SAFFRON IS WORTH MORE THAN OPIUM OR POT

Afghan saffron boss says Taliban will not silence her

Issued on: 27/09/2021 - 

HOSHANG HASHIMI AFP


Herat (Afghanistan) (AFP)

An Afghan business leader who employs hundreds of women on her saffron fields has vowed to speak up for the rights of her workers, and "not remain silent" under Taliban rule.

The hardliners have increasingly excluded women from public life since sweeping to power in mid-August, pushing many female entrepreneurs to flee the country or go into hiding.

Many fear a return to their brutally oppressive rule from 1996 to 2001 when women were effectively banned from going to school or work, and only allowed to leave the house with a male relative.

"We will raise our voice so that it reaches their ears," said Shafiqeh Attai, who started her saffron company in the western city of Herat in 2007.

"No matter what happens we won't just sit at home, because we have worked very hard."

- 'We will not remain silent' -

Attai's business, the Pashton Zarghon Saffron Women's Company, produces, processes, packages and exports the world's most expensive spice with an almost exclusively female workforce.

More than 1,000 women pick the brightly coloured crocuses across the company's 25 hectares (60 acres) of land in the Pashton Zarghon district of Herat Province, which borders Iran.

Another 55 hectares are independently owned and operate under the collective that Attai set up for women saffron pickers, who are represented by union leaders.

Employing women allows them to be breadwinners for their families, Attai said, enabling them to send their children to school, and to buy them clothing and other essentials.

The red pistil, which is made up of three stigma, is dried and ready to be sold HOSHANG HASHIMI AFP

"I worked hard to establish my business," the 40-year-old said. "We don't want to sit quietly and be ignored. Even if they ignore us, we will not remain silent."

- Alternative to opium -

The ousted, Western-backed government encouraged farmers to grow the spice -- used in dishes from biryani to paella -- in a bid to wean them away from Afghanistan's huge and problematic poppy industry.

Still, the country remains by far the world's biggest producer of opium and heroin, supplying between 80 and 90 percent of global output.

During their previous stint in power, the Taliban -- who used the sale of opium to fund their insurgency -- destroyed much of the crop ostensibly to eradicate it, though critics said it was to drive up the value of their huge stockpiles.

The cultivation of poppies has again surged in recent years, as poverty and instability increased. Afghanistan's production area is now roughly four times larger now than in 2002, according to the United Nations.

- 'Red gold' -

Herat Province produces the vast majority of Afghanistan's saffron.

Afghanistan's army of workers take to the country's sun-baked fields to pick the popular spice

 HOSHANG HASHIMI AFP

At more than $5,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), saffron is the world's most expensive spice, and Attai's company produces between 200 and 500 kilos each year.

The pistil of the flower has for centuries been used around the world in cooking, perfumes, medicines, tea and even as an aphrodisiac -- and because of its high price has been dubbed "red gold" by those who rely on its cultivation.

Best grown in the baking hot sun, the bright purple saffron flowers are harvested in October and November by armies of workers, many of them women in their fifties and sixties, who start picking at dawn before the plants wilt later in the day.

Labourers then prise apart the delicate lilac leaves, vivid red stigmas and pale yellow stamens -- painstaking work that demands concentration and skill.

- 'Hard work' -

Attai is concerned not just about the future of her business, but also for women across Afghanistan who are living in limbo, uncertain about jobs, education and representation in government.

"Now that the government of the Islamic Emirate is here we are very worried that they will block our work," she said.

The harvest is sent to factories where gloved workers remove the red pistil 

HOSHANG HASHIMI AFP

"They haven't given girls the permission to go back to school and university, and they haven't given any women posts in the government -- I am worried about what will happen," she added.

"I'm not just thinking about myself, I'm thinking about all those that this business supports to run their homes," she said, noting that some of her employees are the sole breadwinners in their families.

"I am worried that 20 years of hard work by these women will go to waste."

- 'Cannot be ignored' -

In the 20 years between the US-led ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and the Islamists' return, many women became business leaders, particularly in cities like Herat.

Long a key commercial hub near Iran and Turkmenistan's borders, the city has in recent months suffered from the flight of many businesswomen.

Younes Qazizadeh, head of the city's chamber of commerce, told AFP that he hoped the Taliban would make an official announcement to indicate that "women could come back and do business under this government as well".

For now, the fate of businesses like Attai's hangs on a thread.

"It is our hope to start women's businesses again in our country," Qazizadeh added.

Attai said that for now, she is staying in her homeland because she has "some hope" that her business can survive.

Ahead of the US pullout, a mammoth airlift saw 124,000 people evacuated from Kabul airport.

"I could have left as well. But I didn't leave because all the hard work and effort that we put in should not be ignored," Attai said.

"Not a single man is brave enough" to stop Attai and her female colleagues from working, she says 

Hoshang Hashimi AFP

"I don't think they will block our work," she added, referring to the Taliban.

"We are a company which is completely run by women and employs women -- not a single man is brave enough to stop that. A woman who has shovelled her fields day and night cannot be ignored."

© 2021 AFP

MOLDOVA

In separatist Transnistria, Sheriff calls the shots


Issued on: 27/09/2021 - 

Sheriff -- the word is on everyone's lips be it on the way to the football -- or the supermarket

 Sergei GAPON AFP


Tiraspol (Moldova) (AFP)

This year's Champions League features an improbable upstart: FC Sheriff, a club run by an eponymous company built on murky money in a pro-Russian separatist enclave of Europe's poorest country, Moldova.

