IT MUST BE 100% SAFE

Male birth control: What's getting in the way, sexism or science?


Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY
Sat, June 4, 2022,

Nearly half of all pregnancies around the world are unintended, according to a report from the United Nations published in March. While some of these pregnancies become a source of joy, more than half of them end in abortion. Other unplanned pregnancies that come to term create a cascade of wide-ranging consequences, including fewer educational opportunities for the women who give birth, reduced participation in the labor market and risks to the mental and physical well-being of mother and child.

In the United States, the unintended pregnancy rate is significantly higher than in many other developed countries, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Those rates are highest among young women, low-income women and women of color.

Despite the more than 120 million unintended pregnancies worldwide, options for male contraception are limited. Male-driven methods include withdrawal, condoms and vasectomy. One in 5 couples who use withdrawal becomes pregnant. According to the World Health Organization, condoms have a failure rate of 13% and vasectomies are effective but fewer than 3% of couples use them as a form of protection, in part because they are invasive and not reliably reversible.

"Once the pregnancy happens, it becomes the burden of the woman, which is why there's been a focus on female methods," said Heather Vahdat, executive director of Male Contraceptive Initiative, which provides funding and advocacy support for the research and development of male birth control. "Contraception has been inextricably linked with women's empowerment .. but we've also been quietly managing some horrendous side effects. Now women are realizing it's OK to say that this isn't good enough. Yes, we're grateful, but we want better and we should have better, and better not only means methods for us, but it means allowing our partners to be able to contribute to this equation."


Male birth control pill: Could it work?

Many men are on board. A 2017 survey of 1,500 men living in the U.S. found that 85% of participants wanted to prevent their partner from getting pregnant and taking responsibility for birth control was the key reason for wanting a new male contraceptive method.

"I do a lot of vasectomies, which includes a counseling discussion .. and I think there is a desire on the male side to be able to play a bigger role in family planning," said Dr. Bobby Najari, a physician at New York University Langone Health who specializes in male sexual and reproductive health and is director of the Male Infertility Program.

Research on male contraception began 60 years ago, but while experts say there have been promising advancements in both hormonal and non-hormonal forms, there has been little urgency to bring new male contraceptives to market. Experts blame several factors, including the abundance of existing options for female contraception, cultural attitudes that preclude men from the work of preventing pregnancy, and a lack of funding for research and development, especially among pharmaceutical companies.

Experts are divided on whether a possible overturn of Roe v. Wade would accelerate efforts to develop more effective, affordable and accessible options for male contraception. Some hope this will open up a conversation about the role of male birth control in equitable family planning, others are skeptical. Some constitutional experts have said if the court overturns its landmark Roe decision, other rights could become implicated, including access to contraception.
Studies on male contraceptives are promising

A 2017 survey found men are twice as likely to prefer a non-hormonal method to a hormonal method and nearly 90% of men report it’s important for their contraceptive method to be reversible.

Experts say condoms have a high failure rate and low compliance.

Hormonal methods have progressed the furthest in clinical development. Most non-hormonal methods are still in pre-clinical stages (or animal studies).

Najari said there have been many attempts at hormonal contraceptive options, which aim to suppress sperm production. Trials of hormonal methods have demonstrated greater efficacy than condoms and the most common side effects have been "weight gain, acne, slight suppression of serum high-density cholesterol, mood changes and changes in libido," according to a 2020 article in the journal "Focus: Sex & Reproduction."

Male birth control: Study nixed after men complain of side effects

"The main reason no hormonal combination has made it to primetime yet, however, is due to an unclear bar on side effects and safety. Regulatory bodies have not given clear guidance on what degree of side effects or safety concerns would be considered 'acceptable,' said Dr. Arthi Thirumalai, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington. "Safety concerns have typically been related to changes in red blood cell mass or cholesterol. However, it is unclear to what extent these need to be reduced or minimized in a product for it to be considered for further drug development."
What's the holdup?

Safety concerns around hormonal methods, a lack of clinical research on non-hormonal methods and a dearth of investment from pharmaceutical companies have created barriers to the development of more forms of male contraception.

Vahdat said for the last 30 years contraceptive product development has largely been managed by the philanthropic and public sectors. There have been no big pharmaceutical dollars. Vahdat said the Male Contraceptive Initiative is the second-largest funder of male contraception in the U.S. behind the National Institute of Health. Vahdat said the organization funds approximately $1.2 to $1.5 million of research per year.

Vahdat said she also suspects risk-benefit analyses may be hindering development.

"A woman weighs the medical burden of an unwanted pregnancy against the possible side effects and safety concerns of a contraceptive regimen. Men don't need to consider the medical risks of a pregnancy for themselves, so this may have a role in overall lower acceptance of side effects and safety concerns from contraceptive regimens," she said.

Najari said if not for the plethora of existing female contraceptive options, there might be a wider acceptance of the risk profile of male methods.

"The tolerability and the side effect profile of all these medications that have been investigated on the male side would have been viewed in a completely different way," Najari said. "It might have been deemed appropriate for physicians and men to have that discussion about risks and benefits. I think many males would elect to take on those risks because the benefits of contraception on a couple are so helpful. ... I do think that there's some bias toward a higher safety profile in males, whether that's coming from society or regulators."

The impact of Roe v. Wade on male birth control

Experts are divided on whether a possible overturn of Roe v. Wade could generate urgency on male-directed contraceptive methods. Thirumalai is skeptical and said it's important to enhance contraceptive options regardless of political beliefs or what the high court decides.

"Engaging male partners in the overall effort toward lowering the burden of unwanted pregnancies as a society is our best chance of making reproductive rights and health fair to both members in couples," she said.

Vahdat is hopeful that a conversation around the tenuousness of Roe may bring men into the picture in a way they haven't been before, though she also said there needs to be a generational shift in depoliticizing reproductive health.

When the news about Roe leaked, some women on social media said that even if more options for male birth control existed, they would be suspicious of compliance. Experts say this concern is specific to the dynamics of sexual partners.

Vahdat said compliance isn't either/or, and that's why it's imperative to develop more contraceptive methods.

