Why women – including feminists – are still attracted to 'benevolently sexist' men

 A VARIATION ON WHY WOMEN LIKE BAD BOYS

Tom R. Kupfer, Marie Curie Research Fellow, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  Pelin Gül, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Iowa State University

Sun, September 12, 2021

What sort of signal does holding a door for a woman send? KOLOTAILO LIDIIA

If a man offers to help a woman with her heavy suitcase or to parallel park her car, what should she make of the offer?

Is it an innocuous act of courtesy? Or is it a sexist insult to her strength and competence?

Social psychologists who describe this behavior as “benevolent sexism” firmly favor the latter view.


But researchers have also revealed a paradox: Women prefer men who behave in ways that could be described as benevolently sexist over those who don’t.

How could this be?

Some say that women simply fail to see the ways benevolent sexism undermines them because they’re misled by the flattering tone of this brand of kindness. Psychologists have even suggested that benevolent sexism is more harmful than overtly hostile sexism because it is insidious, acting like “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

As social psychologists, we had reservations about these conclusions. Aren’t women sophisticated enough to be able to tell when a man is being patronizing?

Surprisingly no previous research had tested whether women do, in fact, fail to recognize that benevolent sexism can be patronizing and undermining. And given our backgrounds in evolutionary theory, we also wondered if these behaviors were nonetheless attractive because they signaled a potential mate’s willingness to invest resources in a woman and her offspring.

So we conducted a series of studies to further explore women’s attraction to benevolently sexist men.
What does benevolent sexism really signal?

The concept of benevolent sexism was first developed in 1996. The idea’s creators argued that sexism is not always openly hostile. To them, attitudes like “women should be cherished and protected by men” or behaviors like opening car doors for women cast them as less competent and always in need of help. In this way, they argued, benevolent sexism subtly undermines gender equality.

Since then, social psychologists have been busy documenting the pernicious effects that benevolent sexism has on women.

According to studies, women who acquiesce to this behavior tend to become increasingly dependent on men for help. They’re more willing to allow men to tell them what they can and can’t do, are more ambivalent about thinking for themselves, are less ambitious and don’t perform as well at work and on cognitive tests.

Given these documented downsides, why are women still attracted to this behavior?

The answer could lie in what evolutionary biologists call “parental investment theory.”

Whereas men can successfully reproduce by providing a few sex cells, a woman’s reproductive success must be tied to her ability to complete months of gestation and lactation.

During much of human history, a woman’s ability to choose a mate who was able and willing to assist in this process – by providing food or protection from aggressors – would have increased her reproductive success.

Evolution, therefore, shaped female psychology to attend to – and prefer – mates whose characteristics and behaviors reveal the willingness to invest. A prospective mate’s muscular physique (and, today, his big wallet) certainly indicate that he possesses this ability. But opening a car door or offering his coat are signs that he may have the desired disposition.
Women weigh in

In our recently published research, we asked over 700 women, ages ranging from 18 to 73, in five experiments, to read profiles of men who either expressed attitudes or engaged in behaviors that could be described as benevolently sexist, like giving a coat or offering to help with carrying heavy boxes.

We then had the participants rate the man’s attractiveness; willingness to protect, provide and commit; and his likelihood of being patronizing.

Our findings confirmed that women do perceive benevolently sexist men to be more patronizing and more likely to undermine their partners.

But we also found that the women in our studies perceived these men as more attractive, despite the potential pitfalls.

So what made them more attractive to our participants? In their responses, the women in our study rated them as more likely to protect, provide and commit.

We then wondered whether these findings could only really be applied to women who are simply OK with old-fashioned gender roles.

To exclude this possibility, we studied participants’ degree of feminism with a widely used survey that measures feminist attitudes. We had them indicate their level of agreement with statements such as “a woman should not let bearing and rearing children stand in the way of a career if she wants it.”

We found that strong feminists rated men as more patronizing and undermining than traditional women did. But like the other women, they still found these men more attractive; the drawbacks were outweighed by the men’s willingness to invest. It seems that even staunch feminists may prefer a chivalrous mate who picks up the check on a first date or walks closer to the curb on a sidewalk.

In this time of fraught gender relations, our findings may provide reassurance for women who are confused about how to feel towards a man who acts chivalrous, and well-meaning men who wonder whether they should change their behavior towards women.

But several interesting questions remain. Does benevolent sexism always undermine women? It might depend on context. A male being overly helpful to a female co-worker in a patronizing way might hurt her ability to project professional competence. On the other hand, it’s tough to see the harm in helping a woman move heavy furniture in the home.

Understanding these nuances may allow us to reduce the negative effects of benevolent sexism without requiring women to reject the actual good things that can arise from this behavior.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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What the ‘Fearless Girl’ statue and Harvey Weinstein have in common

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

From COVID to Ida: Louisiana's marginalized 'see no way out'

AARON MORRISON

Sat, September 11, 2021, 5

CHALMETTE, La. (AP) — Darkness set in for Natasha Blunt well before Hurricane Ida knocked out power across Louisiana.

Months into the pandemic, she faced eviction from her New Orleans apartment. She lost her job at a banquet hall. She suffered two strokes. And she struggled to help her 5-year-old grandson keep up with schoolwork at home.

Like nearly a fifth of the state’s population — disproportionately represented by Black residents and women — Blunt, 51, lives below the poverty line, and the economic fallout of the pandemic sent her to the brink. With the help of a legal aid group and grassroots donors, she moved to Chalmette, a few miles outside New Orleans, and tried to settle into a two-bedroom apartment. Using a cane and taking a slew of medications since her strokes, she was unable to return to work. But federal benefits kept food in the fridge for the most part.

Then came Hurricane Ida.

The storm ravaged Louisiana as the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever hit the U.S. mainland, wiping out the power grid before marching up the coast and sparking devastating flooding in the Northeast. Among survivors of the deadly storm, the toll has been deepest in many ways for people like Blunt — those who already lost livelihoods to the COVID-19 pandemic in a region of longstanding racial and social inequality. Advocates say the small wins they’d made for marginalized communities and people of color since the pandemic began have been quickly wiped out.