The would-be state, which harkens back to its Soviet past with a towering Lenin statue in the centre of its administrative hub, Tiraspol, broke away from Moldova in a short civil war in the early 1990s.

Thirty years later, the little-known Transnistria region with its own border police, army, currency and hammer-and-sickle-emblazoned flag has not been recognised internationally but is propped up by free Russian gas and some 1,500 troops.

The territory, however, is effectively run by the Sheriff holding company that sports a five-pointed sheriff's star as its logo.

Owned by a former Soviet police officer, Viktor Gushan, the conglomerate controls businesses ranging from a cognac distillery and caviar farm to supermarket and gas station chains -- and the football club making waves in Europe.

"Viktor Gushan is the person with the most influence here, both in politics and economics," said Anatoly Dirun, director of the Tiraspol School of Political Studies.

FC Sheriff's players, seen training at the Sheriff Stadium in Tiraspol, have already caused a stir by winning their first group match against Shakhtar Donetsk 

Sergei GAPON AFP

Dirun, a former member of the ruling Renewal party financed by Sheriff, said that besides business, Gushan's people also hold all of the main leadership posts in the breakaway region, from parliament to the prime minister's seat to the presidency.

- 'Sheriff Republic' -

Gushan founded Sheriff in 1993 with fellow police officer Ilya Kazmaly.

The two 59-year-olds spent the following years buying up former Soviet factories -- and fighting off competitors.

Helping lead Transnistria's so-called "privatisation" -- the selling off of Soviet-era state-owned businesses to private owners -- in the 1990s and early 2000s was Valery Litskay, the separatist state's former foreign minister and chief advisor to its first self-styled president.

"Sheriff won the competition," Litskay told AFP, explaining they offered "the best prices and guarantees" that the factories would "continue running".

But the former official said the company has a "very dark criminal history", recalling that they had a "tough fight" with competitors.

Want gas? The Sheriff conglomerate has local consumers covered there too Sergei GAPON AFP

"If you go to our cemeteries, you will see whole alleys of bandits," he said.

Gushan, Sheriff's co-founder and president, declined AFP's interview request.

Litskay said the region's leadership "did not track who killed whom," conceding, "yes, it's not very pretty, but that's the reality of economic life."

It's "better to have a corporation of police", he added, than a "corporation of bandits."

As they rose to power, the police officers launched new businesses.

Ukrainian coach Yuriy Vernydub is tasked with plotting Sheriff's path -- they face Real Madrid next -- to the knockout phase of the lucrative Champions League 

Sergei GAPON AFP/File

In 1997, they founded FC Sheriff, who earlier this month shocked Shakhtar Donetsk in their first group stage game and face Spanish giants Real Madrid on Tuesday.

Dubbing Transnistria "Sheriff Republic", investigative outlet RISE Moldova found that by 2015 one third of all the money from the separatist enclave's budget was paid out to companies owned by Sheriff.

Today, its companies export goods ranging from textiles to construction materials across Europe and caviar as far as the United States and Japan.

- 'Happy with the status quo' -

Vadim Krasnoselsky, the current head of Transnistria whose presidential campaign was financed by Sheriff, hails the company as the region's "main taxpayer".

"They create new jobs, they invest," he told AFP. "They are a reliable partner, they can be trusted."

President of Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky has hailed Sheriff's role as a "reliable partner" which invests and creates jobs 

Sergei GAPON AFP

Their monopoly, though, may not be a boon for Transnistria.

The region is haemorrhaging young people, with its population halving to as low as 250,000 from around 500,000 during the Soviet era, according to several estimates.

The main reason, analysts say, is Transnistria's average wage of $250-300 per month -- lower than the rest of Moldova.

In a 2006 referendum 97 percent of Transnistria's population wanted the region to join Russia. Now there is a "diversification of choice among the youth," said Andrei Mospanov, deputy director of the Tiraspol-based ISPIRR think tank.

Like all of his older friends, Andrei, 17, said he plans to leave for university to Russia or Chisinau.

Flags of Russia and Transnistria -- which professes allegiance to Moscow -- flutter by a monument to 18th century Russian military commander Alexander Suvorovin in Tiraspol 

Sergei GAPON AFP

"I don't see any development in Transnistria," he told AFP.

New Moldovan President Maia Sandu has said she wants her country to join the European Union and demanded Russian troops leave Transnistria.

But the breakaway statelet still affirms its allegiance to Moscow.

In Tiraspol, a billboard reads "Russia in our hearts," while a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs on a wall in Krasnoselsky's offices.

Negotiations on ending the frozen conflict have stalled for years -- and insiders say that's because the leadership is happy with things just as they are.

"Russia gives us free gas and troops, and they get their point of influence" on Europe, said Litskay.

"We are very happy with the status quo."

© 2021 AFP

'MAYBE' TECH

The Bauer Et Al “Blue” Hydrogen LCA Paper Isn’t Useful In The Real World (Part 1 Of 2)

As a contribution to the literature on what will happen in the real world, this is a fairly slight addition, one which is being promoted far beyond its actual merit by the usual suspects.

By Michael Barnard
Published2 days ago

The Bauer Et Al "Blue" Hydrogen LCA Paper Isn't Useful In The Real World (Part 1 of 2) | CleanTechnica

As hydrogen hype is ramping up again, this time very clearly due to the fossil fuel industry putting its very large, well-funded thumb on the scales of public perception and policy-making, a pair of academic papers on the climate merits of “blue” hydrogen have been published recently. The first was by Howarth and Jacobson, and found that “blue” hydrogen had full lifecycle emissions that made it a non-starter as a climate solution. The second, by a host of authors — 16 of them, which is an unusually large number for an academic paper in this field, and more in keeping with a pile-on letter with signatories — finds that “blue” hydrogen can be a good low-carbon addition to the solution set.