"If a woman doesn't trust her male partner, then they can both contracept. If a woman is having horrible side effects, her partner can contracept on behalf of both of them. People can take turns. People's interest, demands and desires around contraception change dramatically throughout the course of their reproductive lifespan," she said.

Vahdat also noted the importance of developing non-hormonal options for people who are not gender binary or who are trans, especially if they're undergoing hormone therapy.

Experts say the demand for male contraception is strong, and they're disappointed there isn't more urgency from funding agencies and regulators to meet that demand.

"We are not allowing half of the global population to control their reproductive autonomy," Vahdat said, "and it impacts everyone."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Male birth control: Why are condoms and vasectomies the only options?

Why Canada Races on Gun Policy When America Crawls

Max Fisher
Fri, June 3, 2022

Gun control advocates listen as Democratic senators speak at a rally at the Capitol in Washington, May 26, 2022. (Tom Brenner/The New York Times)

As Congress once more struggles through acrimonious and so far fruitless negotiations over gun reforms in the wake of a mass shooting, Americans may find themselves looking north in befuddlement.

Canada’s government has begun moving to ban handgun sales and buy back military-style rifles — dramatic changes in a country with one of the world’s highest gun ownership rates outside of the United States, expected to pass easily and with little fuss.

Ask Americans why Canada’s government seems to cut through issues that mire their own in bitterness and frustration, and you might hear them cite cultural differences, gentler politics, even easygoing Canadian temperaments.

But ask a political scientist, and you will get a more straightforward answer.

Differences in national culture and issues, while meaningful, do not on their own explain things. After all, Canada also has two parties that mostly dominate national politics, an urban-rural divide, deepening culture wars and a rising far-right. And guns have been a contentious issue there for decades, one long contested by activist groups.

Rather, much of the gap in how these two countries handle contentious policy questions comes down to something that can feel invisible amid day-to-day politicking but may be just as important as the issues themselves: the structures of their political systems.

Canada’s is a parliamentary system. Its head of government, Justin Trudeau, is elevated to that job by the legislature, of which he is also a member, and which his party, in collaboration with another, controls.

If Trudeau wants to pass a new law, he must merely ask his subordinates in his party and their allies to do it. There is no such thing as divided government and less cross-party horse-trading and legislative gridlock.

Canada is similar to what the United States would be if it had only a House of Representatives, whose speaker also oversaw federal agencies and foreign policy.

What the U.S. has instead is a system whose structure simultaneously requires cooperation across competing parties and discourages them from working together.

The result is a U.S. system that not only moves slower and passes fewer laws than those of parliamentary models like Canada’s, research has found, but also stalls for years even on measures that enjoy widespread support among voters in both parties, such as universal background checks for gun purchases.

Many political scientists argue that the United States’ long-worsening gridlock runs much deeper than any one issue or the interest groups engaged with it, to the basic setup of its political system.

The Perils of Presidents

Scholar Juan Linz warned in a much-discussed 1990 essay, as much of the developing and formerly Soviet worlds moved to democracy, that those countries not follow what he called one of the foundational flaws of the United States: its presidency.

“The vast majority of the stable democracies in the world today are parliamentary regimes,” Linz wrote.

Presidential systems, on the other hand, tended to collapse in coups or other violence, with only the United States having persisted since its origin.

It’s telling that when American diplomats and technocrats help to set up new democracies abroad, they almost always model them on European-style parliaments.

Subsequent research has found that parliamentary systems also perform better at managing the economy and advancing rule of law than presidencies, if only for the comparative ease with which they can implement policy — witnessed in Canada’s rapid response to gun violence or other crises.

America’s legislative hurdles, requiring cooperation across the president, Senate and House to pass laws, are raised further by the fact that all three are elected under different rules.

None represents a straight national majority. Presidential elections favor some states over others. The Senate tilts especially toward rural voters. All three are elected on different schedules. As a result, single-party control is rare. Because competing parties typically control at least one of those three veto points on legislation, legislation is frequently vetoed.

Americans have come to accept, even embrace, divided government. But it is exceedingly uncommon. While Americans may see Canada’s legislative efficiency as unusual, to the rest of the world it is American-style gridlock that looks odd.

Still, America’s presidential system does not, on its own, explain what makes it function so differently from a country like Canada.

“As long as things are moderate, a presidential system is not so bad,” said Lee Drutman, a political scientist who studies political reform.

Rather, he cited that the U.S. is nearly alone in combining a presidency with winner-take-all elections.

Zero-Sum Contests

Proportional votes, common in most of the world, award seats to each party based on its share of the vote.

Under American-style elections, the party that wins 51% of a race controls 100% of the office it elects, while the party with 49% ends up with nothing.

This all but ensured that politics would coalesce between two parties because third-ranked parties rarely win office. And as those two parties came to represent geographically distinct electorates struggling for national control, their contests took on, for voters, a sensation of us-versus-them.

Canada, too, has winner-take-all elections, a practice inherited from Britain. Still, neither of those countries hold presidential contests, which pit one half of the nation against the other.

And in neither country do the executive and legislative branches share power, which, in times of divided government, extends the zero-sum nature of U.S. elections into lawmaking, too. And not only on issues on which the parties’ supporters disagree.

In 2013, shortly after a gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, polls found that 81% of Republicans supported background checks for gun purchases. But when asked whether the Senate should pass such a bill — which would have required Republicans to side with the then-Democratic majority — support dropped to 57%. The measure never passed.

The episode was one of many suggesting that Americans often privilege partisan victory, or at least denying victory to the other side, over their own policy preferences, scholar Lilliana Mason wrote in a book on partisanship.

“Even when policy debates crack open and an opportunity for compromise appears,” Mason wrote, “partisans are psychologically motivated to look away.”

Unstable Majorities

Still, there is something unusual to Canada’s model, too.

Most parliamentary systems, as in Europe, elect lawmakers proportionally. Voters select a party, which takes seats in the legislature proportional to its overall vote share. As a result, many different parties end up in office and must join in a coalition to secure a governing majority. Lawmaking is less prone to gridlock than in the U.S., but it’s not seamless, either: The prime minister must negotiate among the parties of their coalition.