“The government is really disconnected from what it’s like for people who have little to no safety net,” said Maggie Harris, a documentarian and grassroots organizer who last year created a fundraiser for Blunt and other women economically devastated by the pandemic. “You marginalize people, you don’t pay them enough, they have health problems and aren’t insured, you offer little cash assistance or rent assistance, and you allow them to be evicted.

"The message that people get is their lives are expendable.”

As Ida approached Louisiana, Blunt knew it was intensifying rapidly. She evacuated to a hotel in Lafayette, more than two hours west of her new home, a day ahead of landfall. But she could afford only a short stay, and the hotel was booked with other evacuees. She had to return to Chalmette, despite officials’ warnings not to go back to hot, humid cities with boil-water advisories and no power.

Her apartment was pitch black. Ida’s Category 4 winds had blown in the windows of her upstairs bedroom. Her few possessions — beds, clothing, furniture — were waterlogged. She’d spent her last dollars getting to the hotel, with no federal aid to evacuate.

“It’s like I’ve got to start all over again,” Blunt said, sobbing as she surveyed the first floor of her apartment, where she sleeps now that the bedroom is uninhabitable. “Every time I get a step ahead, I get pushed back down. And I’m tired. I don’t see no way out.”

Now, Blunt faces eviction for the second time in a year. Her only hope, she said, is Social Security and other disability benefits. She applied before the storm, she said, but has yet to hear back — social safety net programs are often disrupted in the wake of disasters.

Blunt wants to find a new home, preferably far from the storm-battered Gulf Coast — a place where grandson Kamille can resume schooling without worrying about power and Internet outages. But she’s far from optimistic.

“This is the end of the road; I can’t go on much longer,” she said. Kamille put down his kindergarten worksheet to gently rub his grandma’s leg.

“Don’t cry,” he told her. She managed a tender reply: “Do your ABCs, baby.”

____

Anti-poverty and housing advocates in Louisiana bemoan links between being Black or brown, living in impoverished areas, and being underserved by governmental disaster response. Available aid from anti-poverty programs often fails to meet the heightened needs of storm victims in states of emergency.

And that, the advocates say, is what happened during Ida. In Louisiana, where 17 storms that caused at least $1 billion in damage have hit since 2000, nonprofits see some of the most dire need and the starkest divide along socioeconomics lines.

“One of the things that we get really frustrated about, in terms of the narrative, is people saying, ‘Ugh, Louisiana is so resilient,” said Ashley Shelton of the Power Coalition for Equality and Justice, a statewide nonprofit that provides resources and encourages civic participation in underserved communities of color.

“We don’t want to be resilient forever,” she said. “Yes, we’re beautiful and resourceful people. But when you force people to live in a constant state of resilience, it’s just oppression. Fix the systems that are structurally broken.”

It doesn’t help that Louisiana’s poverty rate is higher than the national average, according to the Census Bureau 's American Community Survey. High poverty makes the prospect of temporary or permanent relocation precarious for people who were already teetering on the edge before disaster struck, said Andreanecia Morris of HousingNOLA, a program of the Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance.

“Housing is a foundational issue for all of these catastrophes, whether that be COVID, economic crisis, criminal justice, or education,” Morris said. “Our failure to address racial bias, gender bias and poverty bias in housing impedes all of those things. There is nowhere that is more clear than in our government’s response to disasters. And this one is no different.”

Less than a week after Ida hit, Morris spent a day canvassing areas of New Orleans where her organization helps the neediest cases. In the Lower Ninth Ward, a New Orleans neighborhood that suffered immensely after Hurricane Katrina, 57-year-old Lationa Kemp found herself cut off from most aid.

Kemp said she had been relying on neighbors with cars to get ice, hot meals and bottled water. To stay cool, Kemp left her front door open for fresh air. She’d gone days without power, and Ida had caused roof leaks and fence damage.

To Morris, the situation was urgent. Kemp had disputes with her landlord over the home’s condition, and the threat of eviction loomed. The landlord listed on her eviction notice did not respond to AP’s calls for comment.

Morris wants to get Kemp and her 25-year-old son, Alvin, moved elsewhere permanently. In the meantime, Morris suggested a cooling center.

“Thank you, baby, but I’m fine,” Kemp told her, explaining that she’d rather stay in a dilapidated home — past experiences make her fear the shelter system. “I already told the Lord, I’m praying that when I leave out of here, I’m going to a better house. I’ll have better income so I won’t have to go through this anymore.”

The Biden administration set aside nearly $50 billion for rental assistance during the pandemic, but the money has been slow to get out the door. Advocates in Louisiana say they hoped those COVID-19 funds could be transitioned for storm aid, too, but that it hasn't been so easy. And, for people like Blunt and Kemp, the technological savvy needed to apply online can be a hurdle.

Eventually, the Kemps will probably get the help they need, but it takes time, said Cynthia Wiggins, a tenant and property manager at New Orleans public housing development Guste Homes, one of just a few resident management corporations left in the U.S., where tenants share the responsibilities that landlords typically shoulder.

“There’s nothing that we can do to get around the process,” Wiggins said. “We have the available units, but we paused processing applications when the storm hit.”

____

Like many in Louisiana, Blunt has survived her share of storms — starting with her birth, during the fallout of Hurricane Camille in 1969. As she tells it, her pregnant mother had been moved to a naval medical ship to give birth. Today, Blunt can chuckle over the coincidence of her grandson’s name, Kamille.

“It’s like the storms keep coming for me,” she said, laughing.

The memory of Katrina is scarier. Blunt evacuated to Alabama and then Chicago. When it was safe, she and Kamille’s grandfather returned to their home in New Orleans’ seventh ward to find floodwater damage. But even with the horror stories of Katrina, Blunt said, Ida has been worse for her.

“This here was my worst-ever life experience, coming back to this, coming back to darkness,” she said. “I’m mad enough, I’m sick and scared as it is. Now, I’m tossing and turning at night.”

It might be enough for the lifelong Louisiana resident to leave for good. As she finds herself trashing her storm-damaged belongings, she said she sees no way to find peace in the state.