The Howarth, Jacobson, et al paper will be assessed in a separate article, but this pair of pieces will assess the merits of the hyper-authored paper favoring “blue” hydrogen, On the climate impacts of blue hydrogen production, in the journal ChemRxiv. Note that this journal is in the same vein as other journals appearing at present, in that it publishes non-peer reviewed material, a very acceptable practice for important fields with long peer-review cycles but one that comes with a proviso.
“These are preliminary reports which have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health related behaviour, or be reported in news media as established information.”

As such, this article is an assessment of something that is very early in the review cycle, and some comments may become stale as the paper moves through to final publication. As a non-peer reviewed early publication journal, it doesn’t have an impact factor. By comparison, the Howarth Jacobson paper is peer-reviewed and published in Wiley’s open access journal Energy Science & Engineering, which has an impact factor of 4.07. This is not in any way dismiss the paper, but to acknowledge that it is somewhat less reliable by this measure at this time. I refer to papers in similar early publication journals regularly, most notably Cornell’s arXiv on machine learning, where peer review cycles can take two years.

The paper appears to have been in the works for a while with a subset of the authors, then the Howarth and Jacobson paper was published, and this paper was rushed to early publication in reaction, presumably with the addition of authors who wanted to make their disagreement with Jacobson known as well. This is reminiscent of the 20 author critique of Jacobson et al’s 2015 published study on 100% renewables by 2050 for the USA, a critique I found without particular merit, but in this case the publication is parallel to Jacobson’s, not directly critiquing it. My observation at the time was that everyone was agreeing that up to 80% was fully achievable with renewables, but that the last 20% would be too hard or expensive. My further observation is that last 20% is now often the last 10% according to many. I suspect Jacobson will be proven right, and further that his vision is by far the fastest and cheapest one to get electricity decarbonized by 80% t0 90%, so if other technologies prove necessary for the last bit, they can wait.

That the authors are reacting to the Howarth-Jacobson paper is clear from the abstract by the way, where they say “However, recent research raises questions about the effective climate impacts of blue hydrogen from a life cycle perspective.” This is not to denigrate the authors. Like the authors of the previous critique, they have a different belief about what will be necessary to decarbonize the world, and so this is, in my opinion, something of a tempest in a teapot. Except that it isn’t. The credibility of “blue” hydrogen is essential for the fossil fuel industry to maintain its current level of policy and opinion pressure for adoption of fossil-fuel sourced hydrogen in a much larger way than any current use of the molecule.

And so, to the contents of the paper. The approach to this will be to quote key elements from the paper and respond to them.


“Hydrogen is foreseen to be an important energy vector in (and after) the transition to net-zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission economies.”

This is an overstatement at best. Hydrogen as an energy vector is being promoted heavily by the fossil fuel industry, but fails multiple tests associated with economics, efficiency and effectiveness after decades of attempts. Hydrogen will be required as a chemical feedstock in industry, but is unlikely to be widely used in transportation, storage or heating. There are much better alternatives for the vast majority of use cases.


Hydrogen demand projection through 2100 by author

For those who missed it, I recently published a three part series with a contrarian but I think more accurate perspective on the future of hydrogen demand, one which saw global hydrogen demand falling, not rising. This is version 1.0 and intended to provide the basis for a fuller discussion. And to be clear, it’s a singular non-academic analyst’s perspective and in no way peer reviewed or intended to be peer reviewed, much like Liebreich’s excellent and useful hydrogen ladder. There are large error bars and it’s an opinion, not a prediction. But it is an opinion based on what is necessary across multiple domains for us to actually take action on climate, the laws of thermodynamics and basic economics. My perspective that hydrogen demand will be falling is a large part of the reason I don’t think that “blue” hydrogen is even necessary. Perpetuating and expensively remediating the significant negative externalities of the fossil fuel industry isn’t required to nearly the degree that the fossil fuel industry is trying to convince people it is.

If an updated version of the paper is produced that the authors might make this a more accurate statement, but note that it is not the direct point of the paper. It is, however, indicative of their assumptions, something which becomes clearer and clearer through the paper.

“The reductions in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq.) emissions per unit of hydrogen production were in the order of 50-85% when compared to standard NG-based hydrogen production without CCS”

There are two concerns with it. The first is that the goal cannot be 50% or even 85%. The goal is 100%. In connection with the expectation of a very large role for hydrogen in energy, 50–85% simply perpetuates the damage of climate change.

Later in the paper, the authors find that in the best cases with high monitoring and maintenance, it can exceed 90%. Further, they say that technologies that are in prototype today but not scaled could achieve 100%. It’s important to recognize that the authors make it clear that only in the best case scenarios with the absolute best practices and technology that is currently unproven will “blue” hydrogen be compatible with climate change requirements.


Magnitude of challenge vs tiny scale of CO2 use today by author

The second concerns CCS. Having reviewed all major CCS implementations and most proposed technologies, publishing regularly on the subject for several years, there is no way that CCS can or will scale to the magnitude of the emissions. At present, the total global CCUS market is 230 million tons of CO2 annually. 90 million tons of that is for enhanced oil recovery, and as the CO2 being ‘sequestered’ is first pumped from underground where it was already sequestered, is strongly negative for climate change. Meanwhile, the current scale of annual emissions is in the 40 billion tons range, and the total excess atmospheric CO2 is over a thousand billion tons. In order to stabilize the climate, we have to get to net zero and start drawing down the thousand billion tons.

