Greenpeace installs 'last voting booth' in South Korea to highlight climate crisis

By Thomas Maresca

JAN. 6, 2022 

1/8

A campaigner from Greenpeace Korea holds up a signboard Thursday advocating stronger climate policies including a total phase-out of coal plants by 2030. 

Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI

SEOUL, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Greenpeace Korea unveiled what it called the "last voting booth" in downtown Seoul on Thursday as part of a campaign to bring climate issues to the foreground of South Korea's presidential election in March.

The booth, a tattered replica of a traditional polling machine, was placed near the city's iconic Gyeongbokgung Palace to raise awareness that this election "could be the last vote to stop the climate crisis in Korean political history," the environmental group said in a statement.

A video loop inside the booth showed a simulation of the palace submerged under flooding due to extreme weather and rising sea levels.

"We think that climate change is one of the most important issues to be discussed during the presidential campaign," Daul Jang, government relations and advocacy specialist for Greenpeace Korea, told UPI. "So we wanted to show people that unless we address climate change, as soon as possible and as ambitiously as possible, our future is at risk right now."

South Korea remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs, generating around 40% of its electricity from coal and only 6.5% from renewable sources.

The country has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. President Moon Jae-in introduced a $60 billion Green New Deal in 2020 to invest in eco-friendly industries and technologies. Moon also committed in November to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030, a significant upgrade from the previous target of 26%.

However, Greenpeace and other climate watchdogs say South Korea's goals are not nearly enough to meet the demands of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, which aim to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid environmental catastrophe.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in August that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called a "code red for humanity," saying that the earth was already "perilously close" to the 1.5-degree threshold and required bold and immediate action.

Greenpeace Korea released a seven-point climate policy agenda, which includes raising the ratio of renewable energy to 50% and completely phasing out coal plants by 2030, and has asked the presidential candidates to respond.

Yoon Suk-yeol, the candidate from the opposition People Power Party, has indicated support for South Korea's 2050 carbon-neutrality goal, while Lee Jae-myung from Moon's Democratic Party has proposed moving the target up by 10 years and establishing a carbon tax.

Jang said that neither of the two major candidates has been specific enough with their plans, however, and noted that climate change has been an afterthought on the campaign trail and media coverage. Greenpeace is calling for the candidates to hold climate-focused television debates.

The environmental group also warned Thursday of the perils to South Korea's economic bottom line posed by climate change. It shared a Deloitte Korea report that estimated the South Korean economy could lose a total of $780 billion by the year 2070 if it fails to adequately respond to the climate crisis, while aggressive action could add over $1.9 trillion in that same time period.

Climate change "is not considered as important as security or economic issues, even though the climate crisis itself is a serious national security and national economic issue," Jang said. "This is the last Korean election for us to properly address climate change in time."

INDIA

Arabica Coffee Prices Hit All-time High in December, Small Farmers Still Unable to Cash in

Heavy rainfall and crop damage have resulted in losses for small farmers who largely grow Robusta coffee.

Nikhil Cariappa
06 Jan 2022

Ripening coffee berries

The district of Kodagu (Coorg) is rich in forests and wildlife. Due to conservation efforts, industries were not permitted to be set up here. Agriculture, especially coffee planting, has been the backbone of the Kodagu economy. The states of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu account for 83% of the coffee production in India. Karnataka alone accounts for 70% of the production. However, this cash crop has provided diminishing returns to farmers over the last three years. In December 2021, Arabica coffee prices hit an all-time high. However, the benefits have not been passed on to small farmers in Kodagu because they largely grow Robusta. They have also been forced to endure losses caused by heavy rainfall, crop damage by wild animals, and increasing input and labour costs.

THE ECONOMICS OF COFFEE CULTIVATION

In India, two varieties of coffee are cultivated - Arabica and Robusta. Arabica fetches a higher price in the market as it is considered to have a better flavour. The harvest season for Arabica lasts from November to January, and for Robusta, from January to March. In India, Robusta accounts for 70% of the total production. Small farmers prefer to grow Robusta because the yield is higher and the maintenance cost is comparatively lower. High and unseasonal rainfall caused the coffee berries to drop off the branches this year. Once the unripe berries of Robusta coffee have prematurely dropped, it is no longer of any value to the planter.

After the harvest, the berries are dried in the sun, bagged and sold to the traders. Each bag of coffee contains 50 kgs of produce. The price/bag varies daily based on the commodity markets in New York (for Arabica) and London (for Robusta). Coffee farmers are dependent on foreign markets because almost 80% of the coffee produced in India is exported.

On December 27, 2021, the prices/bag of raw coffee were -


These prices refer to the value of one bag of raw coffee that distributers/trading companies pay to coffee farmers. According to several farmers, under ideal conditions, one acre of coffee plantation could yield 20-30 bags of Robusta cherry or 10-15 bags of Arabica cherry. Cherry coffee is obtained through dry processing. Parchment coffee is obtained through wet processing.

Cherry coffee is obtained once the ripe coffee berries are harvested and dried in the sun. To obtain parchment coffee, the ripe berries must be pulped, washed and dried. Small farmers with insufficient access to water resources opt for cherry. Processing the berries into parchment is expensive, time-consuming, labour intensive, requires lots of water and a facility for disposing of effluents (by-products).