She’s not alone. Many people have fled the state after major storms, data show. In metro New Orleans, and even in Chalmette in particular, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded signification population loss from its 2000 to 2020 counts. After Katrina, in 2006, nearly 160,000 Louisiana residents in total moved to Texas, Georgia and Mississippi. Louisiana's population rebounded as people returned to rebuild, but it's been in decline again since 2016.

For families who stay in spite of natural disasters, it seems each new generation learns new lessons of survival, said Toya Lewis of Project Hustle, a New Orleans nonprofit that organizes Black and brown street vendors who work in the informal economies.

“No one was prepared to be without power in New Orleans for more than eight days,” Lewis said. “We’re taking all of this lived experience and organizing to thrive. We must begin organizing around our survival.”

And Blunt knows that no matter where she ends up, she’ll survive. Even in the darkness, she finds some light by helping her community — trying to secure a power source for a neighbor's breathing machine, sharing her car as a way for folks to charge cellphones. She tells herself: “I’m going to be OK. ... I do good. I don’t hurt nobody. I’m still standing.”

There's solace in the glimmers of light, but she wants more — not just for her, but for her grandson. “I want us to go somewhere better," Blunt said, helping Kamille with the TV remote, the power finally restored in their apartment.

"Somewhere I can be stable. I just want to be stable.”

___

AP writers Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland, and Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

___

Morrison is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.

Hurricane Ida Virus Perfect StormIn the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Lationa Kemp, 57, walks into her home, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)More

Serbs protest against lithium mining, other eco problems

DARKO VOJINOVIC
Sat, September 11, 2021, 


BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Several thousand people protested in Serbia on Saturday demanding a ban on planned lithium mining in the Balkan country as well as a resolution to scores of other environmental issues that made the region one of the most polluted in Europe.

The rally in downtown Belgrade was organized by about 30 ecological groups who recently gained popularity in Serbia amid widespread disillusionment with mainstream politicians and amid major pollution problems facing the region.

The protesters held banners demanding protection of Serbia’s rivers, nature and air which they say have been endangered by profit-seeking government policies and decades of neglect.

The protesters later blocked one of the main bridges in the capital for a while as they announced several other blockades in the rest of the country in the coming months.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition against international Rio Tinto mining company, which has sought to construct a lithium mine in the western parts of the country that is rich in the mineral used in the production of electric car batteries.

“Our demand is that the government of Serbia annul all obligations to Rio Tinto,” said Aleksandar Jovanovic, one of the organizers. “We have gathered to say no to those who offer concentrated sulphuric acid instead of raspberries and honey.”

A number of experts have warned that nature in western Serbia would suffer in the case of exploitation of lithium in the area that is rich in fertile land and agriculture. Serbia has also faced huge pollution problems caused by coal-powered plants run by Chinese companies.

In addition to mining, Serbia has faced mounting problems that include poor garbage management and high air pollution caused by the use of poor-quality coal and other pollutants. Rivers have been polluted by toxic industrial waste and many cities, including Belgrade, lack good sewage and waste water systems.

“We were thirsty this summer, we breathe toxic air and land is being sold out,” organizers of the protest said in a statement. “Forests are being cut and mines are expanding.”

The Balkan nations must substantially improve their environmental protection policies if they want to move forward in their bids to join the 27-nation EU. Impoverished and marred by corruption after years of wars in the 1990s, many Balkan countries have pushed environmental issues to the sidelines.

Rio Tinto has committed $2.4 billion to the project in Serbia which would make it one of the world’s largest producers of lithium amid increasing demand for electric cars

Serbia Protest

People attend a protest against pollution and the exploitation of a lithium mine in western part of the country, in Belgrade, Serbia, Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021. Hundreds activists gathered to protest against the exploitation of a lithium mine by international Rio Tinto company. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
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The Climate Museum is the first of its kind in the U.S. - and its founder is on a mission






Tatiana Schlossberg, Special To The Washington Post
Fri, September 10, 2021

Miranda Massie said she was going to do it herself, whatever it was.

That morning, the last of July, Massie, the founder and director of the Climate Museum, stood in an old military officer's house on Governors Island, one of the emerald studs in New York City's shimmering harbor necklace.

First, she rehung a giant orange poster that had fallen overnight. Then she stepped outside, answered a question from a volunteer, another from a staff member, scraped a Dole sticker off a bunch of organic bananas set out for future visitors, tucked on a baseball cap, posed for a picture and quickly shifted gears, her eyes flashing when asked about the fossil fuel industry's role in climate change.

"Their disinformation has delayed action, resulting in the mayhem we see. But just as there are bad actors isn't the point, the community and art and coming together we are facilitating today isn't the point either," she said, lighting up as she continued to explain.

"The point is to stop their influence on policy. How can you explain their influence on climate policy to a rational person?" She paused. "You can't."

Massie was on Governors Island that day to launch a poster campaign called "Beyond Lies," a collaboration between the museum and Mona Chalabi, data editor at the Guardian US, as well as a journalist and illustrator. The campaign explores the culpability of the fossil fuel industry in stalling climate action.

This mission - better informing the public about the industry's actions over the last few decades - is a piece of Massie's larger project with the Climate Museum, which is the first of its kind in the United States.

In the last several years, the organization has had about 80,000 visits to its in-person programming - probably an underestimate, as it's impossible to know how many people come across a public art installation. It has always aspired to bring discussions about climate change out of the science silo to the broader public. Since its inception in 2015, though, the institution has transformed from an organization using art to raise awareness about climate change to an institution focused on the intersection of art, climate science, justice and activism - and how each can be used in service of the others to urge meaningful climate action in our political system and our culture.

Rather than building an explicitly educational space or a climate-art gallery, Massie has created a museum that aims to make people feel that collective action is both possible and necessary, and the only hope we have of saving the planet.

"The real change comes in what people feel in relation to each other, and in relation to their own capacity, their own agency in the world," she said. "That's where the transformation comes, and that's when people are able to decide to act."