Canada, like Britain, combines American-style elections, which produce what is not quite a two-party system in those countries but is close, with European-style parliaments.

As a result, Canada’s prime minister usually oversees a legislative majority, allowing him or her to breeze through legislation even more easily than in European-style parliaments.

This moment is an exception: Trudeau’s Liberal Party controls slightly less than half of the House of Commons. Still, his party dominates a legislative alliance in which he has only one partner. Canada also includes a Senate, though its members are appointed and rarely rock the boat.

But the Canadian system produces what Drutman called “unstable majorities,” prone to whiplashing on policy.

“If you have a 52% margin for one party, and then you throw the bums out because 4% of the vote went the other way, now you’ve moved completely in the other direction,” he said.

Gun laws are a case in point. After a 1989 mass shooting, Canadian lawmakers passed registration rules but phased them in over several years because they were unpopular among rural communities.

Those rules were later abolished under a Conservative government. Though Trudeau has not reimposed the registry, he has tightened gun laws in other ways.

In a European-style system, by contrast, a 4-point shift to the right or left might change only one party in the country’s governing coalition, prompting a slighter policy change more proportional to the electorate’s mood.

American liberals may thrill at the seeming ease with which Canada’s often-left-leaning government can implement policy, much as conservatives may envy Britain’s more right-wing, but similarly rapid, lawmaking under a similar system.

But it is the slow-and-steady European model, with its frustratingly incremental advances, that, over the long run, research finds, tend to prove the most stable and effective.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

EPA raises amount of ethanol that must be blended with gas


An ethanol refinery is shown on July 22, 2021, in Chancellor, S.D. The Biden administration set new requirements Friday, June 3, 2022, that increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended into the nation's gasoline supply but reduce previous ethanol-blending requirements due to a plunge in fuel demand during the coronavirus pandemic. 

(AP Photo/Stephen Groves, File) 

DAVID PITT
Fri, June 3, 2022

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday set new requirements that increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended into the nation's gasoline supply but reduce previous ethanol-blending requirements due to a plunge in fuel demand during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it would set the 2022 levels for corn-based ethanol blended into gasoline at 15 billion gallons. But even as the new rules increased future ethanol requirements, the EPA retroactively reduced levels for 2020 by 2.5 billion gallons and by 1.2 billion gallons for 2021, reflecting the lower amount of ethanol produced and decreased sales of gasoline during a period when the virus led to a drop in driving.

Most gasoline sold in the U.S. contains 10% ethanol, and the fuel has become a key part of the economy in many Midwest states. The fuel consumes more than 40% of the nation's corn supply, and ethanol and other biofuel production plants offer jobs in rural areas that have seen steady population declines over the decades.

President Joe Biden is among many politicians from both parties who have frequently promised to support increases in the renewable fuel standard.

“Today’s actions will help to reduce our reliance on oil and put the RFS program back on track after years of challenges and mismanagement," said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

The Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol lobbying group, criticized the retroactive reduction of biofuels targets but said the future requirements would bring certainty back to the renewable fuel standard, help lower gas prices and set a foundation for future growth.

In the last few days, wholesale ethanol prices have been as much as $1.30 per gallon lower than gasoline, the group said.

The final order also denies exemptions for certain oil refineries from ethanol requirements, saying they had failed to show exemptions were justified under the Clean Air Act.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers group, which represents refineries, called the 2022 figure “bewildering and contrary to the administration’s claims to be doing everything in their power to provide relief to consumers.” The group said unachievable mandates will increase fuel production costs and keep consumer prices high.

The Biden administration also announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would provide $700 million to support 195 biofuel producers in 25 states that faced unexpected market losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The money comes from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Biden's EPA finalizes ethanol, biodiesel blending requirements, requiring largest amount on record

Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register
Fri, June 3, 2022

The Biden administration Friday made official its requirement for how much ethanol and biodiesel the oil industry must blend into the nation's fuel supply this year, giving the renewable fuel industry several wins.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deviated little from the proposal level announced late last year, the largest since the establishment of the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2005. Most U.S. gasoline is blended with at least 10% ethanol under the federal mandate.

Iowa is both the nation's largest ethanol producer and corn grower, with about half the crop going to make the renewable fuel.

It also leads the nation in making biodiesel and is the second-largest grower of soybeans, a major feedstock for the fuel.

President Joe Biden announces the elimination of restrictions on E15, allowing the 15% ethanol blend of gasoline to be sold year-round, at POET Bioprocessing, on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, in rural Menlo, Iowa.

The EPA said the decision on the standard reflects "the Biden administration’s commitment to reset and strengthen the RFS, bolster our nation’s energy security, and support homegrown biofuel alternatives to oil for transportation fuel."

Supporters hailed the decision, which comes at a time when gas prices have skyrocketed. In Iowa, the Friday median gas price was $4.493 a gallon, nearly 60% higher than a year earlier, according to AAA Gas Price.

The renewable fuels industry says gas blended with 15% ethanol, called E15, can cut pump prices by nearly 60 cents a gallon in some parts of the country. President Joe Biden visited an Iowa ethanol plant in April to announce he was lifting disputed smog-related restrictions on the summer sales of E15 to help cut gas prices

More: A new Iowa law will require more gas stations to carry E15. Can I use it? Will it save me money?

Also, a recent study shows that corn-ethanol has 46% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline.

"More ethanol in the fuel supply saves Americans money at the pump and lowers greenhouse gas emissions," said Chris Edgington, an Iowa farmer and National Corn Growers Association's board president.

“President Biden understands the important role the biofuels industry plays in supporting Iowa farmers and rural communities while reducing the price at the pump for consumers,” U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, an Iowa Democrat, said in a statement.

"By requiring petroleum refiners to blend larger volumes of low-cost biofuels like ethanol, today’s actions will put downward pressure on gas prices and provide economic relief to American families facing record-high pump prices," Renewable Fuels Association CEO Geoff Cooper said in a statement.