Global Market

A cursory look at the commodity market charts for Arabica Coffee indicates that coffee prices hit a 34-year high in 2011. Before that, it peaked in 1997, 1986 and 1977. Various speculations were made about the reasons for the price rise, including policy changes and natural disasters. Since this is a global market, farmers in India compete with their counterparts in Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Honduras, and Ethiopia. If there are supply shortages in any other part of the world, it benefits Indian farmers. Similarly, when coffee prices crashed in 2001, the effects were felt by farmers all over the world, prompting some introspection about the beneficiaries of the present model.

INPUT COSTS

Fertilisers, diesel and labour make up the bulk of the input costs. NewsClick spoke to KK Vishwanath, a planter from Katakeri, about the input costs/acre of the planted area. He said, “For Robusta coffee, the labour requirement is 50 labour days/acre/year. The labour cost may add up to Rs 35000 and other inputs come up to Rs 15000. The farmer spends a minimum of Rs 50000/acre/year."

In the past, the farmers relied on the local tribal communities to make up the labour force on the plantations. But they have been migrating out of the district to find work in other sectors. According to Vishwanath, farmers now rely on migrant labour from West Bengal and Assam. In the past, there have been cycles of migrant labour from Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala and even Tamils from Sri Lanka.

STAGNANT COFFEE PRICES

The farmers say that the prices of Robusta coffee have not increased at par with the rise in the cost of inputs. To make a comparison with the previous table, on December 9, 2013, the prices/bag of raw coffee were as follows-


In 2013, the diesel price in Karnataka was a little more than Rs 50/ltr. In 2021, the price had breached Rs 100/ltr. The cost of labour has doubled as well. In 2013, the minimum wage/day was Rs 142 in Karnataka. Today, it is Rs 357. While most costs have doubled, the coffee prices have seen a meagre rise. The price of coffee fluctuates every year, but costs always increase.

Land Holding

According to a source in the Indian Coffee Board, the largest commercial holding in Kodagu belongs to Tata Coffee Limited, which owns more than 10,000 acres of the planted area. Tata Coffee, a listed company, had announced annual revenue of Rs 2289 crore for the FY 2020-2021. This figure represents earnings from estates all over India, including those in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The second-largest holding in Kodagu belongs to the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation (BBTC), owned by the Wadia Group. According to the company website, the corporation owns 927 hectares (2290 acres) of planted area in Kodagu. BBTC is also a publicly traded corporation.

According to the Indian coffee board, as of 2019-2020, Kodagu had 43765 holdings or coffee estates. A majority of them were under 10 hectares (24 acres) in size. Only 519, or 1.1% of the total estates in Kodagu, were larger than 10 hectares in area. The bulk of the estates are family run and often passed down through inheritance.

Crop Damage

Planters in Kodagu have appealed to the district administration to find a solution for losses caused by monkeys and wild boars. BB Madayya, a planter from Chettalli village, lamented the problems caused by small animals. “When the arabica coffee is ripe and ready for harvest, swarms of monkeys enter the plantations and break the branches of coffee plants to suck out the sweet pulp inside the berries. This is a loss for the planter in the present year and the future because we lose the coffee seeds, and the branch will also take time to grow back”, he said.

A typical coffee plant takes 5-7 years to grow and provide any economic yield to the planter. Once destroyed, it results in long term economic consequences. The Codava Planters Association have floated a signature campaign to garner support online and pressure the Forest Department to take action. They hope that like in Bihar, monkeys and wild boars are temporarily classified as vermin so that their numbers can be reduced.

As per the organisation, “wild boars destroy the paddy fields. They also destroy the coffee, cardamom and pepper vine roots by digging the ground searching for food during monsoon season. In addition, they also dig up roots, tubers & young saplings and, in the process, loosen the soil resulting in soil erosion. Wild boars contaminate water sources with the faecal matter with very high bacterial content”.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, while Vietnam has recently emerged as the largest producer of Robusta Coffee globally. According to Vishwanath, farmers there practise the field-grown technique of farming in open spaces. Expansion of coffee production in these countries was done through deforestation. Their counterparts in India practise shade-grown coffee cultivation, which is sustainable but offers lower returns. In Karnataka, all the coffee cultivation is done in three districts - Kodagu, Chikmagalur and Hassan. All three districts have forest cover, and the farming has not come at the expense of trees and biodiversity. Every trade-off comes with a cost.

SPACE JUNK

Debris from failed Russian rocket falls into sea near French Polynesia

By Doug Cunningham

A Russian Ankara-A5 heavy-lift rocket test launches from the Plesetsk space center in northwestern Russia. Photo courtesy of Russian Defense Ministry/TASS

Jan. 6 (UPI) -- The upper stage of a failed Russian Angara A5 rocket plummeted uncontrolled to Earth, crashing into open sea near French Polynesia.

The U.S. 18th Space Control Squadron confirmed the 4 p.m. Wednesday re-entry

The Persei upper stage was part of a heavy-lift rocket. The debris weighed an estimated 3.5 tons. Astronomer Jonathon McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said most of it likely burned up in Earth's atmosphere before it hit the water.