But Massie used to be like so many of us, kind of. She avoided reading climate change news. For years, she repeatedly rented but never got around to watching "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's 2006 documentary about climate change, because she feared the resulting sense of dread would be overwhelming. And in her one small act of youthful rebellion against her Earth-conscious father, she decided that environmentalism was "the province of the privileged - for people who didn't have more pressing and immediate concerns."

But she had the nagging sense that climate change was going to come into her life eventually. If she watched the movie, she thought, she knew deep down she'd have to give up everything else she was doing to try to change the world.

Before that happened, Massie tried to change the world in a different way: She worked as a civil rights attorney and public interest lawyer, fighting for civil rights, affirmative action, environmental justice, immigrant justice and disability rights in Detroit and New York.

But as the crisis inched closer, Massie felt like she couldn't avoid it anymore.

Starting in 2008, she was working on environmental justice issues in New York. Her main case was about the city's public schools, where PCBs - highly toxic industrial compounds that can result in severe developmental and neurological problems with prolonged exposure in fetuses, infants and young children - were leaking from light fixtures into several hundred classrooms, including one led by a pregnant teacher.

While fighting that case, she said, she recognized "that without the right and the ability to thrive in your environment, all other claims to equality, all other civil rights, are at best much more difficult to enforce, and at worst, kind of irrelevant."

In 2012, she further bore witness up close to the reality of environmental justice and the destruction of climate change in the form of Hurricane Sandy. Those events also coincided with a major professional setback - being turned down for a leadership role at her public interest law organization - which taught her not to be afraid of failing in public.

The confluence of those different story lines pushed her to become, rather suddenly, someone completely committed to climate issues. She became someone who, without curatorial training or a background in art, climate science, public education or fundraising, quit her job and changed careers, taking on a significant risk to start the country's first museum dedicated to climate change.

Getting it off the ground - putting together exhibitions and programming, raising nearly $4 million, amassing grants from the Mellon Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, along with governmental grants - hasn't been easy work. But close observers say that if anyone can do it, it's Massie, though she is practically allergic to centering herself in the narrative or taking credit for almost anything the museum has achieved.

Peter Knight, an early adviser to the Climate Museum and chair of its board, said of Massie, "Many of us in public service are trying to figure out our highest and best use. The fact that she could pivot at that point in her life to say, 'I was doing some important things, but my highest best use could and should be to solve this problem,' . . . well, it's hard to put into words, but that takes a great deal of courage to do."

In 2015, the Climate Museum was born.

But this past summer, that day in July at the old officer's home, it felt a bit like a party. There was music by Dr. Drum, an Afro Rican bomba drummer and social justice activist from the Bronx, joined by two bandmates. Student volunteers from local high schools handed out smaller versions of the posters to passersby for them to read at their leisure, or, preferably, to take home and hang in their own neighborhood or share with others. All of the posters are also downloadable, so people everywhere can participate in the campaign.

It was the museum's first event since the covid-19 pandemic stalled previous plans for exhibitions and opportunities to bring people together to learn and organize for climate action in person. Massie, with a shock of so-white-it's-almost-purple hair atop a petite frame, was thrilled by how many people stopped by the event, including many who had never heard of the museum before, engaging with her brand of climate activism for the first time.

The Climate Museum still doesn't have a physical location, though Massie hopes to move into a permanent home in New York in the next few years. The Trust for Governors Island, a nonprofit created by the city to manage and develop the former military base for greater public use, has granted the museum a seasonal exhibition space.

Since each project or exhibition is a negotiation for space and funding, the museum has managed to stay nimble, which was an asset during the pandemic - the staff already knew how to leverage their following and their online presence to engage the community Massie calls "the climate curious" - a group of people identified by researchers as those who are interested and "freaked out" about climate change, but don't have anyone to talk to about it.

Part of the museum's ability to adapt, close observers say, comes from the example Massie sets for the organization. Sloan Leo, an artist and community designer who has worked for years in the world of environmental and social justice non-profits, said of Massie, "She is willing to fail without judgment. She is open not just for pushback but also critique as a way to improve," they said. "She is a very rare bird."

The museum's success also derives from Massie's unique ability to engage and inspire. Those who encounter the museum sense that there is work to be done that they, particularly and specifically, can do.

Maggie O'Donnell started as a curatorial intern at the Climate Museum in 2019 after graduating from college, and has stayed to work at the museum since then. She now serves as the research and program coordinator. O'Donnell was previously inclined toward environmentalism and climate action, though she viewed her activism as "more personal," she said.

Working at the museum, specifically as a docent during the "Taking Action" exhibition, changed how she thought of collective action and movement building, she said. The way that the Climate Museum practices engaging new communities and bringing people along is "not forceful, but a celebration of where people are at on their climate journeys and how can we help you take action and feel part of something bigger than yourself."

The act of gathering is one thing that generally makes people feel part of something bigger than themselves, and assembling has been difficult during the pandemic. But the museum found a way by putting together a series of virtual panel discussions recorded and uploaded to YouTube entitled "Talking Climate," covering everything from climate law to displacement, to public health and the food system. According to Massie, 85 percent of viewers surveyed said it would make them take some form of action on climate change.

But one of the museum's most successful events - in terms of public engagement and press attention, at least - was its 2018 show, "Climate Signals."

For that, the museum worked with Justin Brice Guariglia, an artist and photographer, and placed solar-powered LED highway signs - far away from roadways so as not to distract drivers - with varying messages about climate change in locations around all five boroughs of New York City. In partnership with neighborhood groups, it targeted locations where the city is especially vulnerable to sea level rise.

Massie also wanted to ensure that the installations drew attention to the social and environmental injustices, placing signs in neighborhoods where people of color experience disproportionately higher temperatures and more pollution than White neighborhoods, as well as sites in Lower Manhattan and Wall Street - icons of global finance and wealth.

For several months, people could see in the languages most commonly spoken in each neighborhood - English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and French - signs heralding warnings and messages about climate change: "Climate Change at Work," "No Icebergs Ahead," "Alt Facts End Now," "Abolish Coal-onialism," "End Climate Injustice," "Vote Eco Logically" and others.