MORE: President Joe Biden in Iowa OKs more ethanol use to cut gas prices, pitches plan to improve rural America

But Chet Thompson, CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, said the blending requirement for this year is "contrary to the administration’s claims to be doing everything in their power to provide relief to consumers."

"Unachievable mandates will needlessly raise fuel production costs and further threaten the viability of U.S. small refineries, both at the expense of consumers," Thompson said.
Announcement also include denial of refinery exemptions

The EPA, after gathering comments since releasing it proposed blending requirements in December, said Friday it will require refiners to blend 20.77 billion gallons of ethanol, biodiesel and other renewable fuel this year.

Additionally, the oil industry must blend 250 million more gallons of renewable fuel, both this year and next, after a federal court found the Obama administration inappropriately reduced the 2016 blending requirements.

The agency also denied roughly 70 exemptions for small refineries, many of which had been granted under former President Donald Trump.

More: Verbio launches $115 million renewable natural gas, ethanol plant in Nevada; touts bigger plans

“The Biden EPA is to be commended for restoring sanity to the refinery exemption program,” Monte Shaw, the Iowa Renewable Fuel Association's executive director, said in a statement. “These exemptions have never been justified and were simply being used to illegally undermine the RFS. We are grateful this long nightmare is over.”

Shaw, however, said he's concerned about the EPA's decision to retroactively scale back the blending requirements for 2020 and 2021, although the agency did increase last year's requirement by 320 million over December's proposal.

More: Chevron plans to buy Ames-based biodiesel company Renewable Energy Group for $3.15 billion

The EPA attributed the reduction in the blending requirements to widespread travel shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, which drastically reduced fuel demand.

“We cannot ignore that today’s final rule creates uncertainty," Shaw said. "Any of these numbers that look good today could be revised downward in the future."

But Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy, a Washington, D.C., biofuels advocacy group, said the Biden's administration final rule "sends a positive signal" as the EPA works to set new guidelines for 2023, when the federal mandate will no longer outlines blending requirements.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com or 515-284-8457.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: EPA announces renewable fuel standard, key figure for Iowa corn, ethanol

WHIPSAWING

John Deere is moving its tractor cab production from Waterloo to Mexico



Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register
Fri, June 3, 2022

Farm and construction equipment manufacturing giant Deere & Co. said Thursday it's moving tractor cab production from its Waterloo plant to Mexico, given a tight labor market and the need to make way for new products at the northeast Iowa plant, its largest.

The company said it plans to transfer the operations to its components plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, in 2024.

"The decision to move cab production ensures the company can balance workforce needs within the tight labor market, while also ensuring Waterloo can open up floor space to manufacture new products," the company said in a statement.

Deere declined Thursday to say what kind of new products might be produced at the Waterloo plant.

The number of employees affected will depend on production volumes and employee attrition over the next two years, as well as new product program needs, the statement said.

More: John Deere introduces Iowa-built driverless tractor, touted as the next revolution in agriculture

Without attrition, about 250 workers could lose their jobs. The plant employs about 1,500 people, including 1,100 production workers.

Leaders at United Auto Workers Local 838, which represents about 3,000 workers in the Waterloo metro area, many of them Deere employees, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Any possible job loss, especially high-paying positions like those at Deere, worries Iowa Rep. Ras Smith, a Democrat who represents Waterloo.

"It's disappointing to see jobs leave the state, let alone the country," Smith said.

Deere is a major Waterloo and Iowa manufacturing employer. Based in Moline, on the Illinois side of the Quad Cities, it has more than 6,600 workers in Iowa, with large plants in Ankeny, Davenport, Dubuque, Ottumwa and Paton, in addition to Waterloo.

Smith, who's not seeking reelection, said Deere has provided many Iowa families, including his own, a pathway to a better life.

"Many of us grew up playing with green tractors because our moms and dads worked there," said the lawmaker, whose father, L.C. Smith, worked 43 years for Deere before retiring.

"It's helped a lot of families move into middle class," he said.

He said he hoped the UAW's five-week strike at Deere plants last fall played no role in the company's decision.

MORE: John Deere employees approve third contract proposal, ending their five-week strike

About 10,100 striking UAW members shut down production in Iowa, Kansas and Illinois before workers approved a new six-year contract in November. They had rejected two earlier offers in the largest labor action in Iowa in decades.

Union members gained improved hourly wages and retirement benefits. At the low end of the pay grade, workers earn about $22 an hour, and at the top end, they're paid $33.

Deere said in an email that the strike — the first at the company since 1986 — was not a factor in its decision.

Access to a ready supply of workers was likely a key concern in Deere's decision to shift production, said Peter Orazem, an Iowa State University labor economist.

A year ago, Deere said it would hire dozens of workers at its Iowa plants if the company could find them, given booming farm and construction economies and increased equipment demand.

Orazem said the percentage of Iowans willing to work has failed to recover at the same rate as the nation's since the 2020 global pandemic hit. Iowa had roughly 61,000 fewer people either working or looking for work in April compared to October 2019, U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show.

In that month, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Iowa's labor participation rate was at a decade high of 70.6%, compared to 67.4% in April.

Iowa's unemployment rate was 3% in April, 15th in the nation, when the overall U.S. unemployment rate for the month was 3.6%.

Iowa employers have looked to immigrants to help boost a workforce that skews older than the nation's, Orazem said. But that's been difficult, both because of COVID-19 restrictions on movement of people and goods across borders and tighter U.S. immigration policies.

Smith, the state lawmaker, said Iowa also may not seem welcoming to workers, with a new law that reduces unemployment benefits and restrictive social legislation, such as another new law that forbids participation by transgender girls in female school sports teams. "Parents aren't going to want to come here if they have a trans daughter or son," he said.

He said Iowa will need to work harder to attract workers to the state or face the possibility that more companies may look to move operations.

"The pool of workers is shrinking. That doesn't bode well for companies that want to expand," he said.

But Debi Durham, the Iowa Economic Development Authority's director, said a tight labor market is "not unique to Iowa."

"But we’re in a better position than most states. Our economy is growing and we’re seeing more people return to the workforce," Durham said in an email.