The Russian rocket was launched Dec. 27. It was the third test flight, but that upper stage failed, causing the uncontrolled re-entry.

Space debris like this failed Russian rocket is a serious issue that has threatened the International Space Station.

In November, the astronauts aboard the ISS had to take shelter as debris from a Russian anti-satellite missile test passed closeby.

Three months ago, NASA administrators called on Congress to fund a comprehensive strategy for debris tracking and management, including international outreach.

BEWARE OF FALLING ROCK

Weather satellite detects meteor explosion near Pittsburgh on first day of 2022
By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com

It wasn't unclear if any pieces of the exploded meteor reached the ground. If fragments did land on Earth, officials say, they would likely be somewhere southwest of downtown Pittsburgh, Pa. File Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI | License Photo


Jan. 6 -- The new year started off with an audible bang near Pittsburgh when the sound of a distant explosion echoed high in the sky, puzzling residents who were outside during the harmless blast.

Around 11:30 a.m. EST last Saturday, NOAA's GOES-16 weather satellite detected lightning over southeastern Pennsylvania, but there were no thunderstorms in the area to trigger a lightning flash. At the same time, people across the region reported a loud sound that was even picked up by some home security cameras.

Had it happened 12 hours earlier, the explosion may have been confused with fireworks being set off prematurely before the start of 2022, but scientists at NASA and NOAA believe that the sound did not originate from humans.

After looking over all of the data, NASA concluded that the explosion was caused by a meteor about 3 feet across and "with a mass close to half a ton" exploding as it entered Earth's atmosphere.

According to NASA, the meteor was traveling around 45,000 mph and exploded with the energy of 30 tons of TNT.

"Had it not been cloudy, the fireball would have been easily visible in the daylight sky," NASA said, adding that it would have been around 100 times brighter than a full moon.

It is unclear if any pieces of the space rock reached the ground, but if fragments did land on Earth, they would likely be somewhere southwest of Pittsburgh.

No damage or injuries were reported.

Meteor explosions like this are rare, but not completely unheard of. In mid-September, a similar event was detected over West Virginia when a meteor exploded over the region.

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On Oct. 3, a woman in western Canada was startled awake by a meteorite that crashed through her house. The softball-sized rock came to rest in her bed, just inches away from where she was laying.

People who spot an incredibly bright meteor, sometimes referred to as a fireball, can file a report with the American Meteor Society. Fireballs are not always accompanied by a sonic boom, but can illuminate the entire sky for a few seconds in what is described as a "once in a lifetime event."

 Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations globally affect photosynthesis of peat-forming mosses

by Ola Nilsson, Umea University

Global changes in the deuterium isotopomer ratio (ΔD6S/D6RN) of Sphagnum during the

 twentieth century representing changes in the photorespiration to photosynthesis ratio. 

(A) Global distribution of investigated sites. (B) Response of the D6S/D6R ratio per unit 

change in 1000/[CO2] between modern and historical Sphagnum samples (ΔD6S/D6RN). 

Five water table depths (WT) categories (in cm) are indicated by vertical dashed lines. 

Sphagnum subgenera are indicated on the x-axis by gray/white shading: AC, ACUTIFOLIA

 (dark gray); CU, CUSPIDATA (light gray); SP, SPHAGNUM (white).

 Error bars indicate standard error, n = 1–4 (see Table S1 for more information). 

Numbers above error bars correspond to sample sites as numbered in (A). 

Credit: DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02953-1

Scientists at Umeå University and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have developed ways to decipher effects of the CO2 rise during the past 100 years on metabolic fluxes of the key plant species in peatlands, mosses. Analyses of cellulose in peat cores collected by collaborating scientists working in five continents indicate that a CO2-driven increase in photosynthesis of mosses is strongly dependent on the water table, which may change the species composition of peat moss communities.

As human CO2 emissions continue, it is increasingly important to capture CO2 to mitigate the associated climate change. Peatlands are the largest soil carbon stores globally, but the impact of climate change on peatlands is still unknown. During the 20th century, global atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased by nearly 50 percent and further increases are inevitable according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, with severe consequences for humanity. So far, uptake of CO2 by the land biosphere has dampened the CO2 rise and prevented even more severe effects.

Although peatlands cover only three percent of the global land surface, they store a third of the global soil carbon. Thus, uptake of CO2 by peat mosses is important, but little is known about how their physiology is affected by rising CO2 levels. To understand if peatlands will keep storing carbon and mitigate climate change in the future, the scientists investigated peat mosses' responses to the increase in atmospheric CO2.

For the study, collaborating researchers from five continents collected peat cores from ten locations worldwide. In a novel use of nuclear magnetic resonance pectroscopy, distributions of the stable hydrogen isotope deuterium in cellulose of modern and century-old peat mosses were then compared. This allowed us to reconstruct changes in photosynthetic efficiency during the 20th century, by estimating the impact of photorespiration, a side reaction of photosynthesis.

"Photorespiration is critical for the carbon balance of plants because it reduces the efficiency of photosynthesis by up to 35 percent, and it is suppressed by increasing CO2 but accelerated by increasing temperature," says Jürgen Schleucher, Professor at Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Umeå University, Sweden.