One day the staff sent scientists out to stand at some of the signs and answer questions visitors might have about climate change. They anticipated questions about climate science. Most of what they got, however, were questions like, "What can I do to make a difference?"

That, Massie said - along with her own evolution as the world hurtles ever faster toward mass extinctions, rising sea levels, increasingly furious forest fires and more - helped change what she wanted to accomplish with the museum.

"Art is built into who we are and how we're communal," she said. "We always try to bring art and science together, and without the science, we'd be nowhere. . . . But it's not as important for people to learn the details of climate science as it is for them to feel connected in the human project of changing the world."

'Extra Special' White Rhino Born at Disney's Animal Kingdom to First-Time Mom Jao

Naledi Ushe
Sat, September 11, 2021, 

baby rhino

Dr. Mark Penning/Instagram

A new rhino is coming to Disney's Animal Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida!

Disney Park's Vice President of Animals, Science & Environment, Dr. Mark Penning, shared a photo of the baby calf alongside its mother on Wednesday.


"🦏🦏🦏 BABY NEWS! Our team of animal care experts welcomed our newest baby animal to the family this morning – an adorable white rhino calf!" Penning announced.

The baby calf's sex and weight are not immediately available as "it's important to give first-time mom Jao and her newborn ample time to nurse and bond backstage," the official said. Eventually, the newborn will make its way to Animal Kingdom's Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction.

Penning promised more photos of Jao and her newborn "soon."

The VP also noted, "White rhinos are endangered, so this birth is extra special for this incredible species."

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The baby white rhino makes a total of four newborns at Animal Kingdom's Kilimanjaro Safaris this year.

In May, guests got to witness Heidi the Hartmann's mountain zebra give birth to her foal. The newborn weighed in at a healthy 65 pounds and stood up on his hooves minutes after entering the world.

RELATED: See the Wacky, Weird and Wonderful Finalists of the 2021 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

A few months later, Disney Park's Animal Kingdom welcomed two babies back to back.

A Nile hippopotamus calf was born on July 12 and a western lowland gorilla followed on July 13.

A blog post by veterinarian Scott Terrell, Director of Animal & Science Operations at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts reports that gorilla mom Azizi welcomed her infant backstage and, soon after, introduced the baby to the family troop.

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Meanwhile, new hippopotamus mom Tuma gave birth to her little one in the Safi River on Kilimanjaro Safaris. Terrell reported the newborn was "nuzzling with mom and moving through the water like a pro."

According to Terrell, both sets of new parents were paired through the Species Survival Plan, "a program overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums," he shared. "The plan ensures responsible breeding of vulnerable or critically endangered species — including Nile hippopotamuses and western lowland gorillas — to help create healthy, genetically diverse populations for years to come."

‘The harm to children is irreparable’: Ruth Etzel speaks out ahead of EPA whistleblower hearing


Carey Gillam
Sat, September 11, 2021, 

Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The US Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect children by ignoring poisons in the environment and focusing on corporate interests, according to a top children’s health official who will testify this week that the agency tried to silence her because of her insistence on stronger preventions against lead poisoning.

“The people of the United States expect the EPA to protect the health of their children, but the EPA is more concerned with protecting the interests of polluting industries,” said Ruth Etzel, former director of the EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP). The harm being done to children is “irreparable”, she said.

Related: EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous chemicals, say whistleblowers

A hearing will be held on 13 September in which several internal EPA communications will be presented as evidence, including an email in which EPA personnel discuss using press inquiries about Etzel as “an opportunity to strike” out against her. Among many witnesses to be called to testify are several former high-level EPA officials.

“I want this to be seen and heard,” Etzel said. “I think we should let some light shine on these dirty tricks.”

Etzel is among five current or former EPA scientists who have recently come forward with allegations that the agency, which is charged with regulating chemicals and other substances that may harm public and environmental health, has become deeply corrupted by corporate and political influence. That outside influence pushes agency scientists to make important assessments in ways that will protect their jobs, rather than protect the public, Etzel said.

The whistleblowers have alleged a range of wrongdoing by the EPA, including using intimidation tactics against the agency’s own scientists to protect the interests of certain industries, even when doing so puts the public at risk. The problems have continued into the Biden administration, according to the allegations.
‘Destroy the scientist’

Etzel is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who joined the EPA in 2015 after serving as senior officer in the department of public health and environment at the World Health Organization in Switzerland. She also previously worked for the US Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Agriculture, and is well known as a global expert on children’s health issues.

In her role at the EPA, Etzel helped launch an initiative to accelerate the reduction of childhood exposure to lead from sources in air, water, soil, paint and food. The federal lead strategy stalled, Etzel alleges, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump when the EPA came under the direction of administrator Andrew Wheeler.

Etzel filed her whistleblower complaint against the EPA in November 2018 alleging that her determination to push the initiative forward, including publicly complaining about EPA delays, triggered retaliation.

The EPA placed her on leave, demoted her, cut her pay, fabricated complaints against her, and conducted a smear campaign aimed at “humiliating” her and “undermining her career and professional stature”, according to her complaint. The EPA also blocked opportunities for her to speak at professional conferences, she alleges.

Internal EPA email communications included as evidence in the case shows that initial questions from media about Etzel’s administrative leave drew curt responses declining to comment on “personnel matters”. But as media inquiries about Etzel mounted, on 28 September 2018, a top EPA public affairs official wrote to the EPA press secretary and other public affairs officers: “This is our opportunity to strike.”

Then, in an email thread with the subject line “Push this around ASAP please,” public affairs officials agreed to a “stronger updated” statement about Etzel that said she was placed on administrative leave because of “serious reports made against her by staff … ” that were “very concerning”.

“The old playbook was attack the science,” Etzel told the Guardian. “The new playbook is destroy the scientist.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 100 other public health-oriented organizations and institutions sent a letter in 2018 to the EPA protesting the removal of Etzel, who has received multiple national and international awards for scientific integrity and advocacy in recent years.
‘Right the wrongs of the past’

In a pre-hearing statement, the EPA denied taking retaliatory actions against Etzel and said the federal lead action plan was issued in December 2018 and was a “major focus and significant accomplishment”.