She credited Gov. Kim Reynolds for "turning our unemployment system into a re-employment system" as well as supporting worker training and businesses' adoption of technology that improves productivity.


This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Deere plans to move tractor cab production from Iowa to Mexico in 2024

Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere soars to levels not seen for millions of years, NOAA says

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Sat, June 4, 2022,

The amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times – and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal government scientists announced Friday.

“Carbon dioxide is at levels our species has never experienced before,” said Pieter Tans, senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Monitoring Laboratory.

The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas releases "greenhouse" gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The emissions have caused the planet's temperatures to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors, scientists say.

Just in the past 20 years, the world's temperature has risen about two-thirds of a degree Fahrenheit, NOAA said.

According to NOAA, these rising temperatures have unleashed a cascade of weather impacts, including episodes of extreme heat, drought and wildfire activity, as well as heavier precipitation, flooding and tropical storm activity.

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said that without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.”

A man wades into the ocean at sunset on June 22, 2021, in Newport Beach, Calif. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May averaged 421 parts per million, more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels.

Levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise, when they need to be falling, scientists say. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 parts per million more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels were consistently around 280 ppm for almost 6,000 years of human civilization, NOAA said. Since then, humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide pollution, much of which will continue to warm the atmosphere for thousands of years.

NOAA said carbon dioxide levels in the air in May have reached a point last known when Earth was 7 degrees hotter, millions of years ago.

FACT CHECK: Climate change measured in decades, day to day temperature fluctuation common

The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year.

"It's depressing that we've lacked the collective willpower to slow the relentless rise in CO2,” said geochemist Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “Fossil fuel use may no longer be accelerating, but we are still racing at top speed toward a global catastrophe.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Earth carbon dioxide at levels not seen for millions of years: NOAA

Sky high: Carbon dioxide levels in air spike past milestone


SETH BORENSTEIN
Fri, June 3, 2022

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shot past a key milestone -- more than 50% higher than pre-industrial times -- and is at levels not seen since millions of years ago when Earth was a hothouse ocean-inundated planet, federal scientists announced Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its long-time monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, averaged 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the month of May, which is when the crucial greenhouse gas hits its yearly high. Before the industrial revolution in the late 19th century carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million, scientists said, so humans have significantly changed the atmosphere. Some activists and scientists want a level of 350 parts per million. Industrial carbon dioxide emissions come from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Levels of the gas continue to rise, when they need to be falling, scientists say. This year’s carbon dioxide level is nearly 1.9 ppm more than a year ago, a slightly bigger jump than from May 2020 to May 2021.

“The world is trying to reduce emissions, and you just don’t see it. In other words, if you’re measuring the atmosphere, you’re not seeing anything happening right now in terms of change,” said NOAA climate scientist Pieter Tans, who tracks global greenhouse gas emissions for the agency.

Outside scientists said the numbers show a severe climate change problem.

“Watching these incremental but persistent increases in CO2 year-to-year is much like watching a train barrel down the track towards you in slow motion. It’s terrifying," said University of Wisconsin-Madison climate scientist Andrea Dutton. “If we stay on the track with a plan to jump out of the way at the last minute, we may die of heat stroke out on the tracks before it even gets to us.”

University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles said without cuts in carbon pollution “we will see ever more damaging levels of climate change, more heat waves, more flooding, more droughts, more large storms and higher sea levels.”

The slowdown from the pandemic did cut global carbon emissions a bit in 2020, but they rebounded last year. Both changes were small compared to how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere each year, especially considering that carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere hundreds to a thousand years, Tans said.

The world puts about 10 billion metric tons of carbon in the air each year, much of it gets drawn down by oceans and plants. That’s why May is the peak for global carbon dioxide emissions. Plants in the northern hemisphere start sucking up more carbon dioxide in the summer as they grow.

NOAA said carbon dioxide levels are now about the same as 4.1 to 4.5 million years ago in the Pliocene era, when temperatures were 7 degrees (3.9 degrees Celsius) hotter and sea levels were 16 to 82 feet (5 to 25 meters) higher than now. South Florida, for example, was completely under water. These are conditions that human civilization has never known.

The reason it was much warmer and seas were higher millions of years ago at the same carbon dioxide level as now is that in the past the natural increase in carbon dioxide levels was far more gradual. With carbon sticking in the air hundreds of years, temperatures heated up over longer periods of time and stayed there. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melted over time, raising sea levels tremendously and making Earth darker and reflecting less heat off the planet, Tans and other scientists said.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated levels a bit differently based on time and averaging, and put the May average at 420.8 ppm, slightly lower than NOAA’s figure.

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Bill Nye answers the most-Googled climate change questions: When did it start? How can we stop it?


Saleen Martin, USA TODAY
Sat, June 4, 2022, 

Bill Nye has been the go-to science guy for teachers and students for decades, most notably with his PBS show, "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

In recent years, he has been vocal advocate for battling climate change. That will be a featured topic in his new show, “The End is Nye,” which is scheduled to air later this year on Peacock.

Nye spoke to USA TODAY this week to answer some of the most commonly Googled questions about climate change and global warming.

What is global warming? When did it start? How does climate change affect humans, animals and the ocean?

The "science guy" himself has answers to those questions and more. Here's what he had to say.

Note: Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

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What is climate change?

Nye: So global warming is causing climate change. By holding this extra heat in the atmosphere, we are changing the world's climate faster than ever in recorded history, but faster than ever in Earth's history with the exception of when asteroids hit the Earth.
What is global warming?

Nye: Humans are adding an extraordinary amount of extra greenhouse gases; the biggest one is carbon dioxide, and then methane. We're adding these gases to the atmosphere so fast that the world has never gotten this warm this fast.

Visible light comes through past these molecules, like carbon dioxide, hits the Earth's surface where it goes to a longer wavelength, to infrared. These gases hold in a lot of that infrared, that heat.

The world is getting warmer, and with a warmer world, we have more heat energy in the ocean and storms are bigger and stick around longer. We're changing global weather patterns where it's getting to be this huge drought out West and very rainy out East.

Downpour: People haven't just made the planet hotter. We've changed the way it rains.
Is global warming real? Do you have any response to people who say it's not real?