This concludes the first half of the assessment of the “blue” hydrogen life-cycle assessment. As a reminder, this is non-peer reviewed draft apparently rushed to publication, and so comments in this article may not reflect the final published version of the paper. That said, given the assumptions and provenance, it’s unlikely to be substantially altered unless other reviewers find substantive errors in the modeling. I don’t dispute the LCA work that the authors have done, but am merely pointing out that their arguments about “blue” hydrogen’s value have little merit in the actual world we inhabit.

Companies To Produce Green Hydrogen From Converted Jack-Up

by Bojan Lepic

|

Rigzone Staff

|

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Trio joins forces to develop a concept for offshore green hydrogen production by using a converted jack-up rig in the North Sea.

Three companies have joined forces to develop a concept for offshore green hydrogen production by using a converted jack-up rig in the North Sea.

Offshore engineering solutions Aquaterra Energy signed a partnership with renewable hydrogen producer and supplier Lhyfe and offshore drilling contractor Borr Drilling. These organizations will lead Project Haldane, an industrial-scale offshore green hydrogen production concept, through the deployment of an electrolyzer system on a converted jack-up rig.

This unique solution should solve the challenges related to grid connectivity and intermittency of supply created by remote locations, preventing the full use of reliable winds far out in the North Sea.

The solution will provide an off-take for the electricity produced near the wind farm and aims to use existing platforms, pipelines, terminal infrastructure, and offshore equipment leveraging the existing infrastructure to reduce costs.

The concept will offer an alternative deployment to existing assets – such as jack-up drilling rigs traditionally used for oil and gas exploration – provide a source of green hydrogen and enhance the commercial feasibility of remote offshore wind projects.

“With our expertise in complex offshore operations and fleet management, Borr Drilling will leverage its core capabilities to evaluate the adoption of this alternative energy source in an environment with a large untapped potential,” Director of Operations at Borr Drilling Darren Sutherland said. “While we will continue to work in our traditional drilling market, this project reinforces our ambition to continuously improve the sustainability of our activities and align our service offering with the changing expectations of our customers and stakeholders.”

“Lhyfe is already producing renewable hydrogen in industrial quantities onshore, with a direct connection to renewable energy, pumping seawater and purifying it to feed the electrolysis process. This is hence a production process already considering offshore harsh conditions. Over the last few years, we have also been working on different projects to deploy our production process offshore,” CEO at Lhyfe Matthieu Guesné stated.

“Offshore wind offers the greatest potential for sustainable hydrogen production because of the cost-effectiveness that can be achieved through scalability and technological innovation. The market is yet to deliver a flexible solution that benefits from the existing infrastructure in the North Sea and Lhyfe wants to be at the forefront of this change by creating a world-first green hydrogen production of this kind,” he added.

Aquaterra also stated that the consortium welcomes any interested parties to submit inquiries while the concept is still in its early stages.

“With years of experience in the successful delivery of complicated offshore jack-up operations, complex structural projects, and offshore process systems we are excited to be the interface that brings together the interest of Lhyfe in offshore markets and expands on Borr Drilling’s expertise in jack-up rig equipment. Our unique value here is that we are multilingual in terms of the engineering and operational needs of oil and gas assets, and green energy processing systems,” the Managing Director at Aquaterra Energy James Larnder said.

To contact the author, email bojan.lepic@rigzone.com

DEEP DIVE
Our smushed-faced dogs are quietly suffering for us
A century of inbreeding is destroying flat-faced canines like bulldogs. Is it time to stop breeding them?

By MATTHEW ROZSA
SALON
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 26, 2021

Pug (Getty Images/mlorenzphotography)


Why do humans love dogs with smushed faces? Indeed, some of the most popular purebred dogs are those with noses that look as though they were pressed up against glass in utero: Pugs, English bulldogs, French bulldogs, and Boston terriers all fall into these categories. The technical term for these types of smushed-face dogs is "brachycephalic." (The root brachy- means "short," while cephalic means "of the head.") Perhaps humans love them because, with their snouts squished toward their skulls until their faces are flat, brachycephalic dogs are unbearably adorable. Their big, round eyes seem friendly, curious and kind; their wrinkled visages convey a delightful spectrum of moods, from grumpy to overjoyed; and when their tongues stick out of their mouths, as often happens, they look like they're blowing raspberries.

"I think there's a good reason to believe that one of the things we like about a shorter-nosed dog is that they more resemble a human primate face," Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist and the author of "Our Dogs, Ourselves," said during an interview last year with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "We need to acknowledge that it's gone too far."

Appearances can be deceiving, however. While brachycephalic dogs may seem to lead the lives of happy cartoon characters, their actual day-to-day lives can be full of discomfort — and often worse. From illnesses to genetic diseases, brachycephalic dogs not only have problems — their problems are getting worse. That's because as time has passed, such breeds are becoming more inbred than they were 100 years ago — which, for some dog lovers and vets, raises ethical questions about continuing to breed them. Indeed, humans may be dogs' best friend, but in our quest to breed more best friends we may have inadvertently hurt the ones we claim to love.

What it's like being a brachycephalic dog

It starts with the elimination of the snout; though aesthetically pleasing to breeders and owners, this anatomical alteration forces the dog to breathe through nasal passages that are simply too small.