“While appellant Ruth Etzel has alleged that EPA’s former administration delayed implementation of the action plan with the premise that it did not care about children and lead exposure issues, the profuse record and witness testimony will illustrate that appellant’s allegations are grossly unfounded,” the EPA said in the filing with the MSPB.

The EPA said there were numerous complaints about Etzel’s management, including complaints that she used “explicit language”, “failed to follow agency HR policy”, was unable “to control her emotions”, and often would “bully others”.

In a statement to The Guardian the EPA said: “This administration is committed to ensuring all EPA decisions are informed by rigorous scientific information and standards. Retaliation against employees who report alleged violations is not tolerated at EPA.”

Paula Dinerstein, a lawyer with the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is representing Etzel, said the EPA still has not taken action to implement the lead protection strategy, and has acknowledged the “libelous claims” against Etzel were not substantiated.

The Biden administration should not only reinstate Etzel to her previous position, but should also take steps to address the deeper problems revealed by whistleblowers, Dinerstein said.

“Etzel and other recent EPA whistleblowers have exposed EPA’s timidity and industry capture,” she said. “The Biden administration has said a lot of the right things, and has taken some good steps, but it will take a lot of effort and pressure to ensure they right the wrongs of the past.”

The case of Etzel v EPA is set for a hearing in front of the US Merit Systems Protection Board on 13-15 September. The proceedings are open to the public, and scheduled to be held via Zoom due to fears about the spread of Covid-19.

How Arctic warming can trigger extreme cold waves like the Texas freeze – a new study makes the connection


Mathew Barlow, Professor of Climate Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

 and Judah Cohen, Climate scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Fri, September 10, 2021

Temperatures in normally warm Texas plunged into the teens in February 2021, knocking out power for a population unaccustomed to cold, with deadly consequences. Thomas Shea / AFP via Getty Images

In February 2021, in the midst of rapidly warming global temperatures, an exceptionally severe cold wave hit large parts of North America, from Canada to Northern Mexico. It left 10 million people without power. The impact was particularly severe in Texas, which alone had more than 125 deaths associated with the event.

In the U.S., it was the coldest February in more than 30 years. The cold wave became the nation’s costliest winter storm on record.

The freezing temperatures were associated with a dip southward in the jet stream, a band of strong winds about eight miles above Earth’s surface associated with the boundary between colder and warmer air.


The jet stream flows from west to east, but that’s not the only direction in which atmospheric waves can move – they can also move up and down over large distances, and that can link the weather and climate in one region, like the Arctic, with regions elsewhere, like Texas.

Surface temperatures on Feb. 15, 2021, at 6 a.m. in Texas. The black lines show the jet stream, and the white line indicates the extent of freezing temperatures. Mathew Barlow/University of Massachusetts Lowell, CC BY-ND

When you throw a rock in a pond, you see ripples – waves – expand away from the initial disturbance. While ripples on a pond are a different type of wave than dips in the jet stream, both types of waves can transmit the effects of a disturbance to faraway areas.


In this case, the atmospheric waves transmitted the influence of climate change in the Arctic to parts of North America and Asia.

In a study released Sept. 2, 2021, in the journal Science, we show how that happened and how, counter to what one might expect, events like the February cold wave can actually become more likely with global warming.
What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay there

The Arctic is warming more rapidly than any other region, at a rate more than twice the global average.

This is causing large changes in the region’s climate, including melting sea ice and, in the late fall, increasing snow cover over Siberia.

Ice and snow provide an insulating layer and are highly reflective, so their changes strongly alter the amount of energy and moisture moving between the surface of the Earth and the atmosphere. The atmosphere is sensitive to changes in energy and moisture, so substantial changes provide a “kick” to the atmosphere that results in upward moving waves rippling away from the area.

These waves move upward into the stratosphere and disrupt the stratospheric polar vortex, another band of fast winds that circles closer around the pole in the middle stratosphere, around 18 miles up. In response, the vortex weakens and stretches.

Two circulation patterns of the stratospheric polar vortex: strong (left) and stretched (right). Blue curves indicate approximate edge of the vortex; shown at about 9.3 miles, or 15 kilometers, above the surface. Mathew Barlow, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Not only can the stratospheric vortex be changed by the waves, but the vortex can also change how the waves move, because the waves are influenced by the wind and temperature fields they move through, and the vortex helps determine those winds and temperatures. What differentiates a vortex stretching event from larger vortex disruptions is that upward-moving waves are reflected back down to the surface, where they can influence lower-altitude weather patterns.

A schematic shows wave activity reflecting off the stretched stratospheric polar vortex. Mathew Barlow, University of Massachusetts Lowell

As these downward moving waves collect at lower altitudes over North America, they create a southward dip in the jet stream, bringing cold air farther south than usual. So, the upward and downward movement of atmospheric waves over long distances – like ripples moving across a pond – can link the Arctic to other regions.
Testing cause and effect

We took two different approaches to identifying and examining these relationships.

First, we used a machine learning, a technique in which a computer essentially trained itself to group similar events from the historical data. We then analyzed the stretched vortex events to show that, for those cases, there was a typical sequence of events: first surface temperature changes in the Arctic, then changes in the stratospheric polar vortex, followed by cold waves in North America and Asia – with vertically moving waves providing the connections over the span of a few months. The identified surface temperature changes in the Arctic are similar to those associated with the melting sea ice and increasing Siberian snow cover of Arctic climate change.

We then used a computer model of the atmosphere to evaluate cause and effect and directly test how the atmosphere responds to those Arctic changes. We found that the model reproduced the observed sequence of events.

The machine learning analysis of observations and the computer modeling experiments provide two independent lines of evidence supporting a pathway of influence – from Arctic climate change at the surface up to changes in the stratospheric winds, and finally back down to cold waves in North America and parts of Asia.

Three globes show the timeline of changes through the year.
Implications of these results

Our research reinforces two crucial lessons of climate change: First, the change doesn’t have to occur in your backyard to have a big effect on you. Second, the unexpected consequences can be quite severe.