Nye: Well, to the people who say it's not real, you're wrong. The scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is overwhelming. People who are in denial have been influenced too strongly by the fossil fuel industry. (The fossil fuel industry) has been able to introduce the idea that plus or minus 2% is the same as plus or minus 100%.

For example, this ice sheet in Antarctica, this huge slab of ice is going to break off of Antarctica and fall into the sea. Antarctica is the only continent under water; it's under ice. When a big piece of this ice falls into the ocean, we're going to add a lot more freshwater to the ocean, and a lot more water to the ocean. Sea levels are going to rise and the salinity of the ocean, especially in the south, is going to change very fast.

People say, "Well, when is that going to be? Is it going to be tomorrow or 10 years from now?" When it comes to geological processes, plus or minus 10 years is extraordinarily accurate. Some people, they say "Well, then that's too much uncertainty. You don't know what you're talking about." That's wrong. The uncertainty of climate change is very small. Humans are causing it. It's global. It's changing climates around the world.

‘Death by 1,000 cuts’: How the US Forest Service is losing a war over water in the West
When did global warming start?

Nye: People like to say around the year 1750; this is when James Watt, who was a mechanical engineer, got a steam engine that worked very well. A lot of people had been messing around with making steam engines for decades. The middle of the 18th century is when steam engines really got to be practical and ended up everywhere. When that happened, people started burning coal and digging up ancient plants and ancient swamps which had turned to coal. (People were) burning the coal and ancient swamps, adding carbon dioxide, which had been buried when these plants were alive, and putting that carbon back in the atmosphere very, very fast. We're talking about the last 2½ centuries. Compare 250 years with 2½ million years and that's very fast. We're adding carbon dioxide faster and faster and faster, and it's warming the world faster.
How can we stop global warming?

Nye: You probably cannot stop global warming in anybody's lifetime that's alive now.

What we can do is address it and deal with it, get ready for it, and reduce the rate at which it's happening.

We can do that by stopping the addition of carbon monoxide, especially, and then methane into the atmosphere; stop that as soon as we can. The way to stop that is to stop burning fossil fuels. The way to stop that is to provide alternative sources of electricity. This is where we get into wind, solar, geothermal, and perhaps one day nuclear fusion, where we'd have virtually unlimited supplies of electricity distributed around the world. We can stop burning fossil fuels. We could then slowly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using the same unlimited amount of electricity.

To do all this, we've got to get started. Let's go. Let's get going!

How does climate change affect people?

Nye: If you live out West in California, there are water restrictions. I have a garden where I raise a lot of food; I can only water it on Thursdays and Sundays.

And there is not (the same amount of) snow in the mountains in California that would normally or used to be there. Because the world is getting warmer, the weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean are changing. It's not snowing as much as it used to, so we're not storing water as snow in the mountains the way we used to. The reason you and I are able to eat lunch and dinner today is because of food grown out West, food grown in Mexico. Those crops depend on rainfall and water stored as snow.

As we stop having water stored in reservoirs, we're not going to be able to grow as much food, and that will lead to trouble. People are going to go looking for food. They're going to move around. Food prices are going to go up, and this is one more thing that affects poor people more quickly than wealthy people. People who can't afford to get the scarcer food are going to be affected more strongly.
How does climate change affect animals?

Nye: Animals are changing where they live; they're moving.

Animals that are really moving are insects. There's this infamous beetle that attacks trees out West. As the world has gotten warmer and the winters are more mild, these beetles that have been able to attack more trees and kill them. When the occasional lightning storm does come through, it starts fires and we can't put the fires out because the trees are dead and the wind's blowing and the fires spread, which by the way, adds more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, destroys the ecosystem and chases all the wildlife away and kills everything.

It's bad, bad, bad.
You did talk about the ocean and salinity changing. How else does climate change affect the ocean?

Nye: Greenland is a very large island with a lot of ice on top of it; that ice is sloughing off into the sea, changing the ocean's saltiness. When you change that part of the ocean's saltiness, you change the way the currents flow.

You've probably heard of this famous current called the Gulf Stream. The reason we have ice-free harbors in Norway is because the Gulf Stream keeps it a little bit warm. The reason there's all this wonderful agriculture in Europe – French wines, Italian wines – is because the Gulf Stream keeps that part of Eurasia somewhat warmer than it would be otherwise. By making this central part of the Gulf Stream fresher, less salty, the saltwater doesn't sink as fast; this layer of freshwater stays on top, and this is slowing the clockwise circulation of the Gulf Stream. That will affect the climate in Europe, and that will affect the ability of people to raise food in Europe, and that will affect the economies of Europe, and that will affect everybody in the world.
How does climate change affect biodiversity?

Nye: In the case of the forest and the beetles, when you kill a bunch of trees, the ecosystem is damaged very fast; only certain species can hang in there. When you lose diversity in the ecosystem, the ecosystem becomes less resilient, less flexible, less able to tolerate changes.

This is very well-documented over the last 60 or 70 years; as you destroy diversity in ecosystems, things just get worse and worse in ecosystems. This is true in forests. It's true in the ocean. Carbon dioxide is in the air; it gets dissolved into seawater because the air is touching the ocean. The ocean becomes slightly more acidic. This slight, slight change in the free protons floating around in the ocean makes it impossible for (animals that make coral reefs) to live. When you lose the coral in the ocean, you lose the nooks and crannies for many, many, many other species and organisms to live. When you do that, you have less diversity in the ocean.
How does recycling help climate change?

Nye: Almost all the clothes almost all of us wear have some plastic in them. These materials are amazing, but they have an affect on the ecosystem. We don't want to throw this plastic away. We want to recover it and reuse it.

Especially in the case of aluminum. Aluminum takes so much energy to produce. It takes a lot of electricity to produce that from rocks. Recycling it is fantastic. We want to get everybody in the habit of not throwing this stuff away.

The other problems, with the example of plastic, we can address those problems in the coming years. But right now let's start with not throwing it away. The way we handle trash, a lot of the stuff ends up in the ocean. How does it get from the land to the ocean? We throw it away and it rolls downhill. So everybody, let's cut it out. There's all kinds of ways to incentivize to get people to do the right thing with materials. Let's start with recycling!