The analysis revealed that increasing CO2 during the last 100 years has reduced photorespiration, which has probably boosted carbon storage in peatlands to date and dampened climate change. However, increasing atmospheric CO2 only reduced photorespiration in peatlands when water levels were intermediate, not when conditions were too wet or too dry. Unlike higher plants, mosses cannot transport water, so the water table level controls their moisture content, which affects their photosynthetic performance. So, models based on higher plants' physiological responses cannot be applied.

That the effect of CO2 depends on the water table level can have major consequences for peatland species composition, as only mosses that grow at an intermediate distance from the water table level benefit from the higher atmospheric CO2 concentration. Moreover, changes in the peatlands' water balance can strongly affect their future carbon balance as too wet or too dry conditions reduce peat mosses' ability to scavenge carbon.

Although peatlands have dampened CO2-driven climate change so far, the changes have already had devastating effects. If human CO2 emissions are not strongly reduced, the atmospheric CO2 concentration will further increase by hundreds of ppm by 2100, and average global temperatures will rise several degrees C above pre-industrial levels. It is unclear how peatlands will be affected by this.

"To get a clearer picture of photorespiration's importance for peat mosses and peat carbon accumulation, the next step is to transfer our data into tailored photosynthesis models to estimate global peatland carbon fluxes. Future CO2 levels, temperature rises, changes in precipitation and water table levels will all need to be considered to forecast peatlands' fate in a changing climate," says Jürgen Schleucher.

The study has been published in Scientific Reports.Valuable peatlands at risk of disappearing

More information: Henrik Serk et al, Global CO2 fertilization of Sphagnum peat mosses via suppression of photorespiration during the twentieth century, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-02953-1

Journal information: Scientific Reports 

Provided by Umea University 

REST IN POWER

Thomas Lovejoy, Wide-Ranging Ecologist and Amazon Rescuer, Dies at 80

His ambitious, long-running project in Brazil explored the impact of deforestation on animals and plants — and how to deal with it.

Thomas Lovejoy in 2014. The centerpiece of his career in ecology was research in the Amazon, but he also published an early projection of extinction rates, conceived the public television series “Nature” and popularized the term “biological diversity.”

Credit...via Slodoban Randjelovic/WWF

By Richard Sandomir
Dec. 28, 2021

Thomas Lovejoy, a prominent biologist for major conservation groups who spent decades on an expansive, ongoing project in Brazil to preserve the Amazon rain forest, died on Saturday at his home in McLean, Va. He was 80.

The cause was pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, his daughter Elizabeth Lovejoy said.

Dr. Lovejoy “was a historic figure,” said Russell Mittermeier, the chief conservation officer of Re:wild, a conservation organization.

“He really put the Amazon, and in particular Amazonia, on the international conservation map,” Dr. Mittermeier added, referring to the vast area of rain forests on South America. “When the whole conservation business started in the ’60s and ’70s, there was little focus on South America. But Tom changed that.”

Dr. Lovejoy’s field research in the Amazon was the centerpiece of a broad career dedicated to ecology. He invented “debt for nature” swaps, which let countries trade forgiveness of a portion of their foreign debt for their investments in conservation. He published an early projection of extinction rates, was a creator of the public television series “Nature” and popularized the term “biological diversity,” later shortened to biodiversity.

Dr. Lovejoy in the Amazonian rain forest of Brazil in 1989. He sounded the alarm against its erosion as a source of global warming. 

Credit...Antonio RIBEIRO/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images


Dr. Lovejoy long ago called for the preservation of biologically diverse ecosystems that store carbon to help fight climate change, but deforestation has continued to erode Amazonian rain forests. In an essay last month in The New York Times, he and John Reid, an economist who helps Indigenous peoples protect their territories, wrote: “Forests continue to disappear — cut and burned into ever smaller patches. This failure challenges all of our climate efforts because unless forests remain standing, the world will never contain global warming.”

Dr. Lovejoy spent more than 40 years on his ecological work in the Amazon. Since 1979, his Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project has tested whether birds, mammals, insects and trees survive in patches of rain forest cut off by roads, development or agriculture. Dr. Lovejoy and his team documented the species in parcels ranging in size from one to 100 hectares near Manaus, Brazil, to see if they could survive being cut off from intact larger forests, and what happens to those exposed to heat on the perimeters of the land.

Some rodents, certain frogs and light-loving butterflies were found to have survived well in the fragments but mammals and some birds with large ranges suffered, according to an article in 2011 in Mongabay, a nonprofit environmental science and conservation news website.

“Fragments lose up to 30 percent of their biomass, essentially forever, because of the vulnerability of big trees to windthrow,” Dr. Lovejoy told Mongabay, referring to the felling or breaking of trees by wind. He added, “Hundred-hectare fragments lose half of the forest interior bird species in less than 15 years.”

Dr. Lovejoy with Tom Cruise in 1990. He sought to enlist boldface names in his campaign to save the rain forest.