"We might imagine when we have a cold and it's harder to breath and we tend to snore a lot," Erica Feuerbacher, an associate professor at Virginia Tech's Department of Animal and Poultry Science, wrote to Salon. "That could be what it might be like for these dogs."

It is an affliction that may literally be unimaginable for humans. Humans are occasionally born with brachycephaly, though their symptoms are not the same as it is for these dogs. Molly H. Sumridge, an instructor of anthrozoology at Carroll College, noted to Salon that humans with brachycephaly usually do not have the extreme symptoms intentionally bred into many dogs. "In humans, this is corrected in infants through the use of a cranial reforming helmet," Sumridge told Salon.

"Due to malformation of the skull and muzzle, a lot of brachycephalic dogs have stenotic nares [a condition caused by malformed nasal cartilage that strains the larynx], bulging eyes and deep nasal skin folds," Marjan van Hagen, a professor of animal behavior at Utrecht University, told Salon by email. This means that many of the animals are constantly experiencing shortness of breath, which "has a major impact on their day-to-day lives, as they have to gasp for air with every breath they take." They also may painful eye disorders because of their malformed sockets; pugs, for instance, are particularly prone to ocular proptosis, a condition in which their eyes pop out of their skulls.

That is not all. The list of diseases related to being brachycephalic is long, and "continues to grow" as we study them, Van Hagen says. Van Hagen can attest to dogs with abnormalities in their inner-ear structures and tear ducts, having accumulations of cerebrospinal fluid in the spinal cord and craniums too small for a dog's cerebellum (which helps control muscle activity). Even the jaws that make English bulldogs seem simultaneously ferocious and silly are often, in fact, a source of pain: brachycephalic dogs can have crowding of teeth because there is not enough space in their jaws, resulting in inflammation.

There is also a good reason why bulldogs like Uga, the famous mascot for the University of Georgia, need to be constantly air conditioned if they stay in the sun for too long.

"Their brachycephaly also contributes to them not being able to thermoregulate as well and they can overheat easily, again meaning that they are limited in what activities and in what conditions they can participate," Feuerbacher explained. She also mentioned it is common for English and French bulldog puppies to need to be delivered through C-sections, which affects the mother's welfare.

Smaller brachycephalic dogs are also prone to a condition known as hanging tongue syndrome. When their tongues are too large, they're missing teeth or they have an abnormal jaw bone, the floppy pink muscular organ will constantly stick out or droop down from their mouths. While this may appear cute, it can be very uncomfortable for the dogs. If they are not able to pull their tongue into their mouth enough to keep it moist, it can dry out, crack, blister and get infected. Imagine the feeling of having uncomfortable chapped lips but on your tongue.

The inter-canine language barrier

Smushed-face dogs may also struggle to have conversations with their canine companions.

"Brachycephalic deformities can also inhibit a dog's ability to effectively communicate with other dogs through facial body language," Sumridge told Salon. In other words, because their facial structure appears odder to other dogs, they are inhibited in their ability to communicate.

If it is so difficult for many of these dogs to survive, "talk" and in some cases even to reproduce, how do they exist at all? Surprisingly, they have been around for a while — albeit in healthier form.

"The origins of brachycephalic dogs depend on what characteristic you're looking to measure," Sumridge explained. Pugs, Shih Tzus and Pekingese dogs are very ancient, for example, but the extreme nature of their current flat faces are more recent.

"The breeding for flatter faces seems to have increased mostly in the last 50-100 years to accentuate the 'baby face' that many owners love and are attracted to," Sumridge told Salon.

Modern dog breeds were created in the 19th century, as the concept of "purebreds" became fashionable among Victorian Europeans. As with so many things, this phenomenon can be linked to racism, specifically the eugenics movements which held that knowledge about genetics could be manipulated to create "perfect" specimens in the human and animal world.

Even if purebred brachycephalic dogs did not have this uncomfortable history, there would still be considerable ethical concerns about continuing to breed them.

"Veterinarians all over the world argue that there is widespread evidence of a link between extreme brachycephalic phenotypes and chronic disease, which compromises canine welfare," van Hagen said. "The selection of dogs with progressively shorter and wider skulls has reached physiological limits. To continue breeding them in this way, with this knowledge, therefore can be considered unethical."

Feuerbacher noted that it is not simply brachycephalic breeds who have congenital health issues. A number of purebred dogs have health problems because of inbreeding, such as German shepherds who are bred to have increasingly sloped backs and therefore develop back, hip and leg problems.

"I think we have a responsibility to our animals to breed them to be as healthy as we can, rather than give in solely to our desire for certain aesthetics," Feuerbacher wrote. "We can certainly select for different aesthetics, but if we keep in mind the welfare of the animal when we are making these selection decisions, hopefully we'll find a balance and not select for extreme characteristics that can negatively impact the animal."

The solution, experts agree, is to discourage overbreeding. It is possible for dogs to continue to come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, and yet still lead healthy lives. The key, experts agree, is to make sure that there is genetic diversity in their lineage. Inbreeding, as the name itself makes clear, is bad.

MATTHEW ROZSA is a staff writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.

South Korea's President Moon raises dog meat ban

Issued on: 27/09/2021 -

Anti-dog meat protests have grown in South Korea as more people embrace canine companionship in the country Ed JONES AFP

Seoul (AFP)

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in raised banning the eating of dogs in the country on Monday, his office said, a traditional practice that is becoming an international embarrassment.