In this case, large changes in the Arctic are not just a local concern – they also have wide-ranging impacts across North America and parts of Asia. And those impacts are not always what people are expecting. The results highlight another reason to rapidly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global warming and at the same time the need to develop better strategies for managing extreme weather events, both hot and cold.

[Get our best science, health and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Mathew Barlow, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Judah Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Read more:

The water cycle is intensifying as the climate warms, IPCC report warns – that means more intense storms and flooding


IPCC climate report: Profound changes are underway in Earth’s oceans and ice – a lead author explains what the warnings mean


Is climate change to blame for extreme weather events? Attribution science says yes, for some – here’s how it works

Mathew Barlow receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Judah Cohen receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.

Ever spot tiny ‘horns’ on a Texas beach? They belong to an elusive squid species



Chacour Koop
Fri, September 10, 2021, 

If you’re a beachcomber with a good eye, there’s a chance you’ve spotted a tiny, curled “horn” in the sand.

So, what sea creature is it from?

Padre Island National Seashore shared a photo Friday of the milky-colored shell found last week on the barrier island near Corpus Christi, Texas.

“If you’ve found one of these on the seashore while beachcombing, consider yourself very lucky!” Padre Island National Seashore posted on Facebook. “Why? Because you didn’t pick up a shell that an animal lived in, you picked up a shell that was inside an animal!”

The shell belongs to a ram’s horn squid and it helps the creature control buoyancy deep in the ocean, experts said.

“Because it is so buoyant, even after the squid has died, the ram’s horn shells can still float all the way up to shore,” the post said.

The shells are typically about 1 inch.

“They probably wash up with regular frequency but are hard to find because their milky appearance makes them blend in perfectly with the sand,” a Padre Island National Seashore spokesperson told McClatchy News.

Technically named Spirula spirula, the tiny ram’s horn squid was first filmed in the wild last year by researchers mapping the Great Barrier Reef spotted it with a remotely operated vehicle, LiveScience reported.

“Researchers were all surprised to see this squid as it was nothing like any of us had seen before,” Valerie Cornet, a James Cook University masters student in Australia who researched with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, told LiveScience.

Once an engineering marvel, scenic Colorado highway now threatened by climate change


Vicky Collins
Sun, September 12, 2021, 2:30 AM·6 min read

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — The flash flood roared down Glenwood Canyon with such force that it changed the course of the Colorado River. Torrents of mud, boulders as big as cars and toppled trees plunged down towering walls of rock carved over millennia.

When it was over, the July 29 mudslide left a gaping hole in Interstate 70. The river of mud had breached a wall and swept across the highway, sending the eastbound deck crashing into the waterway and burying one of the most scenic drives in Colorado under 6 feet of debris.

"This is dirt the dinosaurs walked on, and it's all gone," said Tim Holbrook, a supervisor with the Colorado Transportation Department, who has seen all manner of blizzards, floods and wildfires in 19 years in highway maintenance but nothing like this summer's spectacle.

Image: Tim Holbrook is a supervisor with the Colorado Department of Transportation. (Vicky Collins / for NBC News)


When the interstate through Glenwood Canyon was built it was considered an engineering marvel, an ambitious construction project that preserved the stunning environment. But the 12-mile corridor through the canyon in western Colorado leaves little room for maneuvering, and traffic is easily disrupted.

Experts say the situation is magnified by the changing climate and its cascade of crises this summer: drought, wildfires, monsoons and mudflows.

The physical alterations have led to road closures, hourslong detours, environmental disasters and economic displacement. And they have prompted hard questions about aging infrastructure designed decades before climate change moved to the forefront of public discourse.

"This should be a warning, the canary in the coal mine," said Paul Chinowsky, director of the environmental design department at the University of Colorado. "It's time to go back and look at where our critical transportation routes are, because most of them are probably pretty vulnerable to this type of situation."

Image: Tim Holbrook overlooking Colorado River with mudslide debris (Vicky Collins / for NBC News)

"We cannot let the engineering hubris or arrogance overcome the science of saying what you design for no longer exists," he said.

Maintenance crews continue to repair a 1½-mile section of the interstate. Traffic is down to one lane in each direction where it was most damaged. Workers have been dogged by smaller slides and weather threats that have forced them to close the highway nine times. The slide also took out utilities and communication networks.

"We have this great confidence that this one thing will never fail. And then when it does fail, everyone runs around going, 'How did that happen?'" Chinowsky said. "All it takes is one disruption, and you really have economic damage."

The closures have profoundly affected Glenwood Springs, a tourism-dependent resort city whose renowned hot springs have drawn visitors for generations. Many people with reservations at hotels this summer who drove in from the Denver area were subjected to three- to four-hour detours. The historic Hotel Colorado was hit with $72,000 in cancellations in a single day. Workers in the hospitality industry could not get to their jobs, and some staffers at Valley View Hospital had to be flown in by helicopter from their homes on the other side of the slide.

Image: Vehicles move past Glenwood Canyon Mile Marker 123.5, near where a mudslide caused a hole by destroying the parapet of the westbound freeway. (Vicky Collins / for NBC News)

"Our resiliency is being tested," Mayor Jonathan Godes said. "We will recover, but communities that can't, communities that don't have the ability, the finance, the tax base to be able to do projects, to provide a bit of resiliency, redundancy, are going to really struggle in the new paradigm."

When the interstate is closed, traffic is diverted through Steamboat Springs, a town of 13,000 people about a three-hour drive from Glenwood Springs that is a gateway to some of the best skiing and outdoor activities in Colorado. Hundreds of semitrucks and tractor-trailers rumble through the downtown corridor lined with shops and restaurants, braking at the eight stop lights and belching exhaust fumes.

"It's not how we want people to experience our beautiful place," said Kara Stoller, CEO of the Steamboat Springs Chamber of Commerce. "When I-70 is closed in Glenwood Canyon, the residents are not motivated or excited to even go through town."

Image: Truck traffic in Steamboat Spring, Colo. (Vicky Collins / for NBC News)

Andrew Hoell, a research meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said "really extreme" weather events about a year apart led to the mudflow.