Credit...Globe Photos/MediaPunch/IPX/AP

Dr. Lovejoy set up a research facility, Camp 41, near Manaus, for scientists attracted by the allure of the immense tropical wilderness. Its tin-roofed structures are the base not only for working ecologists but also for the prominent people Dr. Lovejoy invited to witness the deforestation and to recruit as potential allies in preservation. They included donors, politicians (Senators John Heinz, Tim Wirth and Bill Bradley), celebrities (Tom Cruise, Olivia Newton-John and the novelist Peter Benchley) and media elite (the newsmen Tom Brokaw, Ben Bradlee and Walter Cronkite).

“We went to his site, clambered over miles of tree trunks, spent time in the forest with jaguars, ate dry cheese and water for dinner and slept in hammocks,” Paul R. Ehrlich, professor emeritus of population studies at Stanford University and the author of “The Population Bomb” (1968), said in a phone interview.

In a statement after Dr. Lovejoy’s death, Mr. Wirth recalled exploring the rain forest by day and sleeping to “the sounds of howler monkeys and the snoring of Al Gore, Jack Heinz, Ben Bradlee and Peter Benchley, packed together side by side, bumping up against each other in swinging hammocks.”

Dr. Lovejoy was known as a charming host and created a congenial atmosphere for his guests in the Amazon, but his intentions were deadly serious. If more deforestation occurs, the impact on the rain forest’s hydrological cycle — and the planet — would be dire, he warned.

“It’s really part of the continental climate system,” he told The Christian Science Monitor in 2018. “And that’s not a very sensible thing to mess around with.”

 

“Hundreds of thousands of species,” Dr. Lovejoy once wrote, “will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests.”

Credit...via Kristin Pintauro

Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III was born on Aug. 22, 1941, in Manhattan. His father, Thomas Jr., was the president of the Manhattan Life Insurance Company (as was his grandfather, who in 1912 led a group that acquired control of it), and his mother, Jeanne (Gillette) Lovejoy, was a homemaker. (As an adult, Dr. Lovejoy would serve as a director and chairman of Manhattan Life.)

An only child, he loved the outdoors and reading (his family did not have a television). He attended the Millbrook School in Dutchess County, N.Y., about 90 miles north of Manhattan, because it had a zoo that nurtured what he called the “beautiful and intellectual attraction” of living things.

He studied biology at Yale, where he was a zoological assistant at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He took a year off to study in the Nile River region of Nubia, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1964. While working toward his Ph.D in biology at Yale, he spent a summer studying migratory birds in the Amazon; his dissertation was on the diversity of birds in the rain forest.

Remembering Hank Aaron, Colin Powell, Stephen Sondheim, Beverly Cleary, DMX, Cicely Tyson, Larry King, Olympia Dukakis, Chuck Close, Michael K. Williams, Bob Dole, Janet Malcolm and many others who died this year.

“The Amazon basin at the time was a mostly trackless virgin forest,” Dr. Lovejoy said in an interview in 2012 when he received the Blue Planet Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation for his environmental research. “It was like a dream world for any biologist because there was only one road in the entire area, which had a population of three million.”

Much of his research in the Amazon occurred while he held positions at four organizations, all of which understood that he would need time for his research and would not be a full-time employee. He spent 14 years at the World Wildlife Fund in the United States (he was its 13th employee), rising to executive vice president from 1985 to 1987, and was the assistant secretary for environmental and external affairs at the Smithsonian Institution from 1987 to 1994. He was a senior scientist when he left the Smithsonian in 2001.

Dr. Lovejoy in 2017 at his research center, Camp 41, near Manaus, Brazil.

Credit...via Daniel Reed/PlanetForward.org

At the World Bank, he was the chief biodiversity officer from 1999 to 2002. At the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, he was president and, later, the biodiversity chair, from 2002 to 2013.

During his time at the World Wildlife Fund, he wrote a section of a report commissioned by President Jimmy Carter — “Global 2000: Entering the 21st Century,” released in 1980 — in which he projected that 20 percent of all species on earth would be extinct by 2020.

“Hundreds of thousands of species,” he wrote, “will be irretrievably lost as their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests.” Looking back 32 years later in the Blue Planet interview, he said, “My projection was not far from the mark.”

He later wrote two papers using a new term: “biological diversity.”

In 1984, he proposed the debt-for-nature swaps as a mechanism to keep developing countries from having to slash their conservation budgets to pay off debt. Such swaps, he wrote in an opinion column for The Times, “would be far more than a disinterested handout to mendicants: Left untouched, the environmental problems of the third world inevitably will touch our lives by generating social and political unrest.”

In addition to his field research and executive positions, Dr. Lovejoy served on scientific advisory councils in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In 2010, he became a professor in George Mason University’s department of environmental science and policy, teaching a course in the challenge of biodiversity.

In addition to his daughter Elizabeth, known as Betsy, he is survived by two other daughters, Katherine Petty and Anne Jenkins, and six grandchildren. His marriage to Charlotte Seymour ended in divorce.

Camp 41 was not the only site that Dr. Lovejoy used to bring disparate people together; he also hosted them at his home in McLean, a log cabin called Drover’s Rest, for dinners and fine wine.

“There was always an element of a higher purpose” at such gatherings, said Jane Lubchenco, a marine ecologist who is deputy director for climate and environment in the White House’s office of science and technology policy. “He brought people together to build connections in a way that might lead to more conservation action.”