The meat has long been a part of South Korean cuisine with about one million dogs believed to be eaten annually, but consumption has declined as more people embrace dogs as companions rather than livestock.

The practice is now something of a taboo among younger generations and pressure from animal rights activists has also been mounting.

"Hasn't the time come to prudently consider prohibiting dog meat consumption?" Moon told Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum during a weekly meeting, according to the presidential spokeswoman.

South Korea's pet industry is on the rise, with a growing number of people living with dogs at home -- the president among them.

Moon is a known dog lover and has several canines at the presidential compound, including a mutt he rescued after taking office.

Adopting Tory was one of Moon's pledges during his presidential campaign and the pooch became the first rescue dog to make its way into the Blue House.

Moon made the remarks as he was briefed on a plan to improve the care system for abandoned pets, his spokeswoman said.

South Korea's current animal protection law is intended mainly to prevent the cruel slaughter of dogs and cats but does not ban consumption itself.

A dog owned by South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivered a litter of six puppies in 2018

 handout The Blue House/AFP

Nonetheless, authorities have invoked the law and other hygiene regulations to crack down on dog farms and restaurants ahead of international events such as the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

© 2021 AFP

 

These Engineers Have Invented an Entirely New Approach to Recycling Plastic

DAVID NIELD

27 SEPTEMBER 2021

Our planet and everything that lives on it is buckling under the weight of all the plastic waste we're producing. The volume of these non-biodegradable materials discarded after use is only increasing, so we need new ways to tackle them, and fast

A new study demonstrates the proof-of-concept of an entirely new approach to plastic recycling, inspired by the way nature naturally 'recycles' the components of organic polymers present in our environment.

The approach takes guidance from the fact that proteins within organic polymers are constantly broken down into parts and reassembled into different proteins, without losing the quality of the building blocks. In essence, when it comes to recycling plastic – a synthetic polymer – without degrading it, we have to think smaller.

Proteins are one of the main organic compounds that act as building blocks for everything biological. They're long chains of molecules (or monomers) known as amino acids, and researchers think that the way these molecules can be broken up and reconfigured suggests a potential strategy for recycling synthetic polymers.

"A protein is like a string of pearls, where each pearl is an amino acid," says materials scientist Simone Giaveri, from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.

"Each pearl has a different color, and the color sequence determines the string structure and consequently its properties. In nature, protein chains break up into the constituent amino acids, and cells put such amino acids back together to form new proteins – that is, they create new strings of pearls with a different color sequence."

The researchers have called their approach "nature-inspired circular-economy recycling", or NaCRe for short.

In lab tests, the team was able to divide selected proteins into amino acids, then assemble them into new proteins with different structures and uses. In one case, they turned the proteins from silk into green fluorescent protein, which is a glowing tracer used in biomedical research. Despite this deconstruction and reconstruction, the quality of the proteins remains constant.

(Giaveri et al., Advanced Materials, 2021)

According to the team's analysis, the mechanisms that naturally occur in proteins could be applied to plastics as well, though developing and scaling up the necessary technology is going to take some time.

There are major differences between natural and synthetic polymers to be taken into account, but the researchers say this new approach to recycling is feasible – and would keep materials in use for the longest possible time.

"It will require a radically different mindset," says materials scientist Francesco Stellacci, from EPFL. "Polymers are strings of pearls, but synthetic polymers are made mostly of pearls all of the same color and when the color is different, the sequence of color rarely matters."

"Furthermore, we have no efficient way to assemble synthetic polymers from different color pearls in a way that controls their sequence."

Even biodegradable plastics create waste residue that must be stockpiled or buried after the recycling process is finished, with the usual knock-on effects for the environment in terms of land usage and pollution. The new strategy could help fix that.

The researchers estimate that across a 70-year lifespan, a person throws away around 2 metric tons of plastic on average – and considering almost 8 billion people are on the planet right now, that's a catastrophic amount of waste.

And while we're making some progress in tackling our plastic pollution problem, it's currently nowhere near enough. A radical shift in thinking and action is required if we're going to stop plastics doing further damage to our world and our health.

"In the future, sustainability will entail pushing upcycling to the extreme, throwing a lot of different objects together and recycling the mixture to produce every day a different new material," says Stellacci. "Nature already does this."

The research has been published in Advanced Materials.

Inspiring photos from the worldwide Uproot the System youth climate protest

Fridays for Future, the grassroots climate movement, held its first global in-person strike since the pandemic on September 24.
By Anna Iovine on September 25, 2021


Greta Thunberg and other demonstrators during Fridays for Future on September 24, 2021 in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Florian Gaertner/Photothek Via Getty Images

On Friday, grassroots climate movement Fridays for Future led its first global strike since the pandemic hit: #UprootTheSystem, a name and hashtag meant to bring about an intersectional discussion about climate change.

Fridays for Future began in 2018 when then-15-year-old Greta Thunberg began a school strike for climate. Thunberg's protest quickly sparked a global movement, and — fast forward to yesterday — Uproot the System was worldwide, with estimated 1,400 events in over 80 countries.


Uproot the System encourages all of us to center MAPA, or "most affected people and areas." This includes indigenous people and regions labeled the "Global South" (parts of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania).

"Without listening to MAPA, embracing intersectionality, and uprooting this system," warned Fridays for Future in their Uproot The System blog post, "we have no hope of stopping the climate crisis."