Record-low rainfall from January 2020 through May 2021, combined with historically high temperatures, created "a perfect storm," he said. A NOAA report said the phenomenon was "exceptional in the observational climate record since 1895."

"We call these compounding and cascading events, where they build on one another and they produce very bad consequences at the end," Hoell said.

Evidence that the mudslide was caused by climate change is "overwhelming," he said. "The higher temperatures are creating more demand of the land surface moisture, causing droughts to get that much worse."

Drought soon led to wildfire. Last year, the Grizzly Creek fire chewed up trees and other vegetation on both sides of the interstate. It burned for months, destroying over 32,000 acres and closing the interstate in Glenwood Canyon for two weeks. The fire was so intense that ash fell in Denver, 155 miles away.

Then came this year's seasonal monsoons, which typically cause intense mountain storms that pass quickly. This one dumped over 4 inches of rain in five days, double the average monthly rainfall, causing the ground to collapse on the burn scar and trapping over 100 people in vehicles below. The mudslide blew out the parapet wall on westbound I-70, ripped the road away on the eastbound interstate and crashed into the Colorado River.

Drone video revealed a gash in a mountain rising thousands of feet to what was once forestland. The collapse left 6 feet of mud and debris on the highway, which took 2½ weeks and 4,000 truckloads to clear.

"The problem that most people run into when they're looking at climate is they put it into silos, they compartmentalize it," Chinowsky said. "And that's not the way things work when it comes to a system. Anywhere you poke at it, somewhere else is going to get out of balance, and that's exactly what happened with Glenwood Canyon."

The Colorado River used to run wide through the passage, but it has narrowed with the accumulation of sediment, affecting the habitat and food supply of trout and other fish. Biologists are concerned that the fish that survived will not be able to build their nests, called redds, to lay eggs and that the insects they feed on will perish.

"We've had some reports from folks that have been on the river rafting and anglers that have noticed some fish that have been dead as a result of the mudslides," said Lori Martin, an aquatic biologist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. "But we don't know what that means long-term in terms of impacts to the entire population and fish communities."

Today, massive sandbags weighing 3,000 pounds are the first line of defense against another slide. The state is working to fully reopen the most damaged part of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon by Thanksgiving.

"Who knows what the future will bring?" said Holbrook, of the Transportation Department, who is bracing for the next slide and more damage to the picturesque highway.

"You can pretty much engineer yourself out of anything," he said. "What's viable? Can it be built? Yeah, but at what cost?"

Coronavirus: China to donate 100 million vaccine doses to developing countries by end of 2021, says Xi Jinping

Owen Churchill
Fri, September 10, 2021, 3:30 AM·4 min read

China will donate 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to developing countries by the end of 2021, Chinese president Xi Jinping said on Thursday in an announcement reported by Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

Xi made the pledge in a virtual summit with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa - which together with China make up the BRICS alliance of emerging economies.

As well as unveiling the vaccine donation pledge, Xi used the platform to trumpet the BRICS coalition as an increasingly forceful player in global affairs and to deliver a veiled rejection of criticism from Western governments.


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"Our five countries have supported multilateralism and taken part in global governance in the spirit of equity, justice, and mutual assistance," Xi said. "And we have become an important force on the international stage to be reckoned with."

Leaders of the BRICS nations Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during a video conference on Thursday. Photo: India's Press Information Bureau via AP alt=Leaders of the BRICS nations Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during a video conference on Thursday. Photo: India's Press Information Bureau via AP

In language echoing Chinese officials' claims that criticism of China from the US and other Western nations constitutes interference in Beijing's internal affairs, Xi said that the members of BRICS had "respected each other's social systems and paths of development".

Without providing specific examples of success, Xi said the pandemic had "shown that as long as we pool our minds and efforts, then we can make smooth, solid and sustained progress in BRICS cooperation, come what may".

The new vaccine pledge is the latest in a series of commitments from Beijing, as many countries continue to reel from the effects of the pandemic and struggle to vaccinate their citizens.

Earlier this week, Beijing announced it would donate three million Covid-19 vaccine doses along with other humanitarian resources to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

The Chinese government has also pledged to donate US$100 million to Covax, the World Health Organization (WHO) backed initiative to increase equitable access to vaccinations around the world.

Beijing's donation drive has spurred accusations from US lawmakers that China is using vaccines to curry favour with developing countries, claims that Beijing has denied.

"Vaccines are a weapon to defeat the epidemic, not a tool for political gain, much less an excuse to attack and discredit other countries," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in July.


A medical worker prepares to administer a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to a man at a vaccination site, during a government-organised visit, in Beijing, China on January 15, 2021. Photo: Reuters alt=A medical worker prepares to administer a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to a man at a vaccination site, during a government-organised visit, in Beijing, China on January 15, 2021. Photo: Reuters

Thursday's announcement also coincides with rising concerns that low-income countries' access to vaccines will be further hampered should richer countries like the US move ahead with booster shots for individuals already fully vaccinated.

While countries like the US, Canada, and Britain have each vaccinated more than half of their total populations, not one low-income country has achieved a vaccination rate of 10 per cent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

On Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a pause on booster shots for the rest of 2021, expressing concern that vaccine manufacturers' focus on deals with rich nations was depriving low-income countries "of the tools to protect their people".

"We have been calling for vaccine equity from the beginning, not after the richest countries have been taken care of," Tedros said at a regular WHO press briefing.

To date, China has sold around 1.2 billion vaccine doses globally, and donated some 54 million, according to a tracker by Bridge Consulting, a Beijing-based consultancy.

In comparison, the US has donated almost 128 million vaccine doses globally, with around two-thirds of those going to countries across Asia and Africa, according to the State Department.

While Western politicians have accused China of politicising vaccine relief, US President Joe Biden has cast the global vaccination rush as an opportunity to prove that the US is "back leading the world".

"In the race for the 21st century between democracies and autocracies, we need to prove that democracies can deliver," Biden said in an August address touting his administration's vaccine donation efforts.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2021 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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