Richard Sandomir is an obituaries writer. He previously wrote about sports media and sports business. He is also the author of several books, including “The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper and the Making of a Classic.” @RichSandomir
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 30, 2021, Section B, Page 10 of the New York edition with the

ZOONOSIS

WHO notified after rare case of bird flu transmission in England

By Simon Druker
1
A sick crane with H5N1 type bird flu walks in the Hula Lake in the Hula Valley Nature Reserve. On Thursday, the UK Health Security Agency confirmed one person has tested positive for bird flu, transmitted by close contact with infected birds. The World Health Organization has been notified. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo


Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A person in southwest England has contracted a case of bird flu transmitted by exposure to diseased animals, the country's health authority confirmed Thursday.

The UK Health Security Agency said the animal-to-human transmission of bird flu "is very rare and has previously only occurred a small number of times" in that jurisdiction.

As per normal protocol, the UKHSA has alerted the World Health Organization about the case.

The ​​infected person was in "very close, regular contact with a large number of infected birds, which they kept in and around their home," according to the agency.

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The agency also said it has not been possible to identify whether the individual is infected with the H5N1 strain of the influenza.

The United Kingdom has recently seen a large number of outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in birds across the country.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency and Britain's Chief Veterinary Officer have issued alerts to bird owners across the country.

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The case was detected after the APHA identified an outbreak of the H5N1 strain in the infected person's flock of birds.

While the risk of avian flu to the general public is very low, we know that some strains have the potential to spread to humans and that's why we have robust systems in place to detect these early and take action," said UKHSA Chief Scientific Officer Isabel Oliver.

"Currently there is no evidence that this strain detected in the UK can spread from person to person, but we know that viruses evolve all the time and we continue to monitor the situation closely. We have followed up all of this individual's contacts and have not identified any onward spread."

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The infected person is self-isolating and is suffering from minor flu-like symptoms. The health agency is also following up with anyone who was in close contact with the individual.

Environmental justice in spotlight as WH official departs
BY DREW COSTLEY

This 2020 photo shows Cecilia Martinez. On Friday, Jan. 7, 2022, Martinez, the White House's top official on environmental justice, is stepping down a year after President Joe Biden took office with an ambitious plan to help disadvantaged communities and overhaul policies that have historically hurt them. Colleagues at the White House and in Congress say her departure is a loss since she played a pivotal role in centering disadvantaged communities in President Biden’s environmental and climate policies. (Cecilia Martinez via AP)


The White House’s top official on environmental justice is stepping down a year after President Joe Biden took office with an ambitious plan to help disadvantaged communities and overhaul policies that have historically hurt them.

The departure Friday of Cecilia Martinez, senior director for environmental justice at the Council for Environmental Quality, puts a spotlight on both the administration’s successes and promises yet to be fulfilled.

“It was a hard decision,” Martinez told the Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. She said that after many months of working on Biden’s environmental policy, she needed time to rest and be with her family.

Colleagues at the White House and in Congress say her departure is a loss since she played a pivotal role in centering disadvantaged communities in President Biden’s environmental and climate policies.

“Her credibility in terms of environmental issues — in particular environmental justice issues — is going to be missed,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz, said.

Martinez helped develop then-candidate Joe Biden’s environmental justice agenda while he was campaigning by setting up meetings between Biden’s team and key environmental justice leaders from around the country. She went on to oversee a review of the Council on Environmental Quality as part of Biden’s transition team and was eventually appointed as the top ranking official on environmental justice in the administration.

“Cecilia has been the heart, soul, and mind of the most ambitious environmental justice agenda ever adopted by a President,” Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council of Environmental Quality, said in a statement. “She is an unwavering and effective champion for the communities that, for far too long, have been overburdened by pollution and left out of government decisions that affect them.”

Through executive orders and legislation, the administration has tried to direct resources toward disadvantaged communities, develop tools to monitor climate and economic justice and pass regulations to clean up the environment.

Some of that was accomplished. The White House’s Justice40 initiative mandated that 40% of benefits from federal investments in sustainable and green infrastructure, such as clean energy, pollution cleanup and water improvements, go to disadvantaged communities.

The administration also created a mapping tool that will help identify communities most in need of such investments.

And the Biden administration has restored dozens of environmental regulations rolled back during the Trump administration, including rules that limit the amount of toxic waste coming from coal plants, require extensive environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects, and protect endangered wildlife.

Martinez was central to much of that progress, but she and others in the White House say much more work remains to be done. She said everyone she has worked with on the federal level is “very much interested in communities holding us accountable.”

Reflecting on year one of Biden’s administration, environmental justice leaders around the country expressed disappointment and frustration at what they call a lack of progress and failure to protect communities most vulnerable to climate change, most exposed to pollution and that have the least access to environmental benefits such as clean water.

“I would say that overall there was some progress made in advancing environmental justice priorities more through executive actions than legislation,” said Juan Jhong-Chung, climate justice director at the nonprofit Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. “But our communities are still waiting for the results on the ground.”

Some money from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill will be spent on projects like cleaning up toxic waste sites.