Thousands of young people around the globe met the call on Friday. Thunberg herself attended the Berlin protest. Here are photos from the international strike:

People during Fridays for Future demonstration in Rome, Italy. Credit: Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto Via Getty Images

Children in London, United Kingdom for Fridays for Future. Credit: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures Via Getty Images

Activists in Utrecht, Netherlands dressed like politicians are seen setting fire on a circle representing mother Earth during the demonstration. Credit: Ana Fernandez/SOPA Images/LightRocket Via Getty Images

A protester makes a gesture during the demonstration in Warsaw, Poland. Credit: Attila Husejnow/SOPA Images/LightRocket 

Participants seen holding a banner at the protest in New York, New York. Credit: Erik McGregor/LightRocket Via Getty Images

VUB led Science publication shows how climate change is disproportionally affecting children

The kids aren’t alright

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL

International research led by Prof. Wim Thiery of the VUB research group BCLIMATE shows that children are to face disproportionate increases in lifetime extreme event exposure – especially in low-income countries. Under current climate policy, newborns across the globe will on average face seven times more scorching heatwaves during their lives than their grandparents. In addition, they will on average live through 2.6 times more droughts, 2.8 times as many river floods, almost three times as many crop failures, and twice the number of wildfires as people born 60 years ago.

“Our results highlight a severe threat to the safety of young generations and call for drastic emission reductions to safeguard their future.” says Thiery, climate scientist at VUB and lead author of the study.

The Fridays for Future movement led by the world’s youth has drastically increased awareness around the importance of climate change mitigation for future generations. Next to school strikes and protest marches, young people are now also suing their governments, for instance for violating their fundamental rights under the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

First study to bridge climate science and demography  

Scientifically, aspects of climate change like droughts or heatwaves are often studied by comparing different time windows or discrete levels of warming. However, this ruling paradigm in climate and impact research has so far not quantified how younger generations will experience a different climate change burden.  Current research therefore insufficiently grasps how the climate change burden differs across generations and countries.

Bridging between climate science and demography, the international research team now for the first time quantified lifetime exposure to droughts, heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, tropical cyclones, and wildfires. They computed lifetime exposure for every generation born between 1960 and 2020, and this for every country in the world and for every global warming scenario between today’s 1°C and 3.5°C above pre-industrial. To this end, the team generated an unprecedented collection of climate change impact simulations and combined these with future global temperature trajectories and demographic information on life expectancy, population density, and cohort size.

The results show that for a 3°C global warming pathway, a 6-year old in 2020 will experience twice as many wildfires and tropical cyclones, 3 times more river floods, 4 times more crop failures, 5 times more droughts, and 36 times more heatwaves relative to a reference person living under pre-industrial climate conditions. Under a 3.5°C warming scenario, children born in 2020 will even experience 44 times more heatwaves.

At and above 1.5°C of warming, lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, droughts, and river floods for people born after 1980 is unmatched by pre-industrial climate conditions.

“This basically means that people younger than 40 today will live an unprecedented life even under the most stringent climate change mitigation scenarios”, says Thiery.

Regional differences

Behind these global numbers hide important regional variations. Young generations in low-income countries will face by far the strongest increases with a more than fivefold increase in overall lifetime extreme event exposure. While 53 million children born in Europe and Central Asia since 2016 will experience about four times more extreme events under current pledges, 172 million children of the same age in sub-Saharan Africa face an almost sixfold increase in lifetime extreme event exposure, and even 50 times more heatwaves.

“The combined rapid growth in population and lifetime extreme event exposure highlights a disproportionate climate change burden for young generations in the Global South”, adds Thiery. “And we even have strong reasons to think that our calculations underestimate the actual increases that young people will face”.

Youth summit and COP26

With the UNFCCC Youth Summit running from 28 – 30 September in Milan and with COP26 upcoming in Glasgow end of October, international climate negotiations are gaining critical momentum.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C instead of following current policy pledges substantially reduces the intergenerational burden for extreme heatwaves, wildfires, crop failures, droughts, tropical cyclones, and river floods,” says Prof. Joeri Rogelj, climate change expert at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. “The results of the study published in Science and the accompanying report curated by the NGO Save The Children therefore highlight the utmost need to ramp up ambitions and embark on immediate action.”

“Our results underline the sheer importance of the Paris Agreement to protect young generations around the world,” adds Thiery. “If we manage to drastically reduce our emissions in the coming years, we can still avoid the worst consequences for children worldwide. At the same time, a sobering message for the youth in low-income countries emerges, where incredibly challenging extreme events are robustly projected, even under the most stringent of climate action futures.”

Contact

Wim Thiery

wim.thiery@vub.be

+32 485 70 80 18

Notes to editors

Link to Science paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7339

Link to Save The Children Report: https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/born-climate-crisis-why-we-must-act-now-secure-childrens-rights  

The study was accomplished by researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), ETH Zurich, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Imperial College London, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Climate Analytics, Humboldt University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), MeteoSwiss, East China Normal University, Zhejiang University, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), The Cyprus Institute, University of Liège, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, University of Nottingham, National Institute for Environmental Studies Japan, Goethe University Frankfurt, Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Universidad Pablo de Olavide, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, Technical University of Crete, China Agricultural University, University of Vienna, Zhejiang University, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon.

DOI

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7339 

How climate change is making inequality worse, especially for children

Children born in high-income countries will experience twice as many extreme climate events as their grandparents, new research suggests.

But for children in low-income countries, it will be worse. They will see three times as many, say researchers at the University of Brussels.