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia and loves all things horror, witches, Christmas and food.

Saleen Martin, sdmartin@usatoday.com, Twitter: @Saleen_Martin

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bill Nye answers climate change, global warming questions

US has eight years to cut its emissions by half. Scientists say there’s a way


Adam Barnes | June 3, 2022
Fri, June 3, 2022, 

Story at a glance

The U.S. can achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if it implements several strategies.

These include operating the electric grid with 80 percent clean energy and ensuring most cars sold by the end of the decade are electric.

The authors noted the main barrier to achieving the goals laid out in the study will not be based on costs but developing a coordinated effort among policy makers and other stakeholders.

The U.S. can achieve its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if it implements several goals, including operating the electric grid with 80 percent clean energy and ensuring most cars sold by the end of the decade are electric, according to a new study.


“By 2030, wind, solar, coupled with energy storage can provide the bulk of the 80 percent clean electricity. The findings also show that generating the remaining 20% of grid power won’t require the creation of new fossil fuel generators,” said Nikit Abhyankar, one of the study’s authors and a scientist at the Electricity Markets & Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

President Biden announced his emissions reduction goal last year, months after rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels.

The authors noted the main barrier to achieving the goals laid out in the study will not be based on costs but developing a coordinated effort among policy makers.

“This study should give policy makers and other energy stakeholders some level of comfort, by showing that everybody in the field is pointing in the same direction. The case for clean energy is stronger than ever before and our study shows that the 2030 emission target can be achieved,” Abhyankar said in a release.

The study’s findings, which were based on an analysis of six recent economic models that simulate U.S. energy operations, might also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by further electrification of industries and buildings.

Findings also suggest that powering the U.S. electric grid with renewable energy, while there may be a net benefit of 1,000 per households with electric cars. Meanwhile, they note the transition could prevent up to 200,000 premature deaths and save up to $800 billion in environmental and health costs.

“Since announcing the nation’s emissions reduction pledge at the 2021 United Nations climate conference, the United States has taken steps in the right direction,” Abhyankar continued. “But a lot still needs to happen. What we are hoping is that this study will give some level of a blueprint of how it could be done.”

British curry: A dish that defines Queen Elizabeth’s reign?

Shafi Musaddique
Fri, June 3, 2022,

Alice Grahame still remembers the excitement of eating her first curry as a child, brought back home by her father in thin brown oily bags.

“The flavors were out of this world. There’s something about the smell of spices that gets you stimulated,” says the Londoner, a self-confessed aficionado of Indian food.

Her early experience of curry is commonplace among Britons: going to a takeaway for unattainable spices, or else suffering her mother’s “off the shelf, ready-made jars” of curry sauce.

Nowadays, her spice cupboard is varied with curry regularly cooked at home, ever since a Pakistani friend during her university years taught her the “proper way” of cooking curry and pilau rice.

Ms. Grahame’s trajectory reflects the absorption of new foods – and the societal changes – during Britain’s transition from global empire to postcolonialism, under the 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II, now being celebrated in her Platinum Jubilee. One of the key changes during the era is represented by curry, now considered a quintessential national cuisine molded both by English ideas and immigrant diasporas.

“It’s seen in the same breath as fish and chips was,” says food historian and author Lizzie Collingham, who wrote “Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors.” “I’m cautious about labels, but it captures people’s imagination.”

A colonial mix

Elizabeth’s glittering coronation in 1953 ushered in a new era of change almost immediately, with a record 20 million people on television tuning in to see it. The occasion was also marked with the invention of “coronation chicken,” a creamy curry dish served up to feed foreign dignitaries.

Ingredients remained limited, despite wartime rationing coming to an end. Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume created coronation chicken using poached chicken, chopped onions, curry powder, tomato puree, pepper, red wine, and lemon juice.

The recipe, completed with mayonnaise, lightly whipped cream, and dried apricots (or frequently in later variations, mango chutney), made its way into the British gastronomic classic “The Constance Spry Cookery Book” and has since become a classic.

Though coronation chicken is “revolting” to Dr. Collingham, it stands as a marker between the end of the British Empire and an incoming era of postcolonial immigration under the queen’s long reign.

“It comes from Anglo-Indian cuisine, which is a weird mix. The British in India during the 19th century loved mango chutney. In India you have different relishes in different regions, perhaps sprinkling coconut on curries or adding sultanas. The British, however, would sprinkle all of them together,” she says.

Coronation chicken was an oddity, however, in the postwar period. Curry had fallen out of favor, due to kitchens moving out of basements with the loss of servants and curry cooking being deemed as “quite smelly.”

Curry, through a Victorian lens

British upper classes had dined on curry as far back as the 1600s, but it disappeared in the late 17th century. When Britain grasped control of Bengal via the East India Company, curry reappeared on British tables both at home and abroad.

Over time, Britons adapted versions of their subjects’ dishes suited to their own taste, inventing a standardized curry powder.

“They don’t really understand the sophisticated use of spices in India, too tricky to bring home to Britain – so they simplify it,” says Dr. Collingham. “The Victorians really felt that they made Indian food their own. It was their food, part of the nation. You’ll find Victorian cookery writers saying it was a national British food.”

Evidence of this Anglo-Indian evolution is found on page 77 of a recipe book from 1840, handwritten by a domestic servant by the name of Eleanor Grantham in East Yorkshire in northern England.

Instead of oil, she recommends cooking with beef dripping to create an imitation of curry that Sam Bartle, collections officer at the East Riding Archive, calls “horrible, but edible.”

Ms. Grantham’s curry recipe uses sour apples, milk, sultanas, and, most importantly, curry powder “widely available because of colonial trade links,” says the archivist. “It’s about fusing seasonal ingredients with Indian ingredients, and the start of curry as associated with Britain.”
The arrival of modern curry

Though much has changed since Ms. Grantham’s East Yorkshire recipe, curry continues to play a pivotal role in social life – but now driven by chefs of immigrant origin. East Yorkshire is famous for its “Balti curry” in Bradford, a former industrial city with a high concentration of curry houses largely run by Pakistani and Indian migrants, who make up almost a quarter of Bradford’s population.