But a lot more investment that would have gone toward environmental and climate justice initiatives in frontline communities likely will not be part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill, a signature policy of the administration. Moderate Democrats have demanded cuts and it’s unclear what, if any, part of the bill may eventually pass.

Dallas Goldtooth, campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said Biden’s promises on environmental justice were an “over-commitment” and that the administration “has not been sincere in actualizing its ambitions.”

He also said the Biden administration has failed to protect indigenous communities from projects such as the Line3 and Dakota Access pipelines. Both oil pipelines were met with protests and legal challenges from indigenous and environmental groups who said that construction and operation of the pipelines could threaten the water and air quality in their communities.

But the Biden administration decided not to cancel the Line3 pipeline’s permits and to keep the Dakota Access pipeline open while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted an environmental review.

Based on the mixed results of the first year of Biden’s environmental justice agenda, many environmental justice advocates are skeptical that the administration can deliver on its ambitious promises.

“It has been disappointing,” Goldtooth said. “I’ve got friends who are in the administration and … I’m cheering them on, but I also feel for them when their hands are tied.”

The White House has not said who might replace Martinez, a longtime environmental justice advocate from New Mexico whose research centered on effects of radiation poisoning and who founded the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit.

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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

France, Germany 'agree to disagree' on nuclear power

© Odd ANDERSEN


Germany and France have "agreed to disagree" on the EU's move to label nuclear energy as green, German Europe Minister Anna Luehrmann said Friday, denying any conflict between the two European giants on the issue.

The European Commission has issued a draft proposal to label nuclear energy, along with natural gas, as "green" sources eligible for investment under rules for promoting a carbon-neutral future.

France has led the charge for nuclear power -- its main energy source -- to be included on the list, while Germany, which is in the process of shutting all its nuclear plants, remains fiercely opposed to the move.

"We know what the French position is on nuclear power and the French side knows very well what the German position is," Luehrmann told AFP in an interview.

"So we can say we agree to disagree on the issue and then turn to the issues where we want to move forward... from climate protection to sustainable investments, to the issue of European strategic sovereignty."

The green energy list, known as the EU's "taxonomy", was meant to have landed before the end of 2021, but deep divisions between member states have held it up.

The European Commission quietly distributed a draft text of its plans on New Year's Eve and said it had started consulting with member states on the proposal.

If a majority of member states back it, it will become EU law, coming into effect from 2023.

France, which gets about 70 percent of its power from nuclear, signed a statement supporting nuclear power with nine other EU states in October, including Poland and the Czech Republic.

- 'Not the majority' -

But Germany's Environment Minister Steffi Lemke has said it would be "absolutely wrong" to include nuclear energy on the list, arguing that atomic power "can lead to devastating environmental catastrophes".

Germany shut down three of its six remaining nuclear power plants late last year and will close the others by the end of 2022, following Angela Merkel's timetable for phasing out atomic energy.

"We have made it very clear as the entire federal government that we are against the inclusion of nuclear as a sustainable financial product," Luehrmann said.

"We have to go in a different direction for climate reasons, but also for reasons of political independence, and I see that as an argument against both gas and nuclear energy. Because the uranium has to come from somewhere," she said.

However, Luehrmann conceded that "we also know that we are not the majority in Europe" on the issue.

dac-kol/fec/hmn/har

AFP

Chile lawmakers ask courts to stop bidding on lithium mining contracts
Reuters | January 4, 2022 

SQM’s evaporation pools in Chile’s Atacama Desert. (Image courtesy of SQM.)

Chilean lawmakers went to court on Tuesday to stop the outgoing government from taking bids for lithium mining contracts, with SQM and Albemarle , the world’s two largest producers of the ultra-light battery metal, in the running.


Lawmakers from the center-left opposition party PPD asked the Santiago Court of Appeals to stop the surprise bidding process, which will end in mid-January.

It has been criticized by people close to president-elect Gabriel Boric, who has said Chile should not repeat its “historic mistake” of privatizing resources such as lithium, a vital ingredient of electric car batteries..

“What the government of President Sebastián Piñera is doing is putting the general interest of the nation at risk,” said Raúl Soto, a deputy and one of the promoters of the appeal.

“It is putting business and private interests ahead once again over the interest of all Chileans to have security and, under state administration, with a natural resource as strategic and as important for the future of Chile as lithium,” he added.

In October, Chile announced the auction process to award operating contracts to explore and produce 400,000 tonnes of lithium metal for batteries, in a bid to boost production and meet global demand.

Since then, Boric won an election on pledges to fund more social programs and reduce inequality.

The Chilean SQM and the giant Albemarle are two of the five companies contending for the contracts.

The deputies said the bidding also violates regulations on consulting indigenous communities near the site of any mining in the Atacama Desert, in the north of the country.

The government defended the bidding process, arguing it has been transparent and saying the companies will be partners of the state in any mining venture. It said the five quotas in the bidding correspond only to 4.4% of Chile’s known reserves of the metal and do not prevent the creation of a national lithium company.

“Until 2016 Chile was the world’s largest producer, with 37% of the market. But today we fell to 31% and we have been overtaken by Australia. If we do not manage to increase production, by 2030 we will have fallen to 17%”, Juan Carlos Jobet, the Minister of Mining and Energy, wrote on Twitter.