The BBC’s population reporter Stephanie Hegarty has been looking at how climate change is already making poverty worse.

CATTLE FARTS

Stanford-led research reveals potential of an overlooked climate change solution

Analyses lay out a blueprint for speeding development of atmospheric removal and modeling how the approach could improve human health and have an outsized effect on reducing future peak temperatures.

BY ROB JORDAN
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
SEPTEMBER 26, 2021

Earlier this month, President Biden urged other countries to join the U.S. and European Union in a commitment to slashing methane emissions. Two new Stanford-led studies could help pave the way by laying out a blueprint for coordinating research on methane removal technologies, and modeling how the approach could have an outsized effect on reducing future peak temperatures.

Agricultural operations, such as this feedlot at the Harris Ranch in
California, are among the largest sources of human-caused methane emissions. 

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The analyses, published Sept. 27 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, reveal that removing about three years-worth of human-caused emissions of the potent greenhouse gas would reduce global surface temperatures by approximately 0.21 degrees Celsius while reducing ozone levels enough to prevent roughly 50,000 premature deaths annually. The findings open the door to direct comparisons with carbon dioxide removal – an approach that has received significantly more research and investment – and could help shape national and international climate policy in the future.

“The time is ripe to invest in methane removal technologies,” said Rob Jackson, lead author on the new research agenda paper and senior author on the modeling study. Jackson is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor of Energy and Environment in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
The case for methane removal

The relative concentration of methane has grown more than twice as fast as that of carbon dioxide since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Removing methane from the atmosphere could reduce temperatures even faster than carbon dioxide removal alone because methane is 81 times more potent in terms of warming the climate over the first 20 years after its release, and about 27 times more potent over a century. Methane removal also improves air quality by decreasing the concentration of tropospheric ozone, exposure to which causes an estimated one million premature deaths annually worldwide due to respiratory illnesses.

Graph shows globally averaged, monthly mean atmospheric methane abundance determined from marine surface sites since 1983. (Image credit: NOAA)

Unlike carbon dioxide, the bulk of methane emissions are human-driven. Primary culprits include agricultural sources such as livestock, which emit methane in their breath and manure, and rice fields, which emit methane when flooded. Waste disposal and fossil fuel extraction also contribute substantial emissions. Natural sources of methane, including soil microbes in wetlands, account for the remaining 40 percent of global methane emissions. They further complicate the picture because some of them, such as thawing permafrost, are projected to increase as the planet warms.

While development of methane removal technologies will not be easy, the potential financial rewards are big. If market prices for carbon offsets rise to $100 or more per ton this century, as predicted by most relevant assessment models, each ton of methane removed from the atmosphere could then be worth more than $2,700.
Envisioning methane removal’s impacts

The modeling study uses a new model developed by the United Kingdom’s national weather service (known as the UK Met Office) to examine methane removal’s potential impacts while accounting for its shorter lifetime than carbon dioxide – a key factor because some of the methane removed would have disappeared anyway. The researchers created a set of scenarios by varying either the amount removed or the timing of removal to generalize their results over a wide range of realistic future emissions pathways.

Under a high emissions scenario, the analysis showed that a 40 percent reduction in global methane emissions by 2050 would lead to a temperature reduction of approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius by 2050. Under a low emissions scenario where temperature peaks during the 21st century, methane removal of the same magnitude could reduce the peak temperature by up to 1 degree Celsius.

“This new model allows us to better understand how methane removal alters warming on the global scale and air quality on the human scale,” said modeling study lead author and research agenda coauthor Sam Abernethy, a PhD student in applied physics who works in Jackson’s lab.
From research to development

The path to achieving these climate and air quality improvements remains unclear. To bring it into focus, the research agenda paper compares and contrasts aspects of carbon dioxide and methane removal, describes a range of technologies for methane removal and outlines a framework for coordinating and accelerating its scale-up. The framework would help facilitate more accurate analysis of methane removal factors ranging from location-specific simulations to potential interactions with other climate change mitigation approaches.

Methane is challenging to capture from air because its concentration is so low, but burgeoning technologies – such as a class of crystalline materials called zeolites capable of soaking up the gas – hold the promise of a solution, according to the researchers. They argue for increased research into these technologies’ cost, efficiency, scaling and energy requirements, potential social barriers to deployment, co-benefits and possible negative by-products.

“Carbon dioxide removal has received billions of dollars of investments, with dozens of companies formed,” said Jackson. “We need similar commitments for methane removal.”


Jackson is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy and chairman of the Global Carbon Project. Coauthors of the research agenda paper include Josep Canadell of the Global Carbon Project; Matteo Cargnello, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford, Steven Davis and Chaopeng Hong of the University of California at Irvine; Sarah Féron, a postdoctoral fellow in Earth system science at Stanford at the time of the research; Sabine Fuss of Humboldt Universität in Germany; Alexander Heyer and Hannah Rhoda, PhD students in chemistry at Stanford; and Edward Solomon, the Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford and professor of photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Maxwell Pisciotta and Jennifer Wilcox of the University of Pennsylvania; H. Damon Matthews of Concordia University in Montreal; Renaud de Richter of Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier in France; Kirsten Zickfeld of Simon Fraser University in Canada. Coauthors of both papers include Fiona O’Connor and Chris Jones of the Met Office Hadley Centre.

Both papers were funded by the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment’s Environmental Venture Projects program, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Joint UK BEIS/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme. The paper led by Sam Abernethy was also funded by the Stanford Data Science Scholars Program and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Crescendo Project.

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