinfectant, was marketing, selling and distributing it in “ways that were inconsistent” with law, regulations and the terms and conditions of emergency authorizations.

The agency also said it was revoking an emergency exemption for the chemical, known as SurfaceWise2, in Arkansas and Texas because of “company misconduct described above and scientific concerns regarding product performance.”

“Pesticides can cause serious harm to human health and the environment, which is why EPA requires their registration before being distributed for use,” said Larry Starfield, acting head of the agency’s law enforcement office, in a statement. “EPA is committed to holding companies accountable for not adhering to federal environmental laws.”

SurfaceWise2 was originally approved for use in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, including on some American Airlines aircraft, at airport facilities and at orthopedic facilities.

The Trump administration had touted its approval of SurfaceWise 2, with then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in November viewing a demonstration of its use in Texas.

“EPA had to adapt to the coronavirus outbreak by creating a new permitting process that could allow innovative new products to be quickly and effectively tested and deemed safe for use,” Wheeler said in a statement at the time. “This long-lasting disinfectant is a great innovation and could help the aviation industry in the coming months.”

Allied BioScience CEO Michael Ruley said in a statement to The Hill that the company was "fully complying" with the EPA's order.

"We intend to rectify and resolve this as soon as possible. We continue to work closely with the EPA to confirm the protection provided by SurfaceWise2," Ruley said. "We continue to work with the EPA on our full section 3 for national approval."

People typically are infected with the coronavirus after contact with respiratory droplets, and the risk of getting it through contact with surfaces is considered low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In a statement provided to The Hill, an American Airlines spokesperson said the company had stopped using the product and will “continue to follow all EPA and federal guidance on this matter.”

WHY DOES ANYONE BANK WITH WELLS FARGO

Warren slams Wells Fargo decision to close customer credit lines

FORCED TO USE CREDIT CARD INTEREST 19.9%

BY CAROLINE VAKIL - 07/09/21 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) blasted Wells Fargo’s decision this week to close customers’ personal credit lines.

CNBC reported on Thursday that the bank alerted customers that existing lines of personal credit would be closed in the next few weeks and it was no longer offering the consumer lending product.

The letter also reportedly said that these closures “may have an impact on your credit score,” which was included in a frequently asked questions portion of the letter, CNBC reported.

“Not a single @WellsFargo customer should see their credit score suffer just because their bank is restructuring after years of scams and incompetence. Sending out a warning notice simply isn’t good enough – Wells Fargo needs to make this right,” tweeted Warren, who has been critical of big banks.

Previously, customers were able to draw thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in personal lines of credit to pay for things such as home renovations or to combine credit card debt with high interest rate

In 2018, the Federal Reserve told the bank it could not grow its balance sheet following a fake accounts scandal in 2016.

CNBC noted that with less credit available for a customer to use, it would likely mean that customers would have to draw more from available credit and hurt their credit score.

In a statement to The Hill, Wells Fargo spokesman Manny Venegas declined to comment on Warren's tweet but stated: "As we simplify our product offerings, we made the decision last year to no longer offer personal lines of credit as we feel we can better meet the borrowing needs of our customers through credit card and personal loan products."

"We realize change can be inconvenient, especially when customer credit may be impacted. We are providing a 60-day notice period with a series of reminders before closure, and are committed to helping each customer find a credit solution that fits their needs," he added.

Venegas said that information regarding customers' credit scores had been included "because we know that with the closure of any type of financial product, a customer’s credit may be impacted."

"We want to ensure customers are aware of this so they can monitor...Wells Fargo does not determine or know what factors are used to calculate an individual credit score; therefore, we are not able to estimate what, if any, impact this closure will have on a customer’s individual credit score," he added.

Venegas said the bank recommends customers make scheduled payments on time "to ensure positive (paid as agreed) credit bureau reporting."