The official said the government plans to talk with Boric’s team, which will take office in March, to review the background of the process.

(By Natalia Ramos, Erik López and Carolina Pulice; Editing by David Gregorio)

Renewable: Lithium promises revival for dying California inland sea


Hollywood's jetset once crowded the shores of the Salton Sea, a then-idyllic southern California playground for the wealthy. Today, it is desolate and depressed -- the evaporating water leaving behind dead shellfish, dust and chemicals that irritate the airways.

© Robyn Beck The communities around the Salton Sea, a former playground for the wealthy in southern California, are struggling as the inland sea evaporates, but a lithium extraction plant is offering hope of a renewal

© Robyn Beck Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) says it could be producing up to 20,000 tonnes of lithium a year by 2024

But also lithium.

The increasingly valuable metal, whose supply is concentrated in a few global pockets, is vital for the rechargeable batteries expected to cleanly power the cars and homes of our polluted planet's future.

"This is definitely the largest known (reserve) here in North America," says Jim Turner, chief operating officer of Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR), pointing to the desert horizon of the so-called "Lithium Valley."

©

 Robyn Beck The Salton Sea has no supply of fresh water to replenish it, so it is gradually shrinking

For now, the Australian firm only has a huge drill boring into the ground at the site of a planned geothermal plant and lithium production site.

But by 2024, Turner says, this spot could be producing 20,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide every year -- enough to make batteries for 400,000 Teslas.

© Robyn Beck Ernie Hawkins is optimistic about the lithium plant, and hopes it will being some much-needed economic stimulation to the area

Lithium demand for use in batteries is expected to double by the end of the decade, says Juan Carlos Zuleta, who specializes in the economics of the metal.

At present rates, lithium hydroxide is worth over $25,000 per tonne, a price that has risen more than 250 percent over the last year.

Such mineral wealth could prove a boon for an area that ranks among California's poorest.

But the Salton Sea has seen promises disappear before, like mirages in its unforgiving desert climate.

- The Salton Riviera -

The Salton Sea has formed and evaporated several times over the millennia, but its latest iteration arose at the start of the 20th century when the Colorado River overflowed.

That created a 300-square-mile (800 square kilometers) inland sea, around which resorts such as Salton City and Bombay Beach flourished, offering fishing, swimming and sunbathing.

But with no natural water source -- other than California's unreliable rain -- feeding the sea, it is shrinking. Evaporation is increasing the salinity of the remaining water.

This process also leaves behind chemicals from farmland runoff, which settles in the dusty shores and is whipped up by the wind, contributing to a high rate of asthma in the area.

The Salton Riviera, a tourist promise that once threatened to dethrone nearby Palm Springs, is now just a collection of corroded buildings.

Salton City languishes, and no one swims or fishes in the water any more. Imperial County, in which it all sits, has a 15.5 percent unemployment rate, one of the highest in the country.

"We need things here. You're in the poorest county in the state of California," says Ernie Hawkins, owner of the Ski Inn bar in Bombay Beach.

Ironically, the desolation of Bombay Beach has been its saving grace in recent years: its dystopian landscape is a draw for artists, who now form a part of the 300-strong community.

Hawkins says his bar, covered floor to ceiling with dollar bills, is surviving even the pandemic, and that the riches that lithium deposits offer could really help.

Not everyone agrees.

A few miles north, in Calipatria, there is skepticism about how the community will benefit from the venture.

"We heard that there will be more jobs, that they will open other plants, but we haven't seen anything change. We have to wait," says Juan Gonzalez, an employee in a tire shop, one of the few businesses operating in the city.

- 'Endless' possibilities -

From its shoreline, littered with dead crustaceans, the Salton Sea seems endless.

Sometimes -- though not always -- it smells bad here, say biochemists Charlie Diamond and Caroline Hung of the University of California, Riverside.

In their small inflatable boat, the researchers measure lake conditions periodically.

Diamond sees "a unique opportunity" in the promise of lithium, but only if it is handled correctly.

"I think that there's really no reason that it can't be like a poster child for success in alternative energy development," he said.

"That opportunity is squarely on the table and it's really up to the community and the lithium operators, whether or not that's the story, or if it's a story of conflict, and another chapter in the long story of this region being left out economically."

For Hung, the opinions of the residents are important, but they are not the only consideration -- lithium extraction can have environmental consequences.

"They need to really think about what would happen if the water continues to recede, and they continue to expand," she says.

CTR's Turner says the company plans to use geothermal sources to power the plant, which will extract a lithium brine.

The metal will be separated from this liquid, and the remnants returned to the earth, minimizing any environmental impact, in a cyclical process he says is far less harmful than other large-scale extraction methods around the world.

He insists that this will position the United States -- which currently has only one lithium operation, in Nevada -- to compete in a future where batteries are a vital link in the renewable energy chain.

Turner's enthusiasm is infectious to some on the quiet, desert shores of the Salton Sea.

"I'm gonna put an electric (charging) station out here," says Hawkins, gesturing to the front of his bar.

"Once it starts, the possibilities are going to be endless. Who knows, maybe I'm a dreamer."

pr-hg/to