But it is the impact of Bangladeshi immigration into Britain during the 1960s, just the second decade of the queen’s reign, that historians credit with popularizing curry as we know it today.

“A food revolution goes hand in hand with immigration in the second and third decade of the queen’s reign,” says Dr. Collingham. “Bangladeshi seamen often worked unpleasant jobs on steamship boiler rooms, and so jumped ship to find work in the U.K.”

Many found jobs in catering, washing plates, before buying bombed-out fish and chips shops and adapting the English dish with curry sauce.

By the 1970s, Bangladeshis pioneered the modern-day curry house, operating a menu of mainstay dishes: chicken korma, dhansak (usually mutton or goat meat), rogan josh (lamb curry), and madras curry (known for packing in heat).

Still, chefs do accommodate the “less tropical palates of locals,” notes former restaurant worker Shahena Begum, a second-generation British Bangladeshi from Huddersfield in northern England. That might mean blending sauces to reduce chunkiness, or adding coconut cream to make it vegan friendly. It’s a contrast to food cooked at home, she says.

Sometimes the changes even have taken her aback, she says: the abundance of sugar added “to suit the Western palate” or the accompaniment of chicken tikka masala by fries, for example.
The new wave

A newer, wealthier wave of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent in the 1990s turned up their noses at the creamy curries cooked by their predecessors. Instead, they refocused curry on street food and specializing around regional and cultural cuisines.

Aktar Islam’s Michelin-starred restaurant Opheem cooks food inspired by influences across India. His “experimental approach” garners advanced bookings as one of London’s most recognized places to eat. “There’s a nuanced understanding about Indian-inspired food nowadays and [about] what British curry is,” says Mr. Islam.

Similar high-end, luxury “authentic” restaurants now dominate British cities, attracting a new generation of young Britons accustomed to evolved palates.

Mr. Islam credits this boom on better education of Britain’s postcolonial history and more Britons traveling abroad, thereby granting them an understanding of the “difference between real Indian food and British curry.”

For Ms. Begum, who bridges the gap between the immigrant pioneers embraced in the early years of Queen Elizabeth and a new generation, curry epitomizes change and mass acceptance.

After years of being made to feel embarrassed for eating curry for dinner at home, she says, “curry, as a national dish, is like a love letter.”

Swedish Leader May Be Sunk by Kurd Lawmaker Who Irks Turkey



Niclas Rolander
Fri, June 3, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Sweden’s prime minister may next week have to put her fate in the hands of a Kurdish-born lawmaker who has drawn the ire of Turkey, just as the Nordic country is seeking to overcome the veto of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to its bid for membership of the NATO defense bloc.

Magdalena Andersson said on Thursday she will resign if her Justice Minister Morgan Johansson loses a confidence vote brought by the opposition in parliament, due on June 7. The motion needs one extra vote to pass, putting the spotlight on Amineh Kakabaveh, a non-affiliated member of legislature with Kurdish background.

While Andersson’s Social Democrats are gaining in polls just three months before the next elections, the situation is complicated by Sweden’s joint application with Finland for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The bid, reversing two centuries of Sweden’s military non-alignment, is currently being stalled by Turkey, which has demanded that the country do more to clamp down on Kurdish groups that Erdogan views as terrorists. In exchange for her support, Kakabaveh has previously agreed with Andersson’s party to expand cooperation with one of those groups, Syrian PYD.

“As long as our agreement holds, I will not support a motion of no confidence,” Kakabaveh said in an interview. “I’m awaiting an answer” from the government, she said.

Johansson has faced harsh criticism from the opposition, which blames him for not doing enough to curb a wave of crime and deadly shootings that have engulfed Swedish suburbs, where conflicts between rivaling gangs have intensified.

The number of gun homicides in Sweden almost trebled from 2012 to 2021, and in the first five months of the year, 31 people were shot to death in the country of 10 million. That development sets Sweden apart from the rest of Europe, where deadly shootings have decreased in the last decade.

At a news conference in parliament, Andersson slammed the opposition initiative, saying it was dangerous political brinksmanship.

“We now have three months to go before the election,” Andersson said. “We are in a very delicate situation for our and Finland’s application to NATO, and creating political turmoil and uncertainty is completely irresponsible.”

On Friday, the Center Party said it would not support the vote of no-confidence against Minister Johansson. “The government needs to do much more to increase security for Swedes, but it is not achieved through a political game that doesn’t solve any problems, 100 days before the election,” party leader Annie Loof said on Facebook.

China blocks moves to step up protection of emperor penguins


FRANK JORDANS
Fri, June 3, 2022

Crowds of emperor penguins in Antarctica in 2005. (Zhang Zongtang / Associated Press)

China has blocked efforts to step up protection of emperor penguins that are increasingly threatened by the effects global warming is having on their natural habitat in Antarctica, officials said Friday.

Dozens of countries had backed giving the world's largest penguins special protection status at a 10-day meeting in Berlin of parties to the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty was forged in 1959 to ensure that the continent remains the preserve of science, and free of arms.

“An overwhelming majority of parties held the opinion that there is sufficient scientific evidence for the species to be put under the special protection,” the German government, which hosted the May 22-June 2 meeting, said in a statement Friday.

Though a formal decision was “blocked by one party," it said that most countries attending the meeting planned nevertheless to put in place national measures to protect emperor penguins.

Chinese officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment. But delegates attending the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Beijing had made clear it wanted more time to consider the implications of upgrading the protection status of the penguins.

The meeting was partly overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, with many countries speaking out against Russia’s invasion.

Russia, which like Ukraine is active in Antarctica, was represented at the meeting by an official from its embassy in Berlin, with other delegates participating remotely by video link.

Despite differences with Beijing over the penguins and the deep diplomatic discord between Moscow and the West over Ukraine, the meeting was able to adopt by consensus a package of conservation measures for Antarctica. These included moves to designate four new protected areas in the future and limit tourism to the frozen continent